The Merger Behind Daimler Benz And Chrysler Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 21 Words: 6313 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Research paper Did you like this example? On July 17, 1997, Chrysler CEO Bob Eaton walked into the auditorium at company headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, and gave the speech of his life. Instead of reveling in four years of rapid growth, he warned of trouble brewing on the horizon. His urgent oratory, adapted from the nonfiction bestseller The Perfect Storm, a tale of three fishermen caught at the confluence of three potent storms off the Canadian coast, warned that a triad of similar factors threatened to sink Chrysler in the coming decade. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Merger Behind Daimler Benz And Chrysler Finance Essay" essay for you Create order I think, Eaton said, there may be a perfect storm brewing around the industry today. I see a cold front, a noreaster, and a hurricane converging on us all at once. That is how one of the parts in one of the biggest mergers of our time saw the circumstances and preconditions which lead to the alliance of the American Chrysler and the German Daimler-Benz. In this paper we would like to analyze the complex decision making process and some of the negotiations involved. Since it is a multisided act, connected with various people, positions, influences, methods and data, we picked some topics we found really important. First we shall discuss the motives for the merger, since the reason why people engage in such a big enterprise influence their decisions and the negotiations involved. Then we shall show the implications of a merger of equals. Important factors of discussion and negotiation are the cross cultural aspects, which affect the decision making process as well. The difference in culture between Germany and the U.S. is evaluated in the cross cultural aspects of the DaimlerChrysler merger. Next to this the costs and benefits of the merger are discussed with their implications for negotiation. We shall also reflect on the differences in the working methods of the two companies, which could trouble the work of the alliance in the Future, therefore it is an important concept to be considered. Despite all the mentioned issues, we found it important to consider the personality of Jà ¼rgen Schrempp, the CEO of DaimlerChrysler, since preconditions, the very merger itself, and the following events were very much manipulated by him influence based not only on professional, but on personal motives as well. Company profiles and the reasons for the Daimler-Chrysler merger On May 7th, 1998, Robert J. Eaton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Chrysler Corporation, announced that Chrysler would merge with Daimler-Benz. Daimler-Benz CEO Jà ¼rgen Schrempp hailed the union as a merger of equals, a merger of growth, and a merger of unprecedented strength. The new company, with 442,000 employees and a market capitalization approaching $100 billion, was expected to be very successful. Lets view companies profiles before the merger, the reasons for merger. Chrysler Corporation Chrysler Corporation, incorporated in Delaware, the US. Operated in two principal segments: Automotive Operations and Financial Services. In the mid-1990s, Chrysler Corporation was the most profitable automotive producer in the world. Chrysler had taken a risk in producing vehicles that captured the bold and pioneering American spirit when imports dominated the market the Dodge Ram, the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the LH Sedan Series. In these vehicles Chrysler found an instant mass appeal, and its U.S. market share climbed to 23% in 1997. The company was considered to be creative, innovative and risky. Their main products were minivans designed for mass market. That is why the values of their production process were reducing costs, finding new cheap solutions. Consequently the organizational culture could be described as innovative, informal, open, dynamic etc. Daimler-Benz AG Daimler-Benz AG, a stock corporation, was the largest industrial group in Germany with 1997 revenues of DM124 billion ($68.9 billion). Although known primarily for its luxury Mercedes cars, Daimler operated in four business segments: Automotive (Passenger and Commercial Vehicles), Aerospace, Services, and Directly Managed Businesses. But 95% of the income was from Mercedes Department. In comparison to Chrysler Daimler-Benz was more traditional organization with top-down decision making processes, hierarchical structure, strong subordination. They valued quality, traditions, procedures, perfection. Reasons for merger In spite of their size, reputation, long history both companies had objective problems. The solution was found in merger. Actually the motives for the merger could be the following: 1) To ensure stable growth and stability in the future New reality that can be described like (i) chronic overcapacity, (ii) retail revolution that empowered buyers, (iii) environmental concerns that threatened the very existence of the internal combustion engine, left no chances for Chrysler to succeed in the Future being alone. At 1997 the company was once again nearing a crisis point: a rapidly changing market meant that large amounts of cash would be needed to keep their product line up to date as well as to take their product to emerging and lucrative new markets. On the other hand Daimler-Benc could not feel secure either because its corporate strategy had a number of disadvantages e.g. dealing with a lot of businesses meanwhile 95% of income was from Mercedes Department that made the compan y unstable in long term period. Moreover its vehicle production method was particularly labor intensive requiring nearly twice as many workers per unit produced over Toyotas Lexus division. 2) Expansion to new markets Despite a booming U.S. economy, Daimler-Bencs luxury vehicles had captured less than 1% of the American market. They had neither experience of selling cars in the US nor distribution system in North America. Chrysler despite of being recognized car maker in the USA did not do business successfully on the continent. They had the same problems as Daimler-Benc had no experience, no partners, no distribution system. So merger seemed to be a great opportunity to benefit for both companies by using each others resources and experience. 3) Synergy from combined competencies There was almost no overlap in the companies competencies, product lines, market segments (they didnt compete to each other). So both companies had unique knowledge and objectively were inter ested in sharing it hoping to reach synergetic effect. From Merger to Acquisition Thus we can see that on the face of it both Daimler-Benz and Chrysler had very strong motives to combine their businesses. All these motives seem to be extremely logical, relevant, adequate and objective. Indeed two leaders of car market can decide to act like one player. From the view point of Chrysler a solution had to be found to the mentioned problems and the alternatives for such a big company, competing on an extremely dynamic market arent many. In the case of a decision about a future prospective such a giant company had to gather really reliable and relevant information (forecasts, calculations, subjective factors etc.), and to consider the risks and uncertainties connected to each and every possible step in the future. Without any doubts Daimler-Benz had to do the same. So when the merger was announced there was no panic among stake-holders indeed it was merger of equals, reasons were logical, consequences were considered predictable, companies looked equal. The decision seemed to be well though-out from the economic point of view. Analysts, observers, stakeholders were so exited expecting successful developing of the new alliance. But very soon everything went wrong. Autumn 2000 the German executives proclaim that: The Merger of Equals statement was necessary in order to earn the support of Chryslers workers and the American public, but it was never reality. Moreover the companies did not succeed in managing the merger-acquisition. How could stakeholders and the whole public be so mistaken? It can be easily explained if we pay attention to some very important factors the stakeholders and top-management didnt take into account while analyzing the need for the merger and then during managing it. First of all and the most important is that this decision-making process was much more based not on rational but on personal reasons. So we can say that stakeholders decision that the merger was good was based on representativeness Heuristics. Indeed t here is a stereotype that big companies act absolutely rationally; Daimler-Benz and Chrysler were big respected companies, consequently everybody suggested that the merger was well thought-out decision based on rational motives and reasons. But in fact in this case much of the decisiveness of the German company was based on the personal and managerial features of the chief executive officer of Daimler-Benz, Jà ¼rgen Schrempp, on which we shall touch upon later in the paper. What is important is that Schrempps motives for the merger had more authority and stubbornness in themselves, than needed, and in the same time less common sense and supportive data. Liebler, DaimlerChryslers Senior Vice President said: It was an acquisition, and by calling it something else, we confused a lot of people on both parts of the Atlantic. As we all know relevant information is extremely important in a decision making process, so by announcing this as a merger, the companies gave misleading informa tion. For example in the trial about the merger U.S.- billionaire Kirk Kerkorian and his Investment company Tracinda accused DaimlerChrysler of cheating. Kerkorian argued that from the outset the merger was an acquisition. Therefore Kerkorian would have got more money (higher premium) for the exchange of share certificates. In the decision making process the question about merger or acquisition was quite important. The Chrysler board of management would never have accepted the merger, if they had known that Schrempp, from the very day he walked in Robert Eatons office in Auburn Hills in January 1998, he intended to swallow Chrysler whole..