Lolita Through a Marxist-Feminist Lens Lolita by...

Lolita Through a Marxist-Feminist Lens After looking past its controversial sexual nature, Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita can be read as a criticism of the capitalist system. Nabokov uses the relationship between the novels narrator, Humbert Humbert, and the novels namesake, Lolita, as an extended metaphor to showcase the systems inherent exploitive nature in a way that shocks the reader out of their false consciousness, by making the former a man in the position of power - a repulsive, manipulative pedophile — and the latter a young female victim — as well as a spoiled, vapid, unruly child. Each is to the other nothing more than a commodity — Lolita being the perfect consumer and Humbert Humbert being a man of privilege who views others†¦show more content†¦However, Humbert Humbert’s arrogance causes him to hold himself above all others, except when hes trying to charm the reader with his false modesty — but it is transparent. By making his narrator so vulgarly arrogant, Nabokov is revealing the capitalist persona he’s created, leaving the reader disenchanted with Humbert Humbert and his charm. Humbert Humbert arrives in Ramsdale with a small amount of money from his deceased rich American uncle and Lolita is instantly taken with his Hollywood good-looks. She was raised in a middle class house, where putting on airs of being wealthier and more sophisticated than one truly is — traits which Humbert Humbert actually possesses — was taught to her by a single, uninterested mother. Lolita is by nature at the bottom of the hierarchy because of her sex and her age, as well as the fact that the reader only sees her through the narrators gaze, but her consumerism makes her restraint all the more difficult to overcome. She is a modern child, an avid reader of movie magazines, an expert in dream-slow close-ups, (49) which gave her unrealistic expectations of love’s value and places her squarely in the object position. Lolita finds solace in material things, objects with no true use or value: movies, movie magazines, stylish clothes, etc., Kinsey 3 and throws tantrums on a regular basis. She had thrown one

5 Types of Asexual Reproduction

Nike Case Study Free Essays

1. A decision to retain an in-house arm of agency Weiden Kennedy by Nike exemplify the concept of organizational design by allowing Nike use the agency’s creative designers to focus solely on Nike work, giving them un-parallel access to executives, researchers and anyone else who might provide Nike advertisers with their next inspiration for marketing greatness before listening to any other organization. Having the agency in the building is having them at their disposal at anytime they need them and also the agency will have to consider them first incase of any new ad or good idea discovered by the agency or when Nike needs to salvage a problem with the help of the agency. We will write a custom essay sample on Nike Case Study or any similar topic only for you Order Now Thus, the agency at their finger-tips serves great advantages for not only trouble shooting. 2. I believe the organic design of Nike helped in posing the sweatshop labor problem Nike faced. Using a flat structure helps get a lot of work in a short time but none-the-less can cause a lot of trouble as seen in Nike. With a more highly bureaucratic structure, also known as Mechanistic design, practices will be closely monitored to prevent such problems from arising. In a centralized design with many rules and procedures which have to be followed, a clear-cut division of labor and narrow spans of control and formal coordination, the higher management/ board of directors will be very well informed on what is happening in the organization at each and every level. Though organic design has more personal coordination a more strict coordination will help in preventing such issues. For example, if Nike had a tight structure, they would have a predictable goal, centralized authority on whom to report directly to, many rules and procedures they must abide by, a narrow span of control so as to control their workers/management’s practices, everyone has his/her specialized task, and formal and impersonal coordinator. Having this sort of clear division of labor and coordination helps keep the management well informed and they would have known and remedied the sweatshop labor before the allegations surfaced. Nike would have known the right factories to outsource to instead of using factories that fail to meet their standards. 3. Fig. 1 shows what Nike network structure looks like, Mark Parker (CEO) reports to the Board of Directors and in return almost every manager/worker reports directly to him when the need arises. Nike is a divisional company but retains some functional departments as well. The brands Nike sells comprise many of the divisions of the company. Apparel for Nike brand, Converse, and Jordan brands are examples of some divisions created around specific products. Functional departments such as Nike design and investor relations are also part of Nike’s organizational structure. Nike‘s vertical structure includes CEO Mark Parker and a board of directors chaired by co-founder Phil Knight. Although Nike has functional divisions and divisions based on specific products it is not a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, employees report to a functional and divisional manage. At Nike, employees report to the divisional manager and the president of each division reports directly to the CEO. Nike’s continued product innovation and successful marketing are due to the combination of functional and divisional organization using an operations