Business Research Ethics Essay

  Joseph J.C. DiCarlo was found guilty of embezzling $40,000 from a consulting firm in New York for suppressing a legislative report. This report unfavorably criticized the firm’s construction contracts. Joseph J.C. DiCarlo already had a tarnished reputation of a corrupt official, and unethical practices. Based on Josephs actions the state senators were the affected parties in this case study. As Joseph was found guilty the state senators at that time felt relieved that a person with his unethical practices would no longer have the power entrusted in him. The manner in which DiCarlo extorted money for the construction of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, and tried to sabotage a legislative report was all for personal gain. Joseph was voted in to seat by the public and entrusted to make ethical actions that would be in the best interest of the organization and the public. This case study, shows how greed and selfishness played a major role in the choices DiCarlo made , he however did not for see the investigation that led to his conviction. This conviction put an end to his career and was expelled as a senate in 1977. Although Joseph DiCarlo sealed his own fate, his actions were illegal, and unethical. With such a thin line between what is unethical and illegal it is usually up to the organization or research firms to determine if any research or action is would be characterized as unethical or illegal. Most businesses or and organizations strive themselves to instil ethical practices to their employees, it is unfortunately that Joseph DiCarlo was placed in a seat of power where some of these practices are not followed by the people who put them in place. Some organizations go as far as conducting yearly or even monthly trainings, to keep employees up to date with current policies and procedures. In any case an organization conducts these trainings to protect themselves from any liability, due to the employee’s unethical practices. In this case Joseph’s unethical practices resulted in his conviction, and liability to pay fines based on his actions. His unethical actions resulted in a $5,000 fine and one year in prison. Although, he did steal $40,000, but only paid back $5,000, the University of Massachusetts students.

Production Manager Essay

Dawn’s Train of Thought Process Chart Activity Thought 1. Before Meeting the Sales Representative i. Objective of Meeting: to discuss whether it is best to buy additional equipment accessories. ii. What will the boss might say about if I decide to buy or not to buy? iii. I never made mistake in buying the equipment maybe my boss will trust me whatever I decide on the meeting. 2. Meeting the Sales Representative – Video Presentation. i. He looks ready, maybe he has a good point. ii. Okay, he comes prepared with the video. iii. The points are okay, but do I need that right now? iv. Maybe it is expensive, just by the look at the video. 3. After the Video i. How much will that cost us? ii. Okay, it seems a good cost-benefit offer. iii. But what will my boss think of me if I decide to buy? iv. I just bought this equipment. Can I justify it? v. Okay, I’ll take risk anyway benefits outweigh the cost. vi. I’ll just explain to the boss. vii. Okay, I will get and buy that accessory. What factors would have led Dawn to come to a different decision? Here are the factors that could have altered Dawn’s decision: (i) The Sales Representative is late; (2) The boss is not satisfied with the current equipment; (3) The company is under cost-pressure; (4) The boss and Dawn is not in a good relationship; (5) The Sales representative is not well dressed; (6) The Sales representative did not prepare a flashy video; and (6) The Sales Representative could not justify the cost versus benefits. Activity Thought 1. Before Meeting the Sales Representative i. Objective of Meeting: to discuss whether it is best to buy additional equipment accessories. ii. What will the boss might say about if I decide to buy when the equipment is not achieving its purpose. iii. How can I face the boss, this might be another wrong decision to add-up with our current status. 2. Meeting the Sales Representative – Video Presentation. i. He’s late. I have many things to do. ii. The video is lame. I have much better things to do. iii. I don’t think we need it at all.    3. After the Video    In this case, even before the meeting, Dawn has already stopped thinking whether to buy or not to buy because in the middle of the meeting he has already decided. What do you believe are the implications of `framing` on our judgments and on our attempts to influence others? Are there moral considerations? Why or why not? Manufacturing, business, even life and death decisions depends on how information is framed. However there is supposedly no problem with framing because it provides us confidence to convince people to buy, to believe, to be happy or to be sad, as long as our ulterior motive is good. Framing itself is not the problem—every piece of information communicated requires a frame to convey message clearly. The problem is a larger social issue which is usually done by the government, corporation, and individuals who want to deceive people in believing something else. Example, in the medical industry, hospitals or doctors might release statements that are framed in such a way to fool people. A few years ago, British women were informed that the use of the contraceptive pill leads to a 2-fold increase in the risk of thrombo-embolism. Many stopped taking the pill, which resulted in unwanted pregnancies and abortions. If the official statement had instead been that the pill increases the risk from 1 to 2 in 14,000 women, few women would have been scared. The problem here is that it framed in a general statement not showing any evidence or numerical study results.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A lot of moral issues in these wrong framing incidents are happening everyday in our television. Media in their attempt to get higher rating tends to bubble a story and framed the headlines in such a way that people will be intrigue to watch. It often results to a different decision and perception of things aside from that which is supposed to be true. REFERENCE LIST    Frege, G. The Thought: A Logical Inquiry. Mind, New Series, Vol. 65, No. 259. July, 1956. October 10, 2008. From http://links.jstor.org Gigerenzer, Gerd, MD. ( ) Why Does Framing Influence Judgment? Journal of   Ã‚  General Internal Medicine, Volume 18, Issue 11. October 10, 2008 from   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   < http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgibin/fulltext/118885195/PDFSTART> Rieber R. (Interviewer). Dialogues on the Psychology of Language and Thought Plenum (Transcript]. 1983. Schweighardt, C. Thought Process Map for Six Sigma: What, Why and How. Isixsigma Website. 2000. October 10, 2008.