( he told so in a rare interview for the Financial Times of London) Then while managing the merger cultural differences appeared, the analysis of which follows. The cross-cultural aspects of the DaimlerChrysler merger The merger between Daimler-Benz and Chrysler was supposed to be the merger of the century, but it didnt work as planned. So what went wrong? When two powerful companies from different countries merge, theres always expected to be a clash of two cultures. But in DaimlerChrysler case, it seems that their clash was a text-book example of how things can go wrong when trying to combine the two cultures. Even though German and American business cultures may seem very similar there are still some distinctive features to both of them. According to Executiveplanet.com What to know before negotiating , American business culture puts emphasis on competition and individual achievements and creativity. They often like to open the negotiations with a small talk about some topic not relevant to the negotiations. The phrase time is money is also taken seriously in American business culture: businessmen are not afraid to say no and are used to make decisions fast. It is also acceptable to add pe rsonal feeling into business life. German business in the other hand is said to be less risk-taking culture as Americans. They tend to be less spontaneous and like to follow the old traditions and rules of the company. Personal feelings and relationships needs to be left out of the negotiations and business in general, they like to keep their personal lives and business separate. When analysing more closely about the differences between these two cultures, use of Hofstedes famous cultural dimensions provide lots of information. During the 1970s Dutch organisational anthropologist Geert Hofstede researched work-related values in employees of IBM. From this researched he derives four cultural dimensions that are found in organizations around the world. The four dimension are Power Distance (PDI),individualism/collectivism(IDV),masculinity/femininity (MAS) and uncertainty avoidance (UAI). Later on he also added a fifth dimension, Long Term Orientation (LTO). As seen on the table comparing German scores with American scores, there is a difference. The PDI index is almost the same, meaning that the lower the score, less inequality there is in the society and organisations. Also the MAS index scores for the both countries are pretty high, meaning that both Germany and USA are more or less masculine societies. In the UAI index there is a difference to be noticed. This difference means that American organisations are more comfortable with unstructured situations than Germans. The lower the score, the more rule oriented society it is. Finally, the index that shows most dramatic differences is the IDV index. USA was said to be one of the highest scoring countries in this index, meaning that they are very individual society and puts emphasis on individual achievements. In the other hand, Germany is more collectivistic culture where interpersonal relationship count more. Now that weve gone through the differences in German and American cultures, we can analyse wh at went wrong in the DaimlerChrysler merger in a cross-cultural point of view. As Sydney Finkelstein states on her case story DaimlerChrysler merger, when it came down to the principles involving the deal, there were no clashes of cultures. There were no noticeable differences on the general management level, they looked the same, talked the same and had same interest. Of course the differences are more visible when having a negotiation with for example Japanese business men when their appearance is different and they may not even speak the same language. The problems arise when the Germans continued to run their part of the company in German way and the Americans did the same thing in their side. With all the cultural differences analyzed above, it is easy to see why there were so many conflicts. After the merger, the differences started to show. Although the management spend a lot of money to make their employees aware of each others cultures in a very practical level, the big problem was that the general business and management structures remain unchanged. Chrysler, who had its headquarters in Michigan valued efficiency, empowerment, and equal relations among staff; and in contrast Daimler-Benz who had its headquarters in Stuttgart seemed to value respect for authority, bureaucratic accurateness. The different styles of communicating and negotiating caused confusion. Germans felt unease by the unstructured ways and by contrast, Americans thought that the way Germans handled thing were too formal and frigid. Americans couldnt understand why people from Daimler-Benz didnt care about details such as the shape of a pamphlet send to their employees. According to Ronald Klein, DaimlerChryslers manager of corporate communications: Germans analyze the problem in great detail, find a solution, discuss it with their partners and then make a decision. Its a very structured process. In contrast: Americans start with a discussion, and then come back to new aspects af ter talking with other people after a process that they call creative- they come to a conclusion. Naturally these kinds of different communication styles causes confusion and chaos inside the company. Also the differences in salaries werent helping the workers from the two companies to feel equal. American employees earned noticeably more than their German colleagues and this caused tension inside the new build company. The brand images behind the two companies were very different. Chryslers image was all-American cowboy, providing cars for blue collar customers produced within a cost-controlled atmosphere whereas Mercedes-Benz portraits high class German engineering and is known for its luxury cars. In the next part we shall give some further explanations to other costs (except those, caused by cultural discrepancies) and the occurring benefits of the merger. Cost and Benefit Analysis The two CEOs believed that the industry was running on overcapacity. Potential benefits of combining car manufacturers as we mentioned could arise from the general synergy sources (joint product design, development and manufacturing, combined purchasing, other economies of scale and brand expansion and diversification). In this part the financial side of the merger will be discussed. Next to this we will also deal with the non financial benefits. The influence of all of this is analysed. The financial side Chrysler As most companies want, Chrysler wanted this merger to maximize value for its stockholders. They wanted this merger to be tax-free for their U.S. stockholders and the resulting company to be tax efficient. They had the following expectations of the merger: Management expected benefits of $1,4 billion in the first year of merged operations, and annual benefits of $3 billion within three to five years Chrysler stockholders receive Daimler-Chrysler ordinary shares so they are able to participate in the combined companys future growth The combined financial strength will be greater so new markets can be entered easier Credit Suise First Boston (investment bank) analysed for Chrysler a two case scenario in case they did not merge. The Chrysler base case projected an average income for 1998 until 2002 of $72.2 million (reflects Chryslers current business plan, including Chrysler management forecasts for fiscal years 1998 through 2002). Based upon the analysis of Daimler-Be nz as well, CSFB projected that the merger would lead to smaller earnings per share for Chrysler and bigger earnings per share for Daimler-Benz for 1999 and 2000. But the theoretical trading value of a DaimlerChrysler share would be greater than the share prices of Chrysler or Daimler-Benz on a stand alone basis. Daimler-Benz Daimler-Benz wanted as well to maximize value for stockholders, that it be tax-free to Daimler-Benz stockholders and tax efficient for DaimlerChrysler. In addition they wanted the result of a merger to be a German stock corporation, to enhance the likelihood of acceptance by all important stakeholders. In addition, Daimler-Benz believes that the increase in market capitalization will provide enhanced liquidity for Daimler-Benz stockholders. Goldman Sachs estimated pre-tax annual savings as the result of synergy from $0 to $1,6 billion (scenario specific). Earnings per share would increase on average with 40% depending on the level of cost savings by synergy. Daimler-Benz believes that the increase in market capitalization will provide enhanced liquidity for Daimler-Benz stockholders. Non-financial benefits The opportunities for significant synergies afforded by a combination of Chrysler and Daimler-Benz are not based on plant closings or lay-offs, but on such factors as shared technologies, distribution, purchasing and know-how. These are other major benefits: The automotive industry will become more and more consolidated. This results in a smaller number of larger companies surviving as effective global competitors The combined company will be stronger than the companies individually, because of the already indicated companies complementary strengths Chrysler being better in sport-utility vehicles and minivans while Daimler-Benz being stronger in the high end and luxury automobiles. Chrysler has a reputation for product development and Daimler-Benz for engineering complements. The Daimler-Benz Management Board viewed the combination with Chrysler as an opportunity to strengthen Daimler-Benzs competitive position. This is because the merger covers virtually the entire ma rket. As well geographically as in product markets. The parties concluded that a primary goal of the merger is to create a market system for the Daimler-Chrysler ordinary shares that is the most efficient and investor friendly. But there were still some major financial points of discussion: Valuation. Daimler-Benz shares have had a higher price/earnings multiple than Chryslers, although Chrysler has had higher earnings Finding a structure that would result in a tax-free transaction for both companies stockholders and in future tax-efficiency Chart of DaimlerChryslers stock price Influence of financial factors on negotiation There was no power imbalance from financial point of view. Both companies where getting less and less successful in their field of business. Both companies were dependent on the other for survival. On one hand does this power balance increases the progress of the negotiation since no company has to be afraid of losing power. On the other hand it can become a negotiation where no company wants to compromise since they have the same rights. In the face of goal setting both companies agreed. They both wanted it to be tax-free and tax efficient. Having equal goals is very beneficial for all negotiations. In the sense of motivation they where similar as well. They both saw the need to merge in order to stay competitive. Again this makes negotiation easier since equal motives generate equal goals. These similarities suppose a cooperative negotiation style. This merger could be ranked as a typical example of a win-win situation. The parts would see each other as collaborators ins tead of opponents. And consequently this way of approaching a negotiation would yield the best results. That unethical tactics of negotiation and the other significant aspects connected with the merger where used came clear afterwards. Differences in operation process and management technique, different requirements and principles for quality and efficiency. The companies were almost meant to be partners in terms of operations but the differences between them in this field as well were sometimes too far-reaching, which made the merger less effective than previously presumed. Lets start with naming some of the obvious operation advantages of the merger before we turn to