Papua New Guinea Religion, Tradition and the Ensuing...

A small nation with widespread brutality and domestic violence, Papua New Guinea, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, struggles with multiple developmental challenges. It is one of the poorest countries on the planet per capita, as well as one of the most culturally diverse with over 800 languages are spoken there (Campano). According to ReCom, a research and communication on foreign aid organization, it is ranked at 148 on the Human Development Index and most human well-being indicators show that the conditions there are similar to those in Sub-Saharan Africa (Stewart). The country is in desperate need of social services for the many abused and battered woman and the vengeful violent acts that take place for accused witchcraft†¦show more content†¦In addition, most societies have stories which describe how superhuman beings created the natural world and society, inventing food and plants, pigs and pig exchanges, male and female cults, sorcery, and other aspects of cu lture (Culture of Papua New Guinea). It is also commonly accepted that with age and maturity most people will develop supernatural powers and abilities. As Christianity has spread throughout the country, most Papua New Guineans fail to see a contradiction between traditional views and practices and Christian beliefs, continuing to practice both side by side. Christian missionaries arrived in the country of Papua New Guinea in the late 19th century. The first mission in eastern New Guinea was the London Missionary society in 1871, which set up mission teachers from the Loyalty Islands on islands adjacent to and on the Papuan mainland (Culture of Papua New Guinea). While there was some resistance to the early missionaries, many welcomed the missionaries and an opportunity to earn money, power and to achieve better gender-based relations. Currently, the churches in Papua New Guinea have an extensive network covering the entire country. The focus of these church networks and religious organizations began with basic health and education services in an attempt to engage the community. The government of Papua New Guinea (GoPNG) has formal control of theseShow MoreRelatedSocial Determinants of Health10939 Words   |  44 Pagesreclaiming of cultural life. Aboriginal culture has roots deep in the past. Australia’s Indigenous cultural traditions have a history and continuity unrivalled in the world. Far from signifying the end of Indigenous Australian traditions, new forms of adaptation are bringing new vitality to older cultural themes and values that need to be addressed. Contemporary Indigenous Australia presents new challenges, issues and options for reconciliation. Aboriginal people have been in Australia for betweenRead MorePre-Columbian Period9302 Words   |  38 PagesAmericans in the United States and Alaskan Native peoples, as well as all indigenous peoples of the Americas. Many indigenous peoples were semi-nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers; others were sedentary and agricultural civilizations. Many formed new tribes or confederations in response to European colonization. Well-known groups included the Huron, Apache Tribe, Cherokee, Sioux, Delaware, Algonquin, Choctaw, Mohegan, Iroquois (which included the Mohawk nation, Oneida tribe, Seneca nation, Cayuga

Glory Movie Analysis - 559 Words

The movie, Glory, tells a story of the 54th regiment of Massachusetts journey in the Civil War. The 54th regiment was the first group of freed African Americans who volunteered to fight in the Union army. The film describes the journey of these brave men as they face prejudice to fight in the Union army and how they sacrificed their lives to fight for the cause of freedom. The film captures the heroic acts of the 54th regiment of black soldiers and their leader Colonel Robert Shaw. This movie did an excellent job portraying the time era in which the Civil War was taken place and depicts the emotions and pressures of war. The movie helped me to visual that time period in a better sense and to see the perspective of African American soldiers fighting in the Civil War. The movie showed a lot more in depth and personal feelings of the black soldiers during that time period. The movie portrayed what the black soldiers had to deal with as soldiers of the Union and it helped me to visual what I learned about the black regiments during the civil war. The film even showed the soldiers having to do manual labor and lute the southern towns and cities. It also showed how even though the black soldiers were on the same side as the white soldiers of the Union, the black soldiers were still treated as unequal and faced prejudice daily by the other white soldiers. It also showed the strong belief of many of the white Union soldiers that they fought for emancipation and the fre edom of theShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Movie Glory890 Words   |  4 Pages Why is the movie called Glory? Is it really glory? I strongly believe not only is the movie glory itself, but the characters represent the idea of glory throughout the movie as well. Glory is a high rank of honor, which involves tireless amounts of work to get to. 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Today there areRead MoreEssay about Analysis of Glory678 Words   |  3 PagesAnalysis of Glory   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Glory is a movie about the fifty-fourth Massachusetts regiment in the civil war. This was the first all black regiment the Union ever allowed to fight. Throughout the movie one quote kept proving itself true, â€Å"We went down standing up.† The members of the fifty-fourth proved that they wanted to go down standing up just by joining the army. However there were many situations that proved this further, as the film continued.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  During the regiment’s training period aRead MoreSummary Of The Life Of Jesus 1445 Words   |  6 Pagesan omnipotent God show unconditional love for a sinful and darkness-loving humanity? Who was Jesus? To be able to explain this, I will briefly run through the movie in hope to pictorially get my analysis through and insight on the life and teaching of the messiah. 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Value for customer, clients and partners and society at large was determinant factor to successes and failures throughout the movie. Marketing the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large is imminent in every aspect. Mel Gibson (Nick Marshall) in the movie is a marketing consultant whoRead MoreTrojan War and Troy819 Words   |  4 PagesHIS 111- Antiquity to 1500 Film Analysis- Troy Troy is an adaption of the poem written by Homer, also known as the Iliad. The screenplay was written by David Benioff and stars Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Orlando Bloom, Brian Cox, Diane Kruger, and Rose Byrne. It is a brilliant story of love and war produced in 2004. My reason for choosing this film is because of the controversy over what is myth and what is fact regarding the fall of Troy. I find the movie so majestic yet the timeframe of the Iliad

Tonys essay Free Essays

