Null Hypothesis Process Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words - 1

Null Hypothesis Process Analysis - Essay Example In addition, the organization adopts the null hypothesis that, it is policies rather than approaches which determine organizations productivity. As such, the essay develops a critical analysis through which to evaluate the individual theory against the organizational null hypothesis. Currently, the organization applies the null hypothesis that there exists no productivity impact based on the management approach used. Therefore, the hypothesis is established on the assumption that an organization’s policy influences its productivity and future market success. The global market system is changing with increasing global competitions from both local and international organisations. There is the need to develop systems and practices to increase global market presence and competitiveness. To this end, the organization argued that one of the strategic approaches through which to achieve increased competition was through the reduction of the overall costs of production in the organiza tion. Also, the organization adopted the need to reduce infrastructure development and installation costs required in the development and adoption of modern technology. As Heneman and Greenberger (85) stated, although this approach reduces organizational management costs in the short run period, this hypothesis can be disapproved in the future. On one hand, the application and use of paper work reduces an organisations strategic competitive through reduced response time. With the application and use of paperwork HR management approach.

Prejudice Paper Essay Example for Free

Prejudice Paper Essay Through our own personal experience, Professor McAuliff would like us to use the topics we discussed throughout the semester to show an understanding of the concepts. Using my experience with prejudice I will be providing how what I learned in the social psychology textbook. Prejudice has been a very relevant topic I have related with throughout my life. In addition to reading and thinking about the concepts covered in the text, an important part of the learning process includes applying these concepts to your own life and experiences. Prejudice is a preconceived negative judgment of a group and its individual members (Myers). Prejudice is an attitude essentially that can be either positive or negative judgments. More than likely the prejudice someone is faced with is negative. Being that it is an attitude you also have to know about the ABC’s of attitudes. A is for the affect or feelings. B is for the behavior tendency or inclination to act. And C is for the cognitions or beliefs. They also help tie into stereotypes and discrimination. Stereotypes is a negative evaluation in which you generalize the personal attributes of a group. Discrimination is an unjustified behavior toward ones group. Whether it is conscious or automatic prejudice is your quick response to associations. â€Å"Although our [conscious] minds are in the right places and we may truly believe we are not prejudiced, our hearts aren’t quite there yet† (John Dovido, Time, 2009). With so many races in the world, it is often easy to see how quickly we are to label one another. Racial prejudice is Sco? 1 prime example of people labeled what a person should be. It goes far beyond enough for racial prejudice within the same groups some identify themselves with. People tend to point out what is wrong in their group before they admit their wrongs. In some groups you have anti- whatever the group is because a hatred developed from society. Prejudice is spread out throughout the world. Not strictly a racial epidemic it can be anything from youth disliking the elderly to genders disliking genders. It affects everyone the same especially from the negative side. When it is automatic your unconscious associations can be influenced by perceptions and reactions you have. Especially for gender prejudice, the gender role norms come into play. People have ideas on how men and women ought to behave. Often prejudice and stereotype do get confused in this area. Stereotypes only support prejudice beliefs and attitudes are separate. With more separation prejudice has social inequalities. They allow for one group to seek dominance over the other. Making groups break off into a particular status. Creating this social hierarchy that can create hostility amongst groups. Status is looked the most in regards to the negative feeling that appear in prejudice socially. Rich versus the poor is the most common social dominance orientation. The fact of the matter is people want to be on top of the hierarchy. Prejudice coming in so many forms is easy to grasp the idea of it being everywhere. Nothing beats facing prejudice for the first time. As an African American male I have been faced with plenty of different forms of prejudice. I can recall being discriminated against just for being not only black but intelligent within my own group of black people. My very own cousin would tease me and call me a â€Å"white boy†, which I am clearly not, because I was interested in school. I was the first of many of my cousins to graduate high school and instead of being proud me they would tell me I was uppity or not black enough for them. It is very hard when your very own Sco? 2 family doesn’t expect you. I wanted some much to conform to what they did but I wasn’t thety pe of person who wanted to live a life. My cousins definitely are your stereotypical black people. I have found myself in a different social class than them just because I have worked harder than they have to be something more than someone running the streets. I can agree with racial prejudice the author discusses in the textbook because it has yet to die out. However racial prejudice in the black community in my opinion is at an all-time high and very prevalent. Though we have changed since the 1940’s the anti-black prejudices haven’t. Social dominance is felt whether if it is whites being above blacks or other blacks be above other blacks. Prime example is how black rappers spend their money on material items instead of investing or saving just to compete with who have more money or more material items than they do. â€Å"What you want, a Bentley? Fur coat? A diamond chain? All you blacks want all the same things, a line from Kanye West’s song New Slaves. He plays off of the typical stereotypes imposed on the black community, usually considered as hood dreams. Condescendingly, he uses the term â€Å"blacks† as a euphemism and expands on this idea when he says â€Å"I know that we the new slaves† (rapgenius. com, Kanye West, 2013). Prejudice exists in our unconscious and conscious forms. It is a preconceived negative attitude that can affect some of our beliefs. It can arise in a social sources and lead people to split in groups. â€Å"Unequal status breeds prejudice† (Myers). Whether it is implicit or explicit all prejudice can mirrored from group to group. It may be a subtle action, but the small action that creates the worst problems. References Dovidio, John (2009). Prejudice Researcher. TIME. Sco? 3 Myers, D. G. (2013). Social Psychology (11th Ed. ). New York: McGraw-Hill. RapGenius. com (2013). Kanye West- New Slave Lyrics Sco? 4.

