A Worn Path by Eudora Welty :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  What was intriguing to me about this story was how detailed it was. The author paints a clear picture of what the setting is and the character. The first paragraph of the story is a great example of the author describing the character and the setting. â€Å"It was December-a bright frozen day in the early morning. Far out there was an old Negro woman with her head tied in a red rag, coming along a path through the pinewoods. She was very old and small and she walked slowly in the dark pine shadows, moving a little from side to side in her steps, with the balanced heaviness and lightness of a pendulum in a grandfather clock. She carried a thin, small cane made from an umbrella, and with this she kept the frozen earth in front of her. This made a grave and persistent noise in the still that seemed meditative like the chirping of a solitary little bird.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The emotions I felt were both happy and sad. As I was getting close to end of the story I felt sad when I read that Phoenix Jackson was living alone with her grandson, who is sick, and that he’s waiting for her alone back home. I also felt sad for her because she went through some obstacles during her journey to town such as going under a barbed-wire fence, coming across a man and his dog and passed through some thorny bush. I was happy when she reached her destination and got the medicine that she needed for her grandson. Although at her elderly age she was still witty when she tricked the hunter and took the nickle for herself. Phoenix accomplished something that she wanted to do and that brought a smile to my face.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When you look into a dictionary the meaning of Phoenix is a unique bird that periodically burned itself on a funeral pyre and was born again from the ashes. Maybe that says something about Phoenix Jackson. Her funeral was the path and she was born again when she reached the office.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  I saw Phoenix Jackson as a positive, strong person who is very determined and doesn’t let anything get in the way of her path.

Assess the view that the positions of men Essay

Over the past few decades the roles of men and women have changed drastically. These changes occur throughout society, within a family or in a relationship. In the past, the most common relationship between the two genders would have been very different, with the men being viewed as more masculine and of higher authority, whereas the women of a society would have been viewed to have a stay at home role, where they would look after children and participate in household chores. During the 1900’s women were seen a minority, where the slightest amount of freedom would have been frowned upon. Nonetheless over the years, as we have developed, so have the different role for both genders, this now consists of sharing jobs equally in a household and around a workplace. The most obvious change within a family would be the amount of work the couple share, both in the household and outside of it. Since the 1960, where the civil rights act was released, it detailed that women were now able to work and should be offered equal opportunities as men, whereas in the past that would have been forbidden. Due to this seismic change, women are now able to provide for themselves, which in the past would have been extremely difficult as they would have essentially been dependent on their partner’s income. Gershuny, a famous sociologist, said that women who work full time would do less of the domestic labour jobs around the house. However statistics show this is incorrect. Women who work full time tend to still do 73% of the household chores, leavening only 27% to the men, who may or may not work full time. An equally significant aspect of this change would be the commercialisation of society today. Commercialisation of society is defined as the new technologies that have been introduced into today’s world in order to allow basic household chores, which would have takes several hours to do, to be completed within a few hours. The commercialisation of basic household necessities means that couples still have time to work and spend time with each other. For women, supermarket food products; means they don’t have to spend hours cooking and preparing food for the family. This would also mean, washing clothes now has become much easier due to the washing machine appliance. Due to this significant improvement, the hours of domestic labour on a woman has decreased a great deal. In spite of this, the commercialisation of products wouldn’t apply to everyone. Working class families or women would be able to afford such expensive items, however this doesn’t quite apply to poorer women; and hence they would suffer with longer hours of household chores. This also doesn’t take into account who uses these appliances; women still load and unload the dishwasher, or wash clothes. Despite having these appliances, it doesn’t necessarily mean these jobs are equally shared; the majority of women still complete them. Consequently, men and women are now becoming more equal when it comes to making decisions as a family. In the past men were off more authority and hence they were the ones that made the more important decisions. Stephen Edgell did a study in 1980 which showed that very important decisions were usually taken by men, important decisions were usually taken jointly however rarely by the wife alone, and lastly less important decisions were usually made by the wife alone. This has changed considerably over the years since the decisions are now shared equally. Pooling (where the couple have access to income and joint responsibility) has increased from 19% to 50%; on the other hand, allowance system (where men give their wives and allowance as a weekly budget) has decreased significantly from 36% to 12%. This shows a clear indication of how the roles have changed, although the increase for pooling was very little, we can judge that eventually role will get even. Moreover, we can see from the past that men and women were given gender scripts. Men were seen to be masculine and of higher standard thus they would work. This was often referred to as the instrumental role, where men were the providers. Women were viewed as having a role solely in the house where they would do household chores. This was often referred to as the expressive role, where women were the homemakers. Nonetheless this can be argued with the concept of homosexual couples. For example within a lesbian couple, they wouldn’t have suited gender scripts and hence would have to negotiate roles equally. Also the idea that now a day’s men aren’t the only providers within a family, women also work and hence can provide for themselves as well as their family. Having considered those points, there are many things to suggest things still need a lot of time in order to improve and become slightly equal. A concept that could argue the progress over the years would be the idea of dual burden which explains the roles women take upon themselves, or in other words are expected to take. Many feminists believe women are now doing two shifts, one at work which is paid work, and eventually returning home to do unpaid work. They believe men benefit from both works, as they receive a steady income as well as a clean house. Some also claim that women do three shifts, also called the triple shift. This is described as emotional work which is role which is usually related to women. Women have an extra unpaid shift where they return home to take care of the rest of the family, also called as the ‘labour of love’. Subsequently, it seems convincing to me that although roles have changed over the years, the change itself is very little because the roles within a family still aren’t as equal. Despite having the same job opportunities, the job of domestic labour in a household are far from equal. Nonetheless I believe roles will eventually change one day where they will be close to equal. However I think roles will never be fully equal.