problems and disadvantages: Advantages of the merger Mutual advantages Common opinion states that it was Chrysler who mainly profited form the merger. Daimler-Benz offered the American firm the quality of Mercedes to improve the dull Chrysler brand image and save the company billions of dollars in warranty costs. But Daimler-Benz also has advantages to being linked with Chrysler. Although Chrysler has not been known for its quality, the corporation has always been coupled with creative styling and the product innovation we referred to previously. Daimler-Benz could use help in these areas, as well as decreasing its development costs. The German firm typically employs only a handful of close suppliers, therefore driving up costs. Because Chrysler employs several different suppliers, costs remain relatively low. Merging the two companies, when put in this light, seems to have been a match made in heaven. The already reported perfect fit of product lines Financial analysts at the beginning were all excited about the perfect fit of product lines, regional penetration and technical and operational strengths. Uncalculated savings were anticipated in warehousing and logistics for spare parts. Combining RD department Chrysler and Mercedes have started combining their research and development operations for key technologies such as fuel cells. Last year for example, Mercedes began building its M-Class vehicle in Chryslers plant in Graz, Austria. Still, achieving synergies will take time. Many things you can only implement in one generation of products, which takes four to five years, says Schrempp. So this is crucial for the company to combine forces and benefit form advantages of scales. Joint purchasing of steel and other commodities The first full year of the merger, through joint purchasing of steel and other commodities DaimlerChrysler had saved $1.4 billion in 1999. Sharing interchangeable parts has proved Although sharing interchangeable parts has proved tough, German and American engineers agreed early on that Chrysler could share Mercedes technology: But when Chrysler engineers wanted to incorporate some of those components into the next-generation Dodge Intrepid and Chrysler Concorde, the Germans dragged their feet, according to sources close to the company. The Germans apparently worried they would be caught short of supplies if demand soared for the more profitable Mercedes cars. Theoretical insight of the pointed advantages Those positive outcomes of merger are results of win-win approach of decision making and negotiation processes in the questions dealing with operations. Both companies discovered their weak points and discussed how they can profit from cooperating with the partner it this particular domain. They set priorities, identified the underlying concerns and tried to solve them by cooperation. The wisely combined capacities tend to benefit form advantages of scale. They share knowledge, experience and facilities in fields where distinct advantages can be gained. Disadvantages of the merger Now lets unveil some problems that the companies faced after the merger. Following are the main reasons, from the operational point of view for the merger to be considered as failure. Big communication mistakes Communication mistakes, probably, started on the day the deal was officially announced. The problem grew from the fact that the employee audience received minor attention, as it mainly focused on lawyers, investment bankers, senior management and shareholders. The Merger of Equals statement was necessary in order to earn the support of Chryslers workers and the American public, but it was never reality. Later we now that Schrempp confirmed, that he never intended this to be a merger of equals: as the months of ineffective management were passing the mood at the company was fast switching from concern to panic. This caused managers fear for their careers, and in the absence of assurance, they assumed the worst. Jà ¼rgen Schremp didnt help the situation, he looked at Chryslers past success and told himself there is no point in trying to smash these two companies together. At some point he even almost cut off from American partner. He said lets let the Chrysler guys continue to ru n its operations because they have done a great job in the past. It was a misjudgment. What they didnt take into account was that immediately prior to the consummation of the merger or shortly thereafter, enough of the key members of that former Chrysler management team left being uncertain about their future job security. Assembly systems quality highly overestimated by Mercedes When German engineers went to take a closer look into American factories (after the merger!) they were very surprised about the quality of assembly lines and the work being done. There were no quality checking systems at all or they were out of the date. American assembly lines were very old and were not compliant with German standards. This is when Germans realized that there are billons of dollars needed to be invested in order to bring the American lines back to reasonable quality levels. It is quite surprising that those detailed analyses were not conveyed before the merger took place. Decreasing quality of new Mercedes-Benz cars Instead of increasing in Chrysler quality we can observe a drop in Mercedes-Benzs quality. In late November 2000 we find out that DaimlerChrysler not only faced quality problems within the Chrysler unit, but also with regards to the Mercedes-Benz brand. Internal company reports had concluded that the corporation had been underestimating the so-called Quality Early-Warning System from the corporations car dealers. Particularly technical problems emerged as a major area of discontent among dealers and customers. Because of problems with quality Mercedes sales and market share declined and it lost its leader position in the luxury cars segment in favor of BMW cars in 2004. Different product development philosophies Differing product development philosophies continued to hamper joint purchasing and manufacturing efforts as well. Daimler-Benz remained committed to its founding credo of quality at any cost, while Chrysler aimed to produce price-targeted vehicles. This resulted in a fundamental disconnect in supply-procurement tactics and factory staffing requirements. Upon visiting the Jeep factory in Graz, Austria, Mercedes chief quality officer proclaimed: If we are to produce the M-Class here as well, we will need to create a separate quality control section and double the number of line workers. It simply cant be built to the same specifications as a Jeep The M-Class was eventually built in Graz, but not without an expensive round of hiring and standard increases to meet Germans manufacturing standards. Decrease in financial operating indicators for both companies. In 2001, three years after a merger of equals , the outlook is much bleaker. The financial data is less optimistic. The U.S. market share in auto industry has sunk to 14%, earnings have slid by 20%, and the once independent company has been fully subordinated to Stuttgart. Its key revenue generators the minivan, the Jeep SUV, and the supercharged pickup truck have all come under heavy competition from Toyota, Honda, General Motors and Ford. Theoretical insight of the pointed disadvantages We can name 3 main possible sources of problems: Too much attention is given to short-term issues, such as settling the deal, to the detriment of long-term corporate identity and strategy. We think there was no proper agenda of the sequence of the operations, objectives and goals were poorly defined. Leadership issues are not properly recognized. Proper management structures and supervisory responsibilities are very important. Lack of attention and support of German CEO and German mangers caused the highly skilled and valuable American employees to leave the company for its competitors: Ford and GM. Communications problems. The managers of both companies committed significant communication mistakes while announcing that this will be the Merger of Equals (it was never meant to be). They didnt say the truth in order not to scary away American shareholders and not to decrease morals of American employees. This is not the way to solve such kind of problems. Company should educ ate the public and employees instead of lying to them. Open discussion and explanation would probably keep the employees and shareholders being loyal to the company. Jà ¼rgen E. Schrempp: Origin and Background: Jà ¼rgen Erich Schrempp (born September 15, 1944 in Freiburg) is the CEO of DaimlerChrysler. He will resign from his post in December, following a decision of the board taken on July 28, 2005, and will be replaced by Chrysler front man Dieter Zetsche. He is married to Lydia Schrempp, with whom he has a daughter and a son. Mr. Schrempp has two sons from a previous marriage. Mr. Schrempps international experience is the result of long-term assignments in Europe, South Africa and the United States and, over a more than forty-year career, managing a complex and global array of financial, organizational challenges. Under his leadership, Daimler-Benz bought out the former Chrysler Corporation to become the current company. Before becoming the CEO of Daimler-Benz in 1995, Schrempp headed the aerospace division of Daimler-Benz, then called DASA, which is EADS today. DASA acquired the Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker that was already in trouble in 1993 after it signed the contract stating the intention to take Fokker over on October 30, 1992. Schrempp called Fokker his love baby. On January 22, 1996, after having subsidized the losses of Fokker with billions of Deutsche Marks, Daimler-Benz decided to stop putting more money into Fokker that subsequently went bankrupt. He is a Director of the South African Coal, Oil and Gas Corporation Ltd., Vodafone Group plc, UK, and Compagnie Financià ¨re Richemont S.A., Switzerland. Additional engagements include the Advisory Board of Deutsche Bank, the European Advisory Board of Harvard Business School, and the German Council of INSEAD. Strong personality features: In the 1990s, Jà ¼rgen Schrempp tore up the rules of German management. His rescues of the failing companies Deutsche Aerospace and Daimler-Benz established his reputation as a management miracle worker. But his methods mass redundancies, elimination of entire business units and most of all his assault on the social market consensus between workers and managers also made him feared and hated by many in Germany. Now Schrempp has found a global profile, thanks to his merger of Daimler with Chrysler in 1998, and his Germanisation of Chrysler is proving equally controversial in the US. Men like Schrempp are always forward-turned; he is a live wire and sets the pace that it is almost impossible to follow him. An exemplary situation from the board meeting in Seville: Bud Liebler, head of Chrysler marketing, stood up. I dont know how were going to get anything done, Liebler said to the packed room. We talk about speed, but all I hear about is committees. Schrempp just about jumped o ff the