Importance of Spyware Essay -- Computer Software

The Importance of Spyware â€Å"Spyware consists of computer software that gathers and reports information about a computer without the users’ knowledge or consent† (â€Å"Spyware†). Spyware is a major problem for many users. It causes problems with the setup and general operation of a computer. It is one of the most typical internet intruders today and many users are unaware of what spyware is and they do not know how to recognize or prevent it. Spyware is different than a computer virus because a virus travels into the computer system without permission from the user. Spyware may be obtained by clicking the â€Å"I agree† option on the installation agreement before actually reading the entire contract. Some examples of typical spyware include: Direct Revenue, Cydoor, Xupiter, XXXDial, and SpyKiller (â€Å"What is Spyware?†). Most spyware is the result of downloading documents from the Internet. In this respect, spyware is similar to a Trojan horse. Spy ware can also come from clicking the advertisement pop-up screens, and through email. According to National Cyber-Security Alliance, 90% of home PC’s have been infected with some type of Spyware (â€Å"Spyware†). In order to determine if a user has been infected with spyware, there are some vital signs to look for and recognize. There will be some defective functionality, where the spyware will keep track of the steps the user takes without the user’s knowledge of it. There is also a loss of privacy when spyware has infected a computer. The spyware can send private user information back to the Internet vendor; therefore it reduces the user privacy. There may also be an increased amount of pop-up advertisements on the computer screen while connected to the Inte... ... Anti-Spyware programs. Although spyware is a major problem for computer owners today, the advance of anti-spyware programs from software companies, along with help from the users, will ultimately aid in the termination of spyware altogether. Works Cited â€Å"How to Find, Remove, and Prevent Spyware, Internet Intruders, and Pop-Ups.† Los Angeles Chinese Learning Center. 3 April 2005. http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/computer-article-spyware-pop-ups.html â€Å"Microsoft AntiSpyware.† Wikipedia Encyclopedia. 3 April 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_AntiSpyware â€Å"Spyware.† Wikipedia Encyclopedia. 3 April 2005. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware â€Å"What is Spyware?† PC Pitstop. 3 April 2005. http://www.pcpitstop.com/spycheck/whatis.asp