The Various Principles of Marketing - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 10 Words: 2892 Downloads: 6 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Marketing Essay Type Essay any type Did you like this example? Introduction The five core concepts of marketing are; consumer needs/wants/demands, products and services, value/satisfaction/quality, exchanges/transactions/relationships and markets (Kotler, et al., 2008). To be able to understand and cater to all these factors, an organisation can use a variety of marketing theories. This report will outline and critique the various principles of marketing, noting the advantages and disadvantages of each. The theories that will be covered are; 4Ps, marketing, ambush marketing, buzz marketing, market segmentation, targeting and positioning, Ansoffs matrix, PESTEL analysis, porters five forces and micro-environment factors. 4Ps Successful marketing is based upon addressing some very basic, key issues. The 4Ps aims to address these issues, and allows a company to understand some very important aspects of their internal operations. The 4Ps are comprised of; product, price, place and promotion (CIM, 2009). Analysing these factors allows an organisation to put their customers at the centre of their marketing, and the company must do everything in their power to deliver the upmost quality and service to all of their customers. Booms Bitner (1981) provide a list of attributes that each of the 4Ps may include. Although an old model, it is still very much applicable to todays business environment. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Various Principles of Marketing" essay for you Create order Product: Quality, brand name, service line, warranty, capabilities, facilitating goods, tangible clues, price, personnel, physical environment and process of service delivery. Price: Level, discounts and allowances, payment terms, customers own perceived value, quality/price interaction and differentiation. Place: Location, accessibility, distribution channels and distribution coverage. Promotion: Advertisements, personal selling, sales promotion, publicity, personnel, physical environment, facilitating goods, tangible clues and process of service delivery. Furthermore, for the service industry, the 4Ps was extended to the 7Ps. This was mainly due to the higher degree of collaboration between the organisation and the consumer, which the original 4Ps were not taking into consideration(Webster, 1984). This resulted in the framework being extended, to take into account the variety of service attributes that come into play when devising marketing strategies. Service quality is becoming more significant to an organisation, as they can no longer only rely on the benefit of a good to attain and retain consumers (Lusch, et al., 2007). Booms Bitner (1981) provide many of the attributes that the extra 3Ps encompass. These are; Participants: Personnel training, discretion, commitment, incentives, appearance, interpersonal behaviour, attitudes and customer behaviour/degree of involvement. Process: Policies, procedures, mechanisation, employee discretion, customer involvement, customer direction and flow of activities. Physical Evidence: Environment, furnishings, colour, layout, noise level, facilitating goods and tangible clues. Ambush Marketing There is a lot of moral uncertainty surrounding the use of ambush marketing. It is predominantly related to big events and sponsorship deals. Ambush marketing became such a prominent strategy because of the increase in sponsorship deals. This mainly happened because event owners wanted higher returns and it made advertising more effective (Meenaghan, 1998). Furthermore, Meenaghan (1994, p. 79) defined ambush marketing as the practice whereby another company, often a competitor, intrudes upon public attention surrounding the event, thereby deflecting attention toward themselves and away from the sponsor. Although ambush marketing would appear to hold many benefits for a company, at basically no cost, there have been many academics that criticise its uses. Payne (1998) believes ambush marketing jeopardises one of the fundamental facets of business activity, namely truth in advertising and business interactions. On the other hand, other academics criticise the weak-minded view that competitors have a moral obligation to step back and allow an official sponsor to reap all the benefits from a special event (Meenaghan, 1996). In general, ambush marketing comes down the moral perceptions of the marketing manager. As the majority of companies are in business to make profits, then capitalising on any means necessary will be acceptable, and ambush marketing will be a prominent strategy for them to use. Buzz Marketing Word-of-mouth marketing and buzz marketing are very similar, and is a marketers dream (Balter Butman, 2005, p. 161) if successfully implemented. However, it is incredibly difficult to define and implement buzz marketing, as everyday word of mouth conversations tend to be random and spontaneous in nature, occurring in a natural, unpredictable pattern of communication (Ahuja, et al., 2007, p. 152). Buzz marketing is usually implemented through building suspense and tensions around the release of a new product, thus causing media and consumers to constantly talk about the product. It is a relatively free way of marketing, and can reap incredible benefits for the company. The only negative for buzz marketing