podium. He jabbed his finger in the air, then pointed it directly at Liebler. We are not going to slow anything down! he boomed. If you can come up with any example of slowing down, next time we meet Ill buy you the best bottle of red wine you have ever had! Speed is one of his favorite words and everything is in line with it: He is very fast in coming to a decision (not typically German feature, as we pointed it out when discussing the cross-cultural issue). Acquaintances of him suggest that you can feel it, when hes in range. When he once comes to a decision he consequently pushes it through regardless of losses! So he releases top-class managers if he thinks they are unnecessary. In the same way he acts at Chrysler in the United States. Walter Chrysler in person prohibited in his lifetimes smoking and consuming alcohol in his company. Schrempp ignored it! Jà ¼rgen Schrempp grew up in hard times (for Germany). His father worked as an administration secretary of the uni versity with a small income so Mr. Schrempp left school after the O-level (ten years out of 13) and started an apprenticeship as mechanic at Daimler-Benz. With the certificate of apprenticeship he left the company to study engineering. In the year 1967 he came back to Daimler as a graduate engineer. Born into a lower social class and the proximate advancement is maybe one of the reasons of his harshness: He absolutely wanted to be the boss. After he replaced Edzard Reuter as the head of the Daimler group followed a shake-up that was unprecedented in the culture of German management, which was based on job security, generous benefits and paternalistic management. Schrempp sacked over 60,000 workers, including most of the staff in the Stuttgart head office, and cut a third of the groups 35 departments. The surviving departments were warned that if they did not earn a 12 per cent return on their capital, they also faced elimination. Fokker and much of AEG were closed down; corporate survival was more urgent than prestige. Schrempp knew no limits. He climbed in the Italian Alps with Reinhold Messner, the first mountaineer to scale Mount Everest without oxygen. He played chess with champion Gary Kasparov in matches at Daimler headquarters. As described the personality of Jà ¼rgen Schrempp is very one-sided. He is a workaholic who always got what he wanted. In the Decision Making Process of the merger of Daimler Chrysler his personality was the actuating part. He decided the when, the who and the howÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦ His role the merger: Of course he was the moving power, but here only his personal benefits should be specified. When and why did Jà ¼rgen Schrempp decide to take the risk of the merger? Malicious tongues say Mr. Schrempp pushed through the merger, because he wanted to reach the income-level of U.S. managers! And indeed, his income increased enormously! Before the merger, 1997, Mr. Schrempp earned about one million USD per year and then (2000), because the income in the DaimlerChrysler Corp. must be adjusted, he made more than ten million USD (est.) per year. Thus he became the manager in Europe earning the most. This financial incentive could absolutely be one of the personal motives of the merger. At the moment more and more people, even so called Top-Managers mention this. Further we would like to point out the Creation of a World Corporation. When he masterminded the merger of Daimler with the US Chrysler Corporation to create Daimler-Chrysler, Schrempp wanted to make Daimler into a global c ompany that could produce both small and large cars. To do this, he needed to acquire a US company, and Chrysler was the best candidate. His wish to create a world corporation could be explained by his resume: When he was young he had nothing but than he became one of the most important managers in the world. To top this he had to do something special, what nobody did before: The creation of a world corporation! Theoretical insight: The process of making choices from among several alternatives ended for Mr. Schrempp in this merger. Of course he had some alternatives, but he wanted the World Corp. under his leading. The uncertainty of a merger always is associated with risk. What makes the outcome of the merger risky is the probability of obtaining the desired outcome. Furthermore uncertainty is the fundamental cause of stress. The sources of stress, the stressors, were organizational: task demands, interpersonal demands, leadershipÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦! What was the stress defense mechanism? Aggression, he attacked or influenced the stressors directly. From this follows that Mr. Schrempp belongs to Type A, because he is impatient, aggressive, forceful and absolutely devoted to work. A big problem was that Mr. Schrempp as CEO calculated his subjective probabilities based on personal beliefs or hunches. We are pretty sure the Daimler board of management on the one hand used the modern Decision-Maki ng Techniques like doing operations research with the latest analysis models, but on the other hand, because Daimler was and still is a very traditional German company with a top-down management and decision-making structure, the CEOs decisions are made habitual. Mr. Schrempps decisions are influenced by, as described before, his strong personality features and maybe by the financial incentive of his new future income. To make an assumption, he used the business ratio of Chrysler of calculated with it. Due to the decision-style model Mr. Schrempp is a part of directive style: He prefers simple solutions (he had the idea of and pushed the merger through), makes decisions rapidly (period of development of the merger), does not consider many alternatives (need for a merger = with an American company = Chrysler is the one!), and he relies on existing rules (traditional German manager). So he is mixture of the judging and sensing type. Conclusions The merger of the German Daimler-Benz with the American Chrysler was a complex process, influenced by many factors, consequently the decision making involved was also complicated and multi-faced. On the bases of the research done and considering the standpoints mentioned, we can conclude that basically the merger was well planned financially with the aim of using the listed advantages of the alliance, and its was skillfully announced too the media and to all stakeholders. In the long term however difficulties such as differences in managing and operational techniques of the two companies, cultural clashes, stakeholders dissatisfaction because of the acquisition, werent really considered. The logical question is why? Or maybe these issues were considered, but there was someone, whose aims prevailed over the rational contra arguments and the common sense. The personality of Jà ¼rgen Schrempp dominated the combining of the two companies to such extent, that enormous risks were taken, relevant data and significant problems were left out of consideration. Therefore the decision making process was also strongly manipulated by Mr. Schrempp1 personal motives.

Spanking Your Children Is Wrong ! - 1554 Words

Spanking your children is wrong! There are people who think that corporal punishment for children is a proper and productive way to discontinue bad behavior. If you spank your children for their bad behavior they will learn not to do it again. Then there are people who think spanking your children is a harsh punishment and use other options like time outs and taking away favored objects. This type of punishment teaches children that what they are doing is wrong and without using violence. Parents and guardians should not be able to spank their children because it can lead to a more violent nature, make it harder for them to make choices in the future, and give them both mental and emotional problems as well as possible physical harm. Stories of parents getting so angry at their child’s behavior they lash out without even thinking and this leads to problems for someone who only made decisions based on what they know, being a kid. Children have been known to be beaten, burne d or harmed in other seriously violent ways which led them to serious future problems like permanent physical damage and horrible behavior toward their parental figures. These problems were said to mostly come from low-income households as well as large families or families with very frequent visitors. Over 90% of American adults reported being physically punished by their parents in 1988 (Flynn). Also during 1988 â€Å"70% – 77% of parents† stated that spanking a â€Å"12 year old child† was at timesShow MoreRelatedSpanking Young Children1366 Words   |  6 PagesAbout 60% of parents in the United States use spanking as a method to discipline their young children. In most cases parents believe that spanking is the only effective way to discipline their children. According to the â€Å"International Encyclopedia of Marriage and Family†, spanking is often referred as; â€Å"one or two flat-handed swats on a childs wrist or buttocks, but would not inc lude a beating with a whip or a belt, for others, spanking also includes slaps and pinches to the leg, arm, back, or evenRead MoreSpanking Essay1600 Words   |  7 PagesAlmost all children can name a time when they have gotten discipline. In fact in America alone 80% of kids have been disciplined in their lifetime. In out of that 80% of kids, 62% of the kids have said they have been disciplined by spanking. Spanking had become the norm in many household across America. In fact, the percentage of spanking in America is increasing by 5% each year. But why is spanking so popular in America you may be wondering? Well surprisingly it has a lot to do with traditions,Read MorePersuasive Essay : Spanking A Child1236 Words   |  5 Pages Spanking a child in today’s society is a common misconception, that is seen as either discipline, or abuse. It seems that there’s a less number of parents that are against and even afraid to spank their children, than those who believe it’s an effective way of discipline. As a child, alongsides with my sister, we were spanked when misbehaved, making me believe that it’s okay to discipline your child. With the correct intention in mind, spanking shouldn’t be harmful towards the child and should beRead MoreCorporal Punishment Is A Discipline Method1650 Words   |  7 Pagescriminal law, â€Å"Spanking, also called corporal punishment, is a discipline method in which a person inflicts pain on a child without inflicting injury and with the intent to modify the child’s behavior. Forms of corporal punishment include hitting a child’s bottom, slapping, grabbing, shoving, or hitting a child with a belt or paddle† (Mince-Didier). Suppos edly people against spanking define it broadly so that it can be easily be connected to child abuse. People who support spanking tend to uses definitionsRead MoreWhen Does Discipline Cross the Line to Child Abuse?1486 Words   |  6 Pageswith emphasis on spanking vs. not spanking and its effects on children. Included are research from statistics, opposing views and arguments, advocates’ and Department of Children and Families’ position. The use of corporal punishment, or spanking, as a form of parental discipline is a controversial topic. Adults who remember being spanking by a parent for misbehaving may carry on this behavior as an acceptable form of punishment for their own children. Others believe spanking to be an outdatedRead MoreParents Should Not Spank Children1657 Words   |  7 Pagesshould not spank children Spanking is a method that most of parents use to punish their children after they have done something bad, which can help a child not to do the same thing again or over and over. It has been the way of discipline for many years. According to Julie Crandall, â€Å"65 percent of Americans spank their children, which means 3.5 out of 5 parents spank their children†. This study clearly shows us that parents more parents spank their children. Parents haveRead Moreeng 1101 essay 2764 Words   |  4 PagesAmerica Should Outlaw Spanking† by Emily Bazelon is about how many rights parents have in America. The main example talked about in this article is about corporal punishment and whether or not parents have the right to spank their child or not. Reasons being that some extreme parents take it too far sometimes, leaving bruises and possibly even fracturing bones. Politian’s believe that outlawing spanking would assist the courts in help make a ruling about child abuse. Spanking is a necessary evil thatRead MoreSpanking A Child Is Wrong And Harmful1413 Words   |  6 PagesWhat goes through your head when someone asks,†How did you discipline your children?