Participant Observation and Grand Theory Essay

Bronislaw Malinowski, with his ground-breaking field work of the Trobriand Islander community in the beginning of the 20th century still today counts as a pioneer, if not the founder of the British Social Anthropology. In his famous book Argonauts of the Western Pacific. An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagos of Melanesian New Guinea that was first published in 1922 he develops an elaborate methodological framework for ethnographical research, also known as ‘participant observation’. This method will highly influence the anthropological way of approaching its field of study and hence its theoretical landscape from then on. Looking at Malinowski’s description of the clan system of the Trobriand community, his descriptive and specifying style of formulation becomes apparent: â€Å"Each of the four clans has its own name: Malasi, Lukuba, Lukwasisiga, Lukulabuta. (†¦) There are special combinations of the clan names with formative roots, to descrive men and women and the mixed plurality belonging to the same clan: Tomalasi – a Malasi man; Immalasi – a Malasi women; Memalasi – the Malasi people (†¦). Near the village of Laba’I, on the northern shore of the main island, there is a spot called Obukula, which is marked by a coral outcrop. Obukula is, in fact, a ‘hole’ (dubwadebula), or ‘house’ (bwala); that is to say, one of the points from which the first ancestors of the linage emerged. † (Malinowski 1929: 496 f. , italics in original) This very nuanced and case specific example of the material gained from his methodological approach gives rise to the question if Malinowski’s heritage of participant observation has forever distanced Anthropology from bringing forward grand theories? To be able to consider and discuss this question, it is important to first define what Malinowski circumscribed when he laid out his dogma for ethnographical research by the term participant observation. Secondly, a closer inspection of the dictum ‘grand theory’ is indispensable for our purpose and will be clarified in the second section of this essay. Subsequently, we will look at these two concepts and their relationship to one another in section three in order to approach the question whether Anthropology can be viewed as a science able to produce grand theories. I. Participant observation In the foreword to Argonauts of the Western Pacific Malinowski states that he has â€Å"lived in that [Trobriand Island] archipelago for about two years (†¦), during which time [he] naturally acquired a thorough knowledge of the language. [He] did [his] work entirely alone, living for the greater part of the time right in the village. † (1966: xvi). This statement already contains the essence of participant observation in fieldwork. The hallmark of this methodological way of collecting data is the immersion of the researcher into her or his field of study over a long period of time and the personal part taking in the interactions of the people in the community studied. When Malinowski defined this new approach of ‘first-hand’ observation he broke with the, at that time prevailing tradition of ‘armchair’ ethnography. In this prior approach, ethnographers compiled data gained from historical sources to deduce theories about certain aspects of a usually ‘native’ community (Osterhoudt 2010). One of the main contributions of Malinowski’s new method to anthropological theory was that by participating and observing behaviour in the sample community he found out that a discrepancy between actual behaviour and narrative statements exists. â€Å"The smoothness and uniformity, which the mere verbal statement suggest as the only shape of human conduct, disappears with a better knowledge of cultural reality. † (Malinowski 1979: 83). This discovery in itself already composes a point of criticism towards the preceding ethnographical ‘arm-chair’ approach to data collection and evaluation. Even though participant observation is based on a seemingly broad and intuitive research design, it would, however, be incorrect to assume that this approach would be free of any directive principles on how to collect relevant data. Therefore, Malinowski describes how first, the researcher must â€Å"possess real scientific aims† (Malinowski 1966: 6) and be familiar with the theoretical background of anthropology. Further, the researcher should live in the field among the natives all by herself/ himself, and lastly the researcher has to stick to special and strict scientific methods, such as drawing â€Å"tables of kinship terms, genealogies, maps, plans and diagrams† (idib. 1966: 10) to collect, prepare and record her/his data. The previous example of the clan system provides a sense of the detailed and case specific information that is obtained by the application of participant observation. Besides the kind of the data collected, it should also be looked at the area of research and Malinowski’s suggestion of the subject to be studied. He proposes that the â€Å"field worker observes human beings acting within an environmental setting, natural and artificial; influenced by it, and in turn transforming it in co-operation with each other. † (Malinowski 1939: 940). Thus, he focuses on the individual as a starting point and its relation to, and mutual dependence on a social group. The inquiries of a researcher will hence have to include a â€Å"specific study of the individual, as well as the group within which he has to live and work. † (idib. 1939: 950). The collective life within that group or society is widely to be seen in certain types of activities, ‘institutions’ such as the â€Å"economy, education, or social control and political system in place† (idib. 1939: 954). These institutions, as he points out, can be seen as a fruitful base to investigate the individual’s motives and values and they will provide â€Å"insight into the process by which the individual is conditioned or culturally formed and of the group mechanisms of this process. † (idib. 1939: 954). II. Grand Theory In the following, the dictum ‘grand theory’ will be specified and by doing so distinguished into two different tendencies of understanding the concept. Wiarda (2010) defines a grand theory in his book Grand Theories and Ideologies in the Social Sciences as â€Å"those large, overarching explanations of social and political behavior—liberalism, Marxism, socialism, positivism, corporatism, political culture, institutionalism, psychoanalysis, rational choice theory, environmentalism (Jared Diamond), sociobiology, and now chemistry and genetics—that give coherence to the social sciences, help us to organize and think about change and modernization, and give us models to understand complex behavior. † (Wiarda 2010: x) This definition of grand theory as an ‘overarching explanation’ is in line with Anthony Good’s (1996) understanding of a ‘generalizing science’ that produces â€Å"universal, descriptive and predictive laws† (idib. 1996: 34). Here a grand theory is understood as a theorem providing a universal and structural framework that gives meaning to particular and individual phenomena ‘on the ground’. In this process the â€Å"importance of the local and the contingent, (†¦) the extent to which our own concepts and attitudes have been shaped† (Skinner 1985: 8) builds also a part of the universal framework. The second tendency to conceive the idea of grand theory goes a step further and is mainly characterized by C. Wright Mills application of it. He vigorously criticised the concept in his book The Sociological Imagination (1959): â€Å"The basic cause of grand theory is the initial choice of a level of thinking so general that its practitioners cannot logically get down to observation. They never, as grand theorists, get down from the higher generalities to problems in their historical and structural contexts. This absence of a firm sense of genuine problems, in turn, makes for the unreality so noticeable in their pages. † (idib. 1959: 33) As this quote shows, Mills’ understanding of a grand theory goes beyond our first definition. In this second understanding Mills implies that scientists generating grand theories are engrossed in their endeavour to build abstract, normative and all-embracing frameworks and thus neglect the study of the ‘meaning’ behind their constructs. The individual with its particular values and interpretations, as well as variety on the scale of the actual area of research fall behind. III. Participant Observation and its relation to Grand Theory Taken the just outlined conception of grand theory influenced by Mills and putting it in relationship with Malinowski’s methodology of participant observation, the answer to our question whether or not Malinowski’s heritage barred the way of Anthropology to ever produce grand theories appears unambiguously to be ‘yes’. Participant observation in its very nature is close to the individual and aims to explore, over a long period of time, which social and cultural forces influence the human being in a specific setting. Therefore, with regards to Mills conception of grand theory, Anthropology has a birth defect called participant observation that will always prevent it from producing highly abstract grand theories, which stand in no relation to the circumstances from where they were deduced from. A closer look reveals that Malinowski’s understanding of the anthropological formation of theory aligns with Mills criticism towards highly abstract grand theories: â€Å"It would be easy to quote works of high repute, and with a scientific hall-mark on them, in which wholesale generalisations are laid down before us, and we are not informed at all by what actual experiences the writers have reached their conclusions. (†¦) I consider that only such ethnographic sources are of unquestionable scientific value, in which we can clearly draw the line between, on the one hand, the result of direct observation and of native statements and interpretations and on the other, the inferences of the author, based on his common sense of psychological insight. † (Malinowski 1966: 3) Here Malinowski differences between two approaches of data processing. One approach leads to mere ‘wholesale generalisations’ and the other approach also includes the ‘actual experiences’ the researcher faced on the local level that explain on what assumptions and observations her or his generalizations are based on. He hence supports the notion of Anthropology as a science of producing generalisations, as long as they are comprehensible and in direct relation to the reality on the ground. Malinowski’s ethnographies exist to a vast amount of descriptive details that are very specific to certain social groups or individual preferences and he has hence often been criticized as an ‘empiricist’ (see Firth 1957). Also, one could argue that his attempt to put his findings in a neat structured box with columns, as he has done in his article Group and Individual in Functional Analysis (1966) seem rather compelled. Nevertheless, he was able to provide social science with universal and generalizing frameworks on, inter alia, on how social institutions function in relation to society. He states that â€Å"social institutions have a definite organisation, (†¦) they are governed by authority, law and order in their public and personal relations, while the latter are, besides, under the control of extremely complex ties of kinship and clanship. † (Malinowski 1966: 10). Malinowski’s suggestion to use institution as a starting point for social and cultural analysis has â€Å"produced integrated descriptions instead of loosely classified catalogues of traits, and has stimulated the fuller recording of case material from actual behavior as a supplement to the listing of ideal patterns. † (Murdock 1943: 443). Following Malinowski’s ethnographic method and theory construction therefore aims to create a firm framework of the â€Å"social constitution† that â€Å"disentangle[s] the laws and regularities of all cultural phenomena from the irrelevances. † (Malinowski 1966: 10f. ). His approach is thus far more that only an accumulation of meaningless observations of an individuals life in a very specific society. Considering these arguments, Malinowski approach can, indeed, be seen as congruent with our first tendency to understand grand theory. The answer to our initial question should hence be that Anthropology is a science that can certainly produce grand theories in the sense of generalized frameworks and universalistic theories, without neglecting the importance of the â€Å"local and the contingent† (Skinner 1985: 12). Furthermore, Anthropology can be viewed as an established science with its own field of study being the human being and its social group as well as their mutual dependencies and influences. â€Å"Anthropology stands in a clear relationship to the other basic science, because it is concerned with studying phenomena at one clearly discriminate level vis-a-vis those other sciences. † (Good 1996: 32)

