Pirates of the Caribbean Critical Essay

A key character that ensures we enjoy the film throughout is captin jack sparrow. The first time we meet jack he is portrayed as a powerful figure standing tall on top of his ship. As the scene progresses we see that he is drunk and unorganised sailing on his own on a sinking boat. The director shows us this by using a wide array of camera shots and other techniques. When we first see jack he is standing on top of his ship. Although he is standing tall and proud his clothes are weather beaten and he has clearly been at sea for a long time.The low angle camera shots that the director uses help the impression that he is powerful and strong. The director also uses an over the shoulder shot to help connect the audience to jack. The director then thatters this illusion by panning down the mast to reveal that he is on a small boat, that is quickly taking on water ,all on his own. The director does this to make jack an instantly likeable character and to make us want to fing out more about him. The change from jack being a drunk to a skilled swordfighter makes the character of jackmore interesting.The second time we meet jack he is in the blacksmiths where William turner is an apprentice. The camera angle that the director uses a wide shot so that you see that the workshop is small and to emphasize that he is agile and quick. The director does this so we find out slightly more about jack and become more interested. Through out the film jack is portrayed as an anti- hero and this is emphisized as jack does not want to shoot will as he says ‘’this bullet is not ment for you ‘’ meaning he went to port royal with a mission. The director does this to reveal a major plot point. he director of â€Å"the pirates of the caribbean† portrays miss elizabeth swann as a naive and dependent girl but this impression is ruined the second time we meet her. in the first encounter we see elizabeth trying on a dress her father has bought her from london. s he seems very feminine, well educated and wealthy but she has something to hide. a medallion she had taken off of will whe she and her majestys navy first found him. this adds to the enjoyment of the film by adding a twist that changes the whole story as this medallion lands elizabeth and the man she loves in alot of trouble. Read Critical Essay about Skurzynski’s NethergraveIn this scene she appears quite rebellious in the way she wants will to speak to her using her first name instead of miss swann but will has to remind her that this cannot happen because there is a difference between their two classes. the director does significant and clever he has elizabeth standing at the top of a stair case and will at the bottom during this conversation subtly  signifying that elizabeth is of a higher class but as the conversation progresses elizabeth walks down the staircase as she thinks that her and will are of the same class. he reason elizabeth treats will like this is because ever since  she laid her eyes on him six years ago on the crossing from england to port royal she hhas loved him madly. howthis makesthe film more enjoyable is by putting in a romantic element to the story meaning the two cant live with out the other so they are both trying to save the other by putting their own lives on the line creating excitement and suspense.

Information Businness Essay

1. What management, organization, and technology factors were behind the Cincinnati Zoo losing opportunities to increase revenue Three main reasons why investments in information technology do not always produce positive results – Information quality which mean High-quality decisions require high-quality information – Management filters which mean Managers have selective attention and have variety of biases that reject information that does not conform to prior conceptions – Organizational inertia and politics which meStrong forces within organizations resist making decisions calling for major change 2. Why was replacing legacy point-of-sale systems and implementing a data warehouse essential to an information system solution? High-velocity automated decision making Made possible through computer algorithms precisely defining steps for a highly structured decision Humans taken out of decision For example: High-speed computer trading programs i. Trades executed in 30 milliseconds ii. Responsible for â€Å"Flash Crash† of 2010 Require safeguards to ensure proper operation and regulation 3. How did the Cincinnati Zoo benefit from business intelligence? How did it enhance operational performance and decision making? What role was played by predictive analytics? Business intelligence Infrastructure for collecting, storing, analyzing data produced by business Databases, data warehouses, data marts High-velocity automated decision making Made possible through computer algorithms precisely defining steps for a highly structured decision Information systems can only assist in some of the roles played by managers 4. Visit the IBM Cognos Web site and describe the business intelligence tools that would be the most useful for the Cincinnati Zoo. introduces the concept of business intelligence and analytics. The text gives the example of Hallmark Cards, which uses SAS analytics software to analyze buying patterns and determine the most effective marketing plan for different types of customers. For example, which customers would respond best to direct mail or e-mail, and to what types of messages. It is important to understand that business intelligence and business analytics are products defined by hardware and software vendors. This is also one of the fastest growing segments in the U.S. software

Argumentative paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Argumentative paper - Essay Example The taking constitutes significant facts that include losing at the very least $10, 000 when he was not permitted to fulfill his obligation to Ford during the Chief/Bronco game. The rule promulgated by FAA is unconstitutional for businesses, such as that of Ben is not illegal nor does it mislead the people. The purpose of the law is vague and the rationale behind it finds no balance to the nonexistence of impending danger as unreasonably feared by these government offices. The business of advertising through aircrafts has little to no possibility of having any relation to the goal of fighting terrorism or preventing its effects. People such as Ben are unduly deprived of their commerce because of such muddled policies. The First Amendment is inclusive of its protection of Commercial speech and this must be given weight in the case at hand. Under the Central Hudson Test, as promulgated by the Supreme Court in the case of Central Hudson Gas & Electric v Public Service Commission,  "Commercial speech will be protected by the First Amendment if it is a lawful activity and not misleading, there is a qualified government interest, that such interest is substantial and parallel to the regulation and finally, that the regulation is legitimately laid down. This leads to the conclusion that the business of Ben must be protected based on the given requisites.

S4 W7 one pager Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

S4 W7 one pager - Assignment Example This scenario seems not to change as the organization sticks to mediation rather than the use of force. A good example is the situation in Syria where the organization has all the reasons to use force to restore peace in Syria. However, the organization opted to provide mediation chances between the government and the rebellion. This decision was questionable as many Arab nations felt that the organization would have used force to restore the peace in Syria. Clement & Smith (2009) argues that even if the organization wanted to use force in Syria, they would have lacked an experienced group to deal with the situation. The only option was to outsource peacekeeping troop from the United Nations. This move would be a breach of the organization’s rules and regulations. The capabilities of the League of Arab States are not beyond finding other means of resolving conflicts other than mediation. Their peacekeeping ambition may be only implemented if the member states change the constitution and amend the clause on using force in its member

Human Recource Managment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Human Recource Managment - Essay Example What’s more, exchange of information is critical in creating competitive advantage for organizations. Since numerous markets are somewhat flooded with many organizations making efforts towards similar core competencies, firms are forced to enhance their information dissemination in order to produce a sustainable competitive advantage. The information age and its revolution has budged organizations away from being nearsightedly concerned with the utilization of tangible assets towards a holistic and unwavering interest in leveraging intangible assets, such as the management of information dissemination as a way of ensuring that competitive advantage is developed. Impact on business Dissemination of business information is a source of competitive advantage. Dissemination of information facilitates communication across all organizational boundaries, such that the entire business is able to seize the available opportunities and address its challenges by bringing all the stakeholde rs on board. In view of this, managers are able to use information dissemination as a tool of fostering productive and collaborative exchange between employees. With effective dissemination of knowledge, businesses are able to increase influential decisions significantly, since all the origination’s stakeholders are able to gain access to important strategic opinions, instead of holding such information on the hands of high-level management only. What’s more, by allowing employees to have access to each other, those who have the most current information are able to share it with those who derives benefit from it, rather than going through upright channels of upper management. In view of this, the organization is able to make quick decisions and implement them successfully. Integration of technology and HR Since Human Resources are one of the most critical assets in an organization, it is important that its adoption of technology is at the same level with marketing, pro duction or finance. This includes automation of performance appraisal systems, payroll, and employee benefits. Furthermore, deployment and management of technology in an effective way, means that any business organization would require knowledge workers, and it is the responsibility of HR function to manage the knowledge workers. This makes integration of technology and HR a must. Therefore, the point on adoption of technology in HR is very important because it is about efficiency of Human Resources, which is a very important tool for competitive advantage. Impact on business Integration of technology and HR facilitates harmonious, complementing and enhanced co-existing of business functions. While technology plays an important role in enhancing effectiveness of HR, adoption and managing of change is enhanced by HR that is brought about by the technology. Integrating technology and HR functions leads to successful business strategy execution, employees’ contribution, administ rative efficiency and capacity for change. All these are fulfilled through the contribution of workers, including development, staffing, benefits, compensation, highly performing teams, among others. Actually, technology is bringing about the highest number of changes in the HR market. Besides, implementing of Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) has a strong impact on business excellence, since this reduces

The key difference between argument and persuasion is that persuasion Essay - 1

The key difference between argument and persuasion is that persuasion necessitates your selection of a specific audience to which the writing is addressed - Essay Example Drug is any medication that is prescribed to treat an illness or modify the body from its disease at any state. Substance abuse is the use of a certain drug for reasons not specified which can be harmful to them or their colleagues. Teenagers have been reported highly to use certain drugs in their day to day lives certain drugs in their day to day lives. Some of the drugs mostly abused by students include; marijuana, cocaine, tobacco, heroin and inhalants. Alcohol is another socially abused substance. Students take it with the idea of removing stress, yet in the real sense, it does not. Some of the factors that influence students to engage in drug taking are peer pressure, whereby they are influenced by their fellow students to indulge into such actions with empty promises. Availability of the drugs also influences the student to get hold of the drug, so they try their level best to search money to buy the drugs. Even if they do not have money, some may prefer to steal so that they at least buy the drug. Other students can opt to use their school fees to buy the drugs and stay out of classes. Others involve themselves in the drugs out of curiosity and the idea that when one uses drugs, they will have a good time (O’Leary, 2004). All these drugs lead to different effects which are harmful to the person taking it, his family, the community and the whole country as a whole. As an individual, one may develop an addiction to the drug, such that, he will depend to do everything. It will lead to the person using so much money and do things not helpful to him. Class work will not be made well. It will lead to poor performance and the destruction of a person’s future. It will affect his family because handling him will be a problem, he will be using much money. His parents will be paying much school fees and yet he will not be studying. The use of drugs can lead to much crime like theft,

