Explain which inventory systems should be used in each situation Assignment

Explain which inventory systems should be used in each situation - Assignment Example a. For the purposes of supplying my kitchen with fresh food, I would consider the fixed-time period model for my inventory system. This is because fresh food should be of constant supply in my kitchen and ready to use at any given time, hence I would order at certain intervals of time for example every weekend. It is also more convenient due to the different types of fresh food involved. b. Obtaining a daily news paper is definitely more of a one-time purchase, thus i would apply the single-period model for my daily newspaper. This is because I would either receive the evening news paper once in a day or the morning news paper once in a day depending with my preference. c. For the purposes of buying gas for my car i would prefer the fixed-order quantity model since I would like to maintain a given quantity of gas in my car at any given time. This quantity of gas is only eligible for refill when my car almost runs out of the quantity I purchased earlier so as to reduce my level of stocking out. The item in my list with the highest stock out cost is buying gas for my car. This is because I would only want to maintain gas quantity in my car to a certain level with a given quantity so that i would monitor it to a level that the stock out risk is great enough for me to order a

Assignment 2 (Management Quantitative Methods) Essay

Assignment 2 (Management Quantitative Methods) - Essay Example The research paper focuses on how individual motivation, connectedness and inter/intra-unit ties is important in knowledge transfer between individuals in organisations. Knowledge transfer and has recently been gaining a lot of importance since firms are finding themselves in increasingly competitive markets and are realizing their need to be more creative and innovative. Its importance has grown in recent decades for three related reasons. First, knowledge appears to be an increasing proportion of many organizations total assets2. Second, organizations have moved away from hierarchical methods of control toward more decentralized organizational structures and increased employee involvement. This has resulted in more knowledge transfer as employees are more involved in the decision making of the companies and has reduced organizational paths through which information travels. Finally, advances in information technology have created new means of knowledge transfer. The paper discusses how knowledge transfer is important for promoting innovation and creativity in organisations. Employees can be influenced by actions taken by the organisations to transfer knowledge so as to reach favourable outcomes. This can be done by an understanding of both what motivates the individual to transfer knowledge, as well as, structurally, with whom individuals exchange knowledge; the former is relevant to development of proper HRM policy to stimulate knowledge while the latter is indicated by an individual’s position in the knowledge transfer network of an organization. The paper also discusses how individual motivation may explain an individual’s position in the structure of the network in which innovative knowledge is transferred. Individuals that are more connected within the full knowledge transfer network of an organisation contribute significantly and lead to more innovative outcomes for the organisation. The concept of closeness centrality is used to indicate the individual’s position in the full knowledge transfer network, rather than merely observing their immediate connections. The connections an individual has may be within the own unit, while also knowledge transferred from other units, crossing unit boundaries, is believed to contribute to innovation in an important way. Transfer of knowledge in a multi-unit organisation may be difficult than transfer of knowledge in a unit that specializes in one knowledge field. This is because in a multi-unit organisation, the employees have limited information as to what activities and knowledge other employees have or are engaged in. Within a unit that specializes in one knowledge field, knowledge may also be of the tacit3 kind. Thus an individual’s capacity to contribute to the innovation processes in a firm then depends not just on his own (absorptive) capacity originating from earlier experiences, but also depends on the social, professional and hierarchical relations within t he organization. If one is not well-connected one’s contribution to knowledge transfer and thus the innovation process can be limited. Well-connected individuals can gain information of higher accuracy, van gain diverse knowledge and can collect and spread existing information more rapidly, but can also recombine existing ideas and knowledge in a novel way thus being more creative. Individual motivation is important factor for knowledge transfe

Ethnic group Essay Example for Free

Ethnic group Essay In this section, we will discuss race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism and how they are depicted in the show. These concepts are somehow illustrated in this television series. Race, in the American society, has been typified by black skin color. The unique cultural traits and the sense of community African-Americans share reflect their ethnicity. On the other hand, Kady, the youngest child in the Kyle family, represents multiculturalism through her knowledge of multiple languages. The following section will define, operationalize, and describe these concepts and how they are evident in the show. Race is a category of people used to differentiate people in terms of physical appearance, particularly skin color. People who have the same physical characteristics are from the same race. The concept that is used to operationalize race is skin color. In this show, the dominant race is â€Å"black† but there are a few characters that are â€Å"white. † People who have a dark skin color are considered non-Caucasians. In this series, the racial minority is the Caucasian because the non-Caucasians are the dominant group that makes up most of the characters. Therefore, race is largely unmentioned during the show because most of the characters are from the same race. However, there is one episode in season two where there was an argument between two different races, the Caucasians and the non-Caucasian. At the beginning of this episode, Michael is forced to take his family out for a meal. He is annoyed when he realized that the restaurant is expensive and the service isn’t good enough. Michael’s evening worsens as he gets to sit next to Stuart Tyler’s family, a guy whom he got angry at in the gas station for taking to long to gas up his tank. A few minutes later, Stuart starts insulting Michael’s kids, citing their smell, while Michael insults Stuart’s kids by telling Stuart that â€Å"they look like squirrels. † Afterwards, Michael apologizes to Stuart but seconds later they argue again on who’s the bigger man. They make amends again but then argue cause Stuart held Michael’s lobster without washing his hands after urinating. When they starting singing â€Å"Happy Birthday† for Stuart’s wife, Stuart interrupts in the middle and is irritated by the fact that Michael isn’t singing. The arguing just keeps going and going and things never got any better. They leave the restaurant at odds with one another. Michael and Stuart’s altercation evidenced friction between Caucasian and non-Caucasians but apart from this episode, race is not a point of reference throughout the scope of the show. Consequently, race is insignificant in this show and is proven to be unimportant within the Kyle family. An ethnic group is a group of people who have common national or cultural characteristics. An ethnic group has five main characteristics: (1) unique cultural traits such as language, clothing, holiday, or religious practices; (2) a sense of community; (3) a feeling of ethnocentrism; (4) ascribed membership from birth; and (5) tendency to occupy a distinct geographic area (Caron 269). The social structures ethnicity groups strengthen social solidarity. Social structures are the stable pattern of social relationships that exist within a group or society (Soci1002E, Lect. 5, 2012). The main ethnic group in the show is the African-Americans. The unique cultural traits and the sense of belonging is what will be used to operationalize ethnicity. The sense of belonging within the African-Americans in the show is what empowers this ethnic group. A social structure is the stable pattern of social relationships that exists within a particular group or society (Soci 1002E, Lecture 6, 2012). The African-Americans in the show share the same language, and a sense of belonging. The language that the African-Americans use is English as it is their first language in their country and state. Michael’s youngest daughter is learning Spanish and Swahili but her mother tongue is English. Throughout the show, the Kyle family develops relationships with other African-Americans individuals. Michael married an African-American woman. Junior impregnated an African-American woman; Vanessa. Claire and Kady retain African-American boyfriends. Also, Junior has many African-Americans friends. All these relationships prove that the African-American community shares a sense