Information Technology on Individuals, Organizations and Societies

Part VI Implementing and Managing IT 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. Chapter 17 IT Strategy and Planning Information Technology Economics Acquiring IT Applications and Infrastructure Security Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society Movie Piracy Learning Objectives 17. 1 Perspectives on IT Impacts 17. 2 IT Is Eliminating the Barriers of Time, After studying this chapter, you will be able to: Space, and Distance Understand the changes that take place in the workplace and the lives of individuals when information technology eliminates geographical and spatial barriers.Describe some of the major impacts of information technology on individuals, organizations, and society. 17. 3 Information Is Changing from a Scarce Resource to an Abundant Resource Discuss the positive and negative effects associated with the abundance of information made available by IT. 17. 4 Machines Are Performing Functions Identify the issues that arise du e to uneven diffusion of information technology across countries and socioeconomic classes. Previously Performed by Humans 17. 5 Information Technology Urges People to Reexamine Their Value Systems Understand the complexity of effects of technological rogress on labor markets and individual employees. 17. 6 Conclusion 17. 7 Managerial Issues Discuss the impacts of information technology on the quality of life and interpersonal relationships. Recognize the legal, ethical, and moral issues that become particularly critical due to proliferation of information technology. Minicases: 1. Megachurches 2. RFID for Consumer Products Integrating IT ACC FIN MKT POM HRM IS SVC 663 MOVIE PIRACY The Problem Generations of moviegoers went to movie theaters to enjoy the latest films. They accepted the idea of paying for their movies. However, movie piracy, which has been reatly accelerated by information technology, is challenging this notion. Now, movie pirates are bringing the latest motion pictu re releases to an Internet-connected computer near you. For years, movie studios suffered minor losses due to high-tech piracy (theft of digital content) that was carried out by people duplicating videotapes and DVDs. The need to produce and distribute physical media presented a number of technical and logistical difficulties for movie pirates, which limited the scope of their operations. Thus, picture studios largely ignored these activities. When Napster. com and other sites began to se the Web and peer-to-peer technologies to share pirated music, movie producers felt reasonably immune to this trend. After all, it would take more than a week to download a 5-gigabyte DVD-quality movie using a 56-kilobits-per-second modem. Some individuals argue that piracy does not hurt film studios but, rather, makes movies available to those people who would not be able to enjoy them otherwise. Information technology that enables movie piracy raises a number of significant issues, such as intelle ctual property rights, fair use, and the role of government in regulating these issues.Furthermore, information technology makes it easier than ever to cross national borders, adding international implications to the issue of movie piracy. The Solution To deal with movie piracy, picture studio executives attacked several aspects of the problem simultaneously. First, media companies tried to shape public opinion in a way that would discourage movie piracy. For instance, to raise public awareness of the issue, filmmakers launched an advertising campaign with the slogan â€Å"Movies. They’re worth it. † Second, the movie industry performed a number of ctivities that made it more difficult to copy and distribute pirated movies without being noticed. For instance, 664 enhanced physical security at movie theaters, which may include the use of metal detectors and physical searches for recording devices, helps the film industry deter piracy at â€Å"sneak previews† and movie premieres (Ripley, 2004). Technology plays an important part in this process. The Results Hollywood had several high-profile wins in its fight against Internet movie piracy in 2005 and 2006. The film industry’s trade organization, the Motion PictureAssociation of America (MPAA), slapped hundreds of people with lawsuits for illegally downloading and trading films online. The U. S. departments of Justice and Homeland Security shut down Elite Torrents, a popular Web site that spread copies of Star Wars: Episode III— Revenge of the Sith before the movie officially opened. Even Bram Cohen, creator of BitTorrent (a peer-to-peer file-sharing program responsible for an estimated 65% of illegal movie downloads in 2005), agreed to cut links to MPAA-pirated content off his Web site (Leung, 2006). Yet the problem seems to be getting worse.According to London-based research firm Informa, illegal movie downloads cost the industry U. S. $985 million in 2005, up from U. S. $860 million in 2004. Growing access to broadband likely played a role, as higher Internet speeds made downloading large movie files faster. Studio executives realize that enforcement is only part of the solution. As in the music industry, many believe the best way to prevent illegal downloads is to offer legal alternatives. Warner Bros. turned a technology used by Internet movie pirates to its advantage. In March 2006, in Germany, Austria, and parts of Switzerland, the company aunched In2Movies, a peer-to-peer file-sharing network that lets users download movies for the price of a DVD or less. Kevin Tsujihara, the president of the Warner Bros. ’ home entertainment group, said Germany has all the right ingredients for such a service: high rates of piracy due to high levels of broadband penetration, a tech-savvy population, and consumers willing to pay for downloaded movies. Sources: Compiled from Leung (2006) and Ripley (2004). Lessons Learned from This Case Obviously, information technology is not the cause of movie piracy, just as it is not the cause of music iracy. (See Online File W17. 1 for a discussion of music piracy. ) However, it is the tool that tremendously heightens the importance of legal, ethical, and regulatory issues related to this phenomenon. Copyright, trademark, and patent infringement, freedom of thought and speech, theft of property, and 17. 1 fraud are not new issues in modern societies. However, as this opening case illustrates, information technology adds to the scope and scale of these issues. It also raises a number of questions about what constitutes illegal behavior versus unethical, intrusive, or undesirable behavior.This chapter examines these and numerous other impacts of information technology on individuals, organizations, and society. Perspectives on IT Impacts Concern about the impact of technology on people, organizations, and society is not new. As early as the 1830s, English intellectuals expressed philosophical argumen ts about the effects of technologies that had given rise to the Industrial Revolution some 60 to 70 years earlier. Samuel Butler, in his 1872 book Erehwon (an anagram for nowhere), summarized the anxiety about the disruptive influences of technology on the lives of people.The book described a society that made a conscious decision to reject machines and new technology; in it, people have â€Å"frozen† technology at a predetermined level and outlawed all further technological development. While there are many philosophical, technological, social, and cultural differences between society at the start of the Industrial Revolution and the society of the middle of the Information Age in which we now live, there are, nevertheless, people who continue to believe that humankind is threatened by the evolution of technology. Overall, however, our society has not rejected technology but, rather, has embraced it.Most of us recognize that technology and information systems are essential t o maintaining, supporting, and enriching many aspects of the lives of individuals, operations of organizations, and functioning of societies. Humans are involved in a symbiotic relationship with technology. All the same, we must be aware of its effect on us as individuals and as members of organizations and society. Throughout this book, we have noted how information systems are being rationalized, developed, used, and maintained to help organizations meet their needs and reach their goals.In all these discussions, we have assumed that development and implementation of information technology produce only positive results and leave no major negative consequences. However, is this really true? Abundant evidence unmistakably points to potential negative effects of technology in general, and information technology in particular. Information technology has raised a multitude of negative issues, ranging from illegal copying of software programs to surveillance of employees’ e-mail. The impact of IT on employment levels is of major concern, as are the effects on sociability and the quality of life. A more critical issue, however, involves questions such as: Will proliferation of technology cause irreversible changes to the society as we know it? Will humans benefit from the new capabilities of information technology, or will they be harmed by machines playing more and more prominent roles in the society? Who will investigate the costs and risks of technologies? Will society have any control over the decisions to deploy technology? 665 666Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society This chapter will discuss several major themes that can be identified among the countless effects of information technology. We will discuss how information technology removes spatial and geographic barriers, transforms information into an abundant resource, enables machines to perform â€Å"human† tasks, and forces people to reconsider their value syste ms. Each of these trends is comprised of the effects of multiple technologies and has far-reaching implications for various groups of people. 17. 2 IT Is Eliminating the Barriers of Time, Space, and DistanceOne of the most noticeable developments precipitated by information technology is the elimination of numerous barriers that traditionally separated individuals, organizations, and societies at different geographic locations. In essence, information technology is redefining the entire concept of time, space, and distance. Proliferation of high-speed data communication networks that span the globe enables companies to integrate geographically distant manufacturing and research facilities, link international financial markets, and even provide customer service from halfway around the world.GLOBALIZATION Offshore outsourcing is one of the manifestations of the trend toward globalization— blurring of geographic barriers—that is accelerated by information technology. Well -educated English-speaking employees residing in countries like India and the Philippines can perform services demanded by firms based in the United States, Great Britain, or any other country. In fact, outsourcing of white-collar services has already become mainstream, with software development and call-center operations being among the most prevalent.Furthermore, the outsourcing trends are naturally expanding into such activities as processing of insurance claims, transcription of medical records, engineering and design work, financial analysis, market research, and many others (â€Å"The Remote Future,† 2004). From a macroeconomic perspective, the effects of offshore outsourcing are quite positive: It facilitates a more efficient allocation of human resources by removing the imperfections introduced by geographical boundaries. On a microeconomic level, numerous companies will benefit from lower costs of outsourced activities.For example, by outsourcing back-office work to Costa Rica, the Philippines, and Great Britain, Procter & Gamble was able to realize $1 billion in cost reductions (La Londe, 2004). Nevertheless, outsourcing, as any other impact of information technology, raises an array of complex interrelated issues that are not always positive. For instance, outsourcing may be advantageous to some groups of people, but detrimental to others. Nasscom, the Indian IT industry lobby, forecasts that employment in the â€Å"ITenabled services† industry in India will grow from 770,000 in 2004 to 2 million in 2008 (â€Å"The Remote Future,† 2004).Yet, employees and trade unions in Western nations are expressing concerns about job losses resulting from offshore outsourcing. The U. S. federal government and the majority of individual states are already considering laws that would prevent government agencies from contracting their services out to foreign firms (Schroeder, 2004). As the volume of sensitive data processed offshore increases, o utsourcing will raise the questions of privacy and confidentiality.Privacy standards in a country where data originate may vary dramatically from the privacy laws and privacy safeguards in the country where the data are processed. An incident in which a disgruntled worker in Pakistan threatened to post medical records of U. S. patients on the Internet highlights the seriousness of this issue (Mintz, 2004). 17. 2 IT Is Eliminating the Barriers of Time, Space, and Distance 667 The remarkable communications capabilities delivered by IT promote globalization not only through offshore outsourcing but also through enabling firms to distribute core corporate functions around the globe.TELECOMMUTING Broadband Internet access, secure virtual private networks, and mobile computing technologies are making it possible for many professionals to telecommute, or work from outside the office. According to some estimates, by the year 2010 more than half of workers in the United States will spend 2 o r more days a week working away from the office. However, experts estimate that even in 10 years it would be uncommon to find workers who telecommute 5 days a week, suggesting that telecommuting would not fully eliminate the need for central office locations.From 1990 to 2000, the number of those who worked more at home than at the office grew by 23 percent, twice the rate of growth of the total labor market. Since 2000, telecommuting has continued to increase. Approximately 4. 5 million Americans telecommute a majority of their total working days, with some 20 million commuting at least some days each month and 45 million telecommuting at least once per year. Telecommuting offers a plethora of benefits, including reducing rush-hour traffic, improving air quality, improving highway safety, and even improving health care (see IT at Work 17. ). Among the large metropolitan areas in the United States, the largest amount of telecommuting occurs in Denver, Portland, and San Diego. The pr ojected growth of IT-related jobs is on the rise. Five of the top ten highest-growth jobs are IT-related, including computer software engineering for applications, computer support specialists, computer software engineering for systems software, network and computer systems administrators, and network systems and data communication analysts (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook; see money. cnn. om/magazines/ business2/nextjobboom/), and the rates of telecommuting are expected to grow even higher. Many of these IT-related jobs can now be effectively performed from home, thanks to excellent bandwidths and improved technologies to support telecommuting. IT at Work 17. 1 Telemedicine Helps Indian Tribe Get Better Health Care The Alabama Coushatta Indian Tribe Reservation, located 45 miles outside of Houston, Texas, in Livingston County, has experienced an outmigration of its people to more metropolitan areas in search of better education, jobs, and health care.Wanti ng to preserve its race and culture, the 300-member tribe sought ways to make living on the reservation more attractive to its young members. In partnership with Sam Houston State University (SHSU) and with $350,000 in funding from the Rural Utilities Services, a network called RESNET was created to bridge the information and communication gaps for residents of Livingston and surrounding counties. A fiber-optic network links the medical clinic on the reservation to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Polk County as well as to the Tyler County Hospital. Tribal members can ow receive more specialized care as two-way consultations between the clinic on the reservation and the hospital in Polk County or Tyler County are now possible. Individuals with ailments that might require hospitalization, but about which they are not sure, such as a diabetic with a concern about a swollen limb, can first check with the medical clinic on the reservation. Vital signs can be taken and radiology images shared with the specialist physicians at one of the hospitals, and then informed decisions about whether the patient needs to travel to a hospital can be made.This helps improve the quality of care as well as saves time both for patients and for medical staff. Source: USDA (2006) and shsu. edu (1997). For Further Exploration: What are potential legal problems associated with telemedicine? What are some trade-offs to be considered? 668 Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society The typical telecommuter is well-educated, financially stable, has children, works in management and/or sales, and had worked in his or her current position for several years face-to-face before starting to telecommute Balaker, 2005). Likewise, as the percent of service-related jobs increases—by 2002, 82 percent of the U. S. workforce worked in service-related jobs—the potential for more telecommuting also rises. It is simply not possible for factory or agricultur al laborers to telecommute, but many service-related jobs do offer the potential for telecommuting. One area where telecommuting is having a promising impact is that of telemedicine. For instance, in 2001, doctors in New York performed the first successful crossAtlantic telesurgery on a patient in Strasbourg France.The removal of the patient’s gallbladder was conducted via a robotic arm that was remotely controlled by the surgeons. A fiber-optic cable operated by France Telecom enabled the high-speed link so that the images from the operating table in France were on display in front of the doctors in New York, with an average time delay of only 150 milliseconds (Johnson, 2002). Other areas of medicine are experiencing surges in telemedicine as well. Replacing the couch with a monitor and video feed, telepsychiatry in particular is becoming popular, fueled in part by the need to serve rural patients and the need to service prison populations.Data from the National Conference o f State Legislatures indicates that as of 2006, six states in the United States required private insurers to reimburse patients for telepsychiatry. Impacts of Working from Home or Virtual Office. All forms of telecommuting— working from home (WFH) or a virtual office—give employees greater flexibility in their working locations and hours. Working in a virtual office is one way an employee can telecommute by completing job duties virtually anywhere—a car, hotel room, airport, or any hotspot.Telecommuting (or telework) played a significant role in business continuity and continuity of operations planning. Companies who had employees in New York City on 9/11 or New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina relied on telework. Their employees were able to work immediately after these tragedies because of the telework programs they had in place. The Telework Coalition (TelCoa. org), a nonprofit membership organization that promotes virtual and distributed work, conducted a be nchmarking study of employers in public and private sectors with large telework programs. Employers represented roughly 00,000 employees and 150,000 teleworkers and mobile workers. The 2006 study, sponsored by Intel, looked at how these large organizations resolved problems to create successful programs that benefited the organization and employees through reduced real estate costs, increased employee retention, and a higher rate of employee satisfaction. The survey was valuable because it examined details such as benefits, costs, challenges, and unexpected consequences experienced by managers. Most participants emphasized the importance of the mobility that telework enables when dealing in a global economy.To read the Executive Summary of the telework survey, visit telcoa. org/id311. htm. An interesting finding was that telework was being regarded as â€Å"just work† and not an unusual form of work. As long as employees had a phone, laptop, high-speed Internet access, and fa x, they are in business wherever they are. With the convergence of technologies, such as a wireless-equipped laptop with a VoIP phone, or a new-generation PDA, work can be done from almost anywhere. Telework is also of great importance to the local community and society because of effects on the environment, safety, and health.For example, the strength of a society depends on the strength of its individuals and the strength of their families. Other potential benefits 17. 2 IT Is Eliminating the Barriers of Time, Space, and Distance TABLE 17. 1 669 Potential Benefits of Telecommuting or Virtual Work Individuals Organizational Community and Society †¢ Reduces or eliminates travelrelated time and expenses †¢ Improves health by reducing stress related to compromises made between family and work responsibilities †¢ Allows closer proximity to and involvement with family †¢ Allows closer bonds with the family and the community Decreases involvement in office politics â € ¢ Increases productivity despite distractions †¢ Reduces office space needed †¢ Increases labor pool and competitive advantage in recruitment †¢ Provides compliance with Americans with Disabilities Act †¢ Decreases employee turnover, absenteeism, and sick leave usage †¢ Improves job satisfaction and productivity †¢ Conserves energy and lessens dependence on foreign oil †¢ Preserves the environment by reducing traffic-related pollution and congestion †¢ Reduces traffic accidents and resulting injuries or deaths Reduces the incidence of disrupted families when people do not have to quit their jobs if they need to move because of a spouse’s new job or family obligations †¢ Increased employment opportunities for the homebound †¢ Allows the movement of job opportunities to areas of high unemployment of telework to individuals, organizations, and communities are listed in Table 17. 1. There are numerous potential negative effect s of telework, including a sense of isolation when working from home even though such work often requires a lot of telephone contact with people in the office.Growth in telecommuting raises the questions of whether the benefits of working from home outweigh the costs, and whether telecommuting is appropriate for everyone or only for workers with certain qualities and personality types. Few of us want to work around the clock, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, but the pressure to do so could be considerable if the facility exists. Another pressure may be to work antisocial hours—night shifts, for example, or weekends—which can adversely impact the quality of social interactions and interpersonal relationships. For more on teleworking, see Online File W17. 2. ) Globalization and telecommuting are only two examples of how information technology removes the barriers of time, space, and distance. Far-reaching results of this trend are changing the way we l ive, work, play, and do business, bringing both improvements that we can enjoy and the challenges that we need to overcome. In the context of organizations, these changes have important implications for structure, authority, power, job content, and personnel issues. STRUCTURE, AUTHORITY, POWER, JOB C ONTENT, AND PERSONNEL ISSUESThe IT revolution may result in many changes in structure, authority, power, and job content, as well as personnel management and human resources management. Details of these changes are shown in Table 17. 2. In addition, other changes are expected in organizations. IT managers are assuming a greater leadership role in making business decisions. The impact goes beyond one company or one supply chain, to influence entire industries. For example, the use of profitability models and optimization is reshaping retailing, real estate, banking, transportation, airlines, and car renting, to mention just a few.These and other changes are impacting personnel issues, as shown in Table 17. 3. Many additional personnel-related questions could surface as a result of using IT. For example: What will be the impact of IT on job qualifications and on training 670 Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society TABLE 17. 2 Impacts of IT on Structure, Authority, Power, and Job Content Impact Effect of IT Flatter organizational hierarchies IT increases span of control (more employees per supervisor), increases productivity, and reduces the need for technical experts (due to expert systems).Fewer managerial levels will result, with fewer staff and line managers. Reduction in the total number of employees, reengineering of business processes, and the ability of lower-level employees to perform higher-level jobs may result in flatter organizational hierarchies. The ratio of white- to blue-collar workers increases as computers replace clerical jobs, and as the need for information systems specialists increases. However, the number of profess ionals and specialists could decline in relation to the total number of employees in some organizations as intelligent and knowledge-based systems grow.IT makes possible technology centers, e-commerce centers, decision support systems departments, and/or intelligent systems departments. Such units may have a major impact on organizational structure, especially when they are supported by or report directly to top management. Centralization may become more popular because of the trend toward smaller and flatter organizations and the use of expert systems. On the other hand, the Web permits greater empowerment, allowing for more decentralization. Whether use of IT results in more centralization or in decentralization may depend on top management’s philosophy.Knowledge is power, and those who control information and knowledge are likely to gain power. The struggle over who controls the information resources has become a conflict in many organizations. In some countries, the fight may be between corporations that seek to use information for competitive advantage and the government (e. g. , Microsoft vs. the Justice Dept. ). Elsewhere, governments may seek to hold onto the reins of power by not letting private citizens access some information (e. g. , China’s restriction of Internet usage).Job content is interrelated with employee satisfaction, compensation, status, and productivity. Resistance to changes in job skills is common, and can lead to unpleasant confrontations between employees and management. Change in blue-towhite-collar staff ratio Growth in number of special units Centralization of authority Changes in power and status Changes in job content and skill sets requirements? How can jobs that use IT be designed so that they present an acceptable level of challenge to users? How might IT be used to personalize or enrich jobs?What can be done to make sure that the introduction of IT does not demean jobs or have other negative impacts from the w orkers’ point of view? All these and more issues could be encountered in any IT implementation. TABLE 17. 3 Impacts of IT on Personnel Issues Impact Effect of IT Shorter career ladders In the past, many professionals developed their abilities through years of experience and a series of positions that exposed them to progressively more complex situations. The use of IT, and especially Web-based computer-aided instruction, may short-cut this learning curve. IT introduces the possibility for greater electronic supervision.In general, the supervisory process may become more formalized, with greater reliance on procedures and measurable (i. e. , quantitative) outputs and less on interpersonal processes. This is especially true for knowledge workers and telecommuters. The Web has the potential to increase job mobility. Sites such as techjourney. com can tell you how jobs pay in any place in the United States. Sites like monster. com offer places to post job offerings and resumes. U sing videoconferencing for interviews and intelligent agents to find jobs is likely to increase employee turnover.Changes in supervision Job mobility 17. 3 Information Is Changing from a Scarce Resource to an Abundant Resource 17. 