Social Medal Marketing In this day and age, social media can be an extremely helpful tool for free advertising and building a customer base. It is tremendously important for companies, especially smaller companies that do not have the biggest budget for big time marketing. With the way society works today, social media is one of the most powerful and influential tools companies have available. We will write a custom essay sample on Tonys essay or any similar topic only for you Order Now Without the use of social media, companies would eve a disadvantage in gaining clientele on the internet. Even if people have never heard of the company, if their â€Å"friends† on social media sites comment or â€Å"like† their page, then they can then be exposed to the company as well. A company that I know has benefited greatly from the use of social media Is Barras Tickets. It Is the company that I work for and It Is a full service ticket agency that sells tickets for all concerts, sports, and theatre nationwide. Being a large ticket broker, we are more well-known than the average ticket agency, however, that does to mean we have the budget available to have commercials playing all the time. Social media advertising has been one of our greatest assets. We have a department that dedicates their time to making posts and offering specials to all social media followers. We use Instating, Twitter, Faceable, and Google Plus. These sites are used to let people know when big shows have gone on sale, when big games or shows are coming up, or to offer discounts to our loyal followers. Contests are run often where ere tickets are given away in order to attract more people to our social media sites. They spend hours figuring out algorithms to understand how a like or a comment will or a share will help sales In the company. They have figured out that comments on Faceable, tags and washrags on Instating, and washrags on Instating give us the greatest opportunities to find potential customers. For the Faceable giveaways, people have to â€Å"like† and comment on the posts. These likes and comments allow the friends of the people who have liked the posts to see this. This gives our page more visits because everyone loves free stuff. They are intrigued and have to see what the offer is and that gets traffic to our website. With Instating, most of the contests involve â€Å"liking† and tagging five friends. On Instating, they have the page that allows you to see what the people you are following have liked and what your friends have been tagged in. When people do this, it brings more and more people to our Instating, causing more people to follow, and in the long run, also bringing traffic to the website. Even though social media obviously does not get 100% percent of potential customers to buy your product, It can help In so many ways. It allows for hundreds, thousands, and potentially even hundreds of thousands of extra eyes on your products, which In turn, could bring Incredible amounts of people to your site. The power that social media holds is immense. It takes the old word of mouth type people that you verbally talk to, now you can share your thoughts about companies with people you haven’t actually spoken to in years. How to cite Tonys essay, Essays

Organizing a Sports Event in Australia-Free-Samples for Student

Question: Discuss abouts the Attraction and Event Management. Answer: Introduction The main types of the event taken into consideration have been seen with organizing a sports event in Australia. The main consideration has been seen in organizing a cricket event in Sydney Cricket Ground. The main attractions have been seen with players from Swanbourne Cricket Club. Form or Content In general Sports and the cultural events are seen to be increasing popular in nature and the planning of such an event mainly takes into consideration the appropriate resonance of the spectators. In Australia sporsts is seen to serve the main purpose for the foundation. The organizing of the cricket event in Sydney Cricket Ground has been categorized under major events. Hence, this event has the capability of attracting significant economic benefit and media coverage (Beech, Kaiser . and Kaspar 2014). The commercialization process of the sports events and the changes in demand in for the cricket events have led to necessity efficient management of the sports events. In addition to this the increased demand the need for sports event management has increased (Masterman 2014). Location and Size Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) and the Sports Ground are recognized for managing of Australias sports venues namely Sydney Cricket Ground and Allianz Stadium. The stadium has been further identified as the central location for the international sports events and hosts nearly 100 sports and the concerts every year. This location has been able to prove as the ideal location for hosting the cricket event based on the popularity of the participating clubs (Sydneycricketground.com.au. 2017). During the initial opening of the stadium in 1988, it had a capacity of 44,000 seats however later on it was increased to 48000 seats. The location of the stadium has been seen to be ideal as it will be able to include a total estimated capacity of 17000 seats (Tyson 2016) Budget Consideration Event Budget - Cricket Tournament Budget Summary Summary of Expenses and Income Total Expenses Expenses $247,905.00 Location $75,000 Total Actual Income Event $128,850 $278,260.00 Food Drink $11,180 Balance Supplies $20,000 $30,355.00 Other $12,875 Total $247,905 Expenses Description Category Quantity Unit cost Amount Stadium Rental Location 1 75,000.00 75,000.00 Ground Staff Event 200 300.00 60,000.00 Meals Food Drink 260 43.00 11,180.00 Dressing Room Supplies 4 5,000.00 20,000.00 T-Shirts Other 45 15.00 675.00 Player Fees Event 56 1,200.00 67,200.00 Awards and Gifts Other 4 2,500.00 10,000.00 Umpire Fees Event 3 550.00 1,650.00 Cleaning Staff Other 10 220.00 2,200.00 Total Expenses $ 247,905.00 Income / Funding Description Unit Cost Estimate Qty Estimate Amt Actual Qty Actual Amount Ticket Sales 10.00 17000 170,000.00 18600 186,000.00 Jersey's 30.00 800 24,000.00 622 18,660.00 Registration 25.00 3200 80,000.00 2800 70,000.00 Sponsors 400.00 6 2,400.00 9 3,600.00 Total $ 276,400.00 Total $ 278,260.00 Number of Participants The main participants of the event have been seen in form of the participation of four major Australian cricket clubs namely Perth Cricket Club, Kenilworth Cricket Club, Melbourne Cricket Club and Swanbourne Cricket Club. The main hosts of the event have been identified with the players belonging to the Swanbourne Cricket Club. Perth Cricket Club is seen as the major cricket club in the Western Australia region, Kenilworth Cricket Club is seen as the main cricket club from Adelaide (South Australia), Melbourne Cricket Club from southeastern Australia and Swanbourne Cricket Club Western Australia (Supovitz 2013). The main participants of the stadium have been further identified in terms of the Ground Staff (200), Players (56), Umpires (3) and cleaning staff (10). Event Stakeholders and their involvement The stakeholders engagement has been mainly depicted with the various types of the sponsors of the event. The main event sponsor for the event has been seen in terms of Kookaburra. It is was established in 1890 and identified as 100% Australian family owned business leading in sports equipment recognized internationally. Some of the products include manufacturing of equipments such as cricket and field hockey items (Kookaburra.biz 2017).The involvement of some of the other sponsors has been further seen on terms of AIME, Black Dog Institute, CARE Australia, Greening Australia, OzHarvest. AIME has more than 5000 university students with largest volunteer movement of the Students from the University students based in Australia. It has been further seen that the involvement of the various types of the sponsors has been able support the event costs and the media coverage (Smith et al. 2013). Conclusion The report has been conducive in understanding of the event life cycle of the event management. The various types of the components of the event has been framed in terms of event idea, feasibility, bidding of campaign, venue master plan, event branding strategy, event hosting and budget estimation. Some of the other considerations have shown the involvement of the participants of the event. References Kookaburra.biz. (2017).Kookaburra Cricket Hockey About Us | Site India. [online] Available at: https://www.kookaburra.biz/en-in/about/ [Accessed 8 Aug. 2017]. Masterman, G., 2014.Strategic sports event management. Routledge. Smith, K., Holmes, K., Storer, C., Lockstone-Binney, L. and Baum, T., 2013. Models of sports event management and volunteer motivation.CAUTHE 2013: Tourism and Global Change: On the Edge of Something Big, p.761. Supovitz, F., 2013.The sports event management and marketing playbook. Wiley Global Education. Sydneycricketground.com.au. (2017).Sydney Cricket Sports Ground Trust - About Us. [online] Available at: https://www.sydneycricketground.com.au/about-us/ [Accessed 8 Aug. 2017]. Tyson, B., 2016.Sports Event Management. Routledge.