of belonging. The language and the sense of community is what make the African-Americans a powerful ethnic group in the show. Multiculturalism is a philosophy that respects ethnic diversity within a community that encourages people to learn about other cultures. A multicultural person acknowledges and accepts diverse cultures other than his or her own and tries to learn from them. The way this concept is measured is by understanding and learning other cultures, especially through its’ language. Kady Kyle, Michael’s youngest child, is the precocious one out of Michael’s sons and daughters. She is referred to as â€Å"the cute one† because she is the youngest one in the family. â€Å"The cute one† strongly supports the idea of multiculturalism through her musical talent. In the Episode †Making the Grade†, the Kyle family are sitting at a table while Michael Kylie checks out his sons’ report card. After they are done celebrating Claire’s outstanding report card, Michael calls on Kady to come and sit on his lap. Kady innocently says, â€Å"I don’t have a report card. † â€Å"Yes, but you do go to school, right? You go to music class. How are you doing there? † replies her father. â€Å"Well, I learned a new song called Itsy Bitsy Spider† she answered. Her father then claims that he never heard this song before and asks her to sing it for him. She starts singing the song until he father interrupts her and tells her to sing the song in Spanish. So she starts singing in Spanish until her father tell hers to sing it in Swahili, a language spoken by several countries in East Africa. Kady is learning about other cultures through their language at a very young age. She is willing to learn more about other languages and is doing so through an artistic way. She found an interesting way to connect music and culture together which is very smart for someone her age. By choosing this concept, we concentrated on the cultural diversity aspect of the television show. This scene allowed us to demonstrate my knowledge in understanding the sociological concept, multiculturalism. The scene depicts a multicultural young girl who is eager to discover other cultures, especially its’ language. To conclude, these three concepts are demonstrated in a way or the other. After operationalizing, analyzing these sociological concepts, and applying them in My Wife and Kids, we discovered that ethnicity and multiculturalism are clearly portrayed, while race isn’t really significant in the show. Race isn’t really depicted in the show but the constant disagreement between Michael and Stuart reveals a slight conflict between the non-Caucasians and the Caucasians. The African-Americans have proven that they are a strong ethnic group through their culture and sense of community. In the show, they all speak the same language and have several relationships between each other. Kady Kyle’s comprehension of other cultures is what ascertains that multiculturalism is evident in the show.

Swot Analysis Of Company Practices: PayPal

Swot Analysis Of Company Practices: PayPal The online payment systems provider that we have chosen is PayPal. PayPal is an e-commerce business that allows payments and money transfer to be made through the Internet. PayPal serves as an electronic alternative to traditional paper methods such as cheque and money orders. The service allows members to send money without sharing financial information, with the flexibility to pay using their account balances, bank accounts, credit cards or promotional financing. PayPal is an example of a payment intermediary service that facilitates worldwide e-commerce. PayPal is an eBay subsidiary company and is made up of three leading online payment services: the PayPal global payment service, the Payflow Gateway and Bill Me Later. The companys open payment platform, PayPal X, that allows developers to build innovative payment applications on multiple platforms and devices. PayPal performs payment processing for online vendors, auction sites, and other commercial users, for which it charges a fee. It charges transaction fee for receiving money. The fees charged depend on the currency used, the payment option used, the country of the sender, the country of the recipient, the amount sent and the recipients account type. In addition, PayPal is also the preferred way to send secure payments on eBay. With PayPal, customers who have an online account can makes it easy to send money from a variety of sources to a variety of recipients without sharing his or her financial information. Besides that, the recipient never sees their credit card number or their banking information. So, as a buyer, customers can pay for their item online through PayPal. They have the choice of funding their payment with their debit card, credit card, bank account or PayPal balance. Sellers are notified by email of their PayPal payment immediately, and can confidently post the goods to them right away. As a seller, he or she can withdraw those funds to their bank account or use them to send a payment to someone else. If for any reason a refund is required, a seller can quickly and easily send a refund to the buyer directly into their PayPal account. PayPal is the result of a March 2000 merger between Confinity and X.com. Confinity was founded in December 1998 by Max Levchin, Peter Thiel, and Luke Nosek, and Ken Howery, initially as a Palm Pilot payments and cryptography company. Both Confinity and X.com launched their websites in late 1999. X.com was founded by Elon Musk in March 1999, initially as an Internet financial services company. Both companies were located on University Avenue in Palo Alto. Confinitys website was initially focused on reconciling beamed payments from Palm Pilots with email payments as a feature and X.coms website primarily featured financial services with email payments as a feature. In October 2002, PayPal was acquired by eBay. PayPal had previously been the payment method of choice by more than fifty percent of eBay users, and the service competed with eBays subsidiary Billpoint, eBay has since phased out its Billpoint service in favor of retaining the PayPal brand. Currently, PayPal operates in 190 markets, and it manages over 223 million accounts, more than 73 million of them active. PayPal allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 19 currencies worldwide. These currencies are the Australian dollar, Brazilian real, Canadian dollar, Euro, pound sterling, Japanese yen, and others. PayPal operates locally 13 countries, residents in 194 markets can use PayPal in their local markets to send money online. SWOT Analysis of company practices Strengths The strengths of a business are positive elements, something they do well and are under their control. The following we will see the main strengths of the PayPal. The first strength we will talk about is the business alliance of PayPal. Because of social website that has users from all over the world- Facebook has brings the PayPal to manage its payment make PayPal increase more revenue. Facebook find out that 70 percent of its 400 million users live outside the United States, so it can be hard for them to transfer money to the company online. While PayPal has more than 81 million active accounts, it can help Facebook to collect money easily. Having alliances with other strong and popular IT businesses is a major plus point for PayPal as it helps bring in new customers and make business more effective. PayPal appear as the only online global payment system in the world. It is a key to success for PayPal to work hard for it boosts reputation, profit and market share. PayPal has an impressive growth from year to year. It has around 70 million active users in 2008 and it is 23% more than 2007. PayPal operates in 190 markets, 17 local languages, and transacts in 19 currencies and it operates with 27 global financial networks and 15,000 local banks around the world. No other companies have this advanced system except the market leader- PayPal. It has a high percentage of the market share, meaning it is ahead of many competitors. Competitive pricing is a vital element of PayPals overall success. With the cost effective payment system online such as the Pay as you go system that allow customers pay only if they are making money online unless they are using more advanced options. Such pricing keep PayPal above its rivals. PayPal need you just simply pay a percentage of the payments received, typically between 1.4 and 3.4% plus a fixed amount of 20p per transaction. And it is totally free to set-up a PayPal account for your business with no hidden start-up costs or yearly subscription fees. It is often the case that a potential customer may not heard of your business, but they certainly have seen or heard of PayPal before. PayPal logo can be easily seen by the users of internet because it appears in almost every auction website and even in many website that provide services as the payment method. They are therefore more likely to consider purchasing from your website as they some more do not have to give their financial details if use PayPal. A strong brand is an essential strength of PayPal as it is recognized and respected. Now the system has 100 million satisfied users worldwide and more websites use PayPal than any other payment gateway. The other strength of PayPal is convenience it brings to the public. PayPal website