3 671 Information Is Changing from a Scarce Resource to an Abundant Resource Few people disagree with the notion that information is a valuable resource and that increased availability of information can be beneficial for individuals and organizations alike. However, information technology’s capability to introduce ever-growing amounts of data and information into our lives can exceed our capacity to keep up with them, leading to information overload.Business users are not suffering from the scarcity of data; instead, they are discovering that the process of finding the information they need in massive collections of documents can be complicated, time consuming, and expensive. The impact of information overload is felt not only in business circles b ut also in many other parts of the society, including the military intelligence community. At the onset of the Information Age, intelligence professionals acquired never-before-seen data collection tools, including high-resolution satellite imagery and versatile sensors capable of penetrating natural and manmade barriers.Furthermore, information technology enabled the intelligence community to establish high-speed communication links to transfer the data, build vast databases to store the data, and use powerful supercomputers with intelligent software to process the data. Clearly, information technology has greatly increased both the amount of information available to the intelligence community and the speed at which it can analyze this information. However, existing computer systems and human analysts are unable to deal with the increasing volumes of data, creating the information-overload problem.For instance, according to MacDonald and Oettinger (2002),â€Å"information that mig ht have prevented some of the September 11 attacks apparently existed somewhere within the vast quantity of data collected by the intelligence community, but the systems for using such information have lagged far behind the ability to collect the data. † To be effective at solving the problem of information overload, information systems must differentiate between the data that can be safely summarized and the data that should be viewed in its original form (DeSouza et al. , 2004). INFORMATION OVERLOAD INFORMATION QUALITY FINAs organizations and societies continue to generate, process, and rely on the rapidly increasing amounts of information, they begin to realize the importance of information quality. Information quality is a somewhat subjective measure of the utility, objectivity, and integrity of gathered information. Quality issues affect both the simple collections of facts (data) and the more complex pieces of processed data (information). To be truly valuable, both data and information must possess a number of essential characteristics, such as being complete, accurate, up-to-date, and â€Å"fit for the purpose† for which they are used (Ojala, 2003).The value and usability of data and information that do not satisfy these requirements are severely limited. Issues relating to information quality have become sufficiently significant that they now occupy a notable place on the government’s legislative agenda. The Data Quality Act of 2001 and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 impose stringent information quality requirements on government agencies and publicly traded corporations (Loshin, 2004).For example, one of the provisions of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act makes chief executive and financial officers personally responsible and liable for the quality of financial information that firms release to stockholders or file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This rule emphasizes the importance of controlling and measuring data qualit y and information quality in business intelligence, corporate performance management, and record management systems (Logan and Buytendijk, 2003). Information quality problems are not limited to corporate data. Millions of individuals face information quality ssues on a daily basis as they try to find information 672 Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society online, whether on publicly available Web pages or in specialized research databases, wikis, blogs, or newsfeeds. Among the most common problems that plague online information sources is omission of materials. A number of online â€Å"full-text† periodicals databases may omit certain items that appeared in the printed versions of those publications. In addition, online sources of information leave out older documents, which are not available in digital form.Thus, one cannot be assured of having access to a complete set of relevant materials. Even materials that are available from seemingly reputab le sources present information quality concerns. Information may have been reported wrong, whether intentionally or unintentionally, or the information may have become out of date (Ojala, 2003). These and other information quality issues are contributing to the frustration and anxiety that for some have become the unfortunate side effect of the Information Age. SPAM THE DIGITAL DIVIDESpamming, the practice of indiscriminately broadcasting unsolicited messages via e-mail and over the Internet, is one of the most widespread forms of digital noise. Spam is typically directed at a person and presents a considerable annoyance, with 70 percent of users indicating that â€Å"spam makes being online unpleasant† (Davies, 2004). Bulk unsolicited electronic messages—spam—accounts for more than 66 percent of all e-mail traffic on the Internet. Some 25. 5 billion spam messages were sent in 2004 (reported by Defacto, 2005).This volume of messages significantly impairs the ban dwidth of Internet service providers and places excessive capacity demands on mail servers. In electronic commerce, spam can delay transactions and can cause problems in supply chains where business data are exchanged through specially configured e-mail accounts (Davies, 2004). Spam hurts businesses even more by lowering the productivity of employees who have to deal with unwanted messages. Spam can originate in any country, making the anti-spam legislation of any given country largely ineffective in keeping spam out.The 2004 Ferris Research Study on spam found that the average amount spent on anti-spam products was $41 per user per year, so for a company with 10,000 employees, this would total $410,000 for the company per year. Thirty-four percent of the respondents in the Ferris study indicated that between 50 and 74 percent of all incoming messages were spam. Fortythree percent reported that managing spam was a major managerial concern. Of the approximately 500 organizations stud ied, 56 percent had already implemented antispam software with another 30 percent planning to.For the 14 percent that did not plan to implement spam software, the major reason was the fear of â€Å"false positives†Ã¢â‚¬â€ that is, the concern that messages that are quite important will be filtered as junk. In fact, unless employees occasionally browse their junk mail, they might very well miss important messages. Thus, in addition to the cost of the software, there is no way around the fact that spam costs organizations in terms of employee time. See Online File W17. 3 for discussion of the U. S. Can-Spam Act.Internet service providers and software companies have embarked on a technological campaign to eradicate spam. Mail-filtering software and other technologies have made it more difficult for spammers to distribute their messages. However, spammers have responded with creative new schemes to defeat the anti-spam solutions. The battle of innovations and counterinnovations between spammers and anti-spam companies continues. Some of the major anti-spam software providers include SpamAssassin, Symantec, Network Associates McAfee, TrendMicro, GFI, SurfControl, and Sophos.Technologies enabling access to information are not distributed evenly among various groups of people. For some people, information continues to be a scarce resource, which puts them at a comparative economic and social disadvantage. The gap in computer technology in general, and now in Web technology in particular, 17. 3 Information Is Changing from a Scarce Resource to an Abundant Resource 673 between those who have such technology and those who do not is referred to as the digital divide.However, by 2003, nearly 100 percent of the public schools in the United States had Internet access (National Center for Educational Statistics, 2005). Not only has the divide in terms of access per se been reduced, but the divide in terms of the quality (or speed) of access has been reduced. By 2003, 95 percent of public schools used broadband connections to access the Internet, as compared with 80 percent in 2000 and fewer than 15 percent in 1996. Greater access in public schools is helping break the racial digital divide that has been noticeable since the Internet first emerged.The New York Times reported in March 2006 that a Pew national survey of people 18 and older found that 61 percent of African Americans reported using the Internet, compared with 74 percent of whites and 80 percent of English-speaking Hispanics (Marriott, 2006). However, what these studies do not indicate is the purpose of the Internet use, the frequency of it, or the benefit of it. Nor do the studies provide evidence that the divide is shrinking across households. Poorer households remain less likely to have Internet access from the home than do wealthier counterparts (Marriott, 2006).Moreover, even as the divide lessens in regard to mature technologies, it continues to exist for newer technologies. Fo r example, some schools with sufficient resources are now making iPods a tool for all students (see IT at Work 17. 2). IMPACTS ON I NDIVIDUALS Together, the increasing amounts of information and information technology use have potential impacts on job satisfaction, dehumanization, and information anxiety as well as impacts on health and safety. Although many jobs may become substantially more â€Å"enriched† with IT, other jobs may become more routine and less satisfying.Dehumanization and Other Psychological Impacts. Many people feel a loss of identity, a dehumanization, because of computerization; they feel like â€Å"just another number† because computers reduce or eliminate the human element that was present in the noncomputerized systems. Some people also feel this way about the Web. On the other hand, while the major objective of technologies, such as e-commerce, is to increase productivity, they can also create personalized, flexible systems that allow individua ls to include their opinions and knowledge in the system.These technologies attempt to be people-oriented and user-friendly (e. g. , blogs and wikis). The Internet threatens to have an even more isolating influence than has been created by television. If people are encouraged to work and shop from their living rooms, then some unfortunate psychological effects, such as depression and loneliness, could develop. Some people have become so addicted to the Web that they have dropped out of their regular social activities, at school or work or home, creating societal and organizational problems.Another possible psychological impact relates to distance learning. In some countries, it is legal to school children at home through IT. Some argue, however, that the lack of social contacts could be damaging to the social, moral, and cognitive development of school-age children who spend long periods of time working alone on the computer. Information Anxiety. Another potential negative impact is information anxiety. This disquiet can take several forms, such as frustration with our inability to keep up with the amount of data present in our lives. Information anxiety can take other forms as well.One is frustration with the quality of the information available on the Web, which frequently is not up-to-date or incomplete. Another is frustration or guilt associated with not being better informed, or being informed too late (â€Å"How come others knew this before I did? †). A third form of information anxiety stems from information overload (too many online sources). 674 Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society IT at Work 17. 2 The Dog Ate My iPod Schools and universities are finding new ways to keep up with technology, such as the emergence of iPods on campuses.All levels of education are using this brand of portable media players, designed and marketed by Apple Computer, as a learning tool. Duke University was one of the first to embrace thi s technology. Duke’s provost, Peter Lang, said, â€Å"the direct effect of iPods is they learn better in the classroom. † Duke was awarded a grant to give their freshmen 20-gigabyte iPods—enough storage for up to 5,000 songs. The results are mixed; about 75 percent of those surveyed at Duke said they use their iPods for academic work. Half the time, they use the device in ways recommended by the professors.The positive feedback is that the iPod is similar to the old recording devices used in the past, but with the ability to store, organize, and access with a click of a couple of buttons. Students do not have to attend the class to download the materials online or from a fellow student. Some schools feel that students will skip out on classes and rely on each other’s recordings, or even use the device to cheat. According to Don McCabe, a Rutgers professor who surveyed nearly 62,000 undergraduates on 96 campuses over four years, two-thirds of the students admitted to cheating.That is a concern, especially with the compact size, wireless earpieces, and the ability to hold podcasts—audio recordings that can be distributed over the Internet. But with an abundance of electronic gadgets, including handheld email devices, wireless access in classrooms to the Internet, calculators that are preprogrammed with formulas, and pensized scanners used to copy text or exams for other students, universities have to stay ahead of the curve. Some other concerns are: How will the lecturer’s words and actions be used for unknown purposes and when/where is copyright eing infringed when students and faculty make their own recordings? In spite of the worries of skipping class, personal use, and cheating, Apple Computer is behind the iPod in the education field. Six schools (Duke, Brown, Stanford, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and the University of Missouri School of Journalism) recently participated i n a pilot program called iTunes U (apple. com/educastion/solutions/ itunes_u/). The program was so popular that Apple began to offer the program to all colleges for lectures, notes, podcasts, and information in a library for students to download.Other schools, such as Brearley School, a private school for girls on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, use iPods predominantly in interactive exercises, such as foreign language classes. Katherine Hallissy Ayala, the head of the computer education department, says â€Å"the hope is that if students are interested in this, they’ll download and explore on their own without being told to. † And Jacques Houis, a French teacher at Brearley, feels that â€Å"listening to many different types of French, not just the teacher, is very important. Students have said that the iPod has helped their foreign language skills by listening to playbacks, music, and other sources besides what is taught in the classroom. One thing is for sure, th e iPod is changing the academic field and schools will have to stay ahead of generations born in the ever-changing world of technology. Sources: Ferguson (2005) and Moore (2005) For Further Exploration: How does the use of iPods shift responsibility from teachers â€Å"teaching† to students â€Å"learning†? What excuses might a student use for not completing an ssignment correctly or submitting it on time? Impacts on Health and Safety. Computers and information systems are a part of the environment that may adversely affect individuals’ health and safety. To illustrate, we will discuss the effects of job stress and long-term use of the keyboard. Job Stress. An increase in workload and/or responsibilities can trigger job stress. Although computerization has benefited organizations by increasing productivity, it has also created an ever-increasing workload for some employees.Some workers, especially those who are not proficient with computers, but who must work wi th them, feel overwhelmed and start feeling anxious about their jobs and their job performance. These feelings of anxiety can adversely affect workers’ productivity. Management’s responsibility is to help alleviate these feelings by providing training, redistributing the workload among workers, or by hiring more individuals. Repetitive Strain (Stress) Injuries. Other potential health and safety hazards are repetitive strain injuries such as backaches and muscle tension in the wrists and fingers.Carpal tunnel syndrome is a painful form of repetitive strain injury that affects the wrists and hands. It has been associated with the long-term use of keyboards. 17. 3 Information Is Changing from a Scarce Resource to an Abundant Resource 675 Lessening the Negative Impact on Health and Safety. Designers are aware of the potential problems associated with prolonged use of computers. Consequently, they have attempted to design a better computing environment. Research in the area of ergonomics (the science of adapting machines and work environments to people) provides guidance for these designers.For instance, ergonomic techniques focus on creating an environment for the worker that is safe, well lit, and comfortable. Devices such as antiglare screens have helped alleviate problems of fatigued or damaged eyesight, and chairs that contour the human body have helped decrease backaches (see A Closer Look 17. 1). A Closer Look 17. 1 Ergonomic and Protective Products Many products are available to improve working conditions for people who spend much of their time at a computer. The following photos illustrate some ergonomic solutions. Wrist support Back support Eye-protection filter optically coated glass) Adjustable foot rest 676 Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society 17. 4 Machines Are Performing Functions Previously Performed by Humans One of the distinguishing traits of humankind is the continuous quest to find tools and techniqu es to replace human work and manual labor. Information technology greatly accelerates this process and allows machines to perform a variety of complex functions, which, in the past, could be performed only by humans. Robotics offers a clear example of information technology eliminating the need for human labor.Computerized transaction processing systems, automated teller machines, intelligent scheduling software, and voice recognition systems illustrate information technology’s capability to replace administrative and clerical work. Moreover, artificial intelligence and expert systems are now able to perform the work of white-collar professionals. As functionality of machines and computer systems continues to evolve, it will transform societies by influencing such critical factors as the quality of life, the dynamics of labor markets, and the nature of human interactions. QUALITY OF LIFE GOVQuality of life refers to measures of how well we achieve a desirable standard of livi ng. For example, the use of robots in uncomfortable or dangerous environments is one of the primary ways of improving the quality of life with information technology. For decades, robots have been used to replace physically demanding or tedious activities in manufacturing plants. Robots and other quasi-autonomous devices have become increasingly common on farm fields, in hospitals, and even in private homes, improving the quality of life of numerous people. A type of robot works at the University of California Hospital at San Francisco.The five-foot-tall machine, which can drive down the hallways and call an elevator to travel to other floors, carries medicine and blood samples around the building (Stone, 2003). Specialized robots that can relieve people of the need to perform certain household tasks are becoming commercially available. For instance, robotic vacuum cleaners capable of finding their way around furniture and other obstacles in any room are already sweeping the floors in thousands of homes around the world. Military applications of robotics hold the potential not only to improve the quality of life but also to save the lives of soldiers.The Pentagon is researching selfdriving vehicles and bee-like swarms of small surveillance robots, each of which would contribute a different view or angle of a combat zone. In March 2004, DARPA, the research arm of the U. S. Department of Defense, held a race of fully autonomous land vehicles across a challenging 150-mile stretch of the Mojave Desert. Thirteen entrants designed vehicles that could navigate and drive themselves without humans at the remote controls. This race ended without any winners. The machine that traveled the farthest—12 km—was built by Carnegie Mellon University (â€Å"Robots, start your engines,† 2004).These initial results suggest that significant advances in IT will need to be made before robots can handle complex, unfamiliar situations and operate entirely autonomou sly. Somewhat less obvious, but very noticeable improvements in the quality of life arise from the ability of computers to â€Å"make decisions†Ã¢â‚¬â€an activity that used to be in the exclusive domain of human beings. Although such decisions are typically limited in scope and are based on rules established by people, they are successfully employed in a variety of practical applications.For example, automobile navigation systems may be incapable of guiding a vehicle across the unpredictable desert terrain, but they are quite adept at finding the optimal route to the desired destination using a network of existing roadways. Global positioning systems (GPSs) integrated 17. 4 Machines Are Performing Functions Previously Performed by Humans SVC 677 with geographic information systems (GISs) available in many modern vehicles allow the driver to hand over navigational decisions to the computer, thereby offering an additional level of safety and convenience.Expert systems used in the health-care industry offer another example of quality of life improvements that follow from machines’ abilities to perform â€Å"human† work. For instance, some systems can improve the diagnosis process by analyzing the set of symptoms experienced by the patient. Other systems can supplement a physician’s judgment by analyzing prescriptions for dosage and potential drug interactions, thus reducing the frequency and severity of medication errors, which translates into a higher quality of life for the patients. Partners HealthCare System, Inc. for example, reported a 55 percent reduction in the number of serious medication errors following the implementation of such a system (Melymuka, 2002). Whether robots will be of the quality of R2D2 (the Star Wars robot) is another issue. It probably will be a long time before we see robots making decisions by themselves, handling unfamiliar situations, and interacting with people. Nevertheless, robots are around that can do practical tasks. Carnegie Mellon University, for example, has developed self-directing tractors that harvest hundreds of acres of rops around the clock in California, using global positioning systems combined with video image processing that identifies rows of uncut crops. Robots are especially helpful in hazardous environments, as illustrated in IT at Work 17. 3. IT at Work 17. 3 The Working Lives of Robots Laying Fiber-Optic Cables. Cities around the world are transforming themselves to the digital era by replacing copper wires with fiber-optic cables or by installing fiber optics where there were no wires before. Because fiber-optic cables are a choice method to deliver high-speed voice and data ommunication (see Technology Guide 4), demand for them is expanding. Cities know that in order to attract and hold on to high-tech business they must provide fiber-optic access to all commercial buildings. You may have seen this activity many times without realizing it: Workers cut up the street, creating noise, dust, and traffic problems. But the worst part of it is that the disruption to people may take weeks, or even months, just to complete one city block. Now, robots are changing it all. One company that invented a technology to improve the ituation is City Net Telecommunications (citynettelecom .com). The idea is to use the existing sewer system to lay the cables. This way no trenches need to be dug in the streets. Pioneering work has been done in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Omaha, Nebraska, and Indianapolis, Indiana (in spring 2001). How do the robots help? Robots are waterproof and do not have noses, and so they are not bothered by working in the sewer. They do not complain, nor do they get sick. As a matter of fact, they work faster than humans when it comes to laying the fiber-optic cables inside the sewer system. POM GOVWhat does it cost? The company claims that laying the fiber-optic cable with robots costs about the same as the old method. The major ad vantage is that it can be done 60 percent faster and without disruption to people’s lives. Cleaning Train Stations in Japan. With growing amounts of rubbish to deal with at Japanese train stations and fewer people willing to work as cleaners, officials have started turning the dirty work over to robots. Since May 1993, the Central Japan Railway Company and Sizuko Company, a Japanese machinery maker, have been using robots programmed to vacuum rubbish.A railway official said the robots, which are capable of doing the work of 10 people each, have been operating at the Sizuko station in Central Japan. The robots measure about 1. 5 meters wide and 1. 2 meters long. The railway and Sizuko spent 70 million yen to develop the machines and are planning to program them for other tasks, such as sweeping and scrubbing. Sources: Compiled from the New York Times (March 6, 2001); from the Wall Street Journal (November 21, 2000); and from â€Å"Robots Used to Clean Train Station in . . . à ¢â‚¬  (1993). See also â€Å"The Robot Revolution Is on the Way† (2000).For Further Exploration: If robots are so effective, what will be the impact on unemployment when more tasks are robotized? What will people do if robots take over? 678 Chapter 17 Impacts of IT on Individuals, Organizations, and Society IMPACT ON L ABOR MARKETS One of the most prominent concerns is the fear that due to technological advances, machines will replace millions of workers, leading to mass unemployment. Robots and office automation systems are effectively competing with humans for blue-collar and clerical jobs. It is important to note that white-collar occupations are not immune to the impact of information technology either.In fact, machines are beginning to challenge scientists, interpreters, computer programmers, lawyers, aircraft pilots, and other professionals in their jobs. Researchers in Great Britain, for instance, have built a robot-scientist capable of performing simple genetic exper iments. The computer-controlled robot independently formulated hypotheses about the functions of unknown genes, designed experiments to test them, manipulated laboratory equipment to conduct the experiments, analyzed the results, and accepted or rejected hypotheses based on the evidence it obtained.The robot’s performance was comparable to the performance of graduate students working on similar tasks (Begley, 2004). Translators and interpreters also face competition from information technology in the form of speech- and text-based machine translation systems. While existing machine translation software cannot rival the accuracy, clarity, eloquence, and vividness of human translations, it is typically able to convey the gist of the message and comply with the major rules of grammar and syntax (Schwartz, 2004). (Visit online-translator. com, google. om/language_tools, and world. altavista. com to review several online translation services. ) Legal professionals may discover som e unusual contenders, eager to take over their jobs. Some software packages used by law firms rely on artificial intelligence to analyze facts, determine applicable regulations, and prepare drafts of appropriate documents—all of which are activities traditionally performed by entry-level lawyers and paralegals. These and other examples illustrate a valid threat that information technology presents to workers in numerous occupations.In addition, they prompt the question of whether you should be concerned about the prospects of computers acquiring the capabilities of doing your job more effectively and efficiently. Following the introduction of new technologies that mimic the functions of human workers, it is common to observe some job losses as old jobs are replaced by computerized equipment. However, this negative impact on employment levels offers a very simplistic and incomplete picture of the chain of events associated with technological advances.One of the more straightfo rward positive side-effects of technological advances is the creation of new jobs, which takes place in other sectors of the economy that produce and operate the new equipment and computer systems. Furthermore, introduction of new information technologies results in more efficient allocation of scarce resources, such as labor, capital, and raw materials. As the production processes become more efficient, they apply downward pressure on price levels, which leads to higher demand, as consumers respond to lower prices.To satisfy the growing demand, producers tend to increase the output of goods and services, which is frequently accomplished by hiring more workers. Other entities in the affected supply chains react to increased demand and instigate further employment growth. Thus, from the macroeconomic perspective, technological progress generally increases the aggregate level of employment (Soete, 2001). Fluctuations in unemployment rates are generally associated with business cycles and do not indicate that information technology is likely to displace a large number of workers (Handel, 2003). IT at Work 17. demonstrates one of the impacts of information technology on employment in the retailing industry. Although the net effect of information technology proliferation is generally positive for the economy as a whole, on a personal level, IT-induced job displacement 17. 4 Machines Are Performing Functions Previously Performed by Humans 679 IT at Work 17. 4 Do-It-Yourself Retailing The concept of allowing shoppers to scan and bag their own items at retail stores has been around for quite a while. In the 1980s, technology necessary to implement self-checkout systems was already available.However, at that time, the costs of such systems were prohibitively high, and consumer acceptance was extremely low. As this technology continued to evolve and mature, self-checkout registers turned into attractive propositions for supermarkets, grocery stores, and other retailers. In winter of 1997, Wal-Mart was among the first merchants to test the self-checkout systems in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and other selected markets. The self-checkout machines were developed by Optimal Robotics based in Montreal, Canada.Each register included a holding area with a conveyer belt, a barcode reader, a touchscreen display, and a voice synthesizer to provide the customer with vocal and visual instructions, as well as a bagging area, which rested on scales that checked whether the weight of the scanned item corresponded with the weight of the item placed in the bag. The checkout stations also included currency readers and equipment to accept credit and debit cards, which allowed the customer to pay for the goods. The results of the initial tests were quite encouraging; thus, in 2002 the company began a large-scale rollout of selfcheckout units.Wal-Mart is installing self-checkout machines in most new Supercenters and Neighborhood Market Stores. A significant number of exis ting stores were also retrofitted with the new technology. Typically, the company installs from four to eight self-checkout stations in a store, depending on its size and sales volume. The main reasons that persuade retailers to adopt the new systems include the desire to provide a better customer MKT experience and the need to control costs. Self-checkout stations occupy 25 percent less space than traditional registers, which allows retailers to place more stations within the same floor space.Furthermore, with only one employee overseeing four machines, the store is able to keep a sufficient number of registers open while driving down labor costs. A set of four registers, which costs $80,000 to $100,000, has a payback period of only 6 to 12 months, if implemented correctly. Consumers enjoy shorter lines, faster service, and greater control over the checkout process. As self-checkout machines gain the capabilities to perform the functions of human cashiers (with some help from shopp ers), they gradually displace store employe