Cultural Exploration Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Cultural Exploration - Term Paper Example These cultural patterns, which include beliefs, values, norms and social practices, do affect the quality of communication that takes place as the people from these different cultures interact. The result is either an enhanced quality of communication or a total breakdown in communication. To avoid this breakdown in communication, and to enhance the quality of communication between the different parties, it is very important for the two people who are communicating to be aware of the various attributes of the other culture. This way, mistakes that can be avoided and that can cause a breakdown in communication are identified. The cultural patterns of the two cultures might either lead to a competent intercultural communication or problems as far as the communication is concerned. This paper is going to examine the cultural patterns of two cultures and how the interplay between these patterns affects the intercultural communication of people from these cultures. The first culture is that of the writer, Southeastern Georgia Caucasian, and that of Chinese. Throughout this paper, the writer will be guided by one major objective. This will be the exploration of the various potential effects of the cultural patterns of Southeastern Georgia Caucasian and Chinese on intercultural communication between the two. To achieve the major objective, the writer will be guided by several specific objectives. It is through the address of these specific objectives that the writer will have effectively dealt with the major one. These specific ones are as follows: 1. An analysis of cultural value orientations of southeastern Georgia Caucasian and Chinese using the globe taxonomy approach 2. An analysis of verbal communication norms of the two cultures 3. An analysis of non-verbal communication norms of the two cultures 4. An analysis of relational communication norms of the two cultures The writer will not merely describe the cultural patterns of the two cultures picked. Rather, this will be a comprehensive analysis of the effects that the interplay between this set of pattern has on intercultural communication. Does it make it more productive or does it make it less productive and problematic 1: Cultural Value Orientations of Georgian and Chinese Cultures This analysis will be conducted using the GLOBE cultural taxonomy approach. This approach identifies nine dimensions of culture that are regarded important or ideal in a particular culture. These nine dimensions are a description of what people actually do, or what Millet (1) refers to as cultural practices. They also identify cultural values or what is regarded as ideal practice or conduct in the society under examination (Millet: 1). Power Distance Dimension Power distance dimension describes the degrees to which members of the society that are less powerful both "expect and accept that power is distributed unequally" (Leadlay & Jomy: 38). It is a fact that in any one society, there are differences in the distribution of power, resulting in powerful individuals and less powerful ones. But the differences between the societies occur because, to some, as much as the power

Places i have visit Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Places i have visit - Essay Example India is one of the few countries that have a rich culture across the globe. The food, dressing, language among others are worth mentioning. The Sari dress is official in India and it is their traditional way of dressing particularly the women. I discovered that the Indian culture is very conservative and there are certain norms and values that shape the way of life of many Indians. The type of food consumed in India is also culture specific and I always cherish the cheeky Indian spices. From India, I then moved to Malaysia to study English in Kuala Lampur. This is also a very interesting place given that its tourism industry is booming. In Malaysia, I had the opportunity to meet different nationalities and I realised that it was very important to study English since it is a universal language. Malaysia is regarded as one of the tourist hubs on the Asian continent. The country receives millions of visitors each year and I have also visited different places to familiarise myself with this country. The culture of the Malaysian people also makes them different from the other people from different parts of the world. The Malaysians have certain values they prioritise and always try to preserve. From Asia, my next destination was America. My first journey to the USA was in January 2010 and it was characterised by both anticipation and excitement. I travelled to the USA to study at the University of Charlotte in North Carolina. Much of the knowledge I had about this great continent was obtained from different media sources. I anticipated discovering and learning a lot of things in the USA and so was the case. First and foremost, I realised that the US was a large continent comprised of many states. Though the country has one president, it is larger than other small continents in the world. At first I wondered about the governance system of the US but I later discover quite a lot of interesting things about this superpower. From the

Real estate in america Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Real estate in america - Essay Example No doubt, this study give quantitative proof of the degree to which public real estate management put into practice at the present lags at the back the private sector, an knowledge gap that may point to suboptimal management of openly owned real estate in general, and puts the public division at a difficulty when dealing by means of developers in combined projects. No doubt, this gap means that in general management of public property frequently falls short of consequences in meeting rule objectives. No doubt, planners could play a better role in public real estate management, but cannot efficiently manage properties themselves or connect in winning joint growth with no more official training in real estate finance. The methodology here is a direct topic-by-topic comparison of property management activity in the private sector with that in the public sector. The evidence for the private sector comes from five recently published surveys of real estate management practices among non-real-estate firms in the United States. This literature on corporate real estate management surveys organization of the real estate management function, performance evaluation, record and information management, rules for choice on property gaining and nature, role and efficiency of the real estate decision-making, and real estate activities.

Company profit calculation Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Company profit calculation - Assignment Example Q = (accepted), (rejected) At Q = , ATC’’ becomes 9.61 while at Q = , ATC’’ becomes 0.381. Since Q > 0 and since ATC’’ > 0 at Q = , so it can be surmised that Q = when ATC is minimised. Part (g) Firms will neither exit nor enter in the longer run in an industry because already operating firms are creating normal profit. Since there are no incentives to either leave or enter the market in the longer run, so there will be no entry or exit in the longer run. Part (h) Question Two As market demand levels vary, the firm’s profits in any industry will tend to vary. As long as some form of economic profit is available, new firms will enter the market. Similarly, any kinds of economic loss will force firms to leave the market. When economic profit is available, the supply curve tends to shift to the right in order to reduce price. As price falls, so does economic profit and thus the incentive to enter the market. Conversely, if economic loss o ccurs, the supply curve shifts to the left in order to increase price. Bigger price tags tend to reduce the economic loss being faced. Market adjustments continue to occur until firms come to a point where the marginal revenue equals the marginal cost which in turn equals the price. Also, the short run average cost and the long term average cost meet the equilibrium levels to produce total market equilibrium in the longer run. Question Three A shock in demand leads to a sudden rise in demand. This in turn disrupts the market equilibrium and the supply curve tends to shift to the right while the demand curve tends to shift to the right as well. In addition, it is typical to find that the price for any product experiencing demand shock tends to increase as well. Larger quantities required are dealt with by firms operating under perfect competition. For constant cost industries, when the industry expands in reaction to demand shocks, there are no changes in the production costs or in t he prices of resources. The basic contention of the constant cost industry is that as new firms enter the market, the long run average cost curve does not get affected. Hence, as the efficiency of production does not change due to demand shocks, the supply curve in the longer run becomes horizontal. Question Four Certain industries require long term economic profits in order to survive in the market. These industries may require continuous new inputs in the form of research and development (R&D). The pharmaceutical industry for example requires that research be carried out into new medicine. This may become necessary for example as one generation of antibiotics are unable to deal with the next generation of germs. The R&D process in turn requires the investment of economic profit which in turn can be labelled as a cost. The reinvested economic profit from the operation of such industries can be seen as a cost although it is not necessary that the amount of such an investment would e quate to the economic profit generated. For example, the pharmaceutical industry invests in the development of a medicine that it will continue to produce constantly for decades which indicates that the economic prof

The Normalising Machine Essay Example for Free

The Normalising Machine Essay The normalising machine has two parts to it and I am going to talk about the first part that is what we did in the lessons. We started off by looking at the characters. We had to make a little improvisation up about how the characters are put across to us. We used still images, role plays and prepared improvisations. We had to make it obvious that the characters were greedy, manipulative and just plain stupid. The lessons then progressed and we started to take scenes from the normalising machine book. We made it, again obvious that the characters were greedy, manipulative and plain stupid. We took each lesson one at a time and kept trying to make it more and more obvious that the characters are who they are and people had to guess who was who in the play. We looked at everyone elses performances and discussed their ideas and attitudes towards the play. Some examples of the other groups ideas are: Using different levels, pushing people down to make it seem like they are in control, using still images to emphasise the point they are putting across and using split staging to make it obvious of what they are doing. We discussed how these ideas helped the drama to progress onto the next stage which was trying to be over the top within the role of a character from the normalising machine. I found it very hard to be over the top and I think a lot of other people in the class did too. The drama had to be over the top because the play is very comical and if we werent over the top then it would have just been plain, simple, boring and totally rubbish. I thought that being over the top was a good thing to do but it is also a very hard thing to do. For instance, when Rudolf met Trudy at the tube station, he was so over the top and so outrageous that some people actually got worried that they were too over the top. Also when Rudolf met Mr and Mrs Tolerant he was also very over the top. This was very effective because the Mr Tolerant wanted to beat Rudolf up and he actually got scared of Rudolf because the character was full of beans and giddy as some people said, and when Mrs Tolerant said Rudolf was em barrassing her he got frustrated and worked up as some people said and he told Mr Tolerant to ask him to leave but Mr Tolerant insisted that he stayed. The only thing with Rudolf is that he sometimes gets worked up and feels frustrated because he is doing things wrong when he actually isnt but he thinks he is. Ben percent is Grace Beverly Brices P.R agent. He is the manipulated, sly and cunning character in the play. He swindles his way into the eyes of Grace Beverly Brice and becomes the official spokes person of Judge Juniper Jones. In the scene were he meets Grace Beverly Brice he shows her the contracts of some other people who arent actually celebrities any more but Grace Beverly Brice doesnt realise this and as Ben Percent manipulates her into agreeing to draw up a contract, he gave a sly grin and walks away only wanting 10% of the money she makes from the normalising machine. Also, Ben Percent was the person who finalised Doctor Michael Molecule because Ben got very worked up that Michael Molecule was spreading rumours about Grace Beverly Brice. In this scene we see that when Doctor Michael Molecule enters the room with Ben Percent in it that whoever was in control of the other person would stand up and the person who had no control had been pushed down onto a chair. This is a very effective way of doing things because the audience could see who was and who wasnt in control at that point, and as Ben percent offers for Doctor Michael Molecule to come back on the project of the normalising machine with the excuse that they need something to clear the dust from inside the machine and asks him what he wants to do, Ben Percent pushes Doctor Michael Molecule into the normalising machine and finalises him and gives a very sly and cunning laugh. This was also very effective because the book play shows that Ben percent is a very manipulating any character even if it means finalising them. Grace Beverly Brice is the character that completed the normalising machine because Doctor Michael Molecule got frustrated and couldnt finish it because he didnt know what to add to sedate the radicals and the badicals so Grace Beverly Brice stepped in to finish the project and completed the machine to become a billionaire. Grace Beverly Brice is a manipulated character and a very innocent character who knows what she wants to do with her life but when it all boils down to it she is manipulated by Ben Percent. All the scenes in this play were sometimes complicated to put together and to drop thoughts on, on how to bring the scene together so it looked like the person who was in charge was in charge and the person who was being manipulated was manipulated and the person who was manipulating was manipulating. I think some people found it very hard to be the character they was meant to be playing and to make it seem like they was in charge etc but the groups the people were in dropped some good thoughts and put it all together brilliantly and it looked very professional. I am now going to talk about the development and presentation that the class did. Both groups based their plays on the normalising machine but changed the lines a bit except for my group. We based half of our development and presentation on the normalising machine. This part was the head teachers scene in the normalising machine book. We then went from that scene to a Blind Date scene which was called now been normalised and that was based on the characters from the normalising machine who had been normalised in the normalising machine and wanted to take Trudy on a romantic date. The characters we used are: Trudy, Ben Percent, Doctor Michael Molecule, Rudolf Right and Anthony Badlad. We used these characters because they are the most manipulating, over the top and vile characters in the book. We then used another scene from the book were Trudy takes Rudolf home to meet her parents. This scene is so over the top that even Rudolf was nearly laughing at himself because it was so funny a nd then we went back to the Head teacher who finished the whole play off by using smart and witty comments to make it so that he was put across as evil and cruel. We did this by making him have a very deep voice and made him to shout at the top of his voice for further credit to the character. Over all I think this project was very good fun and we used a lot of skills to put across our point that the characters are who they are. Some of the skills we used are: still images, Role play, development and presentation, role within a role, hot seating, split staging and many more. All the plays that the other groups made were very good. They used all the skills that were needed in the scenes they were acting and even used more skills that werent needed but they put them in any way to make it even better for the audience to watch.

Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries

Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries Corporate Social Responsibility in developing countries such as India using Tata Nano as a case study 1. Introduction A companys main business objective is maximisation of shareholders wealth by means of achieving higher profit. Business managers are entrusted with shareholders money so that they could run the company efficiently and profitably. According to Sloan (1964) â€Å"the strategic aim of a business is to earn a return on capital and if any particular case the return in the long run is not satisfactory, then the deficiency should be corrected or the activity abandoned for a more favourable one.† This suggests that companies are run for profit motives and this should be the top most priority of any management. However Globalisation has brought about a change in notion concerning the business objective of any company, arguments are being put forward that the business activities must take into account human and social welfare. According to Peter Drucker (1954), â€Å"the enterprise is an organ of society and its actions have a decisive impact on the social scene. It is thus important for management to realize that it must consider the impact of every business policy and business actions upon society. It has to consider whether the action is likely to promote the public good, to advance the basic belief of society, to contribute to its stability, strength and harmony†. A business enterprise is a major user of nature, society and environment; therefore it must be responsible towards their protection and development. Depletion of natural resources and causes like global warming has brought a lot attention to the sustainable use of these resources and companies are going to play a major role in ensuring this. So this marks a shift in the company objective that no longer can they only be guided by the sole aim of making profit but they should be take actions to ensure the welfare of the society in which they operate. This brings out the concept of â€Å"Corporate Social Responsibility†: Corporations acting as citizens of a society in a responsible manner ensuring the well beings of others in the society. The International Standards Organisation (ISO) describes CSR as â€Å"a balanced approach for organisations to address economic, social and environmental issues in a way that aims to benefit people, community and society† (ISO, 2002). 1.1 Rationale behind the Research Corporate social responsibility has gained widespread attention in most developed countries; policies practices are being developed by corporations to abide by standards of environment pollution, use of human capital etc. However in less developed countries this is not a much heard or debated topic. According to Steiner Steiner (2000), â€Å"In less developed countries there is often no indigenous sense of corporate responsibility.† There are a lot of loopholes in the system and business activities are not often concentrated on human/ social welfare. Austin (1990) argues that the extremity and pervasiveness of poverty in less developed countries places a special responsibility on business, as a vehicle for creating economic progress that will help alleviate this deprivation. With developing economies a lot of importance is given to industrial upliftment and that might come at a cost of social welfare or benefit. This research aims to identify the CSR policies and practices being in use in developing countries such as India with a special reference to TATA Nano. India is a developing country which has recorded a growth rate of more than 9% for 3 years upto 2008 and has seen a decade of 7% growth. (www.economicshelp.org: accessed on 10th January 2010). In spite of the global economic slowdown is slated to grow at around 7.5% for this year (2010). The rapid growth in economy has increased the standards of living and has created huge disposable income among Indians. The car manufacturers are taking advantage of this huge growth and are coming up with various models to tap into this growing market. TATA one of the most reputed business firms of India have come up with a car called TATA Nano which is slated to be the cheapest car in the world. The price is kept at $2500 which is equivalent to 100,000 INR. The objective behind this to make four wheelers available to every common man in India; this is touted to be a very big success. I have my own reservations concerning it; what if masses can afford this car, will it not increase the fuel consump tion, thereby creating more pollution? Will it not put a huge burden on roads which are already suffering from traffic congestion? This research aims to find out whether TATA is acting in a responsible manner by launching this car. 1.2 Objectives The research can be subdivided into four parts: 1. To identify the state of CSR in developing countries such as India 2. To evaluate public awareness concerning issues such as CSR in India 3. To evaluate the impact of TATA Nano on environment, traffic congestion, demand for fuel etc 4. To suggest a number of ways in which companies in developing countries can develop frameworks to act in a more responsible manner 2. Literature Review There are numerous ways to classify the literature on CSR in developing countries i.e. in terms of content (thematic coverage), type (epistemological approach), and level (focus of analysis). The analysis would be done by each way separately: 2.1 Content Theme We would use the same classification as Lockett et al. (2006) did, the CSR literature can be categorized into four CSR themes: social, environmental, ethics, and stakeholders. One point that immediately comes to light by applying this categorization to the literature on CSR is that, in contrast to Lockett et al.s (2006) findings that most CSR articles in top management journals focus on ethical and environmental themes, most scholarly work on CSR in developing countries focuses on the social theme. Also social issues are in general given more political, economic, and media coverage in developing countries than environmental, ethical, or stakeholder issues (Schmidheiny, 2006). 2.2 Knowledge Type Lockett et al. (2006) had also classified the CSR literature by knowledge type. He found even split between theoretical and empirical research. Lockett et al. (2006) found that 89% of theoretical CSR papers are non-normative, in the CSR in developing countries literature, the balance is far more evenly split. This is mainly because relatively large number of papers on the role of â€Å"business in development† tends to adopt a normative, critical perspective (Blowfield and Frynas, 2005). Also if we see empirical research, there are also differences. According to Lockett et al. (2006), the CSR literature is dominated by quantitative methods (80%), while CSR papers on developing countries are more likely to be qualitative. Most research on CSR in developing countries to date has either generalized about all developing countries (e.g. Frynas, 2006), or focused at a national level. In terms of generic literature, Corporate Citizenship in developing countries (Pedersen and Huniche, 2006) is a useful compendium, as are special issues on CSR in developing countries that have appeared in the Journal of Corporate Citizenship (issue 24, 2006), International Affairs (81(3), 2005) and Development (47(3), 2004). Despite the focus on countries in the literature, only about a fifth of all developing countries have had any CSR journal articles published on them. Of these, the most commonly analyzed and written about countries are China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Thailand. Analysis at a regional level (notably Africa, Asia, and Latin America) is becoming more common, but papers at the sector, corporate, or individual level remain relatively scarce. 2.3 Global Most of the literature concentrates on CSR in a global context and there is very little empirical research on the nature and extent of CSR in developing countries. One notable exception is Baskins (2006) research on the reported corporate responsibility behavior of 127 leading companies from 21 emerging markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, which he compares with over 1,700 leading companies in high-income OECD countries. Looking at three generic indicators of CSR, Baskin (2006) finds that emerging market companies have a respectable representation in the Dow Jones â€Å"Sustainability Index† and show rising levels of take-up of the Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 14001. Baskin (2006) also showed that emerging markets lag the OECD significantly on reporting on business ethics and equal opportunities, are roughly at par on environmental reporting, and show comparable reporting variance on women on company boards, training and occupation al health and safety . Despite the limitations of using reporting as an indicator of CSR performance and the danger of representing regions by just a few countries (e.g. only two of the 53 countries in Africa were included in the sample), the Baskin (2006) study does provide some insight into the level of CSR activity in developing countries, concluding that: ‘there is not a vast difference in the approach to reported corporate responsibility between leading companies in high income OECD countries and their emerging-market peers. Nonetheless, corporate responsibility in emerging markets, while more extensive than commonly believed, is less embedded in corporate strategies, less pervasive and less politically rooted than in most high-income OECD countries (p. 46). 2.4 Regional Asia Major coverage of the Asia in the field of CSR often focus on China (e.g. Zhuang and Wheale, 2004), India (e.g. Balasubramanian et al., 2005), Indonesia (e.g. Blowfield, 2004), Malaysia (e.g. Zulkifli and Amran, 2006), Pakistan (e.g. Lund-Thomsen, 2004), and Thailand (e.g. Kaufman et al., 2004). Other countries that have had less attention include Bangladesh (Nielsen, 2005), the Pacific Forum Islands (Prasad, 2004), Sri Lanka (Luken and Stares, 2005), and Vietnam (Prieto-Carron, 2006b). Birch and Moon (2004) noted that â€Å"CSR performance varies greatly between countries in Asia, with a wide range of CSR issues being tackled (e.g. education, environment, employee welfare) and modes of action (e.g. foundations, volunteering, and partnerships)†. In one of the survey on CSR reporting in Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) find that nearly three quarters of large companies in India present themselves as having CSR policies and practices versus only a quarter in Indonesia and between t hese two extremes are Thailand (42%), Malaysia (32%), and the Philippines (30%). They also infer from the research that the evolution of CSR in Asia tends to occur in three waves, first being community involvement followed by successive second and third waves of socially responsible production processes and employee relations. In a comparative survey of CSR in 15 countries across Europe, North America, and Asia, Welford (2005) speculates that the low response rates from countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand may in itself be an indicator of CSR being less prevalent in developing countries. This seems to be borne out by the research findings, in which these countries fairly consistently underperform when compared with developed countries across 20 aspects of CSR measured by the survey. Africa The literature on CSR in Africa is predominantly based on South Africa (Visser, 2005a), while other pockets of research exist for Cà ´te DIvoire (e.g. Schrage and Ewing, 2005), Kenya (e.g. Dolan and Opondo, 2005), Nigeria (e.g. Amaeshi et al., 2006), Tanzania (e.g. Egels, 2005), and Mali and Zambia (e.g. Hamann et al., 2005). Very few papers are focused on industry sectors, with traditionally high impact sectors like agriculture (e.g. Blowfield, 2003), mining (e.g. Kapelus, 2002), and petrochemicals (e.g. Acutt et al., 2004) featuring most prominently. Two of the best sources of literature on Africa are Corporate Citizenship in Africa (Visser et al., 2006) and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Africa (issue 18, summer 2005). The latter concludes that ‘academic institutions and researchers focusing specifically on corporate citizenship in Africa remain few and under-developed (Visser et al., 2005: 19). This is confirmed by a review of the CSR literatu re on Africa between 1995 and 2005 (Visser, 2006a), which found that that only 12 of Africas 53 countries have had any research published in core CSR journals, with 57% of all articles focused on South Africa and 16% on Nigeria. The latter partly reflects the high media profile generated around corporate citizenship issues and the petrochemical sector, especially focused on Shell and their impacts on the Ogoni people (Ite, 2004). Economic and philanthropic aspects of CSR, rather than the legal and ethical responsibilities, will continue to dominate CSR conceptualization and practice in Africa (Visser, 2007). Corporate social responsibility in South America is not as much covered subject as other underdeveloped countries (Haslam, 2007), the focus has been mainly concentrated on Argentina (e.g. Newell and Muro, 2006), Brazil (e.g. Vivarta and Canela, 2006) and Mexico (e.g. Weyzig, 2006), although Nicaragua (Prieto-Carron, 2006a) and Venezuela (Peindado-Vara, 2006) also feature. De Oliveira in 2006 has noted that the Corporate social responsibility agenda in South America has been heavily influenced by socio-economic and political conditions, which have invariably led to problems like, unemployment, in- equality, and crime. Schmidheiny has in 2006 stated that Corporate social responsibility has ushered a positive effect in South America. The trend towards increasing CSR in the region has been generally upward. For example, Correa et al. has reported in his article in 2004 that by 2004 there were thousand South American companies which were member of organization called EMPRESA (the hemisphe re-wide CSR network), another three hundred companies were members of the â€Å"World Business Council† for Sustainable Development, also another fourteen hundred had obtained ISO 14001 certification, and one hundred eighteen had signed UN Global Compact. 