and payment service is user friendly. It is easy and simple to use, even for those who have no or little experience in selling or buying online. PayPal main focus is on the ease of use for both receivers and senders of cash. It also uses its securing system to help protects consumers personal information, and provides payments to merchants without ever providing your personal financial information. Merchants will not get the credit card information of the consumers, it decreasing the chance of breaching personal information. The ability to accept online payments typically only afforded to larger businesses with traditional credit card services but with the appeal of PayPal, it offers merchants, specifically smaller businesses can afford online payments. In essence, PayPal provide a per-to-peer payment channel by acts as a mediator between consumers and merchants. Weakness The first weakness of PayPal is the weak system of it. Currently, PayPal is not using a database-driven ordering system. For most of the online merchants with 25 to 500,000 products for sale online set up a spreadsheet or database that contains their product information by using specialized software. They make changes to the database on a desktop computer, such as price increases, inventory on hand, adding or deleting a product, altering color choices, initiating special sales, etc. These changes then will replace the older product database and show up the new product database on the website. But the PayPal system stores the order buttons of customers in an online database of sorts, but customers can only access it by using the web interface. It works quite smooth if customers only making one or two changes. But if customers have a lot of products, they forced to make the changes constantly. It will cause customers waste too much time while the time is most conscious for business. The other weakness is the bad communication between PayPal and its customer. The complaining system and the customer service at the PayPal website are too ineffective. Many complaints from time to time claim that PayPal has shut down a customers account arbitrarily and wont listen to any reason. But its not hard to know that PayPal works very hard to keep its system secure and fraud-free. When it finds out customers doing things that skid along the edge of its policies, it may shut them down arbitrarily. As PayPal is act in such way for good reasons, it should try to communicate with customers and let them know more about their action like send e-mail or phone call them so the misunderstand can be decrease. The limited flexibility of the PayPal system is due to its inflexible Hosted Ordering Interface. It provides an inflexible ordering interface that can be confusing to shoppers. PayPal allow customers to customize the interface a bit by adding their logo, selecting background colors, and border styles but customers ability to customize the order page is only in cosmetic ways. PayPal does not have an ordering system with open code that a programmer can manipulate to suit customers particular e-commerce needs. Some of the strongest conversion rate gains can be made by testing and streamlining an order interface in this way. Thats the reason why the PayPals order interface is clunky and can be confusing. Opportunities Acquisition is one of the opportunities for PayPal as it can bring more customers to PayPal especially with company that also run IT business. eBay announce that it will phase out its own competing service to PayPal that is eBay Payments by Billpoint and has acquire online payments company PayPal in a deal valued at $1.5 billion. This is very beneficial to PayPal as bulk of its business comes from eBay auctions. This event sure will result in improving PayPals profit, market share and reputation. Innovation of new technology can be defined as an opportunity to the PayPal. PayPal has reached an agreement with USAA Federal Savings Bank (USAA Bank) that will allow it to start developing a person to person payment solution for USAA members. This payment solution is something that USAA Bank plans to deliver in 2011. In future, USAAs members will be able to pay almost anyone with an e-mail address or mobile phone number, in real-time, and directly from their mobile phone. By keep working hard to provide more innovative product to the public, PayPal can gain more and more potential customer. Another example we can see is by releasing new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces), PayPal is challenging the developer community to change the way we pay through innovation and new technologies. As the only open global payment platform, PayPal is unlocking the door to an unparalleled business proposition to developers that is create new, innovative ways to pay and get paid. And, the globa l payments market represents a $30 trillion opportunity according to a recent McKinsey report. Furthermore, the efforts of PayPal on product and services expansion have upgraded its own mainframe system to every corner of the world. To show its efforts in product and services expansion, PayPal has expanded its micropayments pricing, available to any member with a PayPal Business or Premier account. Micropayments fees for US dollar transactions are 5% + 5 cents per transaction. When compared to PayPals standard fees (2.9% + 30 cents), the micropayments rate can save money for merchants whose average selling price is below $12. Although micropayments is not new to PayPal, but this micropayments pricing was previously available only to account holders in select countries. With this expansion, PayPal are making it available to any PayPal Business or Premier account holder worldwide using any of PayPals 19 supported currencies. In addition, this micropayments pricing can be used with any of PayPals payment products including Website Payments Standard, Website Payments Pro and for e Bay sellers. The massive power of the Web can be recognized in its global effect on commerce. A global commerce for business exchange known as PayPal has been required because this medium is so strong worldwide. PayPal is recognized as an actual commerce with value around the world, and it makes someone in Europe can purchase a product from the United States while the neither party without PayPal has to struggle with the transfer of money options or exchange rates. The creation of a global commerce exchange system at a local consumer level makes this result happen. Threats The actions of a competitor could be a major threat against PayPal, for instance, if they bring in new technology or increase their workforce to meet demand. PayPal has several competitors such as eMoney Mail, Ecount and payMe. eMoney Mail provide delivers payments faster than the competition and its additional security ensures money doesnt end up in the wrong hands. Ecount lets customers specify the day they want money to arrive and provides payees with an online account to spend money on the Web, and it provide 24/7 toll-free customer support too. payMe deposits money in credit card and checking the accounts and it do not limit to the amount you can send overall. Both of the competitors try to give their best services, if PayPal do not work hard and efficient enough, it will lose its market share and reputation. Price wars between competitors that occur due to competitor keep invent new technology could damage profits for PayPal. As in year2006, Google plans to use Checkout, a service released in June that lets users buy items from multiple stores using a single account. Its purpose is to generate commissions and encourage more merchants to buy advertisements. At that time, the PayPal payment unit was EBays fastest-growing business in the third quarter. PayPals revenue climbed 41% to $350 million, outpacing a gain of 22% in auction revenue to $1.02 billion. Google Checkout wants to attract customers and therefore make charges a 2% commission and a 20-cent fee per purchase. While PayPal, which EBay acquired in 2002, charges a 30-cent rate, plus transaction fees of 1.9% to 2.9%, depending on the total value of payments processed each month. But in EBays promotion announced, customers receive as much as $20 in cash-back rebates from PayPal when they make online purchases on EBay.com and certain merchant websites in North America. As we all can see, price wars will cut off the profit of the company. PayPal do not invest in the advertising on the internet causes the brand image of PayPal is not very well. So it also has a need to strengthen its brand through the Web. In the image of the public, PayPals brand is closely associated with smaller merchants, low-cost auctions, and P2P money transfer. As a result, some larger firms might not want their brands associated with PayPal brand image. They may think that by this way public could devalue a corporations stronger brand. The fact remains that consumers associate its brand with less expensive, cheaper items even though PayPal is an enormous corporation. In order to solve this problem, PayPal should look to network with larger companies through the possible branding of a service associated with corporations. Furthermore, PayPal has the ability to introduce and market a new brand, such as CorpXchange or CorpCash by promoting the same services but without the low-cost auctions associated with PayPal. Porters Five forces of company practices