LOVE Enhancing the Marketing Plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

LOVE Enhancing the Marketing Plan - Essay Example McDonald’s has over 14,000 stores in the United States and 32737 overall (Jargon, 2011). One of the strengths of McDonald’s is its wide variety of food items in the menu. The second strength McDonald’s has is its outstanding financial performance. In 2010, McDonald’s generated total revenues of $24,075 billion and net income of $4,946 billion (Aboutmcdonalds, 2011). The third strength of McDonald’s is its outstanding customer reach. McDonald’s serves over 64 million customers daily. The main weakness McDonald’s has is the high fat content of most of the items in its menu. The second major competitor in the food industry is Subway. Subway last year surpassed McDonalds as the fast food restaurant with the most franchises worldwide. Today Subway has 36,671 stores across 99 countries (Subway, 2011). Subway has multiple strengths that have made this franchise a complete success. The organization has a tremendous executive management team. D uring the last decade the franchise has been growing at an outstanding rate. The second strength of Subway is the quality of its food. Subway meals are low on calories and low on fat. The third strength of Subway is the fact that company lets its customers customize its sandwiches. The fourth strength of the company is its outstanding advertising. ... The major strength of pizza food trucks is the product’s appeal. Pizza is the favorite meal of Americans. The average American eats 46 slices of pizza each year (Mamadelucaspizza, 2007). The second strength of pizza trucks is competitive pricing. The con of the food cooked in pizza trucks is its extremely high fat content. 2) Thoroughly discuss how you plan to differentiate your company from the closest competitor and why? The closest competitor to 360UP is pizza truck vendors. 360UP will utilize a variety of strategies to differentiate the business. One of the most important strategies that the company will utilize to differentiate itself from mobile pizza trucks is having a gourmet quality product. 360UP is a mobile fast food restaurant serving cuisines with tricky flavor combinations - American-Asian cuisines, Mexican-Asian food, Thai-Mediterranean and so on. The unique blend of different flavors all over the world will be served in affordable and easy to eat meals. Unlike pizza, the food served at 360UP is healthy and nutritional. A second differentiating factor that 360UP will utilize to outperform the competition is innovative marketing practices. The advertising initiatives of 360UP are going to help the company reach its marketing goals because more potential customers are going to realize of the existence of the firm’s products and services. 360UP will utilize social websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with its customers. Whenever the truck moves to any location, fans will be able to follow the movement of the food truck through Twitter. 360UP will implement socially conscious promotions, such as offering all senior citizens a 20% discount from the entire menu. Senior citizens have high disposable income because they

Analysis Of Bcg Matrix Marketing Essay

Analysis Of Bcg Matrix Marketing Essay In business, there are times when an organization needs to expand or change the market or field. There are tons of ideas about things one could do. However, it is hard to determine which idea will be the best. Therefore, strategic marketing planning tools will be important and beneficial, such as BCG matrix, Ansoff Matrix or Porter 5 forces and so forth, to help one evaluate the options and decide on the one that suits the organization and situation best. As a result, it gives the best return on the considerable investment that an organization will need to make. Strategic marketing management involves the process of deciding the marketing strategy to follow and to ensure it is followed correctly, in order to compete against its rivals successfully. In an attempt to assist strategic marketing process, a number of different strategic marketing planning tools have been created. Igor Ansoff, Michael Porter, and the Boston Consulting Group have the best known models in the field of business. Strategies are developed according to the objectives within an organization. The establishment of the objectives will normally produce a difference between what had been achieved and what target needs to be met. The uses of strategies are to illustrate how this gap is going to be solved, and objectives met. Strategic Management is a systematic approach to the major and increasingly important responsibility of general management to position and relate the firm to its environment in a way which will assure its continued success and make it secure from surprises (Ansoff, 1990). This paper will focus on the BCG Matrix, which is one of the models like PESTLE, SWOT, Ansoff matrix, Gap analysis, GE matrix and Porter 5 forces. It is often used to assess the profits of business or resource allocation and divestment decisions by the marketers. The content of this report will explain and analyse the application of BCG Matrix with some examples. Some of the other analytic tools will also be mentioned in this work. Analysis