2.5 Motivations Until now we have classified the CSR literature on a regional level. To further see the difference between the CSR in developing countries and developed countries we would now isolate motivations for CSR in developing countries, with the help of this we would be able to see why the CSR in developing countries is so unique. Some of the motivations for CSR that I have isolated with the help of literature review are: 2.5.1 Cultural Tradition The term CSR has been widely used in western countries and hence there is a widespread believe that CSR is a Western thing but on the contrary there is evidence that CSR in developing countries has been around for centuries and its man pillar has been deep-rooted indigenous cultural traditions of philanthropy and business ethics. An excellent example was given by, Visser and Macintosh in 1998 they have quoted that â€Å"the ethical condemnation of usurious business practices in developing countries that practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity dates back thousands of years†. Another example was given by Frynas (2006) ‘business practices based on moral principles were advocated by the Indian statesman and philosopher Kautilya in the 4th century BC. If we take South American context, Sanborn (2002), quoted in Logsdon et al. (2006) that ‘varied traditions of community self-help and solidarity stretch back to the regions pre-Hispanic cultures, and include t he mutual aid societies, trade unions and professional associations that emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Logsdon et al.s (2006) stated that â€Å"One myth is that CSR in Mexico is new, another is that US firms brought CSR to Mexico, and a third is that CSR as practised by Mexican firms simply reflects the CSR patterns and activities of US firms†. Even if we take CSR for more modern times I have found that it was heavily influenced by local culture, Vivess (2006) had conducted survey of over 1,300 enterprises in South America, his findings were that the regions religious beliefs are one of the major motivations for CSR. Also Nelson (2004) founded that Buddhist traditions in Asia are aligned with CSR. Also for Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) had reached a same conclusion, that â€Å"CSR does vary considerably among Asian countries but that this variation is not explained by [levels of] development but by factors in the respective national business systems†, t his was consistent with Birch and Moons (2004) finding in his paper for the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Asia. If we take African the findings are same, Amaeshi et al. (2006) found that CSR in Nigeria is heavily influenced by local socio-cultural influences like communalism, ethnic religious beliefs, and charitable traditions. 2.5.2 Political Upheaval CSR in developing countries are heavily influenced by the social and political reforms, which drives business behavior towards integrating social and ethical issues. De Oliveira (2006) has argued that â€Å"the political and associated social and economic changes in Latin America since the 1980s, including democratization, liberalization, and privatization, have shifted the role of business towards taking greater responsibility for social and environmental issues†. A recent example can be the case of South Africa, the political changes towards democracy and end of decades of apartheid have been a significant driver for CSR, through the practice of improved corporate governance (Roussouw et al., 2002), collective business action for social upliftment (Fourie and Eloff, 2005) has led to black economic empowerment (Fig, 2005), and business ethics (Malan, 2005). Visser (2005a) lists more than a dozen examples of socio-economic, environmental, and labor-related legislative reform i n South Africa between 1994 and 2004 that have a direct bearing on CSR. Another excellent example can be given of many central and eastern European countries which have been recently inducted into European Union, these countries have now shifted towards CSR .(Baskin, 2006). 2.5.3 Social and Economic Conditions It is often said that the CSR in developing countries is directly shaped by the social conditions and economic environment present in the country in which firms operate and the development priorities this creates. Amaeshi et al. (2006), had argued that â€Å"CSR in Nigeria is specifically aimed at addressing the socio-economic development challenges of the country, including poverty alleviation, health-care provision, infrastructure development, and education. This, they argue, stands in stark contrast to many Western CSR priorities such as consumer protection, fair trade, green marketing, climate change concerns, or socially responsible investments.† Schmidheiny (2006) had questioned the appropriateness of foreign CSR approaches, citing examples from South America, where the most important issues like poverty, illiteracy, crime and tax avoidance are not included in the CSR conceptions in developed countries, but if we consider locally developed CSR approaches, then they are m ost likely to respond to the many local social and environmental problems, such as deforestation, unemployment, income inequality, and crime (De Oliveira, 2006). 2.5.4 Poor Governance CSR can be seen as a form of private or self governance or a response to poor governance (Levy and Kaplan, Chapter 19). A particular important aspect of the CSR for developing countries is the fact it is often seen as a way to plug the gaps left by weak, corrupt, or under-resourced governments that fail to adequately provide various social services. Furthermore, â€Å"as many developing country government initiatives to improve living conditions falter, proponents of [CSR and bottom of the pyramid] strategies argue that companies can assume this role†. Such proponents of CSR, Blowfield and Frynas (2005) observe, â€Å"an alternative to government† which is â€Å"frequently advocated as a means of filling gaps in governance that have arisen with the acceleration of liberal economic globalization†. A survey was conducted by â€Å"World Business Council for Sustainable Development† (WBCSD 2000) in their report they illustrated that, when asked how CSR should be defined, peoples in Ghana stressed ‘building local capacity and ‘filling in when government falls short. Moon (2002a) in his paper has argued that, this phenomenon is part of a broader political shift towards ‘new governance or â€Å"alternate governance† approaches, here the local governments are trying to share responsibilities and to develop more effective modes of operation, the reason may be result of overload or of a view that they do not have a monopoly of solutions for society. This is often in the form of social partnerships with non-profit and for-profit organizations. Moon et al. (2005) has cited this phenomenon as an example of companies acting in a ‘civic republicanism mode. In addition to being encouraged to step in where once only governments acted, through the mechanism of either privatization or welfare reform, Matten and Crane (2005) also suggest that companies enter the arena of citizenship where government has not as yet administ ered citizenship rights, for example, improving working conditions in sweatshops, ensuring for employees a living wage, and financing the schooling of child laborers in the absence of legislation requiring this. However, this approach is not without its share of criticism ,Hamann et al. (2005) had argued that CSR is not adequate response to these governance gaps and that more proactive steps involving local government towards accountability and inclusiveness is necessary. Blowfield and Frynas (2005) had questioned the very logic: â€Å"Is CSR a stepping-stone on the path to better national regulation in developing countries? Or is it part of a longer term project for overcoming the weaknesses of territorially prescribed judicial and welfare mechanisms that is, addressing the limitations of the nation-state in regulating a global economy?† There are also serious questions about the dependencies this governance gap approach to CSR creates, especially where communities become re liant for their social services on companies whose primary accountability is to their shareholders. Hence, multinationals may cut expenditure, or disinvest from a region if the economics dictates that they will be more profitable elsewhere. There is also the issue of perceived complicity between governments and companies, as Shell all too painfully experienced in Nigeria (Ite, 2004). 2.5.5 Crisis Response Crises associated with developing countries have in the past affected CSR responses. These crises can come in the form of economic, social, environmental, health-related, or industrial accident. An excellent example was quoted by Newell (2005) that â€Å"the economic crisis in Argentina in 2001-2 marked a significant turning point in CSR, prompting debates about the role of business in poverty alleviation†. Another example can be of climate change (Hoffman, 2005) and HIV/AIDS (Dunfee, 2006) these crises have bought CSR in developing countries into lime-light. Catastrophic events with immediate impact are often more likely to elicit CSR responses, especially of the philanthropic kind. The companys quick response to the Asian tsunami is an excellent case (Fernando, 2007). However, companies can also have negative affect like industrial accidents. Examples include Union Carbides response to the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India (Shrivastava, 1995) and Shells response to the hanging o f human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria in 1995 (Wheeler et al., 2002). 2.5.6 Market Access Not all the intention of the companies in developing the CSR is for good, some companies may also see these unfulfilled human needs as an untapped market. This can be corroborated from the fact that there lies burgeoning literature on ‘bottom of the pyramid strategies, which refer to business models that focus on turning the four billion poor people in the world into consumers (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002; London and Hart, 2004; Rangan et al., 2007). CSR may be working towards enabling companies in developing countries which are trying to access markets in the developed world. An example in this support can be given from, Baskin (2006), he had identified that â€Å"competitive advantage in international markets as one of the key drivers for CSR in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia†, also Arayas (2006) survey of CSR reporting among the top two hundred and fifty companies in South America found that â€Å"businesses with an international sales orientation were almost fiv e times more likely to report than companies that sell products regionally or locally†. This is has become increasingly relevant as more and more companies from developing countries are moving towards globalization and in their effort they need to comply with international stock market listing requirements, including various forms CSR code compliance (Visser, 2005a). The above argument was also stated by Chapple and Moons (2005) study of 7 countries in Asia, which found a strong relationship between international exposure, either in terms of international sales or foreign ownership, and CSR reporting. CSR is also sometimes used as a partnership approach to creating or developing new markets. Another example in support towards this, is the case of , AED and Mark collaboration with Exxon Mobil that has created a viable market for insecticide-treated mosquito nets in Africa, while improving pregnant womens access to these nets, through the delivery of targeted subsidies (Diara et al., 2004). Similalry, ABB used a partnership approach to CSR to deliver a rural electrification project in Tanzania (Egels, 2005). 