is the fact that it cannot really be controlled in any way, as it is heavily reliant on consumers spreading the message on behalf of the organisation. The intentions of buzz marketing is obviously meant to be positive, by generating effectively free advertising for an organi sation or their products (Ahuja, et al., 2007). However, word-of-mouth works in both a positive and negative manner, as a bad PR story can quickly be spread across the globe. Furthermore, it is most effective across a young audience, meaning that the message will be spread amongst a certain demographic, but not everyone the organisation was hoping for (Leila Abderrazak, 2013). It is the inability to measure the reach of this type of marketing that makes buzz marketing very risky for an organisation. The message could easily be misinterpreted, there is little control over the direction of the campaign, and it may actually end up causing negative impact on organisation performance (Bloomberg, 2001). Market Segmentation, Targeting and Positioning Market segmentation has become an essential element of marketing, especially in developed countries. This is because goods can no longer be sold without considering the specific needs of consumers, and who is likely to purchase the product (Wedel Kamakura, 2000). The main use for market segmentation is to provide guidance on which marketing analysis or strategy an organisation should pursue. Furthermore, Wedel Kamakura (2000) provide a classification of different market segmentation groups that companies should aim to cater to. This is in regards to a general and product-specific view. Combining segmentation with targeting and positioning allows an organisation to learn information about their target markets, consumer preferences, competitors strengths and customer segments (Natter, et al., 2006). Furthermore, the process of STP should be completed in order, with a segmentation analysis being used as the basis of targeting, which can then be used for positioning. Unfortunately, this can make the process long-winded, as an organisation may want to identify only who they target, or where they should position their product (Kotler, et al., 2006). There is also a great need for behavioural profiling throughout S TP, forcing an organisation to conduct even more analysis than they may actually want to (Dholakia Dholakia, 2001; Kotler, et al., 2002). Although and STP analysis can be time-consuming, it does provide an organisation with a comprehensive overlook on a variety of factors that are intrinsic to an organisations success. Ansoffs Matrix In a 1957 report, Ansoff provided a comprehensive definition for product marketing as a joint statement of a product line and the corresponding set of missions which the products are designed to fulfil (Ansoff, 1957, p. 114). This resulted in the creation of the Ansoff Matrix (1965), which is a comprehensive marketing theory to help guide a companys strategic growth decisions. It is comprised of four quadrants, with each giving a general direction as to how a company should proceed with their desired growth. The four quadrants of Ansoffs Matrix are (AM, 2015); Market Penetration: This is about further exploiting a product that exists in an already functioning market. Market penetration is usually made possible through the clever use of promotions, or increasing the attractiveness of a product Product Development: The product development growth strategy focuses on introducing new products into existing markets. This can either be in the form of a complete new product, or the modification of an existing product. Market Development: Sometimes referred to as market extension, this factor of the Ansoff Matrix involves an organisations selling its existing products in a new market. This can be aided by market segmentation, which can help identify potential new markets. Some approaches to this strategy include, new geographical markets or distribution channels. Diversification: Generally known as the most risky growth strategy, diversification involves an organisation developing new products into new markets. There is a lot of risk in this strategy because an organisation will not be knowledgeable on either the product or the market they are entering. Heavy planning and research are vital for a diversification strategy to be successful. Different organisations benefit from different strategies. For example, a study conducted by Watts, et al., (1998) concluded that the most appropriate strategies for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) would be product development or market development. This is because most of these organisations would not have the resources to successfully implement a diversification strategy, and the growth from market penetration would be too slow. A larger organisation may well be more successful in diversification, as they have more expendable resources. Macro Environment Marketing PESTEL PESTEL stands for Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal. Furthermore, it is a comprehensive framework used by organisations to help analyse the macro-environment factors that are affecting daily operations. A PESTLE analysis is in effect an audit of an organisations environmental influences with the purpose of using this information to guide strategic decision-making (CIPD, 2015, p. n.p.). After a company has conducted a PESTLE analysis, they should use their findings to help guide any strategic decision making to minimise