of BCG matrix BCG Matrix is developed by Bruce Henderson of the Boston Consulting Group in the year of 1968 (BCG, 2012). It is one of the Portfolio analyses. It is used to determine high or low performers of businesses or products depending upon their market growth rate and relative market share. The idea behind this Matrix is that higher market share or a better market grows of the product is better for the organization. There are four categories in BCG Matrix, which are Stars, Cash cow, Question mark, and Dogs (Philip.K, et al., 2008). Furthermore, horizontal axis is given for relative market share position and vertical axis for industry growth rate (Philip.K, et al., 2008). Planners are to classify their products or businesses into the four categories according to their position on the matrix. It provides a framework for analysis and comparison of products or businesses for multinational companies with diverse products. The advantages of using BCG Matrix are to have the ability to prioritise a business or product portfolio; it is to know what products are doing well and what are not performing. It provides a useful insight into the potential opportunities and problems associated with a particular product. It is often a convenient graphical form that is easily understood by the staffs who are the decision makers. In appendix A, it takes Nestle company (table 1.0) as an example, prepared dishes and cooking aids, PetCare and confectionery would be classed as Cash cow; beverage products would be a star; whereas pharmaceutical products as Question mark. Water products are most likely to be classed as a Dog. The BCG matrix is linked to the Product life cycle. Introduction, growth, maturity and decline, it represents Question marks, Stars, Cash cows and dogs in the BCG matrix respectively. Referring back to the table 1.0, it shows that PetCare and Confectionery products are at the late maturity period in the Product life cycle. Therefore, Nestle must come out with new and better ideas, in order to prevent or slow down the product from further decline in sales, or perhaps becoming a Dog. However, it is expected that different product will have different life cycle. Therefore, some stars with short life cycle will be better to harvest rather than to commit further investment (Graeme. D and John. E, 2007). In a multinational company, it is essential for its products to have high and low growth rate, such as stars to assure future of the company, cash cows that supply money for further growth, and converting question marks into stars. It is because a balanced product portfolio will maximize organisation revenue. As mentioned by Bruce Henderson Only a diversified company with a balanced portfolio can use its strengths to capitalize on growth opportunities(BCG.P, 2010). The benefits of high growth products include high return at the cost of wide ranging resource to market. For low growth rate products, its benefits are customers familiarity with the product, thu s, lesser cost for marketing and a constant source of revenue. With the help of BCG matrix, it can be identified how organization cash resources can be used to maximize a companys future growth and profitability. It provides the criteria for determining which products or business one should invest in, hold, harvest, or divest. However, the BCG matrix is only useful to a certain extent, and its limitation makes it increasingly less accurate. The BCG matrix was created in 1970s; therefore, it is expected to be less accurate in the current society especially during periodic recession (Blythe, 2006). The situation in the current business market is much more complicated than before.The model of BCG matrix discouraged organizations to invest in businesses with a less than 10% growth rate in a year. During the hard time, many companies will not have a growth of 10%.Thus, it is not accurate to rely on BCG matrix during an economic downturn; it might create confusion in the companys direction. The connection between market share and profitability is argu able because sometimes low share businesses can be profitable too and vice versa (Babette Craig, 2012). As mention by experts, the markets are difficult to determine with a huge amount of overlaps and complex segmentation (Macmillan. H, 2000). There are many portfolios in real businesses consist of a high percentage of dog businesses and few star businesses (Macmillan. H, 2000). Thus, portfolio analysis is criticized for offering little help in these circumstances. Growth rate and market share are only one aspect of industry attractiveness and overall competitive position respectively. The market definition and measurement are not perfect as there are some problems faced (Wensley. R, 1981). Hence, poor definition of business market might lead to some misclassification, such as dogs, becoming cash cows. Moreover, the matrix mainly focuses on investment in current products of a company. Thus, it might neglect alternative investment such as setting new product lines or investing in ne w technology, which could be better than investing in current products or services. The matrix also ignores the potential competitive responses. When an organization tried to build their market shares and support growth, it is likely to get responses