† Parents will either lead in one of three ways: strict discipline, mild discipline, or no discipline at all. No matter how a parent disciplines their children, there will be complications in a home, but when parents can no longer be â€Å"parents† due to others trying to step in and control their style of parenting, that is where a problem comes up. There are people who think that spanking a child is wrong and harmful toRead MoreSpanking Essay examples606 Words   |  3 PagesPersuasive Essay Spanking Spanking is a form of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence. It is usually done in act by an adult, parent, or guardian hitting the child or students buttock. The reason this is done is in response to bad behavior. Some countries have outlawed the act of spanking in every setting, but many allow it as long as it is done by a parent or guardian. As many people think spanking is an okay disciplineRead MoreCorporal Punishment : A Form Of Discipline For Some Parents1551 Words   |  7 Pages Corporal punishment is used as a form of discipline for some parents. Corporal punishment can involve acts such as spanking, and can be viewed through a child’s perspective or an adult centered perspective. However, many parents are unaware of the drastic negative side effects that this form of punishment will have upon a child. These effects can be observed even if the child is spanked a small number of times as expressed by Murray Straus in Ten Myths That Perpetrate Corporal Punishment. Additionally

Gender Role Stereotypes- Feminist View free essay sample

The purpose of this work is to analyse how gender role stereotypes are portrayed in the plays: â€Å"Streetcar Named Desire† and â€Å"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof†, both written by Tennessee Williams in 1947 and 1955 correspondently. First of all, I will define gender role stereotyping and identify some traditional gender role stereotypes. Then, I will share the author’s biography in connection to the topic. Last but not least, I will include some references in order to support research. Finally, a conclusion with my own thought will be provided. Introduction No one is born knowing that crying is unmanly or that playing soccer is unladylike. Once a child is born, he or she becomes identified with cultural concepts of what a boy or girl should be like. Children are born male or female, but they have to learn to be masculine or feminine. However, every society assigns different roles to its members according to sex. These sex roles are sets of cultural expectations that define how men and women are supposed to act according to the norms of their society in any given time: â€Å"We all know her. She smiles at us from billboards or stares seductively out from magazines covers. She is beautiful and sexually available, but she never seems to be doing anything. Once married and settled down, however, she loses her allure. When faced with dirty floors and clogged drains, she is completely helpless until a male voice tells her what to do. She worries that she can’t make up a decent cup of coffee or get her husband’s shirts clean. She is lovable but just plain dumb†. â€Å"We all know him, too. He is fearless, adventurous, and competent in every field. Whether facing down a gunslinger in a saloon ordering champagne in a nightclub, he is always in control of the situation. He also plays cool with women. He might let a woman lean on him for a while, but he refuses to be domesticated. When he is not climbing a mountain or racing his sports car, he likes to relax by drinking beer and playing games with other men†. Although we all know these people, few of us have ever met anyone like them. They are the feminine and masculine images that appear before us without even being aware. Magazines, TV programs, a variety of advertisements offer us examples of how gender is reproduced trough media and ideology. Born male or female does not mean being masculine or feminine. Gender has to do with the social, psychological and cultural characteristics associated with masculinity and femininity. We can define gender role stereotyping as a set of expected behavior, attitudes, beliefs and emotions of men and women. It’s also a cultural mechanism that might differ across cultures. However, what we perceive as being masculine or being feminine depends on how society dictates what is socially acceptable or not. â€Å"When carried to extremes, sex-role stereotyping leads to sexist attitudes and practices. For example, the physical abuse of women through wife beating and rape†. Unfortunately, traditional gender role stereotyping might affect social relationships, they bring upon conflict, social inequality as well as unfair treatment because of a person’s gender. In the fifties, particularly in the South of the United States, a commonly patriarchal idea was that men were hard and tough, while women were soft and vulnerable. In connection to women, common stereotypes such as â€Å"the mother, the submissive wife and the southern belle†, are portrayed as â€Å"an obedient and passive woman. According to research, submissive women are portrayed as â€Å"a nurturing wife, mother or muse†. Traditionally, the wife’s role was to stay at home and take care of the children while her husband worked and brought money to the house. Also, these particular women might have a tendency to put up with their men’s violent behavior and abuse. So, by following norms and values in society, the traditional wife reflects the stereotypical role of a woman. Another common female stereotype is the â€Å"Southern belle†. The typical Southern belle has the chance to reach the status of a Southern Lady when she has received the right education. In addition, she is conceived as beautiful, graceful, charming and virtuous. Moreover, Southern belles are very sensitive and aware of how they are perceived by people around them. The desired behavior for Belles is stick to social patterns based on good manners. The concept of gentlemen callers courting women is one of the results of their upbringing. In connection to men, one male stereotype is the macho. According to the Dictionary and Thesaurus —Merriam-Webster Online, being macho is defined as being â€Å"aggressively virile†. Furthermore, the term macho originates from the word machismo, which means, â€Å"a strong sense of masculine pride: an exaggerated masculinity†. Being macho is also described as â€Å"having or showing qualities that also agree with traditional ideas about what men are like: manly or masculine in a very noticeable or exaggerated way† Another gender role which cannot be overlooked is the homosexual. Through the lens of society of the 50’s, homosexuality was neither spoken of nor considered a subject that could be explicitly referenced, particularly in The South of The United States. As a matter of fact, for much of 20th century, gay people were considered mentally ill or suffering from a psychological personality disorder. Also, during the Second Red Scare, homosexuals faced the growing oppression of Senator McCarthy and his â€Å"witch hunts†. Being homosexual was associated with subversion, un-American behavior. The popular opinion was that homosexuals were capable of the worst crimes against their own country and God. Gender Roles in Tennessee William’s life Williams once said â€Å"he had never written about anything he had not experienced in his life first. So, most of the conflicts or issues portrayed in his plays can be considered autobiographical. His upbringing was characterized by Puritanism, which was of vital importance in the family. This might be the reason why he struggled with his sexuality throughout his youth. In connection with his father, Cornelious Williams, Tennessee perceived that he was as boisterous as frightening. So, we can assume that his father displayed the same type of harsh and brutal characteristics as Big Daddy in â€Å"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof† and Stanley Kowalsky in â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire† as I will discuss later on. The fact that he also grew up in The South of The United States cannot be disregarded. The region’s heat, its storms, the colourful imagery, the music and the rhythms of the language were the context of his settings and dialogues as well. Post-war American society turned the balance of power between men and women upside down. During the fifties’, men resumed their dominant role. Tennessee Williams wrote â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire† and â€Å"Cat on a Hot Tin Roof† around the time this reversal was occurring. Williams was a homosexual from the South, so most of his plays deal with physical, emotional and sexual conflict around this matter. Williams was also interested in femininity. It’s an interesting fact that his female characters, Maggie and Blanche, were not only central figures but also desiring subjects in both plays. Gender roles stereotypes are reflected in the dynamics of character’s behaviour, dialogues, silence and even stage directions. When Williams decided to come out and assume his sexuality, he was known for leading a very promiscuous life. The themes of desire and isolation show, among other things, the influence of having grown up in a society where being gay was considered outrageous. William won The Pulitzer Prize twice—for  A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)  and  Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1955), and became one of the greatest playwrights His plays challenged social values and social