Observation paper Essay

The Child’s name I have chosen for this observation paper is a 5 year old female named Janiya, she seems to be a happy normal child. Her mother and father are of African American descent. Her mother and father are married yet separated. Janiya lives home with her mom and aunt, her mom keeps her toys inside her room where Janiya regularly accesses her bedroom and bring toys in and out as she pleases, as well as plays inside her room when she wants. Her toys consist of a bike, baby dolls, Barbie dolls, tablet, computer, and PlayStation 4. These are the toys Janiya plays with everyday according to her mom. Observation Janiya is a very bright little girl with a huge personality she loves attention and loves to watch cartoons and play with her toys. The observations I made were in the living room, kitchen and her bedroom and observed her for 30 minutes. Janiya is a very creative little girl adapting to her surroundings and nothing was never too high for her because she climbed on top of furniture when she wanted to reach things that was too high for her I seen Janiya climb on top a chair to get some chips out of the cabinet she used her physical strength to pull her weight up until she was able to reach them. I was amazed at how smart she was when it came to thinking of a way to get things she wanted instead of asking for assistance anything she needs access to and is too high for her to reach she climbs on furniture to reach it or asks her mom or aunt to get it if she couldn’t according to her mom, Janiya is displaying her gross motor skills. She then came in the living room and proceeded to change the channel to Nick Jr. and Sponge Bob Square pants was on and Janiya started singing the theme song standing up in the chair dancing and singing showing off her cognitive and functional play skills trying to do what she sees on tv and also displaying her language development. Janiya’s mom then walked from her bed room in the living room explaining to Janiya that she has to help her with her homework  before she watches cartoons so she needs to go to her bedroom to retrieve her book bag Janiya is in the kindergarten. Janiya runs in her room to get her book bag and quickly came back into the living room with it displaying her gross motor skills again. Her mom pulls out her homework which consists of writing her first name 10 times and writing her last name 10 times she gives Janiya verbal cues on writing her name writing Janiya write and telling her which letter to write next she is encoding this information inside Janiya’s memory and she will eventually have this information in her long term memory and will be able to write her name without verbal cues in the future right now she is now processing information and developing her memory. After doing her homework Janiya went in her room and bought out her dolls and begin playing with herself in the living room displaying dramatic play I heard her talking to her dolls and pretending that was her baby. This was the end of my 30 minute observation; Janiya seems as if she is coming along well with displaying skills, language, playing and her imag ination. She was really a bright little girl and I enjoyed observing her and seeing the changes children go through to develop most of their skills that are going to be used every day when they get older! Observation Paper: Janiya Psychology 221 Michelle Bennett The Child’s name I have chosen for this observation paper is a 5 year old female named Janiya, she seems to be a happy normal child. Her mother and father are of African American descent. Her mother and father are married yet separated. Janiya lives home with her mom and aunt, her mom keeps her toys inside her room where Janiya regularly accesses her bedroom and bring toys in and out as she pleases, as well as plays inside her room when she wants. Her toys consist of a bike, baby dolls, Barbie dolls, tablet, computer, and PlayStation 4. These are the toys Janiya plays with everyday according to her mom. Observation Janiya is a very bright little girl with a huge personality she loves attention and loves to watch cartoons and play with her toys. The observations I made were in the living room, kitchen and her bedroom and observed her for 30 minutes. Janiya is a very creative little girl adapting to her surroundings and nothing was never too high for her because she climbed on top of furniture when she wanted to reach things that was too high for her I seen Janiya climb on top a chair to get some chips out of the cabinet she used her physical strength to pull her weight up until she was able to reach them. I was amazed at how smart she was when it came to thinking of a way to get things she wanted instead of asking for assistance anything she needs access to and is too high for her to reach she climbs on furniture to reach it or asks her mom or aunt to get it if she couldn’t according to her mom, Janiya is displaying her gross motor skills. She then came in the living room and proceeded to change the channel to Nick Jr. and Sponge Bob Square pants was on and Janiya started singing the theme song standing up in the chair dancing and singing showing off her cognitive and functional play skills trying to do what she sees on tv and also displaying her language development. Janiya’s mom then walked from her bed room in the living room explaining to Janiya that she has to help her with her homework before she watches cartoons so she needs to go to her bedroom to retrieve her book bag Janiya is in the kindergarten. Janiya runs in her room to get her book bag and quickly came back into the living room with it displaying her gross motor skills again. Her mom pulls out her homework which consists of writing her first name 10 times and writing her last name 10 times she gives Janiya verbal cues on writing her name writing Janiya write and telling her which letter to write next she is encoding this information inside Janiya’s memory and she will eventually have this information in her long term memory and will be able to write her name without verbal cues in the future right now she is now processing information and developing her memory. After doing her homework Janiya went in her room and bought out her dolls and begin playing with herself in t he living room displaying dramatic play I heard her talking to her dolls and pretending that was her baby. This was the end of my 30 minute observation; Janiya seems as if she is coming along well with displaying skills, language, playing and her imagination. She was really a bright little girl and I enjoyed observing her and seeing the changes children go through to develop most of their skills that are  going to be used every day when they get older!

Why war is inevitable essays

Why war is inevitable essays The recent attacks on the United States are among the worst terrorist attacks the world has ever seen. As stated by President Bush on September 11,2001, in an address to the nation, Our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist attacks. The target was the heart of Americas economy as well as the heart of every American. The evil behind these cowardly attacks is a man by then name Osama bin Ladin, and his devote followers in the Taliban regime. Theyre not only behind the recent attacks on the United States, but the bombing of the USS Cole and the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi. These sick radicals have boldly announced they will stop at nothing to kill as many Americans possible. To negotiate with them is impossible, and that is why war inevitable. In this paper, I will explain why a war against Osama bin Ladin and all terrorism is the answer, and the only answer. Many people may argue that it is not the United States place to start another war. A war is expensive, long, and carries the risk of loosing more American lives. However, it is important to understand that the United States is not a bully, waging an undeserved war. In fact, we did not start this war, war was waged upon us. The terrorist declared war on every American when they hijacked four American airplanes and used them as flying bombs to kill thousands of innocent civilians. Remember, there was no aggressive military action taken after the bombing of the U.S. Embassy, the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, or after the first attempt to take down the World Trade Centers; all of which have been linked back to Osama bin Laden. How many more thousands of lives need to be lost before we start defending the safety of the American people? When speaking to the issue of backing the American military forces with the Canadian Armed forces on Friday, Septem...