from the competitors as retaliation (Blythe, 2006). Furthermore, it is too simplistic and general just to use high and low to form four categories, which lead to a low accuracy analysis. In addition, the matrix is based on cash revenue, whereby profit should be a better phrase to use as it means the financial gain after all the deduction of expense from the revenue. General electric (GE) matrix developed by Mckinsey is a similar matrix that overcomes some of the disadvantage of BCG matrix. It uses market attractiveness instead of market growth rate which included a broader range of factors compare to growth rate. It also replaced market share into competitive strength which assessed each SBU with competitive positioning (Kozami,2002). H owever, this paper will not go into the details of GE matrix due to the words constraint. According to an article by Hiram and Clyde on portfolio analysis, they added three categories to the matrix, such as infants, war horses and dodos, to get a better coverage of the business society during recession. War horses represent a cash cow in a declining market. The veteran products in an organization are things which hold a strong market position. It is used to prevent an organization from eliminating a veteran product during a recession as it is always just a temporary phenomenon (Hiram Clyde, 1982). Dodos represent products that have little potential for growing and low shares in declining markets (Hiram Clyde, 1982). It is added into the matrix because it will enable the company to make an early decision in withdrawing or removing such products so as to improve the chance of selling the assets of such business. The authors categorized new innovative products to be infants (Hiram Clyde, 1982). Most of the time, infant products do not generate any profit to the company at the introduction period and may even have a negative cash flow. Thus, it is important to point out the new innovative products before they are treated as a dog or question mark. With the obvious limitations of BCG Matrix, it is not recommended to use the matrix alone. It is a portfolio analysis tool which focuses on the internal of an organization. Thus, it is always best to use with external analysis tools such as SWOT. SWOT will look at matters like the strength and weakness of the company, and the opportunities and threats that might occur. It is used to measure the degree of strategic fit between the organization and its environment. As a combination with BCG matrix, BCG matrix will focus on the internal factors and SWOT will be focusing on the external factors. Therefore, the O T of SWOT will mainly suggest using alongside with BCG matrix. For example, with the O T, the organization can recognise the opportunities and threats in Nestle such as an increase in health conscious society (PRweb, 2012) provide a huge opportunity for Nestle to produce more health care products and raw ingredient prices for chocolate production are increasing will affect the profit margin as threat (Christopher, 2011). If only BCG matrix is used, the planners will miss the external factors like the society or raw materials pricing which might cause problems to the organization. According to experts, it mentioned that a mixture of two or more analysis tools is recommended for a holistic view of strategic scenario (Wind, et al, 1983). Therefore, it is essential for an organization to capture the internal and external factors with appropriate marketing analytic tools to strengthen the company performance. Conclusion This paper focused on the analysis of BCG matrix. It evaluated the usefulness and weakness of the model. Recommendations had also been advised for further enhancement of the usefulness of the model. Although BCG Matrix has a number of limitations, it is still one of the most popular portfolio planning tools used by big companies with diverse products. It can measure the growth rate and relative market share of each sector in a table form. The table shows a clear understanding on how an organization is performing. With a simple and clear understanding, the company can develop strategies to deal with the sectors, and achieve the organizations aimed goals and objectives. It is also useful for small businesses to survey the companys market share and growth, in relation to relative market to see how products are performing. Lastly, BCG Matrix is not a tool to replace management decision or vision. It is a tool to help managers or planners evaluate their strategy alternatives together with other analysis tools, such as SWOT. It is a tool with flaws, but still suffices to be a good tool for portfolio analysis. References Ansoff, Igor, 1990. Implanting Strategic Management. 2nd ed. New York: Prentice Hall . Babette, E, 2012. Analysis Without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Financial Times. BCG. 2012. BCG History. [Online] Available at: http://www.bcg.com/about_bcg/history/history_1968.aspx. [Accessed 04 November 12]. BCG. Perspectives. 2012. The product portfolio. [Online] Available at: https://www.bcgperspectives.com/content/Classics/strategy_the_product_portfolio/. [Accessed 05 November 12]. Blythe, Jim, 2006. Principles Practice of Marketing. 1st ed. London: Thomson learning. Christopher Adams . 