Royal Dutch Shell free essay sample

Shell plc (Shell) is one of global leading energy and petrochemical companies. Its foundation dated back to 19 Century but it fully formed after merger of Royal Dutch  and Shell Transport in 1907. Now, Shell, headquartered in The Hague, operates in more than 140 countries or areas and employs approximately 87,000 staffs. Shell businesses expand from upstream to downstream: it is engaged in exploration, production, refining, transportation and retailing of gas, oil, oil derivatives, electricity and chemicals; the company is also interested in global energy innovation such as renewable sources of energies. However, Royal Dutch Shell has been struggling to capture investor’s imagination after 2009 (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Although revenues and profits had recovered, Niger Delta and North Sea oil spilling almost destroyed Shell’s revival dream. The recent figures are still disappointing: Shell suffered more than 30 per cent drop in profits in recent successive quarters (2nd Quarter Unaudited Results 3rd Quarter Unaudited Results, 2013). We will write a custom essay sample on Royal Dutch Shell or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page What are the factors to Shell’s loss? Is that caused by Financial Crisis or European Debt Crisis? Or caused by Oil Spill? Or caused by deep business environmental changes? Identifying Challenges Analysis should start at the general to focus down, called outside-in analytical framework (Angwin et al, 2011). The interaction of an organisation with external environment is decomposed into macro-environment influences, meso-environment influences and micro-environment influences. Macro-environment analysis assesses the stability and complexity in energy industry. Meso-environment analysis focuses on competitive arena; more specifically, it reveals interaction and power of Shell with other main market components. Micro-environment analysis shows competition position in energy industry: it identifies and compares performances of global energy giants. However, the largest degree of influence is from focal company itself; namely, internal environment where decisions are made about corporate strategy and resource policy. Employing outside-in approach contributes to avoid myopia which seeing the real business world on focal firm’s standpoint and thus increases the accuracy of strategic analysis. Macro-environment Macro-environmental analysis is the first and necessary part of systematic strategic analysis. In today varied and complex business world, PESTEL is a common conceptual tool used in macro-environmental analysis. This framework identifies current and potential changes in a large macro-territory (Fahey Narayanan, 1986) and assesses the impact of changes on firm’s industry and itself (Ginter Duncan, 1990). P stands for political factors that determine governmental influence on economy or a certain industry. Political aspects have significant influence in oil and gas industry. It is because most countries regard oil and gas, main products in energy industry, as strategic materials. The energy independence is a preferential aim for the countries who intend to avoid economic blackmail and political suppression from other countries and organisations like OPEC (Talevski Lima, 2009). Thus the authorities strictly control foreign investments into oil and gas drilling and production and allow limited rights to transport and retail oil, gas and other petrochemical products (EIA, 2008), which limit access to proven reserves and potential markets. Besides, the political stability has impacts, especially in North Africa and Middle East. Instability, including political or economic terrorism, civil unrest, acts of war, piracy on high sea and governmental sanctions can discourage investments and disrupt safe operations and products transports (Talevski Lima, 2009). E stands for economic factors that determine economy’s performance with resonating long-term effects. Demand for oil and gas is determined by economic prosperity because most industries and transportation run on fuels (Talevski Lima, 2009). Under current unclear â€Å"economic slowdown†, the demand-and-supply relationship of fuels seems unpredictable. It results in fluctuating price of crude oil, natural gas, and petrochemical products with material impacts on oil and gas industry (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Specifically, in a low fuels price environment, corporates gain less revenue from upstream business because of shrinking margins between raw materials and products; while in a high fuels price environment, corporates suffers less entitlement to proved reserves and lower product demands, which reduces profitability of downstream business. S stands for social factors that influence social-cultural environment of market. Suffering the fears of global warming, people show increasing concerns about natural environment. The considerations shape preference for green energies rather than fossil fuels, especially in developed countries. Population in developed countries, primary consumers of hydrocarbons, consciously diminish needs for oil and gas but boost needs for renewable energies (Trifu, 2012). It entails heavy investments in research development in new energies. Besides, public concerns about corporate social responsibility push energy giants to protect all stakeholders’ profits, such as employees and neighbours at increasing expenditure on optimising manufacturing process, building infrastructure and training employees. T stands for technological factors related to innovations that may affect the operation or markets. Technology is key element in upstream business and downstream business: innovations in exploration and production (upstream) contribute to discover new hydrocarbon reserves or enhance recovery of oil and gas; while in the downstream, optimising reefing process of varying quality and developing marketing campaigns based on technological advance (like communication in social media) help corporates reduce operational costs and enhance margins (BP Annual Report, 2008). Thus corporates should be charged a considerable sum on research development. Additionally, technological improvement in substitutes and complementary products alter the demands for different sources of energies. Generally speaking, the dominance of hydrocarbon should be replaced if the increasing number of complementary products driven by green energies emerges and the costs on exploiting and manufacturing substitutes decrease. E stands for environmental factors that influence or are determined by the surroundings. Most energy companies have been involved in environmental pollution. Increasingly strict environmental restrictions require energy companies spend share of their profits in technological innovation and waste disposal to environmental restoration and remediation (BP Annual Report, 2008). Besides, an uneven geographical distribution of hydrocarbon and separability of production fields and markets expose oil and gas companies to safety issues and environmental issues in transportation (Talevski Lima, 2009), such as BP oil spilling in Gulf of Mexico. Transportation process requires special care at large human, material and capital inputs. Thus environmental issues are threats to profitability. L stands for legal factors that laws affect the business environment. Legal regulations subjected to energy companies includes imposition of exploitation obligations, regulations on field development and decommissioning, proposed fuel specifications, the provision of health-safety-security-and-environment protection, emission controls, climate change programs, the provision of disposal or releases of chemicals or petroleum substances, the clauses of antitrust and competition, upfront concession fees , special royalties and taxes (Talevski Lima, 2009; Trifu, 2012). More stringent legal restrictions might induce damage to corporate images, larger fees required in business activities or even loss of licence to operate in a certain area (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Meso-environment Analysis about meso-environment examines competitive structure. Porter’s Five Forces should be advised: It identifies five basic competitive forces which influence focal participants’ income statements and balance sheets through prices, costs and investments (Porter, 2008). Meso-environmental analysis tries to understand underpinnings of competition and causes of profitability in oil and gas industry. The threat of new entrants is insignificant. There are large capital investments tied to all vertical activities like exploration of new fields, setting-up production facilities, scientific research and accessing to distribution channel. Enormous fixed up-front investment creates barriers to potential entrants (Talevski Lima, 2009). Economies of scale/scope are another barrier to new participants. Higher unit costs in exploration and production and lower volume of business result in a small profit margin, which adversely affect returns of money in the start-up (Dess et al., 2004). The threat of substitutes seems not significant today but increasingly influential in following years. Oil and gas are still dominant in many sectors, especially in transportation and industry; and it is estimated to stay the dominance until 2030 (IEA, 2008). However, with the technological advances in drilling and processing new energies and rising concerns on planet, green energies like renewable energies and nuclear energies are predicted to slowly but surely enlarge market share in the future. The bargaining power of buyers is complex. Generally, the power of buyers is low because the prices of oil and gas are globally