preconceptions. He was forced to remove some scenes by some Hollywood and Broadway producers because of his allusions to sexuality. Throughout that scenario, â€Å"Williamss life was full of sadness, especially during the 1960s when he suffered from alcoholism, drugs abuse, depression, and the death of his companion, Frank Merlo in 1963. Williams rebounded in the 1970s, continuing to write until the time of his death in 1983†. Stereotyping the Feminine Blanche Dubois, from Streetcar, is from the â€Å"old South†. She is the faded-southern, genteel lady. Being beautiful and charming, as well as educated, Blanche constantly gives remarks and asks about her looks throughout the play. Clothes, powder and make-up dictate her life. Appearance is of enormous importance to Blanche. This obsession with her looks corresponds to the portrayal of a stereotypical Southern belle. â€Å"I want you to look at my figure! She turns around) You know I haven’t put on one ounce in ten years, Stella? † Blanche: with â€Å"feverish vivacity,† Blanche says: â€Å"Now, then, let me look at you [Stella]. But don’t you look at me, Stella, no, no, no, not till later, not till I’ve bathed and rested. And turn that over-light off! Turn that off! I won’t be looked at in this merciless glare† Another good example of Blanche’s desire to be considered attractive is portrayed in scene two when Stanley searches through her luggage. STANLEY:† It looks like you raided some stylish shops in Paris. BLANCHE. Ha-ha! Yes – clothes are my passion! STANLEY: What does it cost for a string of fur-pieces like that? BLANCHE: Why, those were a tribute from an admirer of mine! STANLEY: He must have had a lot of – admiration! BLANCHE: Oh, in my youth I excited some admiration! But look at me now! Would you think it possible that I was once considered to be – attractive? Similarly, Maggie Pollitt in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, although regarded as an outcast for not having babies, is shown as exquisitely beautiful. She personifies female sexuality, bragging about her body and men’s desire for it in order to get her unloving husband’s attention. Posing in front of the mirror, Williams allows her to question her role: (Margaret`s stage directions): What she sees is the long oval mirror and she rushes straight to it with a grimace and says: â€Å"Who are you? † Margaret: â€Å"I’m confident of it. That’s why I’m keeping myself attractive. You’ll see me again like other men see me† Margaret: Look Brick! She stands before the long oval mirror, touches her breasts and then her hips with her two hands. How high my body stays on me! Nothing has fallen on me! not a fraction†¦.. Other men still want me. † Margaret: â€Å"Way he always drops eyes to my body when I’m talking to him, drop his eyes to my boops and links his old chops!! Ha ha† Though Blanche and Maggie do certainly display what are considered to be feminine qualities and what is expected from Southern Belles, their other more masculine features are also emphasized, for example their reliance on alcohol. Both characters challenge the typical female stereotype. So, despite being feminine, they are also transgressors: Blanche: â€Å"Well, now you talk. Open your pretty mouth and talk while I look around for some liquor. I know you must have some liquor on the place† Margaret: â€Å"Margaret looks on indulgent humor, sipping Dubonnet â€Å"on the rocks† and watching Brick. In spite of the fact they had different personalities and social upbringings, both Maggie and Blanche were portrayed hysterical, dissatisfied women left prostrate before physical violence, contempt and indifference, just for the sake of being one of a kind. Their statuses as women were called into question by their failure to perform the expected behavior: â€Å"She is as famous in Laurel as if she was the President of the United States, only she is not respected by any party! Mitch to Blanche) â€Å"You are not clean enough to bring in the house with my mother† (Mitch to Blanche): â€Å"But I was fool enough to believe you was straight† (Big Mamma to Maggie): â€Å"Do you make Brick happy in bed? †- When a marriage goes on the rocks, the rocks are there, right there! † (Margaret to Brick): â€Å"they gloat over us being childless. And this is my time by the calendar to conceive† (Dixie to Maggie): â€Å"You’re jealous because you can’t have any kids† (Maggie to Brick): â€Å"And my poor mamma, having to maintain some semblance of social position, to keep appearances up† Here we see clearly Maggies ability to seem both girlish and boyish. In order to survive, she must take care of Brick, and she must also use her feminine side to charm and manipulate others. She transgresses the stereotypical gender role assigned to her when she finds that the role does not help her in her plan to secure wealth, security, and a baby. Williams also presents other female characters who exemplify society’s preconceptions of the times. We can find these examples in Stella Kowalsky from Streetcar and Mae Politt from Cat. In strong contrast to the stereotype of the Southern Belle represented by Blanche stands her sister Stella. She embodies a lot of characteristics of the stereotypical submissive housewife throughout the play. Stella was portrayed as a dutiful housewife, a symbol of femininity from a current perspective. The mother stereotype stands for bringing life to earth. Since Stella is pregnant in the play, there is a strong connection to this image. Her husband overpowers her by abusing his position and his physical strength: He hurls a plate to the floor† â€Å"Thats how Ill clear the table! (He seizes her arm. ) (.. ). â€Å"In the first place, when men are drinking and playing poker anything can happen. It’s always a powder keg. He didn’t know what he was doing†¦ He was as good as a lamb when I came back and he’s really very, very ashamed of himself†. This part of the text indicates that Stella justifies Stanley’s behavior by saying it is not as serious as it seemed. Stella is rarely called by her name, and is continuously referred to as â€Å"honey, â€Å"baby† or sweetie† instead. Another stereotypical portrayal of a wife and woman is Maggie’s sister-in law, Mae. She’s also described satirically as a â€Å"Monster of Fertility†, fulfilling her role as the perfect wife by bearing â€Å"no-neck monsters†. Big Daddy: â€Å"But Gooper’s wife’s a good breeder, you’ve got to admit she`s fertile. † Margaret: â€Å"He can’t stand Bother Man’s Wife, that monster of fertility† Stereotyping the Masculine â€Å"The poker players – Stanley, Steve, Mitch, and Pablo – wear colored shirts, solid blues, a purple, a red–and-white check, a light green, and they are men at the peak of their physical manhood, as coarse and direct and powerful as the primary colors†- Tennessee Williams, Streetcar named Desire The setting, the atmosphere and colours, convey the physical strength of those men and their dominant role. Stanley, the male protagonist in Streetcar, is portrayed as violent as brutal. Stanley’s behavior confirms certain aspects of a typical macho: Stanley’s stage directions: â€Å"Stalks fiercely through the portieres into the bedroom. He crosses the small white radio and snatches it off the table. With a shouted oath, he tosses the instrument out of the window. † In scene 1 stage directions, Stanley throws a package to his wife. Through this behavior, Williams is pointing out his feeling of superiority from this standpoint. He also wants to symbolize Stanley’s male dominance in a what- was- considered a patriarchal society. In scene eight, he destroys some plates after having been called a pig by his wife because he eats with his fingers. STELLA: Mr. Kowalski is too busy making a pig of himself to think of anything else! STANLEY: â€Å"That’s right, baby. STELLA: Your face and your fingers are disgustingly greasy. Go and wash up and then help me clear the table. (He hurls a plate to the floor. ) STANLEY: That’s how I’ll clear the table! (He seizes her arm. Don’t ever talk that way to me! â€Å"Pig — Polack — disgusting — vulgar — greasy! † them kind of words have been on your tongue and your sister’s too much around here! † Not only is Stanley violent towards Stella again by seizing her arm, but also manifests his anger through destroying cutlery. Those two scenes are clear examples of verbal and especially physical aggression towards women. Williams describes his sexual behavior right from the beginning of the play in the stage directions: â€Å"Since earliest manhood the center of his life has been pleasure with women. He sizes women up and glance, with sexual classifications†. Stanley also rates and classifies women according to his sexual desires: Blanche: â€Å"You’re simply, straightforward and honest, a little bit on the primitive side I should think. To interest you a woman would have to – [she pauses with indefinite gesture. ] Stanley: Lay†¦her cards on the table† This euphemism   Ã¢â‚¬Å"lay her cards on the table† has a sexual connotation, implying what he usually expects from women in general. A further example it is shown in scene 10: â€Å"We’ve had this date with each other from the beginning† Stanley gets his power by means of his gender. He only cares about his own desires: Stanley to Blanche: â€Å"Be comfortable is my motto† Williams also shows men’s power by creating a sense of authority during poker: â€Å"Nothing belongs on a poker table but cards, chips, and whisky† â€Å"Poker should not be played in a house with women† As the play progresses, the conflict between Blanche and Stanley becomes obvious. He feels threatened by her presence most of the time. So, in order to revert this feeling, he subjects her through emotional and physical abuse. In this sense, when Stanley rapes Blanche, Williams is not only showing the audience the ultimate act of cruelty and abuse of power but also is conveying the power struggle between male and female as a whole, leaving the male empowered and the female marginalized and completely fragile. We can also see the segregation between men and women clearly through the character of Big Daddy in Cat, who appears as the â€Å"patriarch† and the owner of the plantation. His name implies his immense wealth empire, successful in the eyes of a capitalist society. Big Daddy to Brick:† It’s lucky I’m a rich man. It is sure it’s lucky, well, I am a rich man, Brick, yep, and I am a mighty rich ma. Y’know how much I am worth Close on ten million in cash and blue chip stocks, outside, mind you, of twenty-eight thousand acres of the richest land this side of the valley Nile† Big Daddy lacks respect for women in general, specially his wife. He demeans her constantly: â€Å"Your loud voice everywhere, your fat old body butting in here and there†. â€Å"Bossing, talking. Sashaying your fat old boy around the place I made! I made this place! † â€Å"I haven’t been able to stand the sight, the sound, or smell of that woman for forty years now!