Henderson the Rain King

Henderson the Rain King Free Online Research Papers Eugene Henderson is a troubled middle-aged man. Despite his riches, high social status, and physical prowess, he feels restless and unfulfilled, and harbors a spiritual void that manifests itself as an inner voice crying out I want, I want, I want. Hoping to discover what the voice wants, Henderson goes to Africa. Upon reaching Africa, Henderson splits with his original group and hires a native guide, Romilayu. Romilayu leads Henderson to the village of the Arnewi, where Henderson befriends the leaders of the village. He learns that the cistern from which the Arnewi get their drinking water is plagued by frogs, thus rendering the water unclean according to local taboos. Henderson attempts to save the Arnewi by ridding them of the frogs, but his enthusiastic scheme ends in disaster. Henderson and Romilayu travel on to the village of the Wariri. Here, Henderson impulsively performs a feat of strength and unwittingly becomes Wariri Rain King. He quickly develops a friendship with the native-born but western-educated Chief, King Dahfu, with whom he engages in a series of far-reaching philosophical discussions. The elders send Dahfu to find a lion, which is supposedly the reincarnation of the late king, Dahfus father. The lion hunt fails and the lion mortally wounds the king. Henderson learns shortly before Dahfus death that the Rain King is the next person in the line of succession for the throne. Fearing the elders would rather see him dead than lead the Wariri, Henderson flees the Wariri village. Although it is unclear whether Henderson has truly found spiritual contentment, the novel ends on an optimistic and uplifting note. [edit] Discussion A week before the novel appeared in book stores, Saul Bellow published an article in the New York Times entitled â€Å"The Search for Symbols, a Writer Warns, Misses All the Fun and Fact of the Story.† [1]. Here, Bellow warns readers against looking too deeply for symbols in literature. This has led to much discussion among critics as to why Bellow warned his readers against searching for symbolism just before the symbol-packed Rain King hit the shelves. The ongoing philosophical discussions and ramblings between Henderson and the natives, and inside Hendersons own head, prefigure elements of Bellows next novel, Herzog (1964), which includes many such inquiries into life and meaning. As in all Bellows novels, death figures prominently in HRK. Also, the novel manifests a few common character types that run through Bellow’s literary works. One type is the Bellovian Hero, often described as a schlemiel. Eugene Henderson, in company with most of Bellow’s main characters, can be given this description. Another is what Bellow calls the Reality-Instructor; in HRK, King Dahfu fills this role. In Seize the Day, the instructor is played by Dr. Tamkin, while in Humboldts Gift, Humboldt von Fleisher takes the part. [edit] Pulitzer Prize In 1960 the Pulitzer Prize committee for fiction recommended Henderson the Rain King be awarded the prize for that year. The Pulitzer board, which have final say over the awarding of the prize, overrode their recommendation and chose Advise and Consent by Allen Drury instead.[1] Research Papers on Henderson the Rain KingThe Rise and Fall of Napoleon BonaparteAmerican Central Banking and OilThe Story of Beatrix PotterDistance Learning Survival GuideBooker T. Washington, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-BarnettProbation OfficersThe Mechanics of Grading Grading SystemsThe Equal Rights AmendmentQuebec and CanadaA Marketing Analysis of the Fast-Food Restaurant

A Review of James Joyces Novel Ulysses

A Review of James Joyce's Novel 'Ulysses' Ulysses by   James Joyce holds a very special place in the history of English literature. The novel is one of the greatest masterpieces of modernist literature. But, Ulysses is also sometimes seen as so experimental that it is completely unreadable. Ulysses records events in the lives of two central charactersLeopold Bloom and Stephen Dedaluson a single day in Dublin. With its depth and complexities, Ulysses completely changed our understanding of literature and language. is endlessly inventive, and labyrinthine in its construction. The novel is both a mythical adventure of the every day and a stunning portrait of internal psychological processesrendered through high art. Brilliant and sparkling, the novel is difficult to read but offers rewards tenfold the effort and attention that willing readers give it. Overview The novel is as difficult to summarize as it is difficult to read, but it has a remarkably simple story. Ulysses follows one day in Dublin in 1904tracing the paths of two characters: a middle-aged Jewish man by the name of Leopold Bloom and a young intellectual, Stephen Daedalus. Bloom goes through his day with the full awareness that his wife, Molly, is probably receiving her lover at their home (as part of an ongoing affair). He buys some liver, attends a funeral and, watches a young girl on a beach.Daedalus passes from a newspaper office, expounds a theory of Shakespeares Hamlet in a public library and visits a maternity wardwhere his journey becomes intertwined with Blooms, as he invites Bloom to go along with some of his companions on a drunken spree. They end up at a notorious brothel, where Daedalus suddenly becomes angry because he believes the ghost of his mother is visiting him. He uses his cane to knock out a light and gets into a fightonly to be knocked out himself. Bloom revives him and takes him back to his house, where they sit and talk, drinking coffee into the wee hours. In the final chapter, Bloom slips back into bed with his wife, Molly. We get a final monologue from her point of view. The string of words is famous, as it is entirely devoid of any punctuation. The words just flow as one long, full thought. Telling the Story Of course, the summary doesnt tell you a whole lot about what the book is really all about. The greatest strength of Ulysses is the manner in which it is told. Joyces startling stream-of-consciousness offers a unique perspective on the events of the day; we see the occurrences from the interior perspective of Bloom, Daedalus, and Molly. But Joyce also expands upon the concept of stream of consciousness.His work is an experiment, where he widely and wildly plays with narrative techniques. Some chapters concentrate on a phonic representation of its events; some are mock-historical; one chapter is told in epigrammatic form; another is laid out like a drama. In these flights of style, Joyce directs the story from numerous linguistic as well as psychological points of view.With his revolutionary style, Joyce shakes the foundations of literary realism. After all, arent there a multiplicity of ways to tell a story? Which way is the right way? Can we fix on any one truthful way to approach t he world? The Structure The literary experimentation is also wedded to a formal structure that is consciously linked to the mythical journey recounted in Homers Odyssey (Ulysses is the Roman name of that poems central character). The journey of the day is given a mythical resonance, as Joyce mapped the events of the novel to episodes that occur in the Odyssey.Ulysses is often published with a table of parallels between the novel and the classical poem; and, the scheme also offers insight into Joyces experimental use of the literary form, as well as some understanding of how much planning and concentration went into the construction of Ulysses.Intoxicating, powerful, often incredibly disconcerting,   Ulysses is probably the zenith of modernisms experimentation with what can be created through language. Ulysses is a tour de force by a truly great writer and a challenge for completeness in the understanding of language that few could match. The novel is Brilliant and taxing. But, Ulysses very much deserves i ts place in the pantheon of truly great works of art.