given (Talevski Lima, 2009). However, the power of large consumers, like the US, the EU, China and Japan, are indeed strong because their enormous volumes of demands can alter global demands. Recently, theses primary consumers are trying to switch from heavy dependence on fossil fuels to renewable energies. Thus the strong bargaining power entails business revolution in oil and gas industry. The bargaining power of suppliers depends on which type of suppliers they are. The conventional suppliers that provide supporting products/services seem disadvantaged because oil and gas industry has a wide range of small unconsolidated sub-suppliers from various sectors. While the suppliers of oil or gas field exert power: no one corporates can operate in a certain country without permission. These countries can determine the supply of materials. Thus their policy and regulation on oil and gas are quite important to energy companies. The intensity of rivalry is high. The slow industry growth and product homogeneity create small profits margins through technological or managerial innovation. Besides, the needs to replace drying fields exacerbate competition due to the fact that new reserves are more difficult to access. All of them force major and strong oligopolistic players overcome competitive constrains through aggressive activities like mergers, acquisitions and alliances (Weston et al. , 2001). Micro-environment Micro-environment analysis attempts to identify Shell’s competitive position through comparing competitors’ superior performances. Fiercer competition on differentiating products is a characteristic of oil and gas industry. BP intended to gain first-mover advantages. BP has engaged in renewables energies, especially in wind, solar and biofuels (Datamonitor, 2010). Until the end of 2009, BP has more than 500 MW of installed capacity through wind power; the whole solar value chain has been built; and more than $1 billion planned investments was into biofuels business operation. The Total S. A. refused to be inferior: the investments into renewable energies are also considerable (Datamonitor, 2010). Slow differentiation process might erode Shell’s competitive position. Increasing competition from government-run companies such as China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec creates threats to publicly held oil and gas companies, especially in seeking access to the fields (Shell Annual Report, 2012). These government-run entities have partial access to significant reserves and desirable projects. They are also sometimes motivated by political or other factors in making business decision which is abnormal in markets or harm to competitors. These partial competitive advantages supported by national governments should be achieved at independent participants’ loss. Internal Environment Internal-environmental analysis focuses on firm-specific factors. The frequent oil spilling disasters have troubled Shell for a long time. Recently, these problems become even worse. The oil spilling in Nigeria mainly caused by lack of maintenance on pipeline resulted in up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil spilling 75 miles off the coasts of Niger Delta (Vidal, 2011); the following oil leaking in North Sea caused by immature deep-water drilling technology and operator error resulted in more than 1,300 barrels of crude oil spilling (BBC news, 2011). However, Shell’s responses to extreme events seem unacceptable. Criticisms referred to late disclosure of information about leaking events, sluggish efforts to stop leakage, false claims on responsibility and reluctance on compensation (Macalister, 2013; Watkins, 2013). It makes Shell face not only considerable economic losses from business interruption, rehabilitative measures and fines on environmental pollution which caused losing leading company position (Datamonitor, 2010; MarketLine, 2013), but also a credibility problem and even corporate images damage (ICMR, 2010). Another threat is from globalisation outsourcing. Shell’s operation is on more than 70 countries with differing degrees of political, legal and fiscal stability. A wide range of political developments might affect operations, especially in the upstream, referring to land tenure, re-writing of leases, entitlement to produced hydrocarbons, production rates, and royalties (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Cross-border transaction also exposed Shell to risks from fluctuating foreign exchange rate. Changing foreign exchange rate increases transaction risks (caused by time delay between signing and settling contracts) and translational risks (caused by operating in foreign currencies but showing on balance sheets in home currency), which increase unpredictability in estimating costs and revenues (Sorensen and Kyle, 2008). Furthermore, Shell face competition from powerful local rivals when entering overseas market. Wining in the competition require large investments particularly when the rivalry happens in home country of government-run firms. Key Challenges The greatest challenge is from the increasing environmental concerns, leading to stringent environmental regulation and growing demands to green energies in future market. Hart pointed (1995) corporate competitive advantages should be rooted in capabilities in promoting environmentally-friendly economic activities, namely the natural-resource-based view of the firm. However, most core businesses of Shell, especially in upstream activities, still cause huge damages to ecosystem. This trend creates a puzzle: how to modify current environment-damaged portfolio to satisfy growing requirements to environmentally-friendly business model. In other words, it determines Shell’s future business development direction: from traditional fossil fuel company to environment-oriented energy giants-to sustain competitive advantages by pollution prevention, product stewardship and sustainable development (Hart, 1995). The second key challenge is from poor crisis management strategy. Current activities in value chain exposure Shell to safety disasters in drilling, production, refining, and transportation process. It seriously hurts social benefit, especially the safety of nearby residence. Growing concerns about corporate social responsibility set higher requirements to Shell to manage crisis. How to win customer’s trusts and recover the credibility depends on Shell’s improvements in social-responsible performance. It determines Shell’s future strategic direction: from high-level risk-facing but low-level risking-taking company to lower-risk and strong anti-risk company with organisational and policy synergies which extend beyond â€Å"principles† to the serious treatments by every staff to think about threats and adopt their behaviour to avoid potential crisis or to manage happened crisis (McConnell Drennan, 2006). The third key challenge is from globalisation business model in oil and gas industry. This model tightly ties demand to Shell’s products to global economic prosperity and depression. It obviously brings greater difficulty to determine outputs in a certain period in order to balance demands and supply. Besides, the regional instability in political development and economic situation especially in currency makes it tougher for Shell to audit revenuesto control operations. Furthermore, competition from powerful local rivals is big challenge for Shell entering overseas market. To gain competitive advantages in international context should combine firm-specific resource and capabilities with certain national environment (Grant, 2008). In other words, how to shorten political, economic and cultural distances in globalisation should be Shell’s future direction on optimising integration of global resources (Ghemawat, 2001). Strategic Plan How to deal with the three contextual key challenges should be a serious question in Shell’s development plan. The measures to manage challenges can be understood as to pursue or sustain competitive advantages. In current market, external stakeholders are trying to keep companies accountable for social issues and demonstrate potentially large financial risks for the companies with damages to society or environments. Fulfilling social responsibility has been becoming inescapable requirements to keep competitive advantages. In order to embed a social perspective into its core value proposition, Shell should change from the fragmented and defensive position to the integrated and proactive posture. In other words, the focus must move from the focuses on corporate image to an emphasis on humanity and substance (Porter Kramer, 2006). Shared values among society (people), economy (profits) and environment (planet) can be realised (Jamali, 2006). The primary task is the shift from an environmentally-damaged producer to an environmentally-friendly corporation, namely, to achieve environment benefits. The first step is pollution abatement. There are two suggested approaches. Pollution control is using pollution control equipment to trap, store, treat and dispose emission and effluents. Another approach is pollution prevention, refers to reduce, change and prevent emission and effluents by greater housekeeping, material substitution, recycling and process innovation (Cairncross, 1991, Frosch Gallopoulos, 1989; Willig, 1994). Pollution prevention seems more important than pollution control: it tries to prevent and contain pollution in continuous-improvement methods rather than the old model of â€Å"polluting then cleaning up† at expense of non-recoverable ecological damages and expensive end-of-pipe capital investments to control emissions (Rooney, 1993). A pollution-prevention strategy emphasis on establishing capabilities in production and operation: it can be achieved through extensive and initiative employee involvement (Cole, 1991; Lawler, 1986) and continues improvement in waste reduction. Thus it is necessary to invest into inventing or introducing environmentally-friendly or resource-conserving facilities and innovating technology used in value chain. For example, non-phenolic and resin-coating technology  increase hydraulic fracturing efficiency: It allows coated sand to be produced with less energy requirement and environmental damages compared to current phenolic resins in the manufacturing process (Drilling Contractor, 2013). Building awareness of environmental protection and forcing involvement of employees also should be suggested. The second step is to product stewardship. It refers to direct the selection of raw materials and manage product design with aims at minimising environmental harm of product system. Exiting environmentally hazardous business and developing potential products with lower life-cycle costs should be the requirements to reasonable product management (Hart, 1995). To Shell, creating new products with low life-cycle costs will be dominant product strategy. It requests Shell to minimise the use of non-renewable materials, to avoid use of toxic materials and maximise the use of renewable resources (Robert, 1995). Developing renewable energy is a good choice. Shell is advised to develop wind, solar, hydropower, tidal, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas electricity generation and anaerobic digestion. These green energies not only satisfy legal and public expectations on environmental protection but also solve the problem of fossil fuels crisis. The third step is sustainable development. To achieve sustainable development demands a great deal of inputs and long-term commitments to develop market (Hart, 1995). To Shell, that means to create market demand transition from fossil fuel to renewable source of energies, especially in the developing countries. For example, Shell can make documentaries about production in the fossil fuels field and the renewable energy filed. This comparison might switch audiences’ preference for energies. Shell also can persuade energy-intensive producers to adopt green source of energies. Although there is little evidence showing the relationship between these efforts and short-term profits, the engagement to sustainable development will improvement firms’ long-term performance, reflected by price earnings or market-to-book ratios (Hart, 1995). The second task is to manage crisis, specifically to avoid potential crisis and to minimise the damages. That can be understood a task in protecting social benefits, especially nearby residence around Shell economic activities. There are five phase to accomplish crisis management (Mitroff, 1988). The first phase is signal deletion. Long before the crisis happened, there are repeated and persistent trials of warning signals. It is necessary for Shell to build various appropriate warning systems to identify diverse explicit or implicit signals. For example, the growing equipment faulty rate may imply the increasing possibility of accident and needs for maintenance. The second phase is preparation or prevention, referring to establish appropriate prevention and preparation mechanism. Specifically, prevention and preparation mechanism works through identifying any sign of weakness and then responding appropriately whatever problems is discovered. In this phase, Shell is required to ensure everything stay fixed even it works well now. The third phase is containment or damage limitation. It is important for Shell to build damage-limitation mechanisms in place. Preventing all crises seems impossible in oil and gas industry. How to prevent the harm from engulfing other parts of the corporate should be discussed. After every disaster happens, Shell should release relevant information as soon as possible and also clearly claim corporate responsibility. Although it may cause higher expense of recovery, these measures protect credibility in public, which is important for long-term development. The fourth phase is recovery. If Shell is not anticipatory, the aftermath is requested. That means Shell should build short-term and long-term recovery plan. For instance, in Nigeria Delta, how to degrade toxic substance in soil, air and water, how to recover soil fertility and how to rebuild broken ecosystem, which is highly related to local people’s health need to be considered. The final phase is learning. Shell should reassess the crisis happened on the past to improve capabilities in predicting crisis and avoiding crisis. The third task is to manage the difficulties in globalisation. The challenges are mainly from political difference, cultural distance and economic instability. Thus it is a task to shrink various distances in globalisation to realise economic profits. Political difference and cultural distance create barriers to foreign companies. International alliance and joint venture with powerful local market participant should be a suitable entry mode for Shell in overseas markets (Grant, 2008). It not only free Shell from political restrictions directed against foreign companies but also access market knowledge and distribution capabilities. Another strategy to shrink political and cultural distance is decentralisation. That means giving overseas subsidiaries higher level of freedoms in decision-making. These holders of first-hand information can modify Shell’s activities and respond the diverse political and customers’ requirements quickly and accurately. That is the process of localisation. The effects of economic instability also can be minimised by economic tools. For example, financial forward contracts help Shell avoid financial risks, such as fluctuating foreign exchange rate to guarantee the best possible outcomes in a certain production cycle (Shapiro, ND.) Although it cannot balance demand and supply fundamentally, the tools or frameworks tries to decrease damages from external economic changes. Conclusion Royal Dutch Shell was a successful corporation but now is suffering poor performance. In this essay, the author analyses the macro-environment, meso-environment, micro-environment and internal environment in outside-in approach to identify three key challenges in the long-term survival. They are increasing concerns in environmental protection, poor crisis management strategy and various distances in globalisation. They also can be understood the threats from environment, society and economy. Thus corporate social responsibility is the synergy. Environmental profits can be achieved through ppollution abatement, product stewardship and sustainable development; sociall profits can be realised by crisis management, including signal deletion, preparation and prevention, damage limitation, recovery and learning; economic profits can be accomplished by shrinking political, cultural and economic distance through alliance joint venture, decentralised management and leverage by economic tools. Royal Dutch Shell free essay sample Royal Dutch Shell plc (Shell) is one of global leading energy and petrochemical companies. Its foundation dated back to 19 Century but it fully formed after merger of Royal Dutch  and Shell Transport in 1907. Now, Shell, headquartered in The Hague, operates in more than 140 countries or areas and employs approximately 87,000 staffs. Shell businesses expand from upstream to downstream: it is engaged in exploration, production, refining, transportation and retailing of gas, oil, oil derivatives, electricity and chemicals; the company is also interested in global energy innovation such as renewable sources of energies. However, Royal Dutch Shell has been struggling to capture investor’s imagination after 2009 (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Although revenues and profits had recovered, Niger Delta and North Sea oil spilling almost destroyed Shell’s revival dream. The recent figures are still disappointing: Shell suffered more than 30 per cent drop in profits in recent successive quarters (2nd Quarter Unaudited Results 3rd Quarter Unaudited Results, 2013). We will write a custom essay sample on Royal Dutch Shell or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page What are the factors to Shell’s loss? Is that caused by Financial Crisis or European Debt Crisis? Or caused by Oil Spill? Or caused by deep business environmental changes? Identifying Challenges Analysis should start at the general to focus down, called outside-in analytical framework (Angwin et al, 2011). The interaction of an organisation with external environment is decomposed into macro-environment influences, meso-environment influences and micro-environment influences. Macro-environment analysis assesses the stability and complexity in energy industry. Meso-environment analysis focuses on competitive arena; more specifically, it reveals interaction and power of Shell with other main market components. Micro-environment analysis shows competition position in energy industry: it identifies and compares performances of global energy giants. However, the largest degree of influence is from focal company itself; namely, internal environment where decisions are made about corporate strategy and resource policy. Employing outside-in approach contributes to avoid myopia which seeing the real business world on focal firm’s standpoint and thus increases the accuracy of strategic analysis. Macro-environment Macro-environmental analysis is the first and necessary part of systematic strategic analysis. In today varied and complex business world, PESTEL is a common conceptual tool used in macro-environmental analysis. This framework identifies current and potential changes in a