- even when I laid her! † He clearly defines the gender role he expects his son to perform as a sexual transgressor. In his eyes, women exist to please men. Even his daughters in -law are portrayed in an animalistic light: I’ll smother her in- minks! Ha ha! I’ll strip her naked and smother her in minks and choke her with diamonds and smother her with minks and hump her from hell to breakfast. Ha aha ha ha hha! â€Å"But Gooper’s wife is a good breeder; you’ve got to admit she’s fertile† â€Å"That’s right boy. They look like cats on a hot tin roof† Stereotyping the homosexual â€Å"What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, its curved like a road through mountains†. Tennessee Williams â€Å"Thus most of Tennessee Williams’s plays—especially Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and A Streetcar Named Desire— focus on struggles with homosexuality in a very straight society†. To do so, Williams’s plays constantly speak of gender, and almost as constantly of sexual orientation. In the 1940s and the 1950s, many young American men committed suicide because they could not deal with their homosexuality in a heterosexist environment. In both plays the homosexuals have already committed suicide before the plays start. Blanche’s husband Allan in Streetcar and Brick’s closest friend, Skipper, in Cat. In Streetcar there are fewer references to homosexuality than in Cat, though: † I know! I know! You disgust me! † â€Å"There was something different about the boy, a nervousness, a softness and tenderness which wasn’t like a man’s, although he wasn’t the least bit effeminate-looking-still- that thing was there† â€Å"This beautiful young man was a degenerate† However, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Tennessee Williams tells us something about the setting in his notes for the designer. The play takes place in â€Å"the bed-sitting-room of a plantation home in the Mississippi Delta. † The style of this room hasn’t changed much since it was occupied by the original owners of the place, Jack Straw and Peter Ochello, a pair of old bachelors who shared this room all their lives together. Even though, the euphemism â€Å"a pair of old bachelors† and the fact that they shared the room is not conveying factual references about their sexual orientation, it might be assumed that Williams is accumulating references to the great love Straw and Ochello felt for one another. Both plays seem to highlight how social conventions or constrains played a significant role on the people who felt differently. The emphasis on Bricks disdain and terror is highly stressed by Williams in his conversation with Big Daddy in Act 2, alluding to the society prejudice against homosexuality in this era: Brick: â€Å"you think me and Skipper did, did, did! Sodomy! together? ducking sissies? Queers? Is that what you- †¦. Poured in his mind the dirty, false idea that we were, him and me, was a frustrated case of that old pair of sisters. â€Å"Don’t you know how people feel about things like that? How, how, disgusted they are by things like that? Why at Ole Miss when it was discovered a pledge to our fraternity, Skipper’s and mine, did a, attempted to do a, unnatural thing wish- From everything stated before Tennessee Williams dramas? offer a good basis of analysis for many of the society’s mind set towards men and women‘s gender role in the fifties. Through a deep analysis, we can also perceive Williams’ point of view on the matter and how he dared to challenge society’s preconceptions of gender stereotyping. He owned a particular style distinguished by its grotesque characterization and a blending of comedy and tragedy. His plays can be considered as a means to explore the social values of the Old South. Also, they can be conceived as a personal reflection of his experiences regarding gender struggle. Conclusion After doing this paper, I found it quite interesting how these perceptions of male and female were depicted in Tennessee Williams’s dramas. Both Streetcar Named Desire and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Williams showed us his extraordinary ability to portray his time’s societal views in terms of gender. He depicted his characters as ridiculous, even grotesque but realistic at the same time. They are accurate representations of the gender stereotypes of the period they were created. I became so fascinated by the different ways in which Williams lets us pose ourselves questions such as: What does being â€Å"feminine† mean? What does being â€Å"masculine† mean? What does being â€Å"straight† mean? Who defines these roles? Would you go with the flow? Or would you dare yourself to break free from the prescribed social roles you were confined and swim against the current? Williams asserts through his female characters that within the context of that society, women who challenged the feminine stereotype were forced to submission or surrender.

The Slavs free essay sample

When the term â€Å"Slav† is mentioned, the first people to come to mind are the Russians. We know them by their unique script of writing, vodka, and are the most populated of all of the ethnic tribes that populated the mountains, rivers, and plains of Eastern Europe. Although a quintessential people of this continent, they differ greatly from many of their brothers and sisters of the same bloodline that also live south and west of them. Russians, along with their neighboring cousins to the south, east, and west are divided dramatically by religion, language, and geographical landforms from the South Slavs and West Slavs. Religion is a key in the great divide in the Slavic peoples. Before Christianity each Slavic tribe had their own set of pagan gods, with the most common one being Svetovid, the god of war. Many of the Slavic tribes and cantons will not adopt Christianity until the 9th Century AD, and they would not be united by one single Christian Church. We will write a custom essay sample on The Slavs or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page When the Great Schism occurred in 1054, the church would be spilt into the two main fragments, creating a byproduct of two branches of Christianity we know of today, Catholicism and Orthodoxy. While the Western Slavic peoples like the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs, Moravians, Silesians, Kaszubians, Croats, and Slovenes were under the sphere of influence of the Pope and Catholic Rome, the Russian, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, and Montenegrins gravitated to the Patriarch of then Orthodox Constantinople. Although these two are the main Christian religions present, Islam is also common in some Slavs. The Bosniaks, Gorani, Pomaks, and Torbesh peoples are all Muslims. Since the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, The Ottoman Turks had occupied the Balkans until the 20th Century. Some of the local populations like the Bosniaks and Albanians had welcomed the Turks and converted to their conquerors religion and remained. Others like the Serbs and Croats, resisted the occupation and as a result, were persecuted, heavily taxed, and even executed by their new rulers. Today, many of the Bosniaks and other ethnic groups still practice the most common branch of Islam as Sunnis. This evidence of Ottoman occupation can still be noticed today in Sarajevo, Srebrenica, and the rest of modern Bosnia-Herzegovina. Script and language is also a factor in the varieties of Slavic cultures. In the 9th century AD, a Greek monk from the Byzantine Empire by the name of Saint Cyril evangelizes the word of Jesus to the rest of Eastern Europe. He translates the Greek script into a similar writing system specifically used for the early Slavonic Christian Church. Cyril and other monks travel through many southern and eastern Slavic kingdoms to spread the word of God and the new writing system which will be modestly named after the monk, Cyrillic. Today, the majority of Slavic countries that practice Orthodox Christianity will use Cyrillic as their main script in parallel to their religion. Even though this writing system was popular among Orthodox Slavs, Western Slavs paid their devout attention to Rome. Western Slavs had seen not Constantinople, but Rome as the center of Christianity. The Roman Catholic Church instead used Latin as the main language of the Church and used the traditional Latin alphabet. Perhaps cultural centrism, the West Slavs may have sought to use Latin because Rome was the first civilization to adopt Christianity and was the home of Pope and the Holy See. To accommodate their languages like their Eastern cousins, most ethnic groups had to incorporate special vowels and consonants. Although many West Slavs have individual variations in each of their alphabets, many vowels and consonants perform the same exact functions (1). As for Muslim Slavs, It had been optional for years to use the Cyrillic and Latin scripts. Arabic script was prevalent but eventually died out in favor of the other two popular systems. For literacy purposes and religious ceremonies, a Bosniak variation of Arabic is implemented, but is not typically used for everyday communication. Like Kabary, some Slavic language like Polish and Russian last a while in conversation to finish in order asking a simple question (2). Finally, geographical landforms play a large role in different cultures. Rivers and mountains are a catalyst for why Slavs have come in different hues and sizes for the past 2000 years. For example the Danube River has served as definitive border between the Poles, Czech, Sorbs and Slovaks to the north and west and the Croats, Slovenes, Serbs, and Bosniaks south of them. Characteristically, the Slavs of the west are tall and pale closer to the Scandinavian cool subarctic region, whereas the Slavs of the south are bordering the warm Mediterranean and Adriatic climates, making them also tall but typically darker. But this depends on what ethnic group you belong to in the southern region. The Carpathians Mountain Range divides the some of the West Slavs as well. The Poles and Czechs have lived side by side for 2000 years and the juxtaposition of each nation have greatly influenced the ways each of these related peoples have lived. The name Pole or â€Å"Polak† has come from the common Slavic word â€Å"Polje† meaning â€Å"field†. About 80 percent of Poland is meadows and pasture lands due to the flooding of the Bug and Vistula Rivers, creating a rich soil for farming and livestock. The Czechs on the other hand live on the other side of the Carpathians or rather in the mountains. Because it is land locked to rocky for agriculture, the Czechs rely more on industrialization. The Czech Republic is known for its main production exports of iron, chemical, and electronics. If the Carpathians did no exist, there might have been just one people rather than the different ethnic clans that it has forcibly subdivided. Although religions, languages, and geography have made big contributions in the differences of customs, beliefs, and physical characteristics, the Slav like all other ethnic tribes is still changing as we speak. Since their earliest ancestors migrated, spilt and settled in the regions they have settled, they are still moving and introducing new ideas and fractioning among themselves. But this can never be finished without following of people who determine the custom should be adopted or not.