2011. Chocolate lovers face price rise as ingredients soar. [Online] Available at: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3objectid=10701792. [Accessed 22 November 12]. Graeme, Drummond, and John Ensor, 2007. Strategic Marketing: Planning and Control. 3rd ed. Oxford: A Butterworth-Heinemann Title. Hiram, Barksdale and Clyde E. Harris,Jr., 1982. Portfolio analysis and the product life cycle. Long range planning, [Online]. 15(6), 74-83. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MiamiImageURL_cid=271874_user=7229486_pii=0024630182900103_check=y_origin=article_zone=toolbar_coverDate=31-Dec-1982view=coriginContentFamily=serialwchp=dGLbVlt-zSkWzmd5=a00811c63fcac0a92dbec6cd66a1ece0pid=1-s2.0-0024630182900103-main.pdfsqtrkid=0.3659638183921414 [Accessed 23 November 2012]. Kozami, Azhar, 2002. Business Policy and Strategic Management. 2nd ed. India: Tata McGraw-Hill. Macmillan, Hugh, 2000. Strategic management: process, content, and implementation. 1st ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nestle. 2010. 2010 Annual Report. [Online] Available at: http://www.nestle.com/Common/NestleDocuments/Documents/Library/Documents/Annual_Reports/2010-Annual-Report-EN.pdf. [Accessed 03 November 12]. Nestle. 2011. 2011 Annual Report. [Online] Available at: http://www.nestle.com/Common/NestleDocuments/Documents/Library/Documents/Annual_Reports/2011-Annual-Report-EN.pdf. [Accessed 03 November 12]. Philip Kotler,Gary Armstrong, Veronica Wong and John Saunders, 2008. Principles of marketing. 5th ed. Italy: Pearson Education. PRWeb. 2012. Yahoo news. [Online] Available at: http://news.yahoo.com/increasing-popularity-growing-health-consciousness-fuel-growth-global-130305822.html. [Accessed 22 November 12]. Wensley, Robin, 1994. Making better decisions: The challenge of marketing strategy techniques. International Journal of Research in Marketing, [Online]. 11/1, pp85-90. Available at: http://www.sciencedirect.com.libproxy.ncl.ac.uk/science/article/pii/0167811694900361 [Accessed 04 November 2012]. Wind, Young, Mahajan, Vijay and Donald, Swire., 1983. An Empirical Comparison of Standardized Portfolio Models. Journal of Marketing, [Online]. 47(2), pp89-99. Available at: http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=247ec63a-e348-45c1-a7b8-e1819fa6169a%40sessionmgr11vid=2hid=21 [Accessed 22 November 2012].

Comparison of Kate Chopins Story of an Hour and William Faulkners A R

Historically, women have been treated as second class citizens. The Napoleonic Code stated that women were controlled by their husbands and cannot freely do their own will without the authority of their husband. This paper shows how this is evident in the "Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin and " A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner. In both stories, the use of literary elements such as foreshadowing, symbolism, and significant meaning of the titles are essential in bringing the reader to an unexpected and ironic conclusion. The background of both authors, which was from the South, we can conclude how they could described the situations that they faced such as political and social presumptions problems especially for women at that time. The story explains how Chopin wrote how women were to be "seen but not heard". "The wife cannot plead in her own name, without the authority of her husband, even though she should be a public trader, or noncommunicant, or separate in property." (Kreis 1) This is one of the Code Napoleon that shows women have no right and position at that time. However after World War II, most of the men were going to war and left the women, who make them finally, could get their freedom to do anything or their own because they have to do it to survive. Chopin's stories seem very modern in different ways even though it was written about two hundred years ago. Chopin says that it "..does not always find that marriage necessarily requires that a wife be dominated by their husband,.."(Oklopcic 19) and she was trying to show that women can get along just fine without having man interfere. The story represents a disdain for the way women are treated in some relationships and in society as well. "Her concern w... ...usual life such as Emily who turned into a murderer, killing her own boyfriend and Louise Mallard dead after living her "real life" for one hour, feels her feeling free from repression during her husband death and finally died of heart disease when she knew that her husband is alive. Works Cited Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Heritage of American Literature. Ed. James E. Miller. Vol. 2. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanich, 1991. 487. Print. Faulkner, William. â€Å"A Rose For Emily.† An Introduction to Fiction. 10th ed. Eds: X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. New Yorkk: Pearson Longman, 2007. 29-34. Kreis, S. (2001). The History Guide. Lectures on Modern European Intellectual History: The Code Napoleon. 15 July, 2010, http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/code_nap.html Oklopcic, Biljana. Faulkner and the Native Keystone: Reading (Beyond) the American South

What Role do Unconscious Factors Play in the Experience of Organisational Life, and how can Workers’ Appreciation of these Factors Lead to better Outcomes for Users?