The threat of the entry of new competitors Nowadays, barriers to entry of e-commerce business is low because of anything that internet technology eliminates or makes easier to do reduces the barriers to entry such as in the need for a sales force, access to channels and physical assets. Besides that, internet applications are difficult to keep proprietary from new entrants. This lead to a flood of new entrants has come into many industries, and one of the industries is e-commerce business. There are many new companies which provide similar services as PayPal such as Billpoint, Citibanks c2it, whose service was closed in late 2003, Yahoo!s PayDirect, whose service was closed in late 2004, and BidPay, which was shut down in 2006. However, there are still some new and former competitors such as Google Checkout, Wirecard, Moneybookers, The InstantPay (launching Jan 2011), 2Checkout.com, CCNow and Kagi still remain in business. But this does not affects PayPals revenue as it has impressive growth throughout many years. In 2008, it s revenue is US$ 60 billion, which increased 27% compared to the previous year, and US$ 71 billion in 2009, an increase of 19% over the previous year. During the early year of PayPal, there are lesser competitors, which means PayPal has a bigger market shares and this lead to more customers are using PayPal for their services. As time goes on, internet technology has grown more advance and this makes internet applications are very easy and attract more new entrants. New entrants join the market make the market shares of PayPal is getting smaller. This is because customers have more choices when choosing a right online payment service provider to process their payment. Besides that, some of the competitors got better offer than PayPal, such as cheaper charges and safer transaction process. This leads to the decrease of customers loyalty to PayPal and becoming a threat to the company. Google Checkout is one of the new entrant and main competitors with PayPal. It is an online payment processing service provided by Google aimed at simplifying the process of paying for online purchases on 28 June 2006. Users store their credit or debit card and shipping information in their Google Account, so that they can purchase anything at participating stores at the click of a button. It also offers fraud protection, as well a unified page for tracking purchases and their status. It also provide service with lower cost compared to PayPal. Unlike who only provide fraud protection for sales of more than $50, Google Checkout provide 100% fraud protection and 100% refund, but users must report it within 60 days. All these has make Google Checkout to become a threat to PayPal. Another new entrant is Wirecard AG, a global financial services and technology company founded in 1999. In November 2006, Wirecard has launched an internet payment service called Wirecard. By registering online, consumer can opens an account at Wirecard Bank which he can load by cash, cards, direct debit, wire transfer or various local payment schemes. The service includes a free virtual prepaid MasterCard for consumers that can be used to pay at millions of MasterCard locations worldwide. Apart from standard MasterCard products, the Wirecard system also let users to send each other money in real-time. There is also optional physical MasterCard enables users to pay at 24.7 million MasterCard brickmortar acceptance points and to withdraw cash at nearly 1 million ATMs worldwide. People may consider to use Wirecard because it is operated by a true bank. Unlike PayPal, Wirecard cannot simply freeze or limit customers accounts without a reasonable explanations. It may get suit by customer s. Therefore, PayPal should start to consider not to be just protecting its own interest, but protect its customers interest as well so it would not lose its customers. PayPal has some solutions to overcome the threat of losing customers loyalty to the company. One of the solution is PayPal has acquired a company named Fraud Sciences, which is expert in online risk tools to enhance eBay and PayPals proprietary fraud management systems and accelerate the development of improved fraud detection tools. On the other hand. eBay, as the parent company to PayPal, has added Google Checkout to its banned payment methods list to prevent eBay users from using Google Checkout. With this way, PayPals competitors will become lesser, thus the market share of the company will become bigger and also secure the customers loyalty to PayPal. The intensity of competitive rivalry As internet technology become more advance from time to time, it reduces the differences among competitors as offerings are difficult to keep proprietary. Therefore, PayPal used the alliance strategy to get larger percentage of market shares than other competitors. For example, on 18 Feb 2010, Facebook announced a partnership with PayPal in which users can now pay for their Facebook Credits by using the payment provider. Facebook had test other payment solution before making decision to have a partnership with PayPal, however the ability to pay for the virtual transactions through PayPal is great considering they have more than 81 million accounts. this prove that PayPal is good enough to handle massive amount of online transactions. Thus the company is intensifying pressures to other rivals as this partnership give many benefits to PayPal its market shares are getting bigger. PayPal also intensify pressure on its mobile payment service rivals too. Obopay is the company founded in 2005 that provide mobile payment service in United States. It is a service that allows the transfer of money between mobile phones. After a customer creates an Obopay account, they can add money from a credit card, debit card, or a bank transfer. This make people a lot easier because most of the people will carry a hand phone with them. However, PayPal announced its inclusion in Sprint Nextels MyMoneyManager suite of mobile financial services in 2008. It is the innovation strategy that it used to attract new customers and provide a wider range of services to its former customers too. PayPal and partner mFoundry are on deck to provide banking services for Sprint, making it the first major operator in United States to have mobile money transfers between subscribers. Its fee is also cheaper than Obopay too. By doing this, PayPal has intensified pressure to Obopay and also show its i ntensity of competitive rivalry is very strong. Besides that, internet advance technology also leads to migrates competition to price among competitors. Although PayPal charges and fees for online payment processing are slightly higher than the other competitors, it can still have a lot of loyal customers and new customers using its services. The reason is currently, PayPal operates in 190 markets, and it manages over 223 million accounts, and more than 73 million of the accounts are active. PayPal also allows customers to send, receive, and hold funds in 19 currencies worldwide and it operates with 27 global financial networks and 15,000 local banks around the world. It also operates in 13 countries. The wide range of services provided by PayPal is a better choice than its competitors as none of them can provide such services. Customers with a PayPal accounts can also make payment for many other services and products which make things a lot easier. Customers do not have to open another account for just that particular payment. The threat of substitute products or services This analysis will identify the likelihood that customers to your industry will switch to purchasing an alternative product or use an alternative services from outside your industry. With the advance of internet technology, the proliferation of internet approaches creates new substitutions threat in many industries. There are many alternative apart from online payment providers in the e-commerce market such as, credit card, debit card, checks, money order and e-banking. For local transactions, consumers will use these kinds of traditional methods rather than PayPal. If a person buy a product with credit card, all he need to pay is the price of the product and interest charged by bank. However, if he pay the bank early, he would not be charged with any interest and this method will be cheaper than using PayPal. If a person does not has a credit card, they can use online banking to make their payment as all they need is just a saving account in the particular bank. Besides that, having a saving account at a bank are better than having a PayPal account as there are many complaint from its customers that PayPal freeze its users account arbitrarily and wont listen to any reason. PayPal can freeze its users account easily without giving prior notice because it is not supervise by the bank regulation. Therefore, this will lead to a higher threat to PayPal for its users to change to use other substitute services. There are also many complaint from its users that PayPal security against fraud is not good. Users are easy to get scam or the confidential data are easy to be stolen. To avoid this situation happens, buyers can use money order to make payment as well. money order As for merchants, their substitute service apart from PayPal is merchant account. Merchant account is a type of bank account that allow businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards. A