large macro-territory (Fahey Narayanan, 1986) and assesses the impact of changes on firm’s industry and itself (Ginter Duncan, 1990). P stands for political factors that determine governmental influence on economy or a certain industry. Political aspects have significant influence in oil and gas industry. It is because most countries regard oil and gas, main products in energy industry, as strategic materials. The energy independence is a preferential aim for the countries who intend to avoid economic blackmail and political suppression from other countries and organisations like OPEC (Talevski Lima, 2009). Thus the authorities strictly control foreign investments into oil and gas drilling and production and allow limited rights to transport and retail oil, gas and other petrochemical products (EIA, 2008), which limit access to proven reserves and potential markets. Besides, the political stability has impacts, especially in North Africa and Middle East. Instability, including political or economic terrorism, civil unrest, acts of war, piracy on high sea and governmental sanctions can discourage investments and disrupt safe operations and products transports (Talevski Lima, 2009). E stands for economic factors that determine economy’s performance with resonating long-term effects. Demand for oil and gas is determined by economic prosperity because most industries and transportation run on fuels (Talevski Lima, 2009). Under current unclear â€Å"economic slowdown†, the demand-and-supply relationship of fuels seems unpredictable. It results in fluctuating price of crude oil, natural gas, and petrochemical products with material impacts on oil and gas industry (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Specifically, in a low fuels price environment, corporates gain less revenue from upstream business because of shrinking margins between raw materials and products; while in a high fuels price environment, corporates suffers less entitlement to proved reserves and lower product demands, which reduces profitability of downstream business. S stands for social factors that influence social-cultural environment of market. Suffering the fears of global warming, people show increasing concerns about natural environment. The considerations shape preference for green energies rather than fossil fuels, especially in developed countries. Population in developed countries, primary consumers of hydrocarbons, consciously diminish needs for oil and gas but boost needs for renewable energies (Trifu, 2012). It entails heavy investments in research development in new energies. Besides, public concerns about corporate social responsibility push energy giants to protect all stakeholders’ profits, such as employees and neighbours at increasing expenditure on optimising manufacturing process, building infrastructure and training employees. T stands for technological factors related to innovations that may affect the operation or markets. Technology is key element in upstream business and downstream business: innovations in exploration and production (upstream) contribute to discover new hydrocarbon reserves or enhance recovery of oil and gas; while in the downstream, optimising reefing process of varying quality and developing marketing campaigns based on technological advance (like communication in social media) help corporates reduce operational costs and enhance margins (BP Annual Report, 2008). Thus corporates should be charged a considerable sum on research development. Additionally, technological improvement in substitutes and complementary products alter the demands for different sources of energies. Generally speaking, the dominance of hydrocarbon should be replaced if the increasing number of complementary products driven by green energies emerges and the costs on exploiting and manufacturing substitutes decrease. E stands for environmental factors that influence or are determined by the surroundings. Most energy companies have been involved in environmental pollution. Increasingly strict environmental restrictions require energy companies spend share of their profits in technological innovation and waste disposal to environmental restoration and remediation (BP Annual Report, 2008). Besides, an uneven geographical distribution of hydrocarbon and separability of production fields and markets expose oil and gas companies to safety issues and environmental issues in transportation (Talevski Lima, 2009), such as BP oil spilling in Gulf of Mexico. Transportation process requires special care at large human, material and capital inputs. Thus environmental issues are threats to profitability. L stands for legal factors that laws affect the business environment. Legal regulations subjected to energy companies includes imposition of exploitation obligations, regulations on field development and decommissioning, proposed fuel specifications, the provision of health-safety-security-and-environment protection, emission controls, climate change programs, the provision of disposal or releases of chemicals or petroleum substances, the clauses of antitrust and competition, upfront concession fees , special royalties and taxes (Talevski Lima, 2009; Trifu, 2012). More stringent legal restrictions might induce damage to corporate images, larger fees required in business activities or even loss of licence to operate in a certain area (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Meso-environment Analysis about meso-environment examines competitive structure. Porter’s Five Forces should be advised: It identifies five basic competitive forces which influence focal participants’ income statements and balance sheets through prices, costs and investments (Porter, 2008). Meso-environmental analysis tries to understand underpinnings of competition and causes of profitability in oil and gas industry. The threat of new entrants is insignificant. There are large capital investments tied to all vertical activities like exploration of new fields, setting-up production facilities, scientific research and accessing to distribution channel. Enormous fixed up-front investment creates barriers to potential entrants (Talevski Lima, 2009). Economies of scale/scope are another barrier to new participants. Higher unit costs in exploration and production and lower volume of business result in a small profit margin, which adversely affect returns of money in the start-up (Dess et al. The threat of substitutes seems not significant today but increasingly influential in following years. Oil and gas are still dominant in many sectors, especially in transportation and industry; and it is estimated to stay the dominance until 2030 (IEA, 2008). However, with the technological advances in drilling and processing new energies and rising concerns on planet, green energies like renewable energies and nuclear energies are predicted to slowly but surely enlarge market share in the future. The bargaining power of buyers is complex. Generally, the power of buyers is low because the prices of oil and gas are globally given (Talevski Lima, 2009). However, the power of large consumers, like the US, the EU, China and Japan, are indeed strong because their enormous volumes of demands can alter global demands. Recently, theses primary consumers are trying to switch from heavy dependence on fossil fuels to renewable energies. Thus the strong bargaining power entails business revolution in oil and gas industry. The bargaining power of suppliers depends on which type of suppliers they are. The conventional suppliers that provide supporting products/services seem disadvantaged because oil and gas industry has a wide range of small unconsolidated sub-suppliers from various sectors. While the suppliers of oil or gas field exert power: no one corporates can operate in a certain country without permission. These countries can determine the supply of materials. Thus their policy and regulation on oil and gas are quite important to energy companies. The intensity of rivalry is high. The slow industry growth and product homogeneity create small profits margins through technological or managerial innovation. Besides, the needs to replace drying fields exacerbate competition due to the fact that new reserves are more difficult to access. All of them force major and strong oligopolistic players overcome competitive constrains through aggressive activities like mergers, acquisitions and alliances (Weston et al. , 2001). Micro-environment Micro-environment analysis attempts to identify Shell’s competitive position through comparing competitors’ superior performances. Fiercer competition on differentiating products is a characteristic of oil and gas industry. BP intended to gain first-mover advantages. BP has engaged in renewables energies, especially in wind, solar and biofuels (Datamonitor, 2010). Until the end of 2009, BP has more than 500 MW of installed capacity through wind power; the whole solar value chain has been built; and more than $1 billion planned investments was into biofuels business operation. The Total S. A. refused to be inferior: the investments into renewable energies are also considerable (Datamonitor, 2010). Slow differentiation process might erode Shell’s competitive position. Increasing competition from government-run companies such as China National Petroleum Corporation and Sinopec creates threats to publicly held oil and gas companies, especially in seeking access to the fields (Shell Annual Report, 2012). These government-run entities have partial access to significant reserves and desirable projects. They are also sometimes motivated by political or other factors in making business decision which is abnormal in markets or harm to competitors. These partial competitive advantages supported by