1. Introduction The following essay considers the role that unconscious factors play in organisational life, and looks at the extent to which awareness of these factors amongst workers can improve outcomes for users. The idea is considered both in relation to appropriate literature and also in relation to my own experience of a social work organisation, the placement I experienced in a children’s home. The ways in which social work practice can be oppressive and anti-oppressive, and the impact of both of these for the user, are also explored. My interest in this area has been informed by my experience in a care home for children (Adeza) as a student social worker. I worked with a wide range of client groups including children (and their families) under stress, children (and their families with mental health problems, children at risk and children with physical and mental disabilities. I had a wide range of duties including administrative functions, advising clients and supporting children in a variety of ways. I became aware of the ways in which unconscious attitudes can impact upon the way clients and other staff are treated through a phenomenon I later learned was called projection, that is, the psychological mechanism whereby worries and fears about oneself are seen as present in other people, and demonised. For example, some clients had internalised a set of notions about being inadequate parents, which were then projected onto staff at the home, in a variety of ways. 2. The Notion of the Unconscious Understanding human needs, wants and motivations is a central part not only of organizational theory but also of human psychology generally. Various theories have been proposed to explain the variety of behaviours which characterise human beings, for example behaviourism, which reduces the role of the ‘mental’ and looks at human actions in terms of stimulus and response (Baran and Davis 2011), and Weber’s idea of work as salvation (Nelson and Quick 2010). However, the notion of the unconscious has been widely influential, and derives from work by Freud in the late 19th and early 20th Century.The idea is situated in the wider set of notions developed by Freud called psychoanalysis.Central to Freud’s idea is the notion that â€Å"powerful unconscious drives, mostly sexual and aggressive†¦ motivate human behaviour and put people in conflict with social reality† (Saiyadain 2003, p. 32).For Freud, the unconscious is that of which we are unaware, but which can manifest itself through thoughts and behaviours. He separated out three levels of consciousness: The conscious (everything one is aware of) The preconscious (things one is not aware of, but which could be brought to consciousness through effort of will) The unconscious (that of which one is unaware, and which one is normally powerless to bring to conscious awareness) The unconscious includes desires, buried memories, desires and needs. Individuals can be motivated by unconscious forces, which make themselves manifest through behaviour, thoughts, feelings and words. Freud believed therapeutic work could be done by uncovering these unconscious forces and making the individual aware of their deeper motivations through a process of psychoanalysis (McKenna 2000). Freud suggested a number of ways in which the contents of the unconscious work to influence human behaviour. These include regression, repression, sublimation and projection. Regression is the phenomenon whereby people return to earlier behaviour patterns (for example a stutter), repression means the ways in which unpleasant emotions are blocked from conscious awareness, sublimation denotes the way in which impulses (perhaps aggressive) which are unacceptable to the conscious mind are channelled into another activity, for example devotion to work or sport, while projection means the mechanism whereby thoughts or feelings which are not acceptable to the conscious mind are attributed to someone else (finding them lazy, for example) (Saiyadain 2003). Intuitively, and based on my experience in my placement, I feel that there is evidence for the existence of the unconscious. For example, I have seen adolescent children regress to an earlier stage, displaying bed wetting and thumb sucking for example, particularly at times of great stress. However, Freud’s ideas have been subject to an intense critique, particularly that there is a lack of empirical evidence for them (Hersen and Thomas 2006). Additionally, it has been pointed out that the idea of the unconscious lacks predictive power: although it can function as a good explanation of behaviour, it cannot indicate how people will behave in the future (Abbott 2001). I can see that these are valid criticisms: however, as the next sections show, I feel the concept of the unconscious and its mechanisms invaluable in understanding people better, which I feel is a necessary part of delivering the person-centred care that is a key part of social care in the 21st Century (Joseph Row ntree Foundation 2011). 