Compare and contrast Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 18

Compare and contrast - Essay Example According to this theory, the indication or manifestation of individual character materializes beginning with an individual’s believes and assumptions of how s/he is viewed by others, opinions by others about him/her, and also the emotions and sentiments arising from these believes. It is important to posit that this theory engages discernment as well as outcome. Discernment concerns how individuals are viewed by others whereas outcome depicts the consequences associated with opinions towards an individual portrayed by others (Cooley 14). The postulation of looking glass self is considered an important notion since individuals react and take action based on how other people imagine they should react. Therefore, the development of character or personality is a collective and shared course of action that is founded on associations between people (Brinkerhoff 57). In addition, the development of character is founded on individual aptitude of individual expression. The bio-ecological theory on the other hand posits that there are a number of stages associated with external surroundings that affect the creation of personality. According to Papalia, Feldman, and Martorell â€Å"Bronfenbrenner illustrated the micro-system as the setting within which the individual was behaving at a given moment in his or her life and the meso-system as the set of Microsystems constituting the individual’s developmental niche within a given period of development† (35). Bronfenbrenner introduced the hypothesis known as the bio-ecological theory that presents perfect support geared towards deliberating on the associations among certain traits in children as well as ecological attributes. According to this theory, a kid is portrayed as the most essential and fundamental stature. Micro-systems are the unswerving relationships among close relative, teaching instructors, and other individuals. The meso-systems connect the micro-systems and

Health care law Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Health care law - Coursework Example In addition, Dr. Maxx could be accused of misrepresentation. Dr. Maxx stated that her arm would be good as new. She can argue that statement was the basis for hiring Dr. Maxx and that was the determining factor. Connie arrived at Smallville General hospital ER via the local police. They took her in because she was disheveled, urinating and defecating on herself. She was calling out to passersby â€Å"You are the devil and I am going to stick my knife in your chest.† The SBH doctor refused to treat her stating that his hospital did not accept involuntary psychiatric patients. He advised the police to take her to Metropolis Psychiatric without given proper cause. Under the law, hospitals can deny admission if they are not properly staffed or equipped for psychiatric patients. To me there could be a liability issue for SBH. However, SBH can argue that it was acting with the patient’s best interest at heart. It was beneficial for het to go the other hospital. Doctor could use that defense that upon the brief contact with the patient he evaluated her and there were no sign of an emergency that would prevent her from taking the 75 miles drive to the other hospital. Connie was admitted to MPC and was forcibly administered medication. She was released after a week to the streets of Metropolis. MPC had the right to admit her and treatment, because she was a danger to her self and others. Based on her condition when she was picked up she clearly could not provide the bare necessities for herself. They kept her against her will for 1 week. MPC could be potentially held liable because state statutes typically allow for involuntary detention of psychiatric patients for a limited period ranging from 48-72 hours. Furthermore, they can be liable too for abandonment claim. Connie’s condition will be aggravated by the discharge because she requires further medical help. But MPC can say that they acted in

Using Educational Research as a Lean for the Wire Paper

Using Educational as a Lean for the Wire - Research Paper Example Using education research as a lean for the wire The articles talks about the different in relationship between families and students at various school studying levels. The factors, which regulate the relationship, are also extensively discussed and expounded in the article. The good relationship between schools, families, and the community is the core contributor to the students’ success in many parts of the world. International studies have proved the grave of the school parent relationship to the success of the student at all academic levels. However, as students grow older, the relationship between the school and the parent decline systematically. There are various reasons that facilitate the decline of the relationships between the families and the students.The complexity in the secondary school learning environment also confuses the parents on the areas to be involved. In The Wire, community and parents involvement are less valued in the early child life development. Students squarely rely on their teacher for guidance and counseling during their early school life. Nevertheless, at the advanced school age, the community involves itself fully in the student’s life. At this level, they are regarded as a potential investment in criminal activities. Therefore, the differences in the level of family involvement in the student life between the society discussed by the article and society in The Wire show how different societies value differently the lives of the children and youths. In reference to the article, there are various conditions that control and influence the families’ involvement in the teenagers’ education in high school. The family time and material resources, the nature of the parent teenager relationship, and the family take on the involvement are some of the factors responsible of the parents’ involvement in the student high school education (Simon 186). Additionally, the community way of living has a role in the parents’ involvement in school life. T he excising ties between communities and the teenagers’ determine the magnitude of the parent involvement in high school activities (Todd 17). In this area, the article fits The Wire. In the series, there are intimate relationships between the community and high school students. However, students at this level are negatively involved by the society for community’s self-gain. The similarity is decidedly essential in the contemporary world. In all societies, there is a need for mutual relationship between the teenagers, the families and society. Teenage age is a transitional period in human development and entails a lot of challenges which demand the support of the family and community. Teenagers require social, professional, and developmental guidance and counseling at this time, to necessitate positive development. Therefore, the barriers that disregard the families’Â  student involvement should be overcome for the benefit of the student and the entire society. However, the manner in which community and families are involved in the students life need to be controlled. The immoral relationship between the high school students and the community should be discouraged. Appropriate measures should be agreed upon to necessitate a controlled relationship. The article