Hildegard Von Bingen, aka. St. Hildegard Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Hildegard Von Bingen, aka. St. Hildegard - Essay Example The first song, ‘Spiritus Sanctus’ is homage to the Holy Trinity and the Holy Spirit sung in beautiful Latin by angelic voices of piety. The song, as though speaking to one’s soul, reverberates with the power of the Holy Spirit as it is sent down to Earth by God to overlook His creation. It emphasizes the scope of the life that is given and how Man must overcome sin and celebrate the life that was given. Spiritus Sanctus is an affirmation of the power of singing and how it is associated with prayer. The song which is basically a chant is sort of an interpretation of its composer of the sounds of heaven and quite possibly how the angels must be singing to God in His praise. The harmony in the song is very eminent as it is sung in chorus by a group. It is a quintessential prayer where there are varied pitches in the middle of the song at a much faster pace wherein one or a couple voices are more audible. This is then followed by a harmonious chorus of the rest which backs the primary voices. Among the most piercing of the elements is the subsequent coming together of the voices from a lowered modulation to sing â€Å"Spiritus Sanctus† in unison toward the end with about less than a minute left. The song, which is a healing prayer, revitalizes the spirits and catapults it into a sense of euphoric sensation that brings about a relaxed but not an altogether uninterested feeling but of calmed but intensified realization. Ordo Virtutum The next song, ‘Ordo Virtutum’ is regarded as the oldest surviving morality play or also known as a liturgical drama of its time written by Hildegard. In the same way that most or almost all of the writers during her time claim that they were compelled by a vision to write or to produce, ‘Ordo Virtutum’ which literally translates to Play of Virtues was conceived in the same manner. It revolves around the age-old conflict between sins or the yearnings of the flesh and the upholding of virtues in order to better serve God and his plan. This creation of the composer has been performed a number of times by various groups including academic theatrical plays. It preceded all other liturgical dramas by over a century. Written in Latin and wholly in music, it â€Å"is thoroughly monastic and aristocratic in character† (Newman, p. 26) It is by its very purpose, a commentary and a form of teaching that aims to educate and forewarn people of their acts (ibid., p.13). The play is the struggle of the soul against the pulls of evil. This is illustrated through a journey where redemption is achieved through the necessity of the virtues. This struggle is depicted into an actual fi ght between virtues and their enemies. The Anima in ‘Ordo Virtutum’ was able to conquer the devil through the virtues. Virtues such as milites, fides and fear of the Lord (represented by Jesus) aserve as pivotal characters throughout the play. Another definitive concept is the importance given to the body as the dwelling place of the spirit and how this too must be taken cared of as essentially a temple of God (Kienzle, p. 36-37). This is