national governments should be achieved at independent participants’ loss. Internal Environment Internal-environmental analysis focuses on firm-specific factors. The frequent oil spilling disasters have troubled Shell for a long time. Recently, these problems become even worse. The oil spilling in Nigeria mainly caused by lack of maintenance on pipeline resulted in up to 40,000 barrels of crude oil spilling 75 miles off the coasts of Niger Delta (Vidal, 2011); the following oil leaking in North Sea caused by immature deep-water drilling technology and operator error resulted in more than 1,300 barrels of crude oil spilling (BBC news, 2011). However, Shell’s responses to extreme events seem unacceptable. Criticisms referred to late disclosure of information about leaking events, sluggish efforts to stop leakage, false claims on responsibility and reluctance on compensation (Macalister, 2013; Watkins, 2013). It makes Shell face not only considerable economic losses from business interruption, rehabilitative measures and fines on environmental pollution which caused losing leading company position (Datamonitor, 2010; MarketLine, 2013), but also a credibility problem and even corporate images damage (ICMR, 2010). Another threat is from globalisation outsourcing. Shell’s operation is on more than 70 countries with differing degrees of political, legal and fiscal stability. A wide range of political developments might affect operations, especially in the upstream, referring to land tenure, re-writing of leases, entitlement to produced hydrocarbons, production rates, and royalties (Shell Annual Report, 2012). Cross-border transaction also exposed Shell to risks from fluctuating foreign exchange rate. Changing foreign exchange rate increases transaction risks (caused by time delay between signing and settling contracts) and translational risks (caused by operating in foreign currencies but showing on balance sheets in home currency), which increase unpredictability in estimating costs and revenues (Sorensen and Kyle, 2008). Furthermore, Shell face competition from powerful local rivals when entering overseas market. Wining in the competition require large investments particularly when the rivalry happens in home country of government-run firms. Key Challenges The greatest challenge is from the increasing environmental concerns, leading to stringent environmental regulation and growing demands to green energies in future market. Hart pointed (1995) corporate competitive advantages should be rooted in capabilities in promoting environmentally-friendly economic activities, namely the natural-resource-based view of the firm. However, most core businesses of Shell, especially in upstream activities, still cause huge damages to ecosystem. This trend creates a puzzle: how to modify current environment-damaged portfolio to satisfy growing requirements to environmentally-friendly business model. In other words, it determines Shell’s future business development direction: from traditional fossil fuel company to environment-oriented energy giants-to sustain competitive advantages by pollution prevention, product stewardship and sustainable development (Hart, 1995). The second key challenge is from poor crisis management strategy. Current activities in value chain exposure Shell to safety disasters in drilling, production, refining, and transportation process. It seriously hurts social benefit, especially the safety of nearby residence. Growing concerns about corporate social responsibility set higher requirements to Shell to manage crisis. How to win customer’s trusts and recover the credibility depends on Shell’s improvements in social-responsible performance. It determines Shell’s future strategic direction: from high-level risk-facing but low-level risking-taking company to lower-risk and strong anti-risk company with organisational and policy synergies which extend beyond â€Å"principles† to the serious treatments by every staff to think about threats and adopt their behaviour to avoid potential crisis or to manage happened crisis (McConnell Drennan, 2006). The third key challenge is from globalisation business model in oil and gas industry. This model tightly ties demand to Shell’s products to global economic prosperity and depression. It obviously brings greater difficulty to determine outputs in a certain period in order to balance demands and supply. Besides, the regional instability in political development and economic situation especially in currency makes it tougher for Shell to audit revenuesto control operations. Furthermore, competition from powerful local rivals is big challenge for Shell entering overseas market. To gain competitive advantages in international context should combine firm-specific resource and capabilities with certain national environment (Grant, 2008). In other words, how to shorten political, economic and cultural distances in globalisation should be Shell’s future direction on optimising integration of global resources (Ghemawat, 2001). Strategic Plan How to deal with the three contextual key challenges should be a serious question in Shell’s development plan. The measures to manage challenges can be understood as to pursue or sustain competitive advantages. In current market, external stakeholders are trying to keep companies accountable for social issues and demonstrate potentially large financial risks for the companies with damages to society or environments. Fulfilling social responsibility has been becoming inescapable requirements to keep competitive advantages. In order to embed a social perspective into its core value proposition, Shell should change from the fragmented and defensive position to the integrated and proactive posture. In other words, the focus must move from the focuses on corporate image to an emphasis on humanity and substance (Porter Kramer, 2006). Shared values among society (people), economy (profits) and environment (planet) can be realised (Jamali, 2006). The primary task is the shift from an environmentally-damaged producer to an environmentally-friendly corporation, namely, to achieve environment benefits. The first step is pollution abatement. There are two suggested approaches. Pollution control is using pollution control equipment to trap, store, treat and dispose emission and effluents. Another approach is pollution prevention, refers to reduce, change and prevent emission and effluents by greater housekeeping, material substitution, recycling and process innovation (Cairncross, 1991, Frosch Gallopoulos, 1989; Willig, 1994). Pollution prevention seems more important than pollution control: it tries to prevent and contain pollution in continuous-improvement methods rather than the old model of â€Å"polluting then cleaning up† at expense of non-recoverable ecological damages and expensive end-of-pipe capital investments to control emissions (Rooney, 1993). A pollution-prevention strategy emphasis on establishing capabilities in production and operation: it can be achieved through extensive and initiative employee involvement (Cole, 1991; Lawler, 1986) and continues improvement in waste reduction. Thus it is necessary to invest into inventing or introducing environmentally-friendly or resource-conserving facilities and innovating technology used in value chain. For example, non-phenolic and resin-coating technology  increase hydraulic fracturing efficiency: It allows coated sand to be produced with less energy requirement and environmental damages compared to current phenolic resins in the manufacturing process (Drilling Contractor, 2013). Building awareness of environmental protection and forcing involvement of employees also should be suggested. The second step is to product stewardship. It refers to direct the selection of raw materials and manage product design with aims at minimising environmental harm of product system. Exiting environmentally hazardous business and developing potential products with lower life-cycle costs should be the requirements to reasonable product management (Hart, 1995). To Shell, creating new products with low life-cycle costs will be dominant product strategy. It requests Shell to minimise the use of non-renewable materials, to avoid use of toxic materials and maximise the use of renewable resources (Robert, 1995). Developing renewable energy is a good choice. Shell is advised to develop wind, solar, hydropower, tidal, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas electricity generation and anaerobic digestion. These green energies not only satisfy legal and public expectations on environmental protection but also solve the problem of fossil fuels crisis. The third step is sustainable development. To achieve sustainable development demands a great deal of inputs and long-term commitments to develop market (Hart, 1995). To Shell, that means to create market demand transition from fossil fuel to renewable source of energies, especially in the developing countries. For example, Shell can make documentaries about production in the fossil fuels field and the renewable energy filed. This comparison might switch audiences’ preference for energies. Shell also can persuade energy-intensive producers to adopt green source of energies. Although there is little evidence showing the relationship between these efforts and short-term profits, the engagement to sustainable development will improvement firms’ long-term performance, reflected by price earnings or market-to-book ratios (Hart, 1995). The second task is to manage crisis, specifically to avoid potential crisis and to minimise the damages. That can be understood a task in protecting social benefits, especially nearby residence around Shell economic activities. There are five phase to accomplish crisis management (Mitroff, 1988). The first phase is signal deletion. Long before the crisis happened, there are repeated and persistent trials of warning signals. It is necessary for Shell to build various appropriate warning systems to identify diverse explicit or implicit signals. For example, the growing equipment faulty rate may imply the increasing possibility of accident and needs for maintenance. The second phase is preparation or prevention, referring to establish appropriate prevention and preparation mechanism. Specifically, prevention and preparation mechanism works through identifying any sign of weakness and then responding appropriately whatever problems is discovered. In this phase, Shell is required to ensure everything stay fixed even it works well now. The third phase is containment or damage limitation. It is important for Shell to build damage-limitation mechanisms in place. Preventing all crises seems impossible in oil and gas industry. How to prevent the harm from engulfing other parts of the corporate should be discussed. After every disaster happens, Shell should release relevant information as soon as possible and also clearly claim corporate responsibility. Although it may cause higher expense of recovery, these measures protect credibility in public, which is important for long-term development. The fourth phase is recovery. If Shell is not anticipatory, the aftermath is requested. That means Shell should build short-term and long-term recovery plan. For instance, in Nigeria Delta, how to degrade toxic substance in soil, air and water, how to recover soil fertility and how to rebuild broken ecosystem, which is highly related to local people’s health need to be considered. The final phase is learning. Shell should reassess the crisis happened on the past to improve capabilities in predicting crisis and avoiding crisis. The third task is to manage the difficulties in globalisation. The challenges are mainly from political difference, cultural distance and economic instability. Thus it is a task to shrink various distances in globalisation to realise economic profits. Political difference and cultural distance create barriers to foreign companies. International alliance and joint venture with powerful local market participant should be a suitable entry mode for Shell in overseas markets (Grant, 2008). It not only free Shell from political restrictions directed against foreign companies but also access market knowledge and distribution capabilities. Another strategy to shrink political and cultural distance is decentralisation. That means giving overseas subsidiaries higher level of freedoms in decision-making. These holders of first-hand information can modify Shell’s activities and respond the diverse political and customers’ requirements quickly and accurately. That is the process of localisation. The effects of economic instability also can be minimised by economic tools. For example, financial forward contracts help Shell avoid financial risks, such as fluctuating foreign exchange rate to guarantee the best possible outcomes in a certain production cycle (Shapiro, ND. Although it cannot balance demand and supply fundamentally, the tools or frameworks tries to decrease damages from external economic changes. Conclusion Royal Dutch Shell was a successful corporation but now is suffering poor performance. In this essay, the author analyses the macro-environment, meso-environment, micro-environment and internal environment in outside-in approach to identify three key challenges in the long-term survival. They are increasing concerns in environmental protection, poor crisis management strategy and various distances in globalisation. They also can be understood the threats from environment, society and economy. Thus corporate social responsibility is the synergy. Environmental profits can be achieved through ppollution abatement, product stewardship and sustainable development; sociall profits can be realised by crisis management, including signal deletion, preparation and prevention, damage limitation, recovery and learning; economic profits can be accomplished by shrinking political, cultural and economic distance through alliance joint venture, decentralised management and leverage by economic tools.

Hubris in Antigone essays

Hubris in Antigone essays Sophocless Antigone deals with many aspects of good and evil. One of the most important points discussed in this tragedy is the idea of hubris. Hubris can be defined in many ways such as excessive pride, arrogance, and overstepping boundaries. Many people argue that both Creon, the ruler of Thebes, and Antigone, his niece, exhibit hubris. This text is very controversial in that it forces its readers to question its characters motives and decide whether their actions are justified. Topics such as what a kings duty to his country is and what a womans role in society is, is brought into focus. The story takes place right after the death of Polyneices and Eteocles, but there is some necessary background information you need to know first. Before the story took place, Oedipus was the ruler of Thebes. He had four children: Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, and Polyneices. A prophecy drove Oedipus from his country, leaving his two sons to rule. Oedipus declared that the two boys would rule alternately, starting with Eteocles. The problem begins when Eteocles refuses to step down from the throne when his rule is up. Polyneices, who is married to the daughter of the king of Argos, leads the Argives and several other cities against Thebes, ultimately resulting in the death of the two brothers. Creon, their uncle, then took up the throne and proclaimed: Tto the citizens about Oedipus sons./For Eteocles, who died this citys champion,/ showing his valors supremacy everywhere,/ he shall be buried in his grave with every rite/ of sanctity given to heroes under earth./ However, his brother, Polyneices, a returned exile,/ who sought to burn with fire from top to bottom/ his native city, and the gods of his own people;/ who sought to taste the blood he shared with us,/ and lead the rest of us to slavery/ I here proclaim to the city that this man/ shall no one honor with a grave and no one shall m...

Determining Your Perfect Position Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Determining Your Perfect Position - Essay Example It is natural for every business student to aspire to be a successful businessperson at a reputable organization. These positions could be of an entrepreneur, the chief-executive office, the departmental heads - marketing, sales, production, and finance or even the president and chief supervisor. Everybody has a different perfect position in mind; a different dream; I aspire to be an entrepreneur and start up a business of designer personal computers. The reason that I believe that the position of an entrepreneur and then the CEO of the organization once it is in existence is perfect for me is due to my personality and passion put together. The enthusiasm that I hold for designer personal computers is extraordinary; I want to pass on this fervor to other people too by opening up my own venture. An entrepreneur is somebody who takes major risks; he employs all the money that he has towards his business plan in the hope of earning profit. However, this profit could very well be major losses as well; the entrepreneur might be left with no capital by the end of the project. However, I am a very adventurous person by nature - risk taking and gambling is a part of everyone's life; taking risks for something one really desires is a positive risk. Also, I possess a high energy level, self-confidence and an awareness of passing time. I tend to make the best use of time that I have along with a managed awareness of my surroundings. These a re all the qualities that an entrepreneur should possess ideally, and with these qualities and commitment, I believe I can reach new heights as an entrepreneur myself. Leadership: The second prerequisite of a running an organization successfully at a certain position is 'leadership'; a leader is somebody who manages the entire organization and its operations, controls all activities, monitors each act and most importantly, motivates other employees to work for the progression of the organization. Employees tend to slack off and become uninterested in their job; it is the task of this leader to exhibit his leadership skills and talk these employees into working hard and become motivated. One of the most important jobs of the leader, who mostly is the manager, is to plan out a mission and then guiding and directing it to success (Thompson, Strickland, Gamble; 2008). Leadership Styles: The way a person plans to lead his organization of his subordinates depends on basically two things; firstly, his nature and personality attributes and secondly, the circumstances at hand and the type of organization he is running. There are several types of leadership styles - authoritative, participative, delegative, autocratic, charismatic, democratic, people oriented, task oriented etc (Glanz, 2002). However, the three main categories are 'authoritative/autocratic', 'participative/democratic' and 'delegative/free reign'. A leader can only be successful if he knows which side of this leadership to apply in which situations. 'Participative/democratic' is a style that focuses more on team work and building great interpersonal relationships with one's colleagues. Such a leader does not believe in ordering or bossing around his/her subordinates; this also gives birth to a level of respect among the team members. This strengthens the ease and comfort of sharing ideas and innovation techniques and negates the idea of suppressing one's suggestion in fear