Identify a quality management related problem(s) in the firm of your Coursework

Identify a quality management related problem(s) in the firm of your choice - Coursework Example Generally, the term quality management embraces four main components namely quality assurance, quality planning, quality improvement and quality control (Prajogo & Sohal, 2006). Hence, it is evident that quality management does not focus solely on the quality of products and services offered by a firm but also takes into account the ways by which a company can achieve it. In order to ensure the company achieves quality, control of processes and quality assurance techniques are put into practice. As a result of the number of opportunities provided by quality management, companies around the world have implemented quality management programs into their system of operation (Kaynak, 2003). This study will shed light on the quality management issues faced by a company and along with that it will also try to identify the principal causes of the issues. Once the root cause of the issue is identified, the report will recommend techniques by which the firm can overcome those problems. The com pany chosen in this context is Toyota and, for better understanding of the report, the study will present a brief overview of the company. Toyota: An Overview Toyota is regarded as one of the largest automobile manufacturing companies in the world. Toyota also ranks among the global fortune 500 companies and is one of the leading corporation of the world in terms of revenue and profit margins. The history of Toyota can be traced back to the early 19th century. The company was founded in the year 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. It is currently headquartered at Toyota, Aichi, Japan. The company is involved in the manufacturing and marketing of automobile products. The company creased its first engine and named it as Type - A engine during the year 1936. The first passenger car launched by the company was Toyota AA. The company operates in almost every part of the world and is therefore regarded as one of the global companies. Although headquartered in Japan, the company believes in decentral ized decision making and as a result of that the company operates independently in every part of the world. As of financial year end 2013, the total revenue of the company was ?22.064 trillion and the profit margins were ?962.1 billion. The company employs 333,498 people across the globe (Yahoo Finance, 2013). The above financial results clearly highlight the strong financial situation of the company. The company has 522 subsidiary companies. It has two divisions, namely Lexus and Scion, and both the companies operate under the Toyota Group. Some of the best selling products are automobiles, engines, commercial vehicles and motorcycles. Apart from the manufacturing of automobile parts, the company is also involved in financing, banking and leasing. Despite the numbers of positive factors, the company has faced several issues related to the quality of the products and services offered by the company (Yahoo Finance, 2013). Problem Poor quality management can act as a major constraint for a project. Due to poor quality of management the overall quality of the outcome degrades and results in a negative consequence. This not only harms the reputation of the company in the market place, but alongside the customers also shifts to other sellers. Therefore from this fact it is evident that poor

Entry to a new market Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Entry to a new market - Research Paper Example Making an entry into the existing automobile Indian market should be carefully approached. For example, a company should consider whether to enter into the market through a joint venture, or opening up a subsidiary of the organization as part of the mother branch. The company should be aware of the pros and cons of all the available options and how much they would cost. Entry Modes into the market Foreign direct Investment One of the advantages of a foreign direct investment mode of operation is that the organization would have a large proportion of direct control of the firm that it sets up in India. A foreign direct investment would allow the American company to gain a high tax exemption. The Government of India is bound to view the foreign direct investment as an opportunity that will increase the country’s income through labor provision to its nationals.. A foreign direct investment often includes transferring labor, funds and new technology to the target market (Iyer 272) . A foreign direct investment might involve purchasing of an already existing organization or starting up of a new one. A foreign direct investment into India will require an input of large resources by the automobile company. The resources will go into putting up the organization and marketing services. However, the organization would gain a better understanding of the customer needs and how to reach their target market audience. Joint Venture The organization might also consider a joint venture entry into the Indian market. A joint venture with an automobile company would be strategic if the CEO decides to invest a minimal amount of money into the venture in India. The American automobile company would ideally invest half the money while the India co-venture investor would invest the other half. Both investors would learn from each other for the good of the organization. The Indian investor would guide the American automobile investor on issues such as Indian tax system, best labo r sources, best location, cultural awareness and distribution lines. A joint venture would be highly recommended when the two merging companies have the same kinds of business strategies that they would want to achieve. In order for the joint venture to succeed, both the organizations should be clear on their strategic goals and objectives, and the timelines within which they hope to achieve them. The joint venture organizations should also clarify on the duties and responsibilities of the different personnel that they both bring in to the organization. There are critical issues that might arise in the running of joint ventures (Tsang 218). The companies might have proprietary information that they might be afraid of sharing. Secret business ideas take a lot of resources to develop. Therefore, none of the organizations would take the resources invested lightly. One or both of the organizations’ employees might also develop apathy at the expense of the other joint venture part ner’s employees. If the duration of the organization was unclear, disputes might arise on how and when the company should be closed down. There might also be cultural disputes between the two companies in the joint venture. Each of the companies in the automobile joint venture might want to get the best of the partnership while what they put in is not equal to what they want to gain. Licensing Licensing for the automobile organization would require the organization to license an organization

Identify a quality management related problem(s) in the firm of your Coursework

Identify a quality management related problem(s) in the firm of your choice - Coursework Example Generally, the term quality management embraces four main components namely quality assurance, quality planning, quality improvement and quality control (Prajogo & Sohal, 2006). Hence, it is evident that quality management does not focus solely on the quality of products and services offered by a firm but also takes into account the ways by which a company can achieve it. In order to ensure the company achieves quality, control of processes and quality assurance techniques are put into practice. As a result of the number of opportunities provided by quality management, companies around the world have implemented quality management programs into their system of operation (Kaynak, 2003). This study will shed light on the quality management issues faced by a company and along with that it will also try to identify the principal causes of the issues. Once the root cause of the issue is identified, the report will recommend techniques by which the firm can overcome those problems. The com pany chosen in this context is Toyota and, for better understanding of the report, the study will present a brief overview of the company. Toyota: An Overview Toyota is regarded as one of the largest automobile manufacturing companies in the world. Toyota also ranks among the global fortune 500 companies and is one of the leading corporation of the world in terms of revenue and profit margins. The history of Toyota can be traced back to the early 19th century. The company was founded in the year 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda. It is currently headquartered at Toyota, Aichi, Japan. The company is involved in the manufacturing and marketing of automobile products. The company creased its first engine and named it as Type - A engine during the year 1936. The first passenger car launched by the company was Toyota AA. The company operates in almost every part of the world and is therefore regarded as one of the global companies. Although headquartered in Japan, the company believes in decentral ized decision making and as a result of that the company operates independently in every part of the world. As of financial year end 2013, the total revenue of the company was ?22.064 trillion and the profit margins were ?962.1 billion. The company employs 333,498 people across the globe (Yahoo Finance, 2013). The above financial results clearly highlight the strong financial situation of the company. The company has 522 subsidiary companies. It has two divisions, namely Lexus and Scion, and both the companies operate under the Toyota Group. Some of the best selling products are automobiles, engines, commercial vehicles and motorcycles. Apart from the manufacturing of automobile parts, the company is also involved in financing, banking and leasing. Despite the numbers of positive factors, the company has faced several issues related to the quality of the products and services offered by the company (Yahoo Finance, 2013). Problem Poor quality management can act as a major constraint for a project. Due to poor quality of management the overall quality of the outcome degrades and results in a negative consequence. This not only harms the reputation of the company in the market place, but alongside the customers also shifts to other sellers. Therefore from this fact it is evident that poor