Analysis of The Empirical Phase Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Analysis of The Empirical Phase - Essay Example Throughout this careful structure, Grob argues that Wordsworth’s purpose was to challenge the present social order that was focused on the â€Å"disorganized and directionless† (19) mode of existence found in â€Å"the fretful stir / Unprofitable, and the fever of the world† (Wordsworth, 52-53) and present a more favorable development. Grob’s argument rests not so much upon the actual words in the poem as it does upon the way in which Wordsworth presents his case, progressing from the simple ease with which mankind connects with nature to the stabilizing influence it has even when lost in the â€Å"fever of the world† and demonstrating how this natural development was not unique just to him, but can be universally applied to others as well. In presenting his case, Grob suggests that Wordsworth’s poem can be basically divided into three main concerns beginning with the natural connection that occurs between man and nature. â€Å"As a vehicle for symbolic discourse, the landscape of Tintern Abbey possesses a latent multiplicity of reference so that almost every ethical, epistemological, and metaphysical judgment rendered later in the poem seems latent in its initial image† (14). This is started within the very first stanza as the poet describes the scenery before him, imbuing it with â€Å"a deep and abiding calm and a coalescence of particulars into a single, interlocking and indivisible pattern of harmony† (14). This image includes not only the untouched natural wonder that surrounds him but also the human effects that have taken place within it, such as the hedgerows, cottage-grounds and orchard tufts. After having linked the efforts of mankind into the overall splendor of the natural environment, Wordsworth moves on to discuss the essential internal interconnectedness of man and nature.  Ã‚  