department to insure communication between divisions. There is division of labor but it is not clearly identified. With a more pronounced division of labor and levels of direct supervision Nike can improve its business thereby staying ahead of competition like Adidas. The bulk of divisions reporting to Mark Parker can be cut down introducing more managers to report to in other to lessen the workload on him. Having more layers can help ease the workload and also the more levels reported to will enable more ideas to be shared. A lower manager can have important ideas that will be welcomed by Mark Parker and Board of Directors but cutting such a manager from the line of report will render him unaware of the situation and not able to share his ideas, which may potentially be just the perfect solution to the situation. No doubt he flat structure makes work faster and workers feel more involved in a project, but it’s not always the best because once a project goes wrong, salvaging it is not impossible but it is hard and more time consuming to investigate than in a mechanistic bureaucratic structure. REFERENCE Schermerhorn, John R.. Management. 11th ed. Hoboken, N. J. :Wiley; 2010 How to cite Nike Case Study, Free Case study samples Nike Case Study Free Essays Profile: Nike is a cooperation which sells clothing, footwear, sportswear, and sport equipment. Through many retail stores and various distributors, the company sells products to more than 170 countries including the USA, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific (Datamonitor, 2012). Nike is headquartered in Beaverton, Oregon, USA; it is the top supplier of athletic shoes and apparel and is one of the top manufacturers of sports equipment, with revenue in excess of $20. We will write a custom essay sample on Nike Case Study or any similar topic only for you Order Now 862 million in FY ended May, 2011 (Datamonitor, 2012). Based on geography regions, revenues are generated by Nike through six main regions: North America accounted for 42. 1% of sales, followed by Western Europe (21. 1%), Emerging Markets (15. 2%), Greater China (11. 5%), Central and East Europe (5. 7%); and Japan (4. 3%) (Datamonitor, 2012). Also, Nike is facing with strong competition from Adidas at present. According to James (2012), Nike has 18% market share of the United Kingdom’s markets while Adidas has only 15%. Origins and Key Developments According to Datamonitor (2012), Nike was established in 1964 by Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman. At the beginning, Nike was known as Blue Ribbon Sports which sold Tiger shoes. At that time, Knight shook hand with the Onitsuka Co in Japan in order to mass-produce products. In 1971, Knight and Bowerman planned to change their company from a footwear distributor to a company designs and manufactures athletic shoes. The name â€Å"Nike† was created in 1972 and the brand mark was designed by a student at Portland State University. The mid-1980s was a period of transition when Nike had made a wrong aerobics boom calculation which gave chances for other competitors to develop their businesses. Fortunately, in 1985, new ideas in a signature shoe for National Basketball Association from Michael Jordan helped Nike improve their performance. By the end of the 1980s, Nike has finished their IPO and became a publicly traded company. At this time, Nike focused on advertising to attract more customers and differentiate themselves from competitors. The 1990s saw the rapid expansion of Nike since there are many Nike’s stores around the US and internationally. By the middle of the 1990s, Nike concentrated on sponsorship to make the company become well-known. In 2000, Nike created a new innovation called â€Å"Nike Shox† and focused on the â€Å"Secret Tournament† marketing campaign in 2002. They are continuing to focus on innovative and marketing to differentiate themselves from competitors (Nike, 2012). SWOT Analysis According to Datamonitor (2012), the first of three Nike’s strengths is the market position with strong brand equity. The company became the leader in most of sport’s product segmentation. As a result, their global footwear market share increases from 14% in 2006 to 16% in 2009 (Datamonitor, 2012). In 2011, Nike’s brand value achieved $14. 28 million (Forbes, 2011). Secondly, Datamonitor (2012) pointed out that Nike concentrates on technical innovation and cooperates with other famous companies to create a new range of products. The company is carrying out research to give advisories to athletic, coaches and trainers on effective designs, light materials and develops functions of products. Furthermore, Nike has built the relationship with Apple and has created a product for Apple’s users called Nike+ GPS. Nike+ GPS lets users track their pace, distance, time and calories-burned through their Iphone or Ipod (Nike, 2012). Consequently, many Apple’s users buy Nike footwear to discover this function on their devices. Finally, Nike has a world-wide distribution channel. They sell their products by means of Nike-owned stores and a mix of independent distributors and licenses around the world. In term of weaknesses, Nike depends too much on third party manufacturers in Asia, such as: vietnam, China, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Indonesia to decrease the costs of production (Datamonitor, 2012). As a result, Nike has not much control of the product quality. For example, Renonvpilaw (2005) reports that Nike took back about 9,000 units of Nike Get-Go and Little Get-Go children’s athletic shoes which were produced in Indonesia in 2005. Thus, this event makes some impacts on Nike’s image. Nike also has some opportunities to develop the business. First of all, the development of India’s economics within the remove restriction on foreign investment from government make India becomes an attractive market for foreign companies. Datamonitor (2012) shows that the footwear market in India increased 9. 