2.5.7International Standardization There is a widespread belief that the Western countries has imposed CSR approaches on the global South, but on the contrary there is ample evidence present to suggest that CSR codes and standards are a key driver for CSR in developing countries. For example Baskins (2006) survey of CSR practices in emerging markets has indicated towards growing acceptance rate of ISO 14001 and the â€Å"Global Reporting Initiatives Sustainability Reporting Guidelines†. These codes are now used as a CSR response in sectors that are prevalent in developing countries, such as horticulture (Dolan and Opondo, 2005), cocoa (Schrage and Ewing, 2005), and textiles (Kaufman et al., 2004), as well as some social issues in developing countries, like child labor (Kolk and Van Tulder, 2002) or women in the workplace (Prieto-Carron, 2004). In general it is seen that CSR is driven by standardization imposed by MNCs in striving to achieve global consistency among its subsidiaries and operations in developing countries. For example, Chapple and Moon (2005) found that â€Å"multinational companies are more likely to adopt CSR than those operating solely in their home country, but that the profile of their CSR tend to reflect the profile of the country of operation rather than the country of origin†. 2.5.8 Investment Incentives Multinational companies investments in developing countries are generally linked to the social conditions prevalent in those countries (Gabriel, 1972). Now a day these investments are being screened for CSR performance. In response to this socially responsible investment (SRI) is becoming a major factor CSR in developing countries. Baskin (2006) had noted â€Å"that approximately 8% of emerging market companies on the Dow Jones World Index is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, compared with around 13% of high-income companies†. In other developing countries, like South Africa, the SRI trend is well researched (AICC, 2002). The SRI movement in the 1980s had led to the anti-apartheid disinvestment phenomenon, also since 1992, South Africa has introduced twenty SRI funds which track companies social, ethical, and environmental performance (Visser, 2005a). According to research by the â€Å"African Institute of Corporate Citizenship â€Å"(AICC) (2002), the size of the South African SRI market in 2001 was already 1.55% of the total investment market. In an another major development, in May 2004, the Johannesburg Securities Exchange had launched its own tradable SRI Index, the first of its kind in an emerging market (Sonnenberg et al., 2004). A similar index was also introduced in Brazil. Closely linked to the literature on SRI in developing countries is the debate about the business case for CSR. Very few instrumental studies have been done, a survey done in Thailand by Connelly and Limpaphayom (2004) had showed that environmental reporting had not negatively impacted on short-term profitability and has in fact generated a positive relationship with firm valuation. More generally, a report by Sustainability (2002) uses case studies to illustrate various business benefits associated with addressing sustainability in developing countries. Furthermore, Goyal (2006) contends that CSR may serve as a signaling device for developing countries seeking to assess foreign direct investment proposals by unknown foreign firms. 2.5.9 Stakeholders In general the governmental has not got strong control or prohibitive laws over the social, ethical, and environmental performance of companies in developing countries, hence in its absence activism by stake- holder groups has become major source of CSR. Lund-Thomsen (2004) had described describes this as â€Å"an outcome of micro-level struggles between companies and communities over the distribution of social and environmental hazards which are created when global political and economic forces interact with local contexts around the world†. In research it was found that there are mainly four kinds of groups namely development agencies (Jenkins, 2005), trade unions (Kaufman et al., 2004), international NGOs (Christian Aid, 2005), and business associations (WBCSD, 2000) has emerged as the most impotant activists for CSR. These four groups had also provided a support for local NGOs. Another goup has also emerged in recent times namely media, it has also emerged as a key support er for promoting CSR in developing countries (Vivarta and Canela, 2006). Activism by these groups in developing countries has taken various forms, which was classified by Newell (2001) â€Å"as civil regulation, litigation against companies, and international legal instruments†. Of these, civil regulation is perhaps the most common and effective. Bendell (2000) describes this as the theory that ‘businesses are being regulated by civil society, through the dual effect of negative impacts from conflict and benefits from collaboration [which] provides new means for people to hold companies accountable, thereby democratising the economy directly. There are numerous examples of civil regulation in action in the developing world of which South Africa is a rather striking case in point (Visser, 2005a). This has manifested itself mainly through community groups challenging companies over whether they are upholding the constitutional rights of citizens. Various land mark cases b etween 1994 and 2004 suggest that, although civil society still tends to lack capacity and resources in South Africa, this has been an effective strategy. Stakeholder activism has also taken a constructive approach towards encouraging CSR, through groups like the National Business Initiative and partnerships between business and NGOs. Stakeholder activism can also be a source of criticism of CSR, arguing that it is an inadequate response to the social and environmental challenges of developing countries. The Christian Aid (2005) report Behind the Mask: The Real Face of Corporate Social Responsibility epitomizes this critical approach, and may be a driver for an enlarged conception and practice of CSR in developing countries. 2.5.10 Supply Chain Management Another Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries Corporate Social Responsibility in Developing Countries Corporate Social Responsibility in developing countries such as India using Tata Nano as a case study 1. Introduction A companys main business objective is maximisation of shareholders wealth by means of achieving higher profit. Business managers are entrusted with shareholders money so that they could run the company efficiently and profitably. According to Sloan (1964) â€Å"the strategic aim of a business is to earn a return on capital and if any particular case the return in the long run is not satisfactory, then the deficiency should be corrected or the activity abandoned for a more favourable one.† This suggests that companies are run for profit motives and this should be the top most priority of any management. However Globalisation has brought about a change in notion concerning the business objective of any company, arguments are being put forward that the business activities must take into account human and social welfare. According to Peter Drucker (1954), â€Å"the enterprise is an organ of society and its actions have a decisive impact on the social scene. It is thus important for management to realize that it must consider the impact of every business policy and business actions upon society. It has to consider whether the action is likely to promote the public good, to advance the basic belief of society, to contribute to its stability, strength and harmony†. A business enterprise is a major user of nature, society and environment; therefore it must be responsible towards their protection and development. Depletion of natural resources and causes like global warming has brought a lot attention to the sustainable use of these resources and companies are going to play a major role in ensuring this. So this marks a shift in the company objective that no longer can they only be guided by the sole aim of making profit but they should be take actions to ensure the welfare of the society in which they operate. This brings out the concept of â€Å"Corporate Social Responsibility†: Corporations acting as citizens of a society in a responsible manner ensuring the well beings of others in the society. The International Standards Organisation (ISO) describes CSR as â€Å"a balanced approach for organisations to address economic, social and environmental issues in a way that aims to benefit people, community and society† (ISO, 2002). 1.1 Rationale behind the Research Corporate social responsibility has gained widespread attention in most developed countries; policies practices are being developed by corporations to abide by standards of environment pollution, use of human capital etc. However in less developed countries this is not a much heard or debated topic. According to Steiner Steiner (2000), â€Å"In less developed countries there is often no indigenous sense of corporate responsibility.† There are a lot of loopholes in the system and business activities are not often concentrated on human/ social welfare. Austin (1990) argues that the extremity and pervasiveness of poverty in less developed countries places a special responsibility on business, as a vehicle for creating economic progress that will help alleviate this deprivation. With developing economies a lot of importance is given to industrial upliftment and that might come at a cost of social welfare or benefit. This research aims to identify the CSR policies and practices being in use in developing countries such as India with a special reference to TATA Nano. India is a developing country which has recorded a growth rate of more than 9% for 3 years upto 2008 and has seen a decade of 7% growth. (www.economicshelp.org: accessed on 10th January 2010). In spite of the global economic slowdown is slated to grow at around 7.5% for this year (2010). The rapid growth in economy has increased the standards of living and has created huge disposable income among Indians. The car manufacturers are taking advantage of this huge growth and are coming up with various models to tap into this growing market. TATA one of the most reputed business firms of India have come up with a car called TATA Nano which is slated to be the cheapest car in the world. The price is kept at $2500 which is equivalent to 100,000 INR. The objective behind this to make four wheelers available to every common man in India; this is touted to be a very big success. I have my own reservations concerning it; what if masses can afford this car, will it not increase the fuel consump tion, thereby creating more pollution? Will it not put a huge burden on roads which are already suffering from traffic congestion? This research aims to find out whether TATA is acting in a responsible manner by launching this car. 1.2 Objectives The research can be subdivided into four parts: 1. To identify the state of CSR in developing countries such as India 2. To evaluate public awareness concerning issues such as CSR in India 3. To evaluate the impact of TATA Nano on environment, traffic congestion, demand for fuel etc 4. To suggest a number of ways in which companies in developing countries can develop frameworks to act in a more responsible manner 2. Literature Review There are numerous ways to classify the literature on CSR in developing countries i.e. in terms of content (thematic coverage), type (epistemological approach), and level (focus of analysis). The analysis would be done by each way separately: 2.1 Content Theme We would use the same classification as Lockett et al. (2006) did, the CSR literature can be categorized into four CSR themes: social, environmental, ethics, and stakeholders. One point that immediately comes to light by applying this categorization to the literature on CSR is that, in contrast to Lockett et al.s (2006) findings that most CSR articles in top management journals focus on ethical and environmental themes, most scholarly work on CSR in developing countries focuses on the social theme. Also social issues are in general given more political, economic, and media coverage in developing countries than environmental, ethical, or stakeholder issues (Schmidheiny, 2006). 