merchant account also serves as an agreement between a retailer, a merchant bank and payment processor for the settlement of credit card and/or debit card transactions. PayPal charges fees by per transaction, while merchant account is charging fees monthly and fix. Therefore, PayPal usually used by small business merchant as payment processor as the cost is cheaper. While for merchant that have massive transaction, most of them use merchant account as their payment processor because it will be cheaper than using PayPal. The bargaining power of buyers The bargaining power of customers is the ability of customers to put the firm under pressure, which also affects the customers sensitivity to price changes. The advanced internet technology has reduced switching costs of buyers and this makes the buyer would not simply switch to use other companies services. Although the fees charges to PayPal users are more expensive than its competitors, it still does not lower down the fees. This is because of PayPal provides to its users better services than its rivals, such as providing customers to hold up to 19 currencies of different countries so they can make their payment easily. It is the only company that can allows users hold that much currencies and requires high fixed costs to maintain this type of services. Customers that wishes to bargain for lower fees are maybe just a small portion among all the PayPal users too. If PayPal lower down its fee just for such small portion of unsatisfied customers, it may bring huge losses to the compa ny. Therefore, even though some users maybe price sensitive and bargain for a lower fees, PayPal will not make any changes as it would not greatly reduce its profit by losing a small portion of its users. The bargaining power of suppliers For PayPal, its suppliers are the banks and companies that provide financial networks in worldwide. The bargaining power of suppliers is low because with the internet, all companies has equal access to suppliers, and gravitate procurements to standardised products that reduce differentiation among competitors. standardised products or services makes the suppliers cannot charged high prices because there are too many similar products that other suppliers can provide. The banks, which are the suppliers to all online payment providers competing to each others with quality of services and low interest rates. Therefore, PayPal has many choices to choose for which suppliers is best suits with it. However, PayPal try to make deals with most of the local banks so it can have a wider range of services that can attract customers to use PayPal. It will not have to worry about the suppliers that charge excessive high price on unique products or service because if they do so, PayPal can just try to find another suppliers that charge reasonable price. Besides that, suppliers concentration to firm concentration ratio for PayPal is high because of its brand equity is high. Brand equity is brands power that derived from the goodwill and name recognition it has earned over time, and which turns into higher sales volume and higher profit margins against competing brands. PayPals high brand equity will keep attracts customers use PayPal services and this will lead to more services must be provided by the bank to PayPal. Banks will earn more profit by providing more services to it and indirectly makes the bargaining powers of suppliers become low as they need PayPal to generate more profit. Customer Relationship Management Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a widely-implemented strategy for managing a companys interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It includes one-to-one relationship between a customer and a seller which encourage customer participation in product development. CRM create one simple idea Treat different customers differently, which means that different customers are treat based on their different needs and different value to company. Besides that, CRM using information technology strategy aimed at identifying, acquiring, targeting and retaining the best mix of customers. CRM also describes a company-wide business strategy which including customer-interface departments as well as other departments. Furthermore, CRM also helps in understanding customer needs and building relationships with them and by providing the most suitable products with a high level of customer service. It integrates back and front office systems to create a database of customer contracts, purchases, information requested and technical support. This database helps the firm to present a unified face to its customer and improve the quality of the relationship. The primary goal of CRM is to improve long-term growth and profitability through a better understanding of customer behavior. There are 3 phases in which CRM support the relationship between a business and its customers are to acquire, enhance and retain. CRM can help a business acquire new customers through contact management, selling and fulfillment. A web enabled CRM combined with customer service tools offers customers service from a team of sales and service specialists, which offers customers the convenience of one-stop shopping. CRM software and databases enable a business to identify and reward its loyal customers and further develop its targeted marketing and relationship marketing initiatives. For any business to be successful employers need to look into various objectives which are beneficial for the customers. A good customer employee relationship always leads to positive outcomes for the business. CRM is a new introduction in E-commerce and played major rule in the development of e-business specially the CRM stands for customer relationship. It is a strategy used to learn more about customers needs and behaviors in order to develop stronger relationships with them. Good customer relationships are at the heart of business success. A primary objective of CRM is to provide the entire organization with a complete and 360-degree view of the customer, no matter where the information resides. The benefits of adopting CRM processes are develop better communication channels, create detailed profiles of individual customers, increased customer satisfaction, customer service and support and increased revenues of the organization. There are 3 types of CRM which are operational CRM, analytical CRM and collaborative CRM. Operational CRM describes the technology strategy of managing and interacting with customers across channels through client facing applications and integrated channel management. Operational CRM applications are technologies that enable sales force, marketing and customer care automat

Essay example --

Modern Slavery I. Introduction A. How would you feel like living in a world where all your freedom is taken away? B. In history class, we learned that approximately 150 years ago Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freed slaves, but we forget that modern forma of slavery still exist in our world today. C. At this moment, there are 27 million slaves in the world suffering from modern forms of servitude. D. First, I will explain this thesis statement in more detail, then I’ll describe how this changed the world and what government are doing to combat this international crisis. E. Now, let me start by giving some background information on modern slavery. II. Human trafficking is the modern form of slavery that occurs in many countries throughout the world affecting men, women, and children. A. Two basic forms of human trafficking are labor trafficking and sex trafficking. 1. Labor Trafficking: Using force, fraud or coercion to recruit, harbor, transport, obtain or employ a person for labor or services in involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage or slavery. Victims can be found in domestic situations as nannies or maids, sweatshop factories, janitorial jobs, construction sites, farm work, restaurants, and panhandling. (Williams, 2013) 2. Sex Trafficking: Involving commercial acts induced by force, fraud or coercion, or in which the person performing the act is under age 18. Victims can be found working in massage parlors, on the streets, in brothels, strip clubs, and escort services. (Williams, 2013) B. Slavery exist in nearly every country, whether the countries are origin countries, transit countries, or destination countries and effects all men, women, and children. 1. Human trafficking is widespread – data taken from th... ...Council, China's Cabinet The mechanism will be conducive to curbing the rise of human trafficking cases and ensuring that victims of trafficking are rehabilitated and relocated in a timely manner, the plan noted. C. As you can see the United States, as well as many other countries, have made efforts to crack down on trafficking, educate vulnerable people, and rehabilitate the victims of these horrific crimes. V. Conclusion A. Modern slavery affects men, women, and children in every country throughout the world through one way or another, but finally government agencies or organizations are taking action to put an end to this international crisis. B. There are 27 million human beings that are bound to servitude through out the world today. C. The next time you enjoy sipping on you morning coffee, take a moment to think about the slave who made it all possible.