3. The Unconscious and Organisational Life As well as being widely influential (though much debated) in psychology generally, the concept of the unconscious and its mechanisms has been incorporated into theories of organisational life. The key element to the idea of the unconscious is the notion that â€Å"much of the rational and taken-for-granted reality of everyday life expresses preoccupations and concerns that lie beneath the reality of conscious awareness† (Morgan 1998, p. 186). It follows that organisational theories need to take account of the hidden dynamics which influence the workplace. In addition, it has been suggested that theorists of organisational behaviour have been influenced by unconscious forces such as repression. Morgan 1998, for example, suggests that Taylor’s model of ‘scientific’ and rational management might have been rooted in his puritan background with strong routines and work ethic. Morgan also suggests that the predominant bureaucracy of modern work places might be a function of repression. Worker’s reactions to these types of workplace will depend upon their own mechanisms of regression. In other workplaces, organisational culture can often by dominated by self-centred attempts at wrestling control from others, or the playing out of â€Å"a phallic-narcissistic ethos† (Morgan 1998, p. 192) within the workplace. Often, the workplace might reproduce the traditional patriarchal family, with a dominant style associated with ‘male’ qualities of aggression, ambition and rigid rules. One unconscious mechanism which I was particularly aware of in my placement was projection.In this, workers deal with internal turmoil by attributing the key elements of what is bothering them to someone else rather than themselves. For example, in an organisation, poor results might be blamed by one group (managers) on ground-level staff, and vice-versa (Rashid 1983). Projection has been succinctly defined as the â€Å"attribution of one’s own attitudes and beliefs onto others† (Borkowski 2009, p. 56). In order to avoid feelings of guilt or excess anxiety, workers might see their co-workers as possessing the qualities they most dislike in themselves (Borkowski 2009). While it allows the person doing the projecting to protect their self-esteem, the mechanism whereby co-workers, for example, are blamed for putting a person in a bad mood, are damaging to organisational efficiency (Borkowski 2009). It can lead to stereotyping and, through this, to oppressive working metho ds. stereotyping is a way of organising experience by applying common traits to certain groups of people (the elderly, ethnic minorities, children). While it allows abstract thought to take place more easily, it can lead to the association of negative traits with particular groups. Projection seems to be at work in stereotyping, whereby a group is seen to possess negative characteristics not held by the person ascribing the characteristics. It has been shown that these mechanisms can lead to worse health and social care for certain groups seen as ‘the other’ (Borkowski 2009). One example is that people working with abused children can be marginalised and rendered invisible, as society as a whole does not want to admit that such abuse exists. Nurses are also often forced to bear the brunt of negative projections from service users and other professionals. In addition, social work in general often suffers, as its existence underlines the presence of vulnerable and needy p eople, mortality and other key issues. These all evoke deep and complex feelings in others, and workers in these professions often bear the weight of others negative expectations, â€Å"issues of dependency, aggression and sexuality† Yelloly and Henkel 1995, p. 195). Within social work, it has been acknowledged that certain forms of practice can be oppressive, particularly to service users but also to other workers. Anti-oppressive practice works to overturn ways of working which marginalise, scapegoat and downplay the people who they work for, both on a personal and micro- level, and at a wider social level. While anti-oppressive practice covers a wide range of activities, becoming aware of the extent to which people are marginalised through unconscious mechanisms such as projection is one key part (Balloch and Hill 2007). Becoming aware of the extent to which negative characteristics are projected onto others, either individuals or groups, is a central step in moving away from oppression. Today, immigrant groups can find themselves scapegoated for the wider problems of society, for example, both by individuals and by political groups (Shulman 2008). Anti oppressive practice offers a way for projection, stereotyping and discrimination to be co mbated in the workplace, through an attitude of criticality and reflection upon situations in the workplace. The process of uncovering oppression can be likened to that of becoming aware of unconscious processes, as well as uncovering motivations which derive from unexamined unconscious attitudes and mechanisms (Heenan 2011). 4. Understanding the Unconscious and Improved User Outcomes The ways in which the unconscious operates in the organisational context, the negative impact it can have, and the opportunities it presents for ultimately improving user outcomes is illustrated by my experience working in a children’s home.I have concentrated above on the phenomenon of projection, because this was the unconscious mechanism which most appeared to be in existence during my placement. One child with whom I worked, supporting to live independently after care, would frequently express the opinion that the women staff with whom she came into contact were ‘useless’, were over-emotional, and were not as effective as male staff. I used to find this frustrating, particularly as she was female herself, until I put her case into the context of her background. One of a family of girls, with whom her mother was unable to cope, she had internalised negative feelings about women, developed a androgenous, tomboy-ish appearance herself, and projected doubts