Women's role during the Great Depression and during world war ll Essay

Women's role during the Great Depression and during world war ll - Essay Example Women served as nurses or teachers, cooks or cleaners. Some even ventured into men’s jobs. In such cases, discrimination was commonplace. Women were not deemed as clever or as physically strong as their male counterparts, and as a result, were often harassed, by their bosses and trade unionists. They therefore, had to fight to be taken seriously because their male counterparts were often very suspicious of their capabilities. It was a time for women to shine despite the discrimination they experienced. When no other men were available, women were given significant tasks that were originally assigned to men. They were initially trained to the same standard as men, but employers eventually didn’t want to hire fully trained women because they received better pay, which upset the trained male workers, causing friction in the workplace. Equal pay became a huge issue that women fought for and this even spurred the women’s liberation movement. Indeed, women made productive use of their time during the war. They were able to combine work, marriage and motherhood without seriously undermining their expected home responsibilities. A woman’s participation in the war effort did not doom conventional sexual divisions of labour while compensating her work with much needed payment without threatening her domestic duties. This multi-faceted role also gave her a feeling of personal importance which is mostly taken for granted by the people around her. The war was devastating for most people, taking the lives of their loved ones, destroying their properties and livelihood. Previously held values were put aside as morality took a plunge in the name of survival. It was a very emotional time for all, and women were tested of their emotional and physical strength to carry on despite all the hardships and challenges thrown their way. Most women proved themselves and have gained skills to they were able to use in various tasks.

Case study Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 2

Case study - Essay Example The criteria can enable an organization to effectively align assets with quality strategies such as ISO 9001 and Six Sigma, and improve performance throughout the organization in a general way. Baldrige also helps to recognize and monitor vital organizational outcomes such as customer responses, product and service delivery, financial assets, human resource, and the general effectiveness of an organization in the market. Every organization will need an-encompassing strategy, especially if the executives are looking for a measure that can be used to connect the product brand with the organizational culture and internal practices (Poister, 2003). Key internal functions, which should be linked with the commodities, include strategic planning and the satisfaction of various stakeholders, e.g. customers, and employees as well as suppliers. In a nutshell, Baldrige measures and advances leadership, strategic planning, information analysis, consumer and market focus, evaluation of human reso urces, process management, and business results (Ferguson, 2008). Six Sigma According to Poister (2003), Six Sigma entails statistically-centered processes, which improves organizational performance for continuing process development. By implementing Six Sigma, an organization can reduce defects substantially. This is usually done by spotting and removing the triggers of variation in organizational processes. In identifying defects, the criteria focus on creating precise descriptions of customer needs and expectations and are therefore consumer-oriented. The main pillars of Six Sigma include continuous analysis of the consumer’s needs; vigorous employment of facts in the identification and measurement of variation in all business processes such as production; and recognition of the actual origin of defects or variation for their elimination. Ferguson (2008) avers that through Six Sigma, an organization would seek to put in place a pro-active executive team focusing on the pre vention of problem; enhance the setting up of unrelenting improvement measures and constant aiming for perfection through effective collaboration between different units within the organization (Poister, 2003). Six Sigma is premised upon multiple and successful approaches to quality improvement measures and encompasses unique strategies of its own. When compared to other quality control and improvement criteria such as Baldrige, Six Sigma is seen as a better methodology for recognizing the causes of particular quality defects and eliminating those problems. Notably, Six Sigma can be employed as an adjunct measure to other options in order to improve quality improvement systems. ISO 9001 Poister (2003) indicates that ISO 9001 is a methodology for managing quality standards within an organization. A Quality Management System, which ISO 9001 is known to measure, is a system of elaborately defined business structures, functions, duties, and assets used to support and develop on given qu ality thresholds. The criteria can be employed in the measurement of the general quality of an organization’s management programs and practices. An ISO 9001 certification ought to assure customers of an organization that the quality thresholds have been met by implementing standard policies with the aim of producing competitive products and services. Through ISO 9001, documenting the details of an organization’s processes can be achieved. This documentation is very important when it comes to

Paper for Reading for Research Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

For Reading for - Research Paper Example The idea that Donny’s father entailed four wives, whereby three consisted of whites demonstrated that he wanted to manifest to the parents that his race never prevented him from accessing love from both divides, especially the whites. The author demonstrates that their family stayed disowned by the grandparents, an issue that presented cruelties in their life. This expounds that racial discrimination inflicts torture to persons that fall prey and makes their stay miserable. The author also demonstrates that places like Hyde Park entail reservations as being settlements for biracial persons (Terry). This intents demonstrating that US consist of allocated places inhabited by certain half-colored persons, which manifests discrimination at its heightened levels. Donny remembers the grandmother threatening that he should shower well because his being black-skinned never prevented her knowing whether he was clean. The author also recalls numerous references as being ‘nigga’ by children that he encountered when playing (Terry). ‘Nigga’ meant that the children never recognized that Donny emanated from a mixed race, but dominantly noted the African as opposed to the white race, a case that reveal s ill racial relations exhibited by persons in US. Kwei-Armah explains that his immigration into US culminated to acquire a deepened knowledge concerning racial relations. For instance, the author notably expounds that race entails a subject of intense reference amongst the US compared to its minimal consideration in Britain (Kwei-Armah 64). I render support to the author’s sentiment on the bases that US presents an ill perception regarding to the Afro-Americans together with other minority groupings in the state. In addition, the author explains that US natives encounter hectic times trying to categorize persons of African-Britain descent because of the dominant American