Esprit five forces Essay

Esprit faces competitors such as H&M, Uniqlo, Zara, Mango, Giordano, and Gap. Esprit’s goal is to make its own enterprise gain advantage relative to its competitors. So when they implement their plan to achieve their goal, conflict occurs with their competitors. Competition is often manifested in the price, advertising, products, services and so on. Many â€Å"Fast Fashion† brands have different product lines. Their products are more innovative and stylish. Also those brands can meet the needs of middle-class consumers. Therefore those brands can occupy the market share and gain the market value. In 2011, Esprit lost more than 90% income from 2007. It is because Esprit lost its brand positioning, continuously slipping in popularity, less consumer demand, lack of innovation and unable to meet diverse needs of consumers. To solve these problems, Esprit decided to exit its North American retail operation. They cooperate with new competent license partner instead. However, they did not give up on North America entirely. Because exit the competition is more costly than continue to participate in the competition. There are some reason will mainly affect Esprit such as economic factors, global strategy and emotional effects. Socio-political factors include asset specificity and costs of exit. Threats of Buyer’s Growing Bargaining Power Esprit exists in fast fashion industry and there are few competitors in the industry. The products of fast fashion industry have similar style. Therefore buyers would have lots of choices. Buyers would like to get higher-quality products at an affordable price and this will affect the profitability of companies in the industry. In China market, China has a huge market size and demographic differences among provinces. However, China is a â€Å"Red Sea†. Esprit cannot get a desirable profit because there are too many competitors. This affect the buyers in China have more choices to make their own decision. Threats of Suppliers’ Growing Bargaining Power Supplier bargaining power is the ability to influence the setting of price. Suppliers lower their material’s quality and value but raise up the price of  input factors in order to influence the existing industry in profitability and competitiveness. Different supplier’s materials have certain characteristics and distinguishing features. Therefore the retailer cannot change the supplier suddenly without planning because changing the supplier may higher the cost. Also the one of the important reason is retailer hard to discover a high quality to replace the material. The strength of supplier bargaining power is mainly depends on what materials or input factors they provide to Esprit. When suppliers provide the input factors that the value occupy Esprit’s large proportion of the total cost of product and the production process is critical or seriously affect the quality of the product, the potential bargaining power of supplier is greatly enhanced. Threats of New Entrants Barriers of entry include economies of scale, product differentiation, switching costs, capital needed, sales channels, natural resources, policies, geography, and so on. Some of these barriers are hard to breakthrough by means of copying or imitation. The possibility of new enterprises to enter the industry is depends on the entrant, estimated potential impact of interest rate and the required cost of the risk to take. Competitive access to the severity of the threat depends on two factors. One is the size and the other one is expected barriers to new areas of existing businesses respond to entrants. However, the fast fashion industry entry barriers are very low. Therefore there is a lot of competitors who almost sales the same products or services in order to gain the fast fashion market share. Esprit is being tough and very hard to survival in this market which has high competition of market share of raw materials and it may lower the profitability of a company in the industry. Th reats of Substitute Products Esprit and its competitor such as H&M, Gap’s products are very similar and their products are substitute products. The competitive of substitute products will affect the competitive strategy of the company in the fast fashion industry. The existing product prices and potential of increasing the profitability are limited by the user’s acceptability of the existing substitute products. Because of invades of substitute products, the existing enterprises must improve the quality of their products, reduce the cost in  order to lower the price or make the products be more unique in order to prevent the loss and frustrated of sales. The lower price and higher quality of substitute product will produce a strong competitive pressure to the enterprises. The intensity of competition from substitute product can specifically observe by examining the sales growth, factory production capacity and profit expansion.

History of Childhood

The history of childhood is a subject of controversy. Since serious historical investigation began into this area in the late 1960s, historians have increasingly divided into two contrasting camps of opinion, those advocating â€Å"continuity† in child rearing practices, and those emphasising â€Å"change†. As there is little evidence of what childhood was really like in the past, it is incredibly difficult for historians to reconstruct the life of a child, much more the   â€Å"experience† of being a child. In so many ways, the history of childhood is a history that slips through our fingers. Few Parents have left written records of how they reared their children, and fewer still children have left us their story. It is largely because of this lack of evidence, and because the evidence that does remain – advice literature, journals and letters, are so open to differing interpretations, that historians have divided over major issues such as whether children were loved and wanted in the past, the way parents viewed their children, and the treatment they received. The first major works into the history of childhood were those of Philippe Aries and Lloyd De Mause,  Centuries of Childhood, and  The History of Childhood  respectfully. Both historians took a â€Å"progressive† approach to history, and concluded that the treatment of children by their parents and society have improved considerably throughout the centuries. Both paint a very negative image of childhood, and family life in the past. Lloyd De Mause went as far as saying that;   Ã¢â‚¬Å"The history of childhood is a nightmare from which we have only recently begun to awaken. †Ã‚  (1)   believing that; â€Å"The further back in history one goes, the lower the level of child care, and the more likely children are to be killed, abandoned, beaten, terrorized, and sexually abused†. 2)   Aries concluded that there was no concept of childhood as a state   different to adulthood in these centuries, and therefore, even if parents did feel affection for their offspring, they did not fully understand how to respond to the emotional needs of their children. This argument gained further weight with the mammoth work of Lawrence Stone on the history of the family and family relationships in the early modern period,  The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800. Stone too focused on the â€Å"evolution† of the amily through these three centuries, arguing that the family changed from being of an â€Å"open lineage† structure in which family relationships were formal and repressed, to the â€Å"domesticated nuclear family†, which resulted in â€Å"affective individualism†. In the early 1980's, Linda Pollock in her influential, yet highly controversial work,  Forgotten Children : Parent – child Relations 1500-1900, harshly criticised all the arguments made by Aries, de Mause and Stone. From her intensive study of over four hundred diaries and journals, she argued that childhood experiences were not as grim as they suggest it was. She strongly denies that there were any fundamental changes in the way parents viewed or reared their children in this period;   Ã¢â‚¬Å"The texts reveal no significant change in the quality of parental care given to, or the amount of affection felt for infants for the period 1500-1900†. (3)   Pollock's work has received support from Rosemary O'Day and Mary Abbot, who both deny that childhood â€Å"evolved† considerably in this period. In recent years, it is this approach that is beginning to predominate, but Pollock et al are not without their critics. Therefore, as there are two so very different approaches to the history of childhood in the early modern period, attempting to determine just how methods of child rearing did change in the past is fraught with difficulty. In order to determine how something has changed, it is necessary to determine what it changed from, and there is no consensus of opinion as to how parents reared their children in this period. However, it is perhaps important to emphasise that it is not so much the structure of childhood that is difficult to assess, in the sense of describing what the children actually did, but the attitudes and values of the parents. It is difficult to determine whether these changed, if they did how they changed, and why they changed, and the outcome of these changes. Between 1500 and 1700, the actual structure of childhood changed little. In this pre-industrial age, England was largely agricultural. Amongst the poor, children were put to work at early ages on the farm, sowing seeds, chasing birds, and other rather unstrenuous activities. If they could not be made useful on the family's own farm, then they would be put to work elsewhere. This was a characteristic of both the town and the country, although in the towns, children were put to work a year to eighteen months earlier. This applied to both sexes, although boys were more