2.2 Knowledge Type Lockett et al. (2006) had also classified the CSR literature by knowledge type. He found even split between theoretical and empirical research. Lockett et al. (2006) found that 89% of theoretical CSR papers are non-normative, in the CSR in developing countries literature, the balance is far more evenly split. This is mainly because relatively large number of papers on the role of â€Å"business in development† tends to adopt a normative, critical perspective (Blowfield and Frynas, 2005). Also if we see empirical research, there are also differences. According to Lockett et al. (2006), the CSR literature is dominated by quantitative methods (80%), while CSR papers on developing countries are more likely to be qualitative. Most research on CSR in developing countries to date has either generalized about all developing countries (e.g. Frynas, 2006), or focused at a national level. In terms of generic literature, Corporate Citizenship in developing countries (Pedersen and Huniche, 2006) is a useful compendium, as are special issues on CSR in developing countries that have appeared in the Journal of Corporate Citizenship (issue 24, 2006), International Affairs (81(3), 2005) and Development (47(3), 2004). Despite the focus on countries in the literature, only about a fifth of all developing countries have had any CSR journal articles published on them. Of these, the most commonly analyzed and written about countries are China, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa, and Thailand. Analysis at a regional level (notably Africa, Asia, and Latin America) is becoming more common, but papers at the sector, corporate, or individual level remain relatively scarce. 2.3 Global Most of the literature concentrates on CSR in a global context and there is very little empirical research on the nature and extent of CSR in developing countries. One notable exception is Baskins (2006) research on the reported corporate responsibility behavior of 127 leading companies from 21 emerging markets across Asia, Africa, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe, which he compares with over 1,700 leading companies in high-income OECD countries. Looking at three generic indicators of CSR, Baskin (2006) finds that emerging market companies have a respectable representation in the Dow Jones â€Å"Sustainability Index† and show rising levels of take-up of the Global Reporting Initiative and ISO 14001. Baskin (2006) also showed that emerging markets lag the OECD significantly on reporting on business ethics and equal opportunities, are roughly at par on environmental reporting, and show comparable reporting variance on women on company boards, training and occupation al health and safety . Despite the limitations of using reporting as an indicator of CSR performance and the danger of representing regions by just a few countries (e.g. only two of the 53 countries in Africa were included in the sample), the Baskin (2006) study does provide some insight into the level of CSR activity in developing countries, concluding that: ‘there is not a vast difference in the approach to reported corporate responsibility between leading companies in high income OECD countries and their emerging-market peers. Nonetheless, corporate responsibility in emerging markets, while more extensive than commonly believed, is less embedded in corporate strategies, less pervasive and less politically rooted than in most high-income OECD countries (p. 46). 2.4 Regional Asia Major coverage of the Asia in the field of CSR often focus on China (e.g. Zhuang and Wheale, 2004), India (e.g. Balasubramanian et al., 2005), Indonesia (e.g. Blowfield, 2004), Malaysia (e.g. Zulkifli and Amran, 2006), Pakistan (e.g. Lund-Thomsen, 2004), and Thailand (e.g. Kaufman et al., 2004). Other countries that have had less attention include Bangladesh (Nielsen, 2005), the Pacific Forum Islands (Prasad, 2004), Sri Lanka (Luken and Stares, 2005), and Vietnam (Prieto-Carron, 2006b). Birch and Moon (2004) noted that â€Å"CSR performance varies greatly between countries in Asia, with a wide range of CSR issues being tackled (e.g. education, environment, employee welfare) and modes of action (e.g. foundations, volunteering, and partnerships)†. In one of the survey on CSR reporting in Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) find that nearly three quarters of large companies in India present themselves as having CSR policies and practices versus only a quarter in Indonesia and between t hese two extremes are Thailand (42%), Malaysia (32%), and the Philippines (30%). They also infer from the research that the evolution of CSR in Asia tends to occur in three waves, first being community involvement followed by successive second and third waves of socially responsible production processes and employee relations. In a comparative survey of CSR in 15 countries across Europe, North America, and Asia, Welford (2005) speculates that the low response rates from countries like Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, and Thailand may in itself be an indicator of CSR being less prevalent in developing countries. This seems to be borne out by the research findings, in which these countries fairly consistently underperform when compared with developed countries across 20 aspects of CSR measured by the survey. Africa The literature on CSR in Africa is predominantly based on South Africa (Visser, 2005a), while other pockets of research exist for Cà ´te DIvoire (e.g. Schrage and Ewing, 2005), Kenya (e.g. Dolan and Opondo, 2005), Nigeria (e.g. Amaeshi et al., 2006), Tanzania (e.g. Egels, 2005), and Mali and Zambia (e.g. Hamann et al., 2005). Very few papers are focused on industry sectors, with traditionally high impact sectors like agriculture (e.g. Blowfield, 2003), mining (e.g. Kapelus, 2002), and petrochemicals (e.g. Acutt et al., 2004) featuring most prominently. Two of the best sources of literature on Africa are Corporate Citizenship in Africa (Visser et al., 2006) and the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Africa (issue 18, summer 2005). The latter concludes that ‘academic institutions and researchers focusing specifically on corporate citizenship in Africa remain few and under-developed (Visser et al., 2005: 19). This is confirmed by a review of the CSR literatu re on Africa between 1995 and 2005 (Visser, 2006a), which found that that only 12 of Africas 53 countries have had any research published in core CSR journals, with 57% of all articles focused on South Africa and 16% on Nigeria. The latter partly reflects the high media profile generated around corporate citizenship issues and the petrochemical sector, especially focused on Shell and their impacts on the Ogoni people (Ite, 2004). Economic and philanthropic aspects of CSR, rather than the legal and ethical responsibilities, will continue to dominate CSR conceptualization and practice in Africa (Visser, 2007). Corporate social responsibility in South America is not as much covered subject as other underdeveloped countries (Haslam, 2007), the focus has been mainly concentrated on Argentina (e.g. Newell and Muro, 2006), Brazil (e.g. Vivarta and Canela, 2006) and Mexico (e.g. Weyzig, 2006), although Nicaragua (Prieto-Carron, 2006a) and Venezuela (Peindado-Vara, 2006) also feature. De Oliveira in 2006 has noted that the Corporate social responsibility agenda in South America has been heavily influenced by socio-economic and political conditions, which have invariably led to problems like, unemployment, in- equality, and crime. Schmidheiny has in 2006 stated that Corporate social responsibility has ushered a positive effect in South America. The trend towards increasing CSR in the region has been generally upward. For example, Correa et al. has reported in his article in 2004 that by 2004 there were thousand South American companies which were member of organization called EMPRESA (the hemisphe re-wide CSR network), another three hundred companies were members of the â€Å"World Business Council† for Sustainable Development, also another fourteen hundred had obtained ISO 14001 certification, and one hundred eighteen had signed UN Global Compact. 2.5 Motivations Until now we have classified the CSR literature on a regional level. To further see the difference between the CSR in developing countries and developed countries we would now isolate motivations for CSR in developing countries, with the help of this we would be able to see why the CSR in developing countries is so unique. Some of the motivations for CSR that I have isolated with the help of literature review are: 2.5.1 Cultural Tradition The term CSR has been widely used in western countries and hence there is a widespread believe that CSR is a Western thing but on the contrary there is evidence that CSR in developing countries has been around for centuries and its man pillar has been deep-rooted indigenous cultural traditions of philanthropy and business ethics. An excellent example was given by, Visser and Macintosh in 1998 they have quoted that â€Å"the ethical condemnation of usurious business practices in developing countries that practice Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity dates back thousands of years†. Another example was given by Frynas (2006) ‘business practices based on moral principles were advocated by the Indian statesman and philosopher Kautilya in the 4th century BC. If we take South American context, Sanborn (2002), quoted in Logsdon et al. (2006) that ‘varied traditions of community self-help and solidarity stretch back to the regions pre-Hispanic cultures, and include t he mutual aid societies, trade unions and professional associations that emerged in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Logsdon et al.s (2006) stated that â€Å"One myth is that CSR in Mexico is new, another is that US firms brought CSR to Mexico, and a third is that CSR as practised by Mexican firms simply reflects the CSR patterns and activities of US firms†. Even if we take CSR for more modern times I have found that it was heavily influenced by local culture, Vivess (2006) had conducted survey of over 1,300 enterprises in South America, his findings were that the regions religious beliefs are one of the major motivations for CSR. Also Nelson (2004) founded that Buddhist traditions in Asia are aligned with CSR. Also for Asia, Chapple and Moon (2005) had reached a same conclusion, that â€Å"CSR does vary considerably among Asian countries but that this variation is not explained by [levels of] development but by factors in the respective national business systems†, t his was consistent with Birch and Moons (2004) finding in his paper for the Journal of Corporate Citizenship special issue on CSR in Asia. If we take African the findings are same, Amaeshi et al. (2006) found that CSR in Nigeria is heavily influenced by local socio-cultural influences like communalism, ethnic religious beliefs, and charitable traditions. 2.5.2 Political Upheaval CSR in developing countries are heavily influenced by the social and political reforms, which drives business behavior towards integrating social and ethical issues. De Oliveira (2006) has argued that â€Å"the political and associated social and economic changes in Latin America since the 1980s, including democratization, liberalization, and privatization, have shifted the role of business towards taking greater responsibility for social and environmental issues†. A recent example can be the case of South Africa, the political changes towards democracy and end of decades of apartheid have been a significant driver for CSR, through the practice of improved corporate governance (Roussouw et al., 2002), collective business action for social upliftment (Fourie and Eloff, 2005) has led to black economic empowerment (Fig, 2005), and business ethics (Malan, 2005). Visser (2005a) lists more than a dozen examples of socio-economic, environmental, and labor-related legislative reform i n South Africa between 1994 and 2004 that have a direct bearing on CSR. Another excellent example can be given of many central and eastern European countries which have been recently inducted into European Union, these countries have now shifted towards CSR .(Baskin, 2006). 2.5.3 Social and Economic Conditions It is often said that the CSR in developing countries is directly shaped by the social conditions and economic environment present in the country in which firms operate and the development priorities this creates. Amaeshi et al. (2006), had argued that â€Å"CSR in Nigeria is specifically aimed at addressing the socio-economic development challenges of the country, including poverty alleviation, health-care provision, infrastructure development, and education. This, they argue, stands in stark contrast to many Western CSR priorities such as consumer protection, fair trade, green marketing, climate change concerns, or socially responsible investments.