Aesthetics in Education Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Aesthetics in Education - Article Example Secondly, it allowed teachers to bring aesthetics to any lesson in the classroom. Their final reason was so that teaching aesthetics is important to use aesthetics in a way that promotes experiences that students had and that gives them an opportunity to talk about these experiences. When looking at this assignment, aesthetics can easily be found within the context of any classroom and these questions can be easily answered. 1 Aesthetics and Knowledge Knowledge is very important for students but they must be able to use this knowledge in order for the knowledge learned to be valuable. In order to teach knowledge through aesthetics, it is important to recognize that this area is very hands on. In order for children to learn to remember, memorize and recognize something, various games like Memory could be used. Memory is a game of cards that are laid out face down and children must pick each card up, look at it and replace it face down. Children must memorize because the point of the g ame is to match two cards. This idea can be applied to other things that are necessary for a student to learn like the alphabet. Also, the knowledge question can be answered in reading when the student is asked, â€Å"Who, what, when, where, how †¦?† In a story. This can also help with comprehension. Students are often asked to describe certain things. As an example, the game, â€Å"I Spy† in which children must see something in the room and say the color can be a way for them to remember, recognize, recall and so forth. This question is very easy when it comes to aesthetics because as long as something is hands on or used in some way that colors, fabrics and all the senses are involved, the students will retain knowledge easier and more effectively. 2 Aesthetics and Comprehension Teaching aesthetics lends itself to helping students understand their world and the various environments in which they live. They learn different subjects at school in a variety of ways. As an example, teaching science through the use of actual things children can explore in the classroom gives them a better comprehension of science. Growing things from seeds to a plant or giving them the opportunity to recycle various objects that are used in the classroom can strengthen their understanding of ecology. Children need hands on opportunities to understand learning better. During reading, students who learn to act out a variety of scenes that they are reading about and who are able to describe the story in their own words, have a deeper opportunity to comprehend the story. Using picture boards or interactive whiteboards can help children translate the stores from one medium to another as suggested by the comprehension question. They can also learn to retell the story in their own words or to tell different stores based on what they learned in this area. 2 Aesthetics and Application When children are learning, they must not only learn material but they must also have a way to apply what they learn. If they cannot apply it to some form of their life, the learning is meaningless. The area of application focuses on problem solving and allowing students to find their own way with some prompting. Aesthetics can play a part in this area as well. As an example, children enjoy doing puzzles of any kind and figuring out what is at the end of the puzzle. There are a variety of ways that puzzles can be used for problem solving. Mathematics is one area where aesthetics can be shown while children are learning how to understand formulas. Formulas go beyond the simple aspects of adding apples and oranges

Exploring Human Eyes Conversion of Visible Light Into Neural Activity Essay

Exploring Human Eyes Conversion of Visible Light Into Neural Activity and Conveying of Visual Information into Visual Cortex - Essay Example Light rays first come in contact with cornea which helps in maintaining the anterior chamber of the eye. The light rays travel via small hole known as a pupil , it contains iris muscles in its surrounding which later pass on to the lens, it aids in converging the beam of light to focus the object depending on the distance. (SK277 Course Team, 2004, p.63) This phenomenon is also known as accommodation reflex. Human eye comprises of two chambers namely the anterior chamber and posterior chamber. ... The diameter of the aperture is enhanced by the activity of radial muscle, whereas as the diameter is decreased when circular muscles act. The image is finally produced on the retina which is made up of several distinct layers, it also possesses receptors for light known as photoreceptors. (SK277 Course Team, 2004, p.63) Before the formation of the image, the light has to pass through the several layers and receptors present in the retina. These photoreceptors can be categorized as rods and cones. Both rods and cons have a distinct function. Data gathered from the rods play a vital role in night vision.These receptors are highly sensitive to the low level of light and are unable to give the details of the object at night. Due to this fact, we can see objects more clearly during daytime as compared to the night. Whereas, cons are responsible for viewing the object during the daytime. The photopigment that is present within rods and cons are capable of absorbing light in them. These pi gments are 125 million in numbers and are made up of a protein known as opsin; they also carry a chemical named as retinene (SK277 Course Team, 2004, p.64) The role of this photoreceptor is to convert the energy generated from the light into biochemical signals via electrical activity which in the end reaches retinal ganglion cells. These cells take the information to the brain for final processing. Now axons present in retinal ganglion cells leads to the production of the optic nerve and optic chiasm, it has overlapping fibers forming optic tract, they end up as a lateral geniculate nucleus in the area of the thalamus. (SK277 Course Team, 2004, p.68) Later, the signals are transferred to the primary visual cortex and secondary visual area. The processing of visual

Aung San Suu Kyi Essay Example for Free

Aung San Suu Kyi Essay Aung San Suu Kyi MP AC (Burmese: ; born 19 June 1945) is a Burmese opposition politician and General Secretary of the National League for Democracy (NLD) in Burma. In the 1990 general election, the NLD won 59% of the national votes and 81% (392 of 485) of the seats in Parliament. She had, however, already been detained under house arrest before the elections. She remained under house arrest in Burma for almost 15 of the 21 years from 20 July 1989 until her most recent release on 13 November 2010, becoming one of the worlds most prominent (now former) political prisoners. Childhood and Education Aung San Suu Kyi was born on 19 June, 1945 in Rangoon, capital city of Myanmar (then Burma). Her father, Aung San, was the architect of Burma’s independence. He founded the modern Burmese army and negotiated Burmas independence from the British Empire in 1947. He was, however, assassinated by his rivals in the same year when Suu Kyi was barely two years old.. Her mother Daw Khin Kyi was working in the External Affairs Ministry and was appointed Myanmars ambassador to India in 1960. Aung San Suu Kyi completed her basic education at schools in Rangoon and moved to India following her mother’s appointment as Myanmar’s envoy to India in 1960. Suu Kyi continued her studies in India. She graduated from Lady Shri Ram College, New Delhi in 1964. After graduating she went to Oxford University for further studies and completed her BA in philosophy, politics, and economics at St. Hughs College, Oxford University in 1967. Political beginningsCoincident with Aung San Suu Kyis return to Burma in 1988, the long-time military leader of Burma and head of the ruling party, General Ne Win, stepped down. Mass demonstrations for democracy followed that event on 8 August 1988 (8–8–88, a day seen as auspicious), which were violently suppressed in what came to be known as the 8888 Uprising. On 26 August 1988, she addressed half a million people at a mass rally in front of the Shwedagon Pagoda in the capital, calling for a democratic government. [26] However in September, a new military junta took power. Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Aung San Suu Kyi has been placed under house arrest for 15 of the past 21 years, on different occasions, since she began her political career,[44] during which time she was prevented from meeting her party supporters and international visitors. On the evening of 13 November 2010, Aung San Suu Kyi was released from house arrest. On 1 April 2012, Suu Kyi had won the vote for a seat in Parliament, as well as her partys victory in 43 of the 45 contested seats, officially making Suu Kyi the Leader of the Opposition in the lower house.

ICT Leisure Center Essay Example for Free

ICT Leisure Center Essay The Magnet Leisure Centre is in Aylesbury. Every type of people come there uses its facilities. Its population is about 500.In present moment it have limited ICT system so thats why it have some problems, which can be corrected by using ICT system. In the Leisure centre we have following facilities: 1: Cafeteria/bar 2:Healthsuite 3:Game Zone 4:Sports Hall 5:Training Pool 6:Administation Department 7:Special payment tills information Display unit. 8:Sports Shop The current system: Membership cards: Each member of the leisure centre filled in a card upon application. This was stored alphabetical order. These cards were cross-referenced to a file of the month they joined to enable the staff to send out notices when they became due.This is because the detail become mixed up with each other. These renewals were pre-printed with gaps left for the details to be filled in on screen for posting. Stand-alone computers are used for this. Accounts: Account work done on time and send to the offices in town. The people who do this job charge too much money. Posters letters: Posters and leaflets for publicity and advertising are done under a local advertising firm, which is very expensive. They also not appropriate for all members. Sometimes people miss to get them and sometimes their quantity become less. Control Technology: The temperature is control by central processing unit in pool area by using computers and sensors. New Technology we need: We need a new system in which we need ICT.By this; leisure centre will have many advantages. In some parts we will use networks for communicate. In Administration Department we need ICT systems will help in Finance, Personal, marketing Publicity. It will save the time e.g. with this system we can do 1 day long work in just some minutes. In Sports Hall ICT lighting must use for special effects. It must be placed more IT programs e.g. database for booking etc. In Health Suite ICT can be introduce for make the control better e.g. scanners of membership cards. In Cafeteria/bar we need ICT Electronic tills for collecting the money of the sales and gives customer a receipt. However, when the new network is in place this could be linked to the system to transfer the order automatically to the department. In Training pool we must need to use the computer system for the control of temperature in the swimming pool, automatic length time systems for booking etc. In the main entrance (payment tills) we must need to use the computer communication system to send the message that how many people have paid in a week. We also need a way of charging customers-talking payment etc. In the gaming zone we need the communication system for linked the computers with each other. We need IT system for special effects of lighting. In the information display unit we need the ICT communicating system for sending the live information changing the information for display. In the sport shop we need to use the ICT because if stock is low, the computer can reorder the stock department immediately through the LAN network. So in this way it will be very helpful for us. Analysis Report of ICT in Leisure Centre There is a table in following which tells us about the current system of some places In the Leisure Centre. Area of centre Equipment in place What it does? Does it meet the need? Sports Shop Electronic tills Keeps a record of the sales and gives customer a receipt Yes at the moment. However, when the new network is in place this could be linked to the system to transfer the data automatically to the accounts department and to order new goods Cafeteria/bar Electronic tills Take the money of the sales and gives customer a receipt Yes at the moment. However, when the new network is in place this could be linked to the system to transfer the order automatically to the department. Health Suite No IT presents. Usual range of multi-gym equipment used as part of fitness rout line programs. IT can be introduce For make the control better e.g. scanners of membership cards. Sports Hall IT lighting for special effects. Used for special effects. It must be placed more IT programs e.g. database for booking etc. Training Pool Full IT control It keeps the temperature right one Yes, IT control provides automatic length timing system. It has also full record of booked appointments. Game zone IT graphics IT provides excellent graphics in gaming zone. Yes. It meets the need. Main entrance IT scanners alarms. IT scanners are usually are used in the main entrance Yes, they provide a special type of security. Administration Department IT systems IT systems helps in Finance, Personal, marketing Publicity. Yes, it meets the needs. IT system save the time e.g. with this system we can do 1 day long work in just some minutes. Diagram showing ideas for new IT system This flow chart tells us about new ICT system that which advantages we can get from our new ICT system. System Specification Why is network necessary? What it does for the leisure centre? Network is use for communication so thats why it is necessary for the leisure centre. What components will I need to purchase for the new network arrangements? We need to buy a main server, built the LAN or Wan network, depend on the area. We need to buy all other components e.g. cables, switches etc. Report on finding Area of Leisure Centre Existing Technology Will I need a network? Components needed What will each of the computer need to have to enable them to carry out the work? Peripherals needed? Sport shop Separate payment till holds money issue receipts. In the sport shop if any thing goes finish, the computer can reorder the stock department immediately through the LAN network. In the sports shop we need LAN network, some wires network workstations. We need the network inkjet printer for receipts etc. Administration Department 3 stand alone machines. In the administration department, 3 workstations are needed with peripheral printer for finance, personal marketing. In the administration department we need the LAN network with peripheral printer some wires. We need the network Laser printer. Training Pool Full computer control. In the training pool the computer is needed for the control of temperature in the swimming pool. In the training pool we need Stand alone computer. We need the inkjet printer for receipts etc Main entrance * Finance * Personnel * Marketing Stand alone machines electronic tills. In the main entrance (payment tills) we need the computer communication system to send the message that how many people have paid in a week. We need the LAN network, some wires, Network Laser printer some graphic cards. Network Laser printer needed. Gaming zone In the gaming zone we need the communication system for linked the computers with each other. We need IT system for special effects of lightening. We need the LAN network for connecting the computers with each other. No printer needed. Information display unit IT communicating