the impact of external forces. Political: The main political factors of PEST deals with the effects government can impose on an organisation. This can include things such as, new legislation, changes in taxation, minimum wages, and employee benefits. Economic: Some of the most important economic factors that a PESTEL analysis will investigate are the economy systems and structures, resource status, the level of economy developingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Yingfa Hong, 2010, p. 563). If an economy strengthens, then it would usually have a positive effect on the majority of companies performance, however this can be largely dependent on what areas of the economy strengthen. Social: One of the most significant factors of the PESTEL is the socio-culture factor. The socio-culture factors are usually in continuous change, and have a massive impact on how organisations are managed, and how leaders have to behave if they want any followers (Hussey, 1998). Technology: One of the fastest growing and most rapidly changing factors of the PESTEL analysis is the technological environment (Henry, 2008). Some examples of technological factors include; RD activity, Automation and Technological Developments (NetMBA, 2015). A company must ensure they are maintaining top quality equipment to produce the most competitive products. Environmental: The main environmental factors that a company will look at through a PESTEL analysis are, green issues that affect the environment, renewable energy sources and waste/disposal (App Rao, et al., 2008). Consumers are becoming more concerned with their environmental impact, thus affecting their purchasing choices. Legal: Similar to political, legal factors look at how legislation affects a company. This can include, competition law and government policy, employment law and safety law. It is of vital importance for a company to keep up-to-date with all relevant legislation (App Rao, et al., 2008). Porters Five Forces Porters Five Forces model can have a huge impact on the direction and shape of an organisations decision making. If conducted successfully it is a great tool to guide all strategic marketing activities. The five components of Porters Five Forces are: Threat of new Entrants: New entrants to an industry bring new capacity, the desire to gain market share, and often substantial resources (Porter, 2000, p. 138). Threat of Substitutes: A substitute performs the same or a similar function as an industrys product by a different means (Porter, 2008, p. 17). Bargaining Power of Customers: Powerful customers can capture more value by forcing down prices, demanding better quality or more service, and generally playing industry participants off against one another, all at the expense of industry profitability (Porter, 2008, p. 14). Bargaining Power of Suppliers: Suppliers can exert bargaining power over participants in an industry by threatening to raise prices or reduce the quality of purchased goods and services (Porter, 1998, p. 27). Rivalry among Existing Competitors: Rivalry among existing competitors takes many familiar forms, including price discounting, new product introductions, advertising campaigns and service improvements (Porter, 2008, p. 18). Micro Environment Marketing One of the most widely used and comprehensive frameworks for analysing the micro-environment is the SWOT analysis. This analysis measures the internal strengths and weaknesses of an organisation, and the external opportunities and threats. Having identified these factors, an organisation should build strategies which may build on the strengths, negate the weaknesses, exploit the opportunities or counter the threats (Dyson, 2004). These strategies can be further guided by the use of the macro-environment analysis, and can supplement the variety of different marketing techniques mentioned above, such as ambush marketing or market segmentation. Furthermore, these strategies can be generated through the use of a TOWS matrix, with forms relationships between the different variable to draw up a variety of strategies that the firm can utilise. Conclusion Overall there are a variety of methods that an organisation can utilise in order to successfully analyse the market, and market their products. It is imperative that an organisation knows how to implement both of these methods, as it will have a huge impact on the overall success of the organisation. The 4Ps is a great analysis for a company to conduct first, as it outlines all the fundamental aspects that effect an organisation. Furthermore, an external analysis should always be conducted, especially the PESTEL and Porters Five Forces analysis. This is because it outlines all important external factors, such as competitions activities or new legislation. Understanding these factors will shape the marketing strategy that a company wishes to pursue. Depending on what the external analysis shows to a competitor, they can then choose which market strategy they wish to pursue. This could involve using an Ansoff Matrix, or just pursuing an ambush, buzz, push and pull or market segmen tation strategy. One strategy cannot be anchored to a certain industry or company, as it is only through extensive analysis that a company will know which the optimum strategy is. Bibliography Ahuja, R. D., Michels, T. A., Walker, M. M. Weissbuch, M., 2007. Teen perceptions of disclosure in buzz marketing. 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