2% and achieved at $4,104. million in 2009. Another opportunity is the rapid development of the global footwear market. According to Datamonitor (2012), the global footwear market rose by 2. 6% and reached $196. 3 billion in 2009 and will achieve $230. 8 billion in 2014. The main threats that Nike is dealing with are the intense competition from Adidas in the international market. Moreover, in the US market, the company has to fa ce cheaper imported footwear from Asia; especially China. It will have some effect on the price of Nike’s products and influence revenues of the company. In addition, according to BBC News (2009), there are about 8,000 pairs of counterfeit sports shoes from China imported to UK per month. It affects not only Nike’s revenues but also the image of company. Evaluation In spite of depending too much on third parties, there is evidence that Nike will try to tighten management in third party factories. Nike will reinforce inspectors and send them to different factories on the world (BBC News, 2008). These staff will ensure the product is produced following the right standards. Beside that, there are signs which show that Nike will develop well in India. According to Nike (2012), Nike wrested the rights to become the official kit sponsor for the India cricket team from 2010 to 2015. By this way, they will become famous in India since Indian is a crazy cricket fan. For another, in order to maintain the market leader position, it depends on Nike’s ability to increase innovation and sponsorship to compete with Adidas. Lee and Aiken (2010:250) report that Nike will investigate into High School League in Taiwan to develop a long term relationship between a company and young customer public events. Thus, Nike will continue to get feedback as well as works on research projects directly with customers, to get experiences in order to innovate their products (Ramaswamy, 2008:11). Finally, Nike will establish the relationship with the police in some countries to avoid counterfeit goods. In Croatia, Nike and Police cooperate together to find out counterfeit goods (Williamette Week, 2011). To summarize, Nike will has chances to develop the company if they continue to maintain the market leader position in term of innovation, taking advantage of sponsorship and having solutions to prevent the development of counterfeit goods. Bibliography BBC News (2009), Fake shoes valued at ? 1m seized, [Online], Available from: http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/england/suffolk/7976876. stm [assessed 7 May 2012]. BBC News (2008), Gap and Nike: No Sweat? , [Online], Available from: http://news. bbc. co. uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/970385. stm [assessed 7 May 2012]. Datamonitor (2012), Nike Inc: Company Profile, [Online], Available from: www. datamonitor. com [assessed 2 May 2012]. Forbes (2011), The World’s Top Sports Brands, [Online], Available from: http://www. forbes. om/2010/02/03/most-powerful-sports-names-tiger-woods-nike-cmo-network-sports-brands. html [assessed 6 May 2012]. James, H. (2011), London 2012 Olympics: Adidas aims to beat Nike into second place at Games, [Online], Available from: http://www. telegraph. co. uk/finance/london-olympics-business/8545104/London-2012-Olympics-Adidas-aims-to-beat-Nike-into-second-place-at-Games. html [assessed 6 May 2012]. Lee, C. and Aiken, K. (2010), Changing brand assoc iations in Taiwan: Nike’s sponsorship of high-school basketball, Journal of Sponsorship, Vol. 3, May, pp. 50. Nike (2011), Annual Report, [Online], Available from: http://investors. nikeinc. com/Investors/Financial-Reports-and-Filings/Annual-Reports/default. aspx [assessed 4 May 2012]. Nike (2011), History Heritage, [Online], Available from: http://nikeinc. com/pages/history-heritage#tab6-tab [assessed 3 May 2012]. Nike (2012), Nike celebrates India’s cricket team with elite holiday collection, [Online], Available from: http://nikeinc. com/news/nike-celebrates-indias-cricket-team-with-elite-holiday-collection [accessed 4 May 2012]. Ramaswamy, V. 2008), Co-creating value through customers’ experiences: the Nike case, Strategy ; Leadership Journal, Vol. 36, pp. 11. Renonvpilaw (2005), NIKE Recall of Children’s Athletic Shoes, [Online], Available from: http://renonvpilaw. com/picontent/products/recalls/product. php? id=76 [assessed 3 May 2012]. Williamette Week (2011), NIKE REPRESENTATIVE DESCRIBES COUNTERFEIT GOODS SMUGGLING IN CROATIA, [Online], Available from: http://wweek. com/portland/article-18471-nike-representative-describes-counterfeit-goods-smuggling-in-croatia. html [assessed 7 May 2012]. How to cite Nike Case Study, Free Case study samples

Developing an International Growth Strategy at New York Fries free essay sample