Existentialism and Phenomenology Essay

Existentialism and Phenomenology Essay Free Online Research Papers To describe the historical development of Continental philosophy’s existentialism and phenomenology as a response to Hegelian idealism one must first define Hegelian idealism. Hegel thought that â€Å"†¦what is most real- the Absolute- is thought thinking of itself.†(Moore-Bruder, 2005 P. 143) He also thought that it was not an independent group of ideas, but that all the ideas were interconnected. He would propose a thesis, then an antithesis, and together they would form the synthesis. Meaning the thesis and antithesis were the foundation for the synthesis, which would become a new thesis and antithesis forming a new synthesis until the synthesis reached the apex. Hegel thought the highest triad was the â€Å"synthesis of ‘Idea’ and ‘Nature’ in ‘Spirit’.†(Moore-Bruder, 2005 P. 145) Idea meaning self-conscious thought, Nature meaning the external expression of Idea, and Spirit meaning thought to recognize itself as both thought and an object. Sà ¸ren Kierkegaard, the first major existential philosopher, disagreed with Hegel. He thought that individuals and their will and needs impacted their decision-making process. He thought despair was the result of an individual having to make ethical and religious choices alone, and that the only relief one could be granted was that from a belief and trust in a higher power or God even if it went against the universal norms. Friedrich Nietzsche also disagreed with Hegel’s idealism and all similar rationales. He thought man, as a whole, was irrational and would do what they were told, without question, like a herd of animals. He thought the rare Superman was able to overcome the slave mentality and have thoughts of his own. The Superman was able to create his own values rather than looking toward God as their source of values. The existential movement was not only embraced by philosophers but by artists and writers as well. Albert Camus believed that many people lived their entire life in a sort of haze. Our two basic needs, the need for clarity and the need for social warmth and contact, usually go unmet because we go about our lives fulfilling what we perceive as important needs instead of what actually are. Jean-Paul Sartre believed that there was no God, and that thought had four basic philosophical implications. He believed that you are what you make of yourself, that there is no reason for existing, that our choices are made of our own free will and that we all establish our own values. He believed that by making choices about one’s life and future we give meaning to our lives and that how we act is a true vision into what kind of person you are. Edmund Husserl’s work is the starting point for what is now known as phenomenology. Phenomenology states that one should look at the objects that are actually present and not concern oneself with the second world that metaphysics presents such as Plato’s forms. Martin Heidegger thought that humans had forgotten about Being, the ultimate source, because of human-made logic. He believed that â€Å"†¦it is both arrogant and destructive to assume that humans are the masters of nature or to follow Protagoras’s dictum that man is the measure of all things.†(Moore-Bruder, 2005 P. 175) He thought that speech was a useless flood of words without any true meaning. Emmanuel Levinas believed that humans could not study Being and try to explain beings, he thought beings had to study themselves first in order to explain Being. He thought that one’s primary responsibility is for the Other and it is more important than their responsibility to themselves and to the world. He thought that true freedom is only attained by obedience to God and His commandments. The historical development of Continental philosophy’s existentialism and phenomenology as a response to Hegelian idealism has basically been one of disagreement. Philosophers seem to disagree with most of Hegel’s ideas. There is also some disagreement among the existentialists and phenomenologists both within their own categories and between the two. Most of Continental philosophy’s ideas are based on ideas that were previously stated. References Moore-Bruder: Philosophy: The Power of Ideas (6th ed.). The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2005 Research Papers on Existentialism and Phenomenology EssayLogic and Perception EssaySociology EssaySociology is a ScienceDeontological Teleological TheoriesEssay on â€Å"I have a Dream† Dr KingJoel Kovel’s The Enemy of NatureIntentism The Resurrection of the AuthorHomer The Great Greek PoetGlobal Distributive Justice is UtopianThe Gnostic Jesus

Free Essays on Management Problems In The Military

Management Problems in the Military From a young age I was told I had my entire life ahead of me giving me the impression that time is something there is plenty of. But as I grew up and went to school, all I had to do is go there, sit until the classes ended, and then go home and do whatever I wanted. I managed to do all of my homework between classes and nothing was left for home. Then onto college where I quickly learned that in college it wouldn’t work the way that it had worked through school. As an adult it’s the workforce, I saw the needed changes and have tried to develop a system to succeed at these new challenges, and finally realizing how important time and personnel management actually is. The Marine Corps is no different. Time and personnel management are probably one of the largest problems within our unit. Personnel spend more time away from their work area’s either talking, smoking or just wandering around rather than working. I will identify each area and provide my solution to correct these problems to produce a more efficient and productive way to accomplish daily tasks in a timely manner. Effective time management is one of the most important factors for succeeding in basically any task. In my many years serving in the Marine Corps, the one thing we’ve prided ourselves on is that leadership is taught to us at an unusually young age. We are taught that our decisions put Marines lives in danger so make the right one. But when it comes to time and personnel management there is a serious problem that burdens our daily processes. Some people might not think that time management is important. The first part in addressing these problems is to evaluate the process to show Marines the time loss factor in their work process. The main cause is procrastination. This is more than just a negative custom that needs to be weeded out of the Marine Corps. It has always been a sort of joke, or a boas... Free Essays on Management Problems In The Military Free Essays on Management Problems In The Military Management Problems in the Military From a young age I was told I had my entire life ahead of me giving me the impression that time is something there is plenty of. But as I grew up and went to school, all I had to do is go there, sit until the classes ended, and then go home and do whatever I wanted. I managed to do all of my homework between classes and nothing was left for home. Then onto college where I quickly learned that in college it wouldn’t work the way that it had worked through school. As an adult it’s the workforce, I saw the needed changes and have tried to develop a system to succeed at these new challenges, and finally realizing how important time and personnel management actually is. The Marine Corps is no different. Time and personnel management are probably one of the largest problems within our unit. Personnel spend more time away from their work area’s either talking, smoking or just wandering around rather than working. I will identify each area and provide my solution to correct these problems to produce a more efficient and productive way to accomplish daily tasks in a timely manner. Effective time management is one of the most important factors for succeeding in basically any task. In my many years serving in the Marine Corps, the one thing we’ve prided ourselves on is that leadership is taught to us at an unusually young age. We are taught that our decisions put Marines lives in danger so make the right one. But when it comes to time and personnel management there is a serious problem that burdens our daily processes. Some people might not think that time management is important. The first part in addressing these problems is to evaluate the process to show Marines the time loss factor in their work process. The main cause is procrastination. This is more than just a negative custom that needs to be weeded out of the Marine Corps. It has always been a sort of joke, or a boas...

Roman-like about Romanesque architecture Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Roman-like about Romanesque architecture - Essay Example Medieval Christian basilicas incorporated many new inventions, however, including â€Å"the outstanding engineering achievement of the stone vault† (Stalley: 1999, p. 130). The Romans and early Christian architects had managed to construct groin and barrel vaulting, but they were usually very small. They had used wood to cover the vast basilica spaces. Romanesque masons worked out techniques to apply this feature to huge stone buildings. Romanesque vaults were made of â€Å"rubble or roughly dressed masonry, which called for a liberal supply of mortar.† (Stalley, 1999, p. 130) This material was both thick and heavy, and was held together by compression. The forces involved in this caused the walls to buckle, and so builders had to make the walls very thick and strong, and support them with the use of external buttresses. In Italy there was a tendency to construct basilicas with a lot of columns, largely due to the availability of antique Roman columns (Clapham: 1946, p. 30). Better engineering techniques allowed the addition of windows in areas not subject to stress, and in Germany the basic basilica form was enhanced with, arches, side rooms, and towers and turrets as well to accommodate various kinds of smaller scale Christian activity alongside the massive public space for high festivals.