and fe ars about herself onto female staff. There are also discusses two related unconscious mechanisms (first identified by Melanie Klein), splitting and projective identification, both of which I experienced during my placement.Splitting often occurs in groups, and refers to the process whereby a situation is polarised and seen as ‘black’ and ‘white’, that is, with ‘good’ and ‘bad’ elements. It happens when people are unable to tolerate ambiguity (Zachar 2000). I saw this in group discussions between staff, when one manager who took a fairly strict line to discipline and adherence to regulations was demonised by staff informally after meetings. I felt (perhaps because I was an outsider) that although she might have expressed her ideas better, there was a great deal of sound advice in what she said. However, others seemed unable to see this, preferring to make her a ‘scapegoat’ for everything they disliked about the experience of working in the care home. I also saw this situation improve when a higher manager called a meeting in which we discussed communication styles used within the home.I also saw projective identification, where people unconsciously identify with another person or group, with one staff member, who seemed to project feelings of her own vulnerability (she had just gone through a difficult divorce) onto the female white children in our care. Her attitude towards this gender / ethnic group was markedly different, she would spend extra time with them, and buy small presents. I was present when this was noted by another staff member, who carefully suggested her experience might be leading to her favouritism. She took this suggestion very well, and her behaviour, I noticed, became fairer afterwards. 5. Conclusion There are some problems with the notion of the unconscious, particularly its lack of predictive power and lack of empirical evidence. However, in terms of my placement in a children’s care home, I have found it a useful way of understanding why people – both staff and clients – behave in the way they do. It also seems to offer a useful tool for moving towards an anti-oppressive practice. In my experience, if people are made aware of the ways in which unconscious mechanisms operate, they are better able to see their oppressive actions, better able to understand why they are acting as they do, and as a consequence able to change the way they behave in a way which is beneficial to clients. 6. References Abbott, T (2001) Social and personality development Routledge, UK Balloch, S and Hill, M J (2007) Care, community and citizenship: research and practice in a changing policy context, The Policy Press, Bristol. Baran, S J and Davis, D K (2011) Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future (6th edn.), Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA Borkowski, N (2009) Organizational behavior, theory, and design in health care, Jones & Bartlett Learning, USA Foster, A and Roberts, V Z (1998) Managing mental health in the community: chaos and containment, Routledge, UK Heenan, D (2011) Social Work in Northern Ireland: Conflict and Change, The Policy Press, Bristol. Joseph Rowntree Foundation (2011) ‘Transforming social care: sustaining person-centred support’, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK McKenna, E F (2000) Business psychology and organisational behaviour (3rd edn.), Psychology Press, UK Morgan, G (1998) Images of organization, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, California CA. Nelson, D L and Campbell, J (2010) Organizational Behavior: Science, the Real World, and You (7th edn.), Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA. Rashid, S A (1983) Organizational Behaviour, Taylor & Francis, UK Saiyadain, M S (2003) Organisational Behaviour,m Tata McGraw-Hill Education, India. Shulman, L (2008) The Skills of Helping Individuals, Families, Groups, and Communities (6th edn.), Cengage Learning, Belmont, CA. Thomas, J C (2006) Personality and everyday functioning, John Wiley and Sons, Hoboken, NJ. Yelloly, M and Henkel, M (1995) Learning and teaching in social work: towards reflective practice (2nd edn.), Jessica Kingsley Publishers, UK Zachar, P (2000) Psychological Concepts and Biological Psychiatry: A Philosophical Analysis, John Benjamins Publishing Company, USA

Preventive Priorities Survey 2014 Essay

In this article the author has written about a survey conducted by The Center for Preventive Action which is Preventive Priorities Survey (PPS) that assess the current and all the possible conflicts which can occur in the coming years of US and how they can influence U.S. interests . The purpose of PPS is to help the U.S. policymaking community primarily to prevent conflicts and all the incentives that can erupt a conflict . In the conflict preventive survey there are many possible sources of instability and conflict around the world that the United States should try to avoid. Predicting which conflicts are more likely to occur and can pose a greater threat to U.S. interests than others helps to decide where to focus attention and resources. PPS is a qualitative evaluation that uses the informed judgement of the experts to check all the possible threats and risks that can destroy US interests by erupting a conflict. To help the experts with their estimations and cope up with the situ ation , the survey offered general guidelines to check the relative probability and impact of potential contingencies which a US could face. These contingencies were categorized in different levels as high , moderate