Consumer Reactions Towards Product Placement In Movies Media Essay

Consumer Reactions Towards Product Placement In Movies Media Essay A review of trade and popular press over the past few years quickly reveals the interest in and growth of the product placement industry. Product placement is one of todays hottest new media, and it is getting increasing attention from advertisers, media planners, and research firms attempting to assess its effectiveness and value. It is getting increasingly popular and rapidly becoming a serious marketing discipline worldwide. Most major movie releases today contain product placements. It is a multimillion-dollar business with every frame in a movie having an opportunity for branding. From cars and cell phones, to mouth fresheners and branded tea-our heroes and heroines are the ultimate consumers. According to the PQ Media Global Product Placement Forecast Series 2006-2010 Country-by-Country Analysis, global paid product placement grew 37.2 per cent to $3.36 billion in 2006 and is forecast to grow 30.3 per cent to $4.38 billion in 2007, with growth accelerating in China, India and Australia (What Every Global 2006). Meeta Vora Munshi, Faculty (Marketing), Som-Lalit Institute of Management Studies (SLIMS), Opposite St Xaviers College, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad à ¢-  Phone: 9825071663 à ¢-  email: [emailprotected] Dr Sarla Achuthan, Director, B K School of Business Management, Gujarat University, Ahmedabad à ¢-  Phone: 26304811. Product Placement In Movies Product placements have played a role in motion pictures for many decades and can be found in Hollywood movies dating from the late 1940s and early 1950s (The Economist 1991). Movie legend Joan Crawford drank Jack Daniels whiskey in the 1948 movie Mildred Pierce (Nebenzahl and Secunda, 1993). In the 1950 movie Destination Moon, four space travellers rocketed to the moon drinking Coke and wearing Lee jeans (Vollmers and Mizerski, 1994). And Bollywood is not far behind. The earliest reference of product placement in Hindi movies comes in the 1940 classic Chalti ka Naam Gadi with Coca Cola. In 1967 movie An Evening in Paris, Sharmila Tagore was seen sipping delicately from a 200 ml bottle of Coke, struggling to make sure the logo was visible. Rajdoot motorbike was seen in Bobby way back in 1973. A few more recent and popular examples of product placements in Bollywood are Strohs beer in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge; ICICI Bank, Ford Ikon, Archies Cards, Tide detergent and Tata Tea in Baghban; and Times of India in Hum Tum. The practice of using branded props in movies started as a casual process. Branded items were simply donated, loaned, or purchased for particular movie scenes to enhance their artistic qualities (Spillman, 1989). But things changed with the 1982 movie ET-The Extraterrestrial, in which the alien creature was lured from its hiding place with Reeses Pieces candy. The Pieces candy sales increased by 65 per cent just 3 months after the movies release (Buss 1998, Farhi 1998, Reed 1989). It was since then that marketers began actively seeking their own product placements, fully understanding its commercial impact (Caro, 1996). LITERATURE REVIEW Several studies have investigated the attitudes and perceptions of viewers regarding the practice of product placement. These studies were efforts at determining whether moviegoers find the practice objectionable, given the stealth and deceptive nature of the product placement, as claimed by some consumer groups. Interestingly, these studies found that, in general, the majority of people in the United States dont object to the practice of product placement (Gupta and Gould, 1997; Nebenzahl and Secunda, 1993; Ong and Meri, 1994). Placements are seen as adding realism to scenes, are preferred to fictitious brands and are understood to be more and more a necessary component to cost containment in the making of programmes and movies (DeLorme and Reid, 1999; Gupta and Gould, 1997). Most consumers considered product placement as a less obtrusive form of marketing communication than other advertising forms in the movie theatre, even though some of them criticized product placement as a deceptive communication strategy (Nebenzahl and Secunda, 1993). Not many similar consumer studies in India were found, though a study carried out among students in India did find positive attitude towards product placement (Panda, 2004). RATIONALE OF THE STUDY Since the beginning of televised programming, advertisers in India have shelled out big bucks to promote their products on TV. The 30-second TV ad spot had been the sole reigning champion for a very long time, but no longer so today. Although the number of television channels has increased in the last decade from under 50 to over 200 today, the number of advertisers has grown much more rapidly (Surapaneni, 2006). Moreover, the bulk of advertising is limited to few popular TV channels. This has resulted in tremendous advertising clutter. Also, it has been noticed that TRPs of ad breaks have declined with channel zapping. And with marketers demanding more bang for their advertising buck, agencies were prompted to come up with innovative solutions. An association with Bollywood gives them an opportunity to look beyond the 30-second television commercial. For advertisers, the product placements provide clutter free noticeability (and possible sales!) from the huge number of Bollywood viewers in the captive atmosphere of theatres, on TV during film telecasts and at homes through DVD/VCDs. For filmmakers, the placement of appropriate brands in their films offers a legitimate and profitable source of revenue, over and above making the films more realistic. Obviously, its a win-win script for advertisers and filmmakers. The penetration and popularity of films in India can never be doubted. The Indian film industry is one of the largest in the world, producing 1041 films annually. And Bollywood, the Hindi film industry, commands a huge 40 per cent share of the Indian film market (Media and Entertainment, 2007). The output of Bollywood is phenomenal. In 2006, the $3.5 billion industry produced 152 films. With a growing international market, Bollywood ticket sales are close to $4 billion every year (Bollywood-A Foretaste, 2007). The trend of product placements in Bollywood is increasing and advertisers are expecting mileage from this means of communication. This justifies the need to study the viewers reactions towards this practice in general. It could be helpful to marketers using this means of communication in understanding their target consumers. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE The research objective of this study is to understand the viewers reactions towards the current practice of product placement in Bollywood. The main objective is translated into the following seven questions representing different aspects of viewers reactions: Do the product placements make the scene in a movie more realistic? Are the product placements a source of information about latest products? Should undue focus to place product be avoided? Do product placements cause irritation/distraction? Are product placements overused these days? Are product placements a means of money making for film makers? METHODOLOGY For this study a total of 121 respondents were surveyed in the city of Ahmedabad. The sampling method was convenient sampling, with care taken to include approximately equal number of respondents across demographic variables of gender and age. Considering persons below 16 years as children, only people of 16 or above were surveyed. Each respondents frequency of watching Hindi movies per month (irrespective of whether at home or theatre, on satellite TV or VCD/DVD) was also noted. The persons who mentioned watching less than 1 movie per month on an average were considered underexposed to the medium of movies and hence not included in the sample. The survey tool was a structured questionnaire consisting of a short initial description of the product placement practice to familiarize the respondents with the topic. The questionnaire was divided in two parts. In the first part, respondents were required to give personal details resulting in 3 variables, namely, gender, age and approximate frequency (of watching Hindi movies per month). The second part contained 7 items/statements which were based on product placements in general and not for any specific movie. These statements measured viewers reactions as per the questions discussed above. The variables generated by the second part of the questionnaire are as follows: Variables Questions REALISTIC makes the scene in a movie more realistic INFORMATION is a source of information about latest products SUBTLE should not be given undue focus in the scene DISTRACT causes irritation/distraction OVERUSED is overused these days MONEY is a means of money making for film makers BAN should be banned Thus a total of 10 variables, 3 based on personal details and 7 based on reactions were generated by the questionnaire. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS Out of a total of 121 respondents surveyed, 64 (ie, 53 per cent) were males and 57 (ie, 47 per cent) were females. Their age ranged from 16 years to 76 years. The approximate number of Hindi movies watched ranged from 1 movie per month to 30 movies per month. Charts indicating the profile of respondents based on personal detail variables are provided below. The response in terms of percentage of the respondents is summarized below. Variable Agree/Strongly agree Disagree/Strongly disagree Neutral REALISTIC 23% 48% 29% INFORMATION 71% 12% 17% SUBTLE 64% 18% 18% DISTRACT 21% 52% 27% OVERUSED 64% 12% 24% MONEY 85% 4% 11% BAN 21% 47% 32% A first hand glance at the above table shows that a huge 85 per cent of respondents thought product placements was a money making means for film makers and a large majority also thought placements were a good way of knowing about ongoing products. More than half of the respondents thought product placements were overused in movies these days and that they should be subtle and not overbearing. Close to half the respondents did not think scenes got more realistic with product placements. But again around half the respondents also thought product placements did not distract them and should not be banned. The process of deriving detailed results is underway. It is proposed to report difference in reactions of respondents across gender, age and movie watching habits as also correlations between the reaction variables using various statistical analysis tools of the SPSS package. CONCLUSION Though this study is limited only to Ahmedabad city and a limited sample size, the results may not be conclusive but indicative enough for marketers using this means of communication. From the preliminary results it can be said that people do have positive reactions towards the product placement practice if done subtly. So creativity and innovation can actually make this form of advertising quite paying.