likely to be put to work earlier, and girls to stay home a little longer to help their mother. Children who could be spared from the farm, or whose wages would not be missed, were often put to school, to receive a form of elementary education which would help them acquire the necessary literacy and arithmetic they would need in life. Most of these children, especially the girls, remained in school only for a short period, and would then be expected to work to help their family financially. Some children never attended school, but were taught by their mothers at home. Amongst the wealthier social groups, boys, and to a lesser extent girls, would be provided with a more rigid and higher standard education from the age of six or seven upwards. This could take the form of private tuition, a school education, or education in someone else's house. It has been argued by Stone, Aries and De Mause, that there was a growing awareness of childhood as a state different to adult hood in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. According to them, society was beginning to appreciate that children were not miniature adults, but were at a substantially lower level of maturity, and so had distinct needs from adults – protection, love and nurturing. Society was now becoming more aware of the importance of parental socialisation, that it was socialisation that largely determined the kind of adult a child would eventually become. Lawrence Stone and J. H. Plumb believe the emergence of this new characteristic can be traced in the artistic development of the period. Stone argues that in the middle ages, children were invariably portrayed as miniature adults in paintings, without any childish characteristics. However, into the sixteenth century, images of children began to acquire a distinct identity, and childish appearance. Plumb argues that from the late seventeenth century onwards, children can be seen playing, sketching and amusing themselves in portraits, which he suggests shows there was a definite concept of childhood emerging in this period. He also argues that the increasing availability of toys and literature especially aimed for children, shows a greater understanding and appreciation of childhood. It is certainly possible that children were seen in a different light in this period, considering the influence of the Renaissance and the Reformation on ideologies(an explanation that Stone touches upon and will be discussed in more detail later), but the evidence employed by both Stone and Plumb needs to be used with supreme caution. Art and literature may reflect to a certain degree the alues and attitudes of a given society, but they are also limited by the technological understandings of the age. It could be argued that the change in the portrayal of children was due entirely to the Renaissance influence on physical realism in portraits, and the development of superior artistic skills as a consequence. Also, as artists became more familiar with painting the human form, they may have been more comfortable in exploring o ther forms of presentation, moving away from the stiffness of some early portraits, to the more naturalistic settings of the eighteenth century. Similarly, the commercial availability of toys and children's literature may have been the product of a growing materialistic and technological world, not an indication of a greater awareness of childhood. Just because toys were not commercially available in the past does not mean that the need for children to play was not appreciated. Parents may have manually made toys for their children. Indeed, Linda Pollock argues that imaginative play was common through out this period. The literary development could likewise be due to the growing influence of the printing press which opened up new avenues for literature. There is no conclusive evidence that there was an increase in the  Ã¢â‚¬Å"concept of childhood†Ã‚  in this period. Linda Pollock, and Rosemary O'Day, strongly deny that there was, arguing that parents had always been†aware that childhood was different in kind from adulthood. †Ã‚   (4) Stone et al have argued that once society became aware that childhood was a distinct state from adulthood, this effected the relationship between parents and children. They argue that now parents were aware of the needs of children, they were more equipped to respond to them, and give their children the care and protection they so desperately needed. Both Ralph Houlbrooke and Lawrence Stone argue that during the course of the seventeenth centuries, families became more openly affectionate. They see the decline in observances such as the â€Å"blessing† as evidence of a more loving family relationship. The â€Å"blessing† was considered to be important in what it symbolised about the inferiority of children to adults. Children were expected to seek their parent's blessing every morning and night. Even in adulthood, children were expected to ask for this blessing every so often. There were also other customs to remind children of the respect, duty and obedience they owed their parents. Boys for example, were expected to take off their hats in their parent's presence, and allegedly girls were expected to kneel before their mother. The Countess of Falkland for example, knelt before her mother even in adulthood, and even though she had obtained a higher social status than her mother through marriage. Ralph Houlbrooke argues that in the seventeenth century such practises were declining. The â€Å"blessing† he says was replaced with a â€Å"goodnight kiss†, and the other customs relaxed. He believes that the increased intimacy in letters between parents and children in the seventeenth century are firm evidence of a growing affection and intimacy. He claims that parents were now using phrases such as â€Å"my dear child† or â€Å"my darling†, instead of the colder ones of â€Å"child† or â€Å"son, daughter†. However, again this evidence needs to be treated with caution. In this period, society was becoming increasingly literate, especially amongst the wealthier social groups, and a greater depth of education may have meant that individuals were now able to express themselves easier. It must also be remembered that the English language itself was going through a transition at this time, greatly benefitting from the Renaissance emphasis on the vernacular. Lawrence Stone sees the decline in the customs of swaddling and wet-nursing from the late seventeenth century and particularly into the eighteenth, as a further indication of a growing affection. However, again, this depends on interpretation. It was not for any abusive or oppressive reason that parents swaddled their children, but because they genuinely believed that it was for the child's benefit, in that it prevented the child's limbs from growing crooked and deformed. Arguably the decline of this practice was due to an increased scientific understanding of the human body, rather than an increase in parental affection towards children. Also there is no solid evidence that wet-nursing declined in the seventeenth century. Indeed, for much of the eighteenth century, wet-nursing continued amongst the nobility and gentry. Admittedly it was increasingly the subject of attack, as puritans in particular believed that all mothers should breast feed their own children, but that this practise continued in aristocratic circles (it had never really been a custom amongst the poor) well into the nineteenth century, it cannot be used to illustrate a growing affection between mothers and children. Lawrence Stone argues that one of the reasons why parents and children were emotionally distant in the early part of this period, was ecause of the high infant mortality rate. He argues that parents were reluctant to invest love and care in their children, because of the pain losing them would cause. However, Linda Pollock identifies a flaw in his thesis. She argues that if this was the case, then one would expect the indifference towards children to have prevailed as long as the death rate. Stone puts forward that parents were becoming closer to their children in the late seventeenth century, where for some pars of the country such as Devon, more children were dying in this period than had done in the sixteenth century. Pollock argues that contrary to reducing parental emotional investment, the high death rate only served to heighten their anxiety in times of illness, and increase their level of care. However, Lawrence Stone does not believe that all the consequences of a growing awareness of childhood as a distinct state from adulthood, had a positive effect on the relationship between parents and children. He suggests that with the awareness that behaviour depended on discipline, parents took their duty as disciplinarians more seriously. He claims that whipping and flogging now became common place in an attempt to instil morality in their children. He also attributes this development to the Protestant Reformation. He argues that Protestantism emphasised the notion of Original sin, and contrary to Catholicism, did not advocated that the salvation of children could be obtained by baptism. Protestants argued that faith alone determined salvation, and therefore, for a child to be saved, faith was essential. This led to a decline in the importance of baptism, and increasingly parents delayed the ceremony, for days, weeks, or even months. There was now added pressure on parents to ensure that their children fully comprehended the basics of Christianity, especially their own sinfulness, and need for repentance and salvation. This possibly increased the importance of the mother as teacher, and arguably created the potential for a greater intimacy between mother and child as they spent more quality time together. However, Sather argues that following the Reformation, the