† Schmidheiny (2006) had questioned the appropriateness of foreign CSR approaches, citing examples from South America, where the most important issues like poverty, illiteracy, crime and tax avoidance are not included in the CSR conceptions in developed countries, but if we consider locally developed CSR approaches, then they are m ost likely to respond to the many local social and environmental problems, such as deforestation, unemployment, income inequality, and crime (De Oliveira, 2006). 2.5.4 Poor Governance CSR can be seen as a form of private or self governance or a response to poor governance (Levy and Kaplan, Chapter 19). A particular important aspect of the CSR for developing countries is the fact it is often seen as a way to plug the gaps left by weak, corrupt, or under-resourced governments that fail to adequately provide various social services. Furthermore, â€Å"as many developing country government initiatives to improve living conditions falter, proponents of [CSR and bottom of the pyramid] strategies argue that companies can assume this role†. Such proponents of CSR, Blowfield and Frynas (2005) observe, â€Å"an alternative to government† which is â€Å"frequently advocated as a means of filling gaps in governance that have arisen with the acceleration of liberal economic globalization†. A survey was conducted by â€Å"World Business Council for Sustainable Development† (WBCSD 2000) in their report they illustrated that, when asked how CSR should be defined, peoples in Ghana stressed ‘building local capacity and ‘filling in when government falls short. Moon (2002a) in his paper has argued that, this phenomenon is part of a broader political shift towards ‘new governance or â€Å"alternate governance† approaches, here the local governments are trying to share responsibilities and to develop more effective modes of operation, the reason may be result of overload or of a view that they do not have a monopoly of solutions for society. This is often in the form of social partnerships with non-profit and for-profit organizations. Moon et al. (2005) has cited this phenomenon as an example of companies acting in a ‘civic republicanism mode. In addition to being encouraged to step in where once only governments acted, through the mechanism of either privatization or welfare reform, Matten and Crane (2005) also suggest that companies enter the arena of citizenship where government has not as yet administ ered citizenship rights, for example, improving working conditions in sweatshops, ensuring for employees a living wage, and financing the schooling of child laborers in the absence of legislation requiring this. However, this approach is not without its share of criticism ,Hamann et al. (2005) had argued that CSR is not adequate response to these governance gaps and that more proactive steps involving local government towards accountability and inclusiveness is necessary. Blowfield and Frynas (2005) had questioned the very logic: â€Å"Is CSR a stepping-stone on the path to better national regulation in developing countries? Or is it part of a longer term project for overcoming the weaknesses of territorially prescribed judicial and welfare mechanisms that is, addressing the limitations of the nation-state in regulating a global economy?† There are also serious questions about the dependencies this governance gap approach to CSR creates, especially where communities become re liant for their social services on companies whose primary accountability is to their shareholders. Hence, multinationals may cut expenditure, or disinvest from a region if the economics dictates that they will be more profitable elsewhere. There is also the issue of perceived complicity between governments and companies, as Shell all too painfully experienced in Nigeria (Ite, 2004). 2.5.5 Crisis Response Crises associated with developing countries have in the past affected CSR responses. These crises can come in the form of economic, social, environmental, health-related, or industrial accident. An excellent example was quoted by Newell (2005) that â€Å"the economic crisis in Argentina in 2001-2 marked a significant turning point in CSR, prompting debates about the role of business in poverty alleviation†. Another example can be of climate change (Hoffman, 2005) and HIV/AIDS (Dunfee, 2006) these crises have bought CSR in developing countries into lime-light. Catastrophic events with immediate impact are often more likely to elicit CSR responses, especially of the philanthropic kind. The companys quick response to the Asian tsunami is an excellent case (Fernando, 2007). However, companies can also have negative affect like industrial accidents. Examples include Union Carbides response to the 1984 Bhopal disaster in India (Shrivastava, 1995) and Shells response to the hanging o f human rights activist Ken Saro-Wiwa in Nigeria in 1995 (Wheeler et al., 2002). 2.5.6 Market Access Not all the intention of the companies in developing the CSR is for good, some companies may also see these unfulfilled human needs as an untapped market. This can be corroborated from the fact that there lies burgeoning literature on ‘bottom of the pyramid strategies, which refer to business models that focus on turning the four billion poor people in the world into consumers (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002; London and Hart, 2004; Rangan et al., 2007). CSR may be working towards enabling companies in developing countries which are trying to access markets in the developed world. An example in this support can be given from, Baskin (2006), he had identified that â€Å"competitive advantage in international markets as one of the key drivers for CSR in Central and Eastern Europe and Asia†, also Arayas (2006) survey of CSR reporting among the top two hundred and fifty companies in South America found that â€Å"businesses with an international sales orientation were almost fiv e times more likely to report than companies that sell products regionally or locally†. This is has become increasingly relevant as more and more companies from developing countries are moving towards globalization and in their effort they need to comply with international stock market listing requirements, including various forms CSR code compliance (Visser, 2005a). The above argument was also stated by Chapple and Moons (2005) study of 7 countries in Asia, which found a strong relationship between international exposure, either in terms of international sales or foreign ownership, and CSR reporting. CSR is also sometimes used as a partnership approach to creating or developing new markets. Another example in support towards this, is the case of , AED and Mark collaboration with Exxon Mobil that has created a viable market for insecticide-treated mosquito nets in Africa, while improving pregnant womens access to these nets, through the delivery of targeted subsidies (Diara et al., 2004). Similalry, ABB used a partnership approach to CSR to deliver a rural electrification project in Tanzania (Egels, 2005). 2.5.7International Standardization There is a widespread belief that the Western countries has imposed CSR approaches on the global South, but on the contrary there is ample evidence present to suggest that CSR codes and standards are a key driver for CSR in developing countries. For example Baskins (2006) survey of CSR practices in emerging markets has indicated towards growing acceptance rate of ISO 14001 and the â€Å"Global Reporting Initiatives Sustainability Reporting Guidelines†. These codes are now used as a CSR response in sectors that are prevalent in developing countries, such as horticulture (Dolan and Opondo, 2005), cocoa (Schrage and Ewing, 2005), and textiles (Kaufman et al., 2004), as well as some social issues in developing countries, like child labor (Kolk and Van Tulder, 2002) or women in the workplace (Prieto-Carron, 2004). In general it is seen that CSR is driven by standardization imposed by MNCs in striving to achieve global consistency among its subsidiaries and operations in developing countries. For example, Chapple and Moon (2005) found that â€Å"multinational companies are more likely to adopt CSR than those operating solely in their home country, but that the profile of their CSR tend to reflect the profile of the country of operation rather than the country of origin†. 2.5.8 Investment Incentives Multinational companies investments in developing countries are generally linked to the social conditions prevalent in those countries (Gabriel, 1972). Now a day these investments are being screened for CSR performance. In response to this socially responsible investment (SRI) is becoming a major factor CSR in developing countries. Baskin (2006) had noted â€Å"that approximately 8% of emerging market companies on the Dow Jones World Index is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, compared with around 13% of high-income companies†. In other developing countries, like South Africa, the SRI trend is well researched (AICC, 2002). The SRI movement in the 1980s had led to the anti-apartheid disinvestment phenomenon, also since 1992, South Africa has introduced twenty SRI funds which track companies social, ethical, and environmental performance (Visser, 2005a). According to research by the â€Å"African Institute of Corporate Citizenship â€Å"(AICC) (2002), the size of the South African SRI market in 2001 was already 1.55% of the total investment market. In an another major development, in May 2004, the Johannesburg Securities Exchange had launched its own tradable SRI Index, the first of its kind in an emerging market (Sonnenberg et al., 2004). A similar index was also introduced in Brazil. Closely linked to the literature on SRI in developing countries is the debate about the business case for CSR. Very few instrumental studies have been done, a survey done in Thailand by Connelly and Limpaphayom (2004) had showed that environmental reporting had not negatively impacted on short-term profitability and has in fact generated a positive relationship with firm valuation. More generally, a report by Sustainability (2002) uses case studies to illustrate various business benefits associated with addressing sustainability in developing countries. Furthermore, Goyal (2006) contends that CSR may serve as a signaling device for developing countries seeking to assess foreign direct investment proposals by unknown foreign firms. 2.5.9 Stakeholders In general the governmental has not got strong control or prohibitive laws over the social, ethical, and environmental performance of companies in developing countries, hence in its absence activism by stake- holder groups has become major source of CSR. Lund-Thomsen (2004) had described describes this as â€Å"an outcome of micro-level struggles between companies and communities over the distribution of social and environmental hazards which are created when global political and economic forces interact with local contexts around the world†. In research it was found that there are mainly four kinds of groups namely development agencies (Jenkins, 2005), trade unions (Kaufman et al., 2004), international NGOs (Christian Aid, 2005), and business associations (WBCSD, 2000) has emerged as the most impotant activists for CSR. These four groups had also provided a support for local NGOs. Another goup has also emerged in recent times namely media, it has also emerged as a key support er for promoting CSR in developing countries (Vivarta and Canela, 2006). Activism by these groups in developing countries has taken various forms, which was classified by Newell (2001) â€Å"as civil regulation, litigation against companies, and international legal instruments†. Of these, civil regulation is perhaps the most common and effective. Bendell (2000) describes this as the theory that ‘businesses are being regulated by civil society, through the dual effect of negative impacts from conflict and benefits from collaboration [which] provides new means for people to hold companies accountable, thereby democratising the economy directly. There are numerous examples of civil regulation in action in the developing world of which South Africa is a rather striking case in point (Visser, 2005a). This has manifested itself mainly through community groups challenging companies over whether they are upholding the constitutional rights of citizens. Various land mark cases b etween 1994 and 2004 suggest that, although civil society still tends to lack capacity and resources in South Africa, this has been an effective strategy. Stakeholder activism has also taken a constructive approach towards encouraging CSR, through groups like the National Business Initiative and partnerships between business and NGOs. Stakeholder activism can also be a source of criticism of CSR, arguing that it is an inadequate response to the social and environmental challenges of developing countries. The Christian Aid (2005) report Behind the Mask: The Real Face of Corporate Social Responsibility epitomizes this critical approach, and may be a driver for an enlarged conception and practice of CSR in developing countries. 2.5.10 Supply Chain Management Another