and low based on their chance of occurring and their intensity of impact on US interests. The PPS did not include the potential economic or financial crises or any natural calamity or environmental problems , PPS is primarily concerned with the discrete geopolitical contingencies .Also the PPS represents the expert’s opinion at the time the survey was conducted. Risk assessments can change rapidly and oftenly. The results, therefore, could be quite different after several months. There is a certain methodology to carry out this survey which the center for preventive actions performs in different stages of which first stage is soliciting the PPS contingencies in which CPA used a variety of social media platforms as well as its blog on CFR.org to seek suggestions for contingencies to include in the 2014 survey. With the help of the Council on Foreign Relations’, CPA extracted hundreds of suggestions into thirty contingencies considering both ,possibility to occur over the next twelve months and potentially harmful to U.S. interests. The nest stage was polling of experts in which the survey was sent to more than 1200 government officials ,foreign policy experts and academics to evaluate the likelihood and poteintial impact of each contingency on US inetrest  according to the definite criteria. Ultimately the most popular suggestions were included in the survey. Then comes the final stage that is categorizing the contingencies in which the survey results were uniformly scored and contingencies were sorted into one of three preventive priority tiers in accordance to their placement in the risk assessmemnt matrix. There are three tiers in assessing the contingencies in PPS . In Tier 1 Contingencies judged high preventive priorities for U.S. policymakers because in tier 1 those contingencies were included which had a severe impact on US interests and their chance to occur was moderate like the Syrian civil war ,a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure ,threat of military strikes against Iran , a mass casualty terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland ,a severe North Korean crisis caused by a military provocation, internal political instability, or threatening nuclear weapons/ ICBM-related activities. Then comes the contingencies which had moderate impact but high likelihood such as growing violence and instability in Afghanistan resulting from the drawdown of coalition forces and/or contested national elections ,increasing internal violence and political instability in Pakistan ,strengthening of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula resulting from continued political instability in Yemen and/or backlash from U.S. counterterrorism operations , civil war in Iraq ,growing political instability and civil violence in Jordan triggered by spillover from the Syrian civil war. In Tier 2 Contingencies judged mid-level preventive priorities for U.S. policymakers as those contingencies are includedin tier 2 which had moderate effects and moderate chance to occur such as deterioration of the political situation in Egypt, increased sectarian violence and political instability in Lebanon ,continuing conflict in Somalia, political instability and growing militancy in Libya ,drug-related violence in Mexico, a severe Indo-Pakistani military confrontation due to Kashmir. Also there were contingencies which had high impact and low likelihood which are an armed confrontation in the East China Sea between China and Japan ,an armed confrontation in the South China Sea between China and Southeast Asian plaintiff to disputed mari- time areas. It also includes contingencies with low effect on US and high likelihood of occurrence like increasing sectarian violence and political instability in Nigeria ,violence and risk of mass killing in the Central African Republic . In Tier 3 Contingencies judged low preventive priorities for U.S.  policymakers as it included those contingencies which had moderate effect on US interests and their chance of occurrence was low such as a Sino-Indian clash .it also included contingencies with low impact and moderate likelihood which were destabilization of Mali, growing popular unrest and political instability in Sudan , military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan due to border resource disputes ,conflict in the Kurdish- dominated regions of Turkey and the Middle East , growing violence in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo , internal violence in Bangladesh surrounding the general elections. Tier 3 also included contingencies with low impact and low likelihood such as political crisis in Venezuela leading to civil violence and potential regional instability , an outbreak of military conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan . So this survey played a vital role to find out and take preventive measures for all t he current and upcoming conflicts which could have any adverse effect on US interests. This survey helped the experts to assess the contingencies and suggest those to CPA which could adversely influence US so the policymakers then worked according to the intensity of the contingencies suggested . PPS is very helpful for the center of preventive action to check the impact and likelihood of the contingencies which could occur and they carried out all their activities according to the strength of the contingencies which they measured on the risk assessing matrix and placed them in different tiers and took precautionary measures to protect the US interests and security.