relationship between parents and children became characterised by   harshness and cruelty, as physical punishment became the norm, especially amongst Puritans. He who spareth the rod hateth his son† was universally repeated. Undoubtedly this theoretically sets the scene for a darkening of childhood experience. However, although the Reformation may have encouraged a harsher disciplinary role of the parents, as always, it is necessary to bear in mind that theory does not always convert into practise successfully. It is certainly possible that purit ans treated their children harshly in this period, tyring to get them to conform to their notions of godliness, but it must be remembered that for most of this period puritans were a minority, and a rather unpopular one at that. It was they who predominantly wrote the â€Å"conduct-books†, advising parents on how to rear their children, and although some historians such as Stone have taken their contents as evidence of a harsh attitude towards children, it is necessary to remember that   conduct books state how things ought to be, not how they are. Admittedly there were parents who did physically punish their children. John Aubrey, a contemporary of the seventeenth century, stated that harsh physical correction was rife, and that â€Å"the child perfectly hated the sight of his parents as the slave his torturer†, but this is highly debatable. It is likely that if children were abused in this period, the abuse was more likely to be inflicted by the children's employers who abused their powerful positions. There are numerous accounts of young boys and girls having been physically abused by their masters. However, it is significant that many parents on discovering this abuse, issued a suit against the guilty person, suggesting that such treatment was far from socially acceptable. Parents wanted their children corrected, and arguably would not have opposed to a physical chastisement if essential, but did not want, or approve, of excessive correction. That physical punishment existed, cannot be taken as evidence of increased parental harshness towards children. It is clear from several journals that parents who did feel the need to physically punish their children, were often deeply troubled by the incident, and if possible, preferred not to inflict physical pain on their child. Also, there is little evidence for Stone's theory that parents saw their children as innately evil, and thus needed excessive disciplining. Indeed, considering that writers such as Thomas Gataker had to continuously press the point that it was â€Å"an idle concept† to suppose that â€Å"religion and godlinesse is not for children†, suggests that most parents did not accept the belief, even if it was widespread amongst puritans. In all likelihood, most parents took the view of John Locke, that children were morally neutral, and that it was up to them by both love and appropriate correction, to bring out the good in their nature. Another change which it has been argued came about partly because of the Reformation, was the â€Å"educational revolution† of the sixteenth century. Certainly as Protestantism was the religion of the â€Å"word† both printed and preached, a higher degree of literacy was needed to read the Scriptures, and intellectual training in order for the people to comprehend doctrinal issues. Also, following the Dissolution of the monasteries and chantries, the educational provision made by these institutions ceased. Thus, if children were to be educated, schools had to be refounded, which is largely what happened in the reign of Edward the Sixth. This movement was also due to the Renaissance, which increased the value of education, especially amongst the gentry. With the Renaissance came ideals of gentility, advocated by Castiglione and Thomas Elyot. Education was seen as a prime requisite of gentility, for not only did it cultivate the mind, but it distinguished gentle persons above the poor, and justified their privileged positions. Not surprisingly then, with such a high regard being attached to education, rich parents, who perhaps were not entirely literate themselves at the beginning of this period, increasingly ensured that their sons had a decent education. Therefore, towards the end of the sixteenth, and especially into the seventeenth century, it became common for the wealthy to send their sons to the new grammar schools. If they were particularly wealthy, they would employ a tutor steeped in classical knowledge to educate their sons. That parents sent there children away from home at early ages has been taken as evidence of their indifference, but in all likelihood, when parents sent their children away, they believed it was in the best interests of the child. Ilana Ben-Amos argues that parents would only part with their children when it was absolutely essential. In the   early seventeenth century for example, it was only after James Fretwell, who was then only four years old, came home weeping because he could not manage the distance between Sandal and Yorkshire every day, that his father out of concern for his welfare put him to lodge with a widow in Sandal. Even then, the child came home on Saturdays. It can also be seen that attitudes towards female education amongst the wealthy also changed in this period. In the Renaissance years, it is arguable that the education of women was encouraged. Thomas More himself said that â€Å"I do not see why learning ay not equally agree with both sexes†, and the period produced a number of learned women; Mary and Elizabeth Tudor, Lady Jane Grey, and even Mary Stuart. Antonia Fraser argues that during Elizabeth's reign, there was a silent pressure on wealthy men to have their daughters educated. If they were to attend court without having some knowledge of Latin and the Classics, they would comp are unfavourably with the intellect and knowledge of the Queen, and would thus not create a favourable impression on the men they were expected to â€Å"secure†. Also, with there being a female monarch who was renowned as a scholar, it would be rather unmet to press the point that such a sphere was a man's preserve. However, with the Queen's death in 1603, and the accession of a man, such opinions were able to surface, and there was an increasing desire to exclude females from learning Latin and the classics. This was given impetus by the attitude of the sovereign himself. When King James was presented with a learned woman, he rather sarcastically remarked, â€Å"but can shee spin ? â€Å". This gave no incentive for the great families of England to subject their daughters to an expensive classical education, which many believed they had not the intellectual capacity to understand, and anyway would serve them no useful purpose in life. As the seventeenth century wore on, the difference in the educational expectations of the sexes became more marked. Girls were virtually excluded from grammar schools, and the notion of the â€Å"accomplished woman†, which was to play such a prominent part in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, gained a whole new lease of life. Parents were now encouraged to have their daughters educated in those subjects deemed suitable for girls – sewing, knitting, music, and French. Over the course of the seventeenth century, schools for girls flourished, and were dedicated to educating girls in these increasingly regarded female traits. Stone argues that the end of the seventeenth century saw a more humane treatment of children being adopted, but arguably this was not the case for aristocratic girls. Physical deportment was becoming increasingly important. The corset, which had long been in existence, now became regarded as essential, and the eighteenth century saw the development of other techniques to help create the perfect figure, such as stocks and backboards. Stone argues that one of the signs of a growing affection between parents and children, was the decline of parental control of their children's marriages, but if this was the case with boys, the marriage of girls was still often tightly controlled. In concluding then, it can be seen that trying to determine to what extent there were important changes in the way that children were reared in this period, is fraught with difficulty. The conclusion drawn, depends to a large degree on the approach adopted. Those historians such as Linda Pollock who advocate â€Å"continuity†, would argue that there were no fundamental changes in the way that parents treated and reared their children in this   who advocate â€Å"change†, would argue that there were important changes in these years. They would argue that there was a growing intimacy and affection between parents and children, a growing concern for the latter's welfare, and although the Reformation initially introduced a period of increased severity, the general trend was the improvement of the treatment of children. Certainly there were changes. There was an increased importance placed on education; the increasing segregation of male and female spheres within education; children were maintained at school longer; apprenticeships were lasting longer; there was an increase in the importance of early religious instruction; child baptism lost it's immediate   significance; swaddling becoming less widely used, and into the eighteenth century there was a decline in the practice of wet nursing. However, these changes are largely external changes. They tell us little about the way the â€Å"experience† of child rearing changed, if it did, during this period. Arguably, the more fundamental aspects of child-rearing, such as whether or not there was an emergence of a â€Å"concept of childhood† in this period, whether there was a growing intimacy between parents and children, and whether or not parental discipline became more severe, can only be speculated upon.