Trends and Concepts of Startups

Trends and Concepts of Startups Definition of startup Similar to SMEs, there are quite a lot of definitions on startup. According to Eric Ries, the creator of Lean Startup Methodology, as well as the author of the popular entrepreneurship blog – Startup Lesson Learned, startup – in its essential nature, is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainties. The first thing to emphasize in this definition is that startup is a â€Å"human institution†, which means process, authority, or sometimes even idleness. They do not seem to be a part of startup. However, all sorts of stories about successful startups all over the world have institution lie somewhere in them, such as recruiting staff, coordinating their work, and creating the enterprise’s culture. Although some startups may conduct these activities radically, they are still the essential components for a successful startup. For the â€Å"human† part, we often neglect that the value of startup is not the product, technology, or the company’s confidential data. Even when the company only possesses one product, the value still lies in all the people and the organization that creates it. To be more specific, we can take a look at the major acquisitions of startups. In most cases, the important aspects of the original startup disappear, including brand, products or documents. The only thing that lasts is the â€Å"human† part. The novelty of the products or services delivered by the company is such an important yet complicated factor of the concept. Product, in its broadest meaning, encompasses any value for a set of people who voluntarily choose to be the customers. This stays true to any kind of startup, from packed products in a grocery store, an e-commerce website, a non-profit service or programs organized by the government. In all cases, the organization is establish to identify and deliver new value for the customers, as well as take care of the impact it brings to customers. The last important component of this definition is the background of innovation. Startups are made up to confront extreme uncertainties. To open a new business that is the exact clone of the original ones, focusing on the business model, targeted customers, pricing and products in most cases is a fascinating kind of investment. However, it is not a startup because its success depends loads on only good execution. That is why a small enterprise may get loan for capital from the bank with uncertainties and risks for the loan owner to assess its potential. In another research on startup and other relevant concepts, startup is a temporarily designed organization to search for a business model that is repeatable and scalable. Therefore, the supreme objective of a startup is not profit-making, customers-attracting or brand-developing. It is not that these factors are not important and should not be built in this stage, it is just that they are not as important. The objective of this stage is to experience and incessively alter the business model to develop one strong, practical and standardized model for growth and stability later. That is why MBA learners, CEOs or Directors from big corporations still may fail when facing a startup. Another relevant concept to startup is the advantages of it. Some people may think that obvious advantage is to have an extraordinary founder that has extremely creative ideas and technology no one else can copy from. Though having such founder is definitely a privilege for any startup, it is still not the core element. The core element here should be the startup culture. It is the culture that creates passion, elevates innovation potential, work efficiency and help founders stay true to their original targets. One clear example for this is the way Larry Page brings Google a distinctive kind of culture since the very beginning of the brand. The next relevant concept to startup is startup culture, as mentioned above. It is so hard defining exactly what startup culture is, but there are some features deciding the startup culture. That is the passion and determination to create a useful type of product for the society. According to Paul Graham, a well-known essayist, programmer, language designer and the co-founder of Viaweb, a â€Å"useful product† is the one that can make wealth for the creator of it. While to Guy Kawasaki, the chief evangelist of Apple and advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google, it is the product that can change the world. This helps the founders constantly make innovation, develop the products , but it carries a deeper meaning lying within, which is â€Å"helping the founders to keep an eye for technology, keeping technology and creativity above profit-making and creating wealth for themselves†. To choose the most important thing that makes startup culture, it would be the passio n to create truly valuable products. If the founders can spread this spirit to their co-workers, the startup will surely be successful. Innovation is the best field for anyone who wants to start their own business. The innovation market, compared to other markets, is the least unfairly competitive market. To conclude, almost everyone in this world has that startup dream, but no everyone is daring enough to create opportunities and determination for themselves to make that dream come true. Measures for startups Researchers on economics have long been established different indexes and criteria to measure the success of an enterprise. Some are used more frequent than others. In the scope of this thesis, some popular indexes used for assessing the success of a startup. Internal/Economic Rate of Return The internal rate of return (IRR) is the rate of return used in capital budgeting to measure and compare the profitability of an investment. IRR is often used to calculate the potential of a project or investment. The higher the IRR, the more desirability it is. In theory, a firm should undertake all investments that have IRR rate higher than the cost of capital. In a case that the investment is considered by an enterprise that has shareholders, the minimum rate is the cost of capital. This ensures the project to be supported by the equity holders since such project would add more value to the company. Another use of IRR is to compare capital projects. For instance, a startup firm may consider between launching a new type of product or expanding the market of the existing product. They can use IRR to compare the feasibility of these two projects. The one that has IRR higher than the cost of capital proves itself to be effective. However, the company should invest in the project with higher IRR as it appears to add more value to the company than the other. Thirdly, IRR is also useful in evaluating stock buyback programs. Apparently, if a company joins in a stock buyback program, it must proves that its stocks is a better investment than others’, Therefore, they often use IRR as a trustworthy index for this matter. In terms of calculation, IRR is the â€Å"annualized effective compound rate† that makes the net present value of all cash flows in that particular investment equal to zero. This calculation is simple and easy to conduct, so it is widely used by investors and firm runners in the world Despite its strengths, IRR still has drawbacks. The biggest drawback of this index is that it only measures the effectiveness of one single project at a time, but not used to rate mutually exclusive projects. For example, if a project has lower IRR than another, but has higher NPV, it should thus be accepted over the second project, assuming that there is no capital constraint. Also, IRR should not be used to compare projects with different duration. For example, the project with higher NPV but lower IRR could be greater than that of the project with similar size, in terms of net cash flow. Return on equity Return on equity (ROE) is the amount of net income returned as the percentage of shareholders’ equity. ROE reflects the effectiveness on operation of a company by calculating how much money returned by 1 unit of money that the shareholders have invested. The equation for ROE is as below: ROE = net income/shareholders’ equity High ROE yields do not guarantee immediate profits. Since stock price is mostly influenced by earning per share, a company with 20% ROE costs twice as much as the one with 10% per share (in book value) However, the ROE model can contain some underlying problems. If the investors are not cautious enough, it can distort the basic principles of economics and lead to terrible consequences. The company may have to resort to the financial strategy to maintain artificially a good ROE ratio and hide decreasing business performance. Rising investment levels and the acquisition of shares by support from hoarding cash resources can help maintain the companys ROE ratio even when the operating profit is reduced. Competitive pressure is increasing plus artificially low interest rates, as characterized in the recent several decades, has created motivation to mount these strategies and stabilize the psychology of investors. Overload debt investment becomes a burden for the company as the market demand for the companys product categories tend to change, as many companies discovered during the current economic downturn. It actually creates risk to a company in difficult times. Return on Assets Return on Assets (ROA) is an often overlooked but indeed one of the most effective indexes in measuring the success of an investment. It can avoid the distortion created by business strategies. ROA is an indicator of how profitable a company is in relation to its asset. To be more specific, it measures the total profit a company can make when it has one unit of asset. ROA gives an idea of how effective the management is with its assets. The calculation is fairly simple, which is illustrated as below: ROA = net income/total asset Obviously, ROA has calculated the amount of property to be used to support the business activities. This index determines whether the company can generate large enough a rate of return on net assets than simply show that the rate of profit on sales. Those companies that own a large amount of properties need a higher level of net income to support operations than those that own less property. Many companies use external resources for production and logistics operation from many specialized providers in an attempt to depend less on assets. These assets do not disappear they simply shift from a company to the next. However, in nature, even the business type that depends less on assets has limited number of liquid assets and needed fixed assets to continue with business operation. Using ROA as a primary measure of effectiveness has quickly attracted the attention of the managers on the necessary assets to maintain business operations. The senior managers today have more freedom to manage external resources of the assets and business activities related to the more specialized companies. Trends of startups nowadays According to investors, economists and business associates around the world, the startup trend is something that continuously changing and evolving, which leads to the fact that it is almost impossible to predict the trend in the next upcoming years. However, in recent years, people have noticed a clear pattern of startup, which is to shift from â€Å"wall and brick†, also known as physical business to technology – related startups. Some startup giants like Google, HP, Facebook†¦ are all technology – related. This is quite understandable since innovation and technology is something that is original and hard to copy from. Also, in a world that people are already filled in with their basic needs, they need something to elevate the quality of life, something that satisfies the higher level of needs. Below are some examples of increasing startup trends nowadays Virtual reality: This is the dream of all technology and science fiction addict. This innovation almost seems unreal. However, with the help of Moore’s Law and the rapid improvement of processors and accelerometers, it will come true in the near future. Software for enterprises: Scott Weiss – partner of Andreessen Horowitz – a famous venture capital firm – one said: â€Å"2015 is the year that firms need to thrive a lot to fit in the â€Å"hide and seek† game, which means they must be fully aware that the demand for customers to communicate with the enterprises via software or applications is increasing. Therefore, apart from the hardware, the companies now need software with user-friendly design, layout and usage, especially on the mobile version. Machine learning and big data: In recent years, machine learning and big data have become common terms in the technology industry. Differ from the past, when questions like â€Å"How many red shoes have been sold in Kentucky?† were asked and analyzed, nowadays, we need to answer questions like â€Å"How many red shoes will be sold in Kentucky?†. And these questions will be responded with the help of these technology. The machine learning will not work separately, but they have connection via applications. There will be no functions standing alone, and ultimately, we can use it as prediction device. Full-stack startup: Full-stack is a relatively new term to the market. It is how the company knows and implements the whole process. Apple makes a perfect example of this as it makes its own chips, apps and retail stores. For startups, Uber is considered full-stack. Instead of selling software as an add-on, they build the whole service using the modern software. Containers: Containers is not any new, they have been around for ages, but their popularity rises for a few reasons. Since Windows is no longer the data center, containers can run on other data system. Another reason is the â€Å"microservices† app is rising, and these apps are especially suitable for containers because they are discrete pieces that can scale independently. Digital health: Some kinds of medicine as well as health equipment are now manufactured by people with no medical license. The mobile medical data system is like a container for all diagnoses and test results of the patients, just like Apple’s Healthkit. All these histories are not necessarily â€Å"big data†, it can never be tracked or cross-correlated before. When technology like Healthkit receive support, millions of software technicians can build top applications based on data but not affect the privacy of the device’s owners. Online market: The online markets like eBay or Craigslist have achieved great success, However, the trend of related startup would likely be businesses that provides niche services that can be found on Craigslist, like cab sharing or sublets. This is the marketplaces where customers can find more customized services, like Instacart or Glamsquad. Security: In 2014, there are numerous recorded security faults, such as: information leakage of Sony, security breach in Target, hacked personal photo on iCloud that leads to reveal nude photos of many celebrities†¦ That makes people suffer from privacy issue. Therefore, it is no surprise that security and privacy are trends for startups in 2015. If the companies can provide services which identify how and when personal information is breached and lock all â€Å"data† to prevent severe damages, it would be amazing. Bitcoin: Bitcoin – invented by Satoshi Nakamoto in 2008, is an online payment system. The system works based on a peer-to-peer basis, which means that users can transact directly without using an intermediary. Bitcoin works differently from other typical monetary units. There is no central bank that manages and it only depends on other Internet websites. Balaji Srinivasan – a Stanford academic and co-founder of a genetic-testing company called Counsyl, said that bitcoin is relatively new, so it is likely to be adopted and increased significantly in 2015. Also, he pointed out that we could expect new payment apps to develop for bitcoin, and we should consider them infrastructure. Crowdfunding: Crowdfunding is a popular term nowadays, even in Vietnam. It is basically a business investment or model that receives funds from the general public. With smartphones as platform, we can not only access to crowdfunding platforms wherever we want, whenever we want but also access to the crowd itself to get the funds. To sum up, there are myriad of trends involving startups nowadays. Above are only ten typical trends, which means there are many more to count. People will no longer struggle to find out a way to start their own business. For the government, if they can predict trends in the upcoming years, it is likely for them to come up with a suitable set of policies to support startups.