New York Fries is known for its high quality fries made with real and hand-cut potatoes and fried in a non-hydrogenated, trans fat-free, sunflower oil. Jay Gould, president of The Company and founder is holding a biannual meeting with its franchisees in the next three days. He is planning to discuss about the plan to have international expansion into another countries, such as China, India, and South Korea. However there are many risks and costs to consider, as there have been a number of failures in international expansion at South Korea and Australia. NYF operate mainly from franchise. Franchise owners bought the rights to operate NYF in different locations. NYF will then get upfront fee and monthly royalty, NYF also encourages franchisees to open more stores by giving refunds for the next five stores opened. Currently there are more than 190 NYF stores in six countries, Canada, Hong Kong, Macau, United Arab Emirates, and South Korea, with sales in excess of $64 million (Prashad, 2011). This paper will analyze about the reason why South Korea and Australia market failed; lack of funding, poor business skills, and unable to follow the standard, and furthermore I will touch briefly on the motivation for franchising and what NYF need to do before entering new market in India and China. There are three main reasons why Australia and South Korea failed to meet NYF expectation, which are, lack of funding, poor business skills, and unable to follow company’s standard. One of the biggest mistakes is when Gould underestimates the importance of fund. Often time people make mistake into thinking that having enough money to buy the right to franchise is enough, when in reality it is not. The reason being slow starting growth, competitors and unexpected event might easily drain the costs of franchising. Furthermore, the Australian franchisee did not have enough funds to open at a strategic location where market is easily available. This cause consumer to prefer other fast food competitor at a convenient and strategic place. Secondly, poor business skill can cause major problem. Often people prefer franchisee because it is a proven system with all the training and support from the headquarters. However, franchisees have to keep in mind that franchising is one of the types of business. Thus, like every other business, it requires the managers to have a good people skill, marketing, strategic plans, and also experiences. Without theses any business will fail. South Korea franchisee lack these qualities and resulting in a poor growth. In addition to it, South Korea franchisee also need a lot of support and time from the head quarters which often will be costly for the headquarter. In the end NYF business involve people; if the manager does not manage its employees properly, employee will be demotivated which will lead to high turnover ratio. In addition to it although NYF has its brand equity, managers need to actively come up with strategic plans to improve their standing in the local market as well. Third, unable to follow the standard of the parent company is the worst outcome of franchising. By franchising, franchisee receive brand equity of NYF, thus customer expect the same food and services that are being served at any other NYF branch. However, if the franchisee does not follow the standard, quality served will be different and resulting in customer’s dissatisfaction. Worst, this might affect the company’s image in general. Both Australian franchisee and the first South Korean franchisee lack this quality as well. Franchising is a good way of Internationalization for NYF. Company becomes international in scope for many reasons: continued growth, domestic market saturation, potential foreign market, and many more. Franchising is a good way of internationalization because it can act as additional source of income, lessen risk compare to opening a wholly-owned branch in another country, smaller central organization, and maintaining a more cost effective labor. Although there are few disadvantages as well such as cost for training and support of the franchisees, risk of having their company’s image being broken by the misfit of their franchisees, franchisors has to disclose confidential information which will be risky if franchisees decide to open a new company, and pressure from franchisees to change certain policies. However, looking at the success of NYF franchising, I think that the benefits of franchising actually outweigh the disadvantages of franchising. However, there are certain things to be considered before NYF decide to expand their business in India and China. A few considerations that worth noting are conducting market research and finding the right franchisee with good business skills. Market research include finding the right target market, income distribution, and its culture. For example China and India are a strong culturist countries, so there is high possibility that NYF might not attract many consumer if localization is not done. Furthermore, the case also stated that there are many western quick-service restaurants that had a hard time in adjusting their menu to regional taste preferences across China. So, I don’t think NYF will attract many customers without changing its menu to meet the criteria of Chinese population. For India, western quick-service restaurants are relatively new to Indian customer so there is probability that local market will not consume the product directly, plus Indian does not consume beef. However, it all comes down to whether or not NYF will take the risk and the above problems may also be solve if NYF is able to find franchisees with good management skills to avoid failure like in Australia and South Korea. In conclusion, NYF has becoming more stable in its franchising business. However continuing to expand internationally need to be considered properly as well. NYF has to make the right decision if they decide to expand its market to China and India while at the same time maintaining its quality and avoiding failure like in the past. Even though if NYF decide to open new stores in India and China, they should do a thorough research on its market because rush decision might result in a failure. With this being said, NYF should focus more on South Korea and Australia market as well, because NYF has had experiences and by adjusting its past mistakes there might be significant growth in the future. References