Fashion and False Hype Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Fashion and False Hype - Essay Example What do you plan to accomplish with this essay? What do you hope the reader takes away from this argument? This is intended to illuminate the truth behind the fascination of fashion trends and fashion industry. During the research for this Rogerian essay, I came across with some critical aspects regarding the social inequality and individual’s social behaviour in which fashion plays a significant role. I aimed to deliver the grave negative factors which fashion industry implies on society. 2. What did you learn from completing this assignment? Did you experience a new understanding of the topic? Did you change your perspective after completing the research? I learnt about the ideals of modernity which is highly constructed on the bases of the principle of equality. In addition, I was exposed to the social role of fashion in our lives which have significantly negative impact on our society. Most importantly, I found the alternative ways to spend money rather on following fashio n trends and wasting too much money on fashion wears. 3. What difficulties did you encounter during the research, writing, or editing phases of the assignment? There were few difficulties mainly in the understanding of the criticality which this argument contains. The biggest reason is my presuppositions about fashion and fashion industry which were well conforming to the developed stature of fashion. The deliverance of the argument in which fashion leads to self centric thinking in writing was a challenging task for me. 4. What did you enjoy about this assignment? The most interesting factor in this assignment was the involvement of both, supporting arguments and the critiques. The aspects which are the positive aspects of fashion are, on the other hand, have negative aspects which are more intense than the positive implications. 5. What made you decide to write about this particular topic?  Is this a topic that you are discussing in another course?  Is this a topic that concer ns you in particular? As we all know that fashion is one of the most important parts of our lives. My interest in fashion leads me to explore about it and the research made me develop the argument against fashion and fashion industry. I am immensely concerned with fashion which made me chose this topic for this assignment. 6. Is there anything else you would like for me to know before reading your essay? It poses an intense critique regarding fashion in contemporary world and it largely deals with social and humanistic aspects which are associated with fashion and fashion industry. [Student’s Name] [Instructor’s Name] [Course Title] [Date] Fashion and False Hype Introduction and Claim Fashion has become one of the most necessary industries in the contemporary world of modern age. Numerous trends in fashion are being acquired by millions of individuals in concordance with their regions, religions and cultures. Almost every single individual in this world aims to appear good and attractive. This desire of millions is fulfilled with those trends of fashion which are produced by the global fashion industry. From a child to teenager and from a young adult to middle aged individual, every single individual spends large amounts on meeting the fashion trends in the contemporary times. As fashion has become an essential part of today’s life, there are numerous negative aspects which are associated with the fashion industry. It consumes a good amount of time and money to keep one’s self updated with the latest trends of fashion along with the unjust which is associated with the labours working in the fashion industry (Cross 155-161). Despite the fact that fashion has become an essential part of the contemporary life but the number of negative aspects involved in fashion propose that the importance of

An Introduction to Reading and Writing Essay Example for Free

An Introduction to Reading and Writing Essay Rounded = lifelike, full, dynamic, reader can predict future behavior because of an understanding of the personality – Protagonist = the hero or heroine, main person in the story, person on the quest, etc. – Antagonist = the person causing the conflict, in opposition to the protagonist, the obstacle, etc. – Flat = no growth, static – Stock = representative of a group or class (stereotypical) – Characters disclosed through †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Actions Descriptions, both personal and environmental Dramatic statements and thoughts Statements by other characters Statements by the author speaking as storyteller, or observer – Characters need to have verisimilitude, be probable or plausible Point of View †¢ Refers to speaker, narrator, persona or voice created by the author to tell the story †¢ Point of view depends on two factors: – Physical situation of the narrator as an observer – Speaker’s intellectual and emotional position †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ First person = I, we Second person = You (uncommon) Third person = He, she, they (most common) Point of view may be: – Dramatic/objective = strictly reporting – Omniscient = all-knowing – Limited omniscient = some insight Setting †¢ Setting = a work’s natural, manufactured, political, cultural and temporal environment, including everything that characters know and own (place, time, objects) †¢ Major purpose = to establish realism or verisimilitude, and to organize a story †¢ Setting helps create atmosphere or mood †¢ Setting may reinforce characters and theme, in order to establish expectations that are the opposite of what occurs = irony Tone and Style †¢ Tone = methods by which writers and speakers reveal attitudes or feelings †¢ Style = ways in which writers assemble words to tell the story, to develop an argument, dramatize the play, compose the poem – Choice of words in the service of content †¢ Essential aspect of style is diction – Formal = standard or elegant words – Neutral = everyday standard vocabulary – Informal = colloquial, substandard language, slang Tone and Style (cont’d) †¢ Language may be: – – – – Specific = images General = broad classes Concrete = qualities of immediate perception Abstract = broader, less palpable qualities †¢ Denotation = word meanings †¢ Connotation = word suggestions †¢ Verbal irony = contradictory statements – One thing said, opposite is meant – Irony = satire, parody, sarcasm, double entendre †¢ Understatement = does not fully describe the importance of a situation – deliberately †¢ Hyperbole (overstatement) = words far in excess of the situation Symbolism and Allegory †¢ Symbolism and allegory are modes that expand meaning †¢ Symbol creates a direct, meaningful equation between: – A specific object, scene, character, or action – Ideas, values, persons or ways of life †¢ Symbols may be: – Cultural (universal) = known by most literate people (e. g. , white dove, color black) – Contextual (authorial) = private, created by the author Symbolism and Allegory (cont’d) †¢ Allegory is a symbol = complete and self-sufficient narrative (e. g. , â€Å"Young Goodman Brown†) †¢ Fable = stories about animals that possess human traits (e. g. , Aesop’s Fables) †¢ Parable = allegory with moral or religious bent (e. g. , Biblical stories) †¢ Myth = story that embodies and codifies religious, philosophical and cultural values of the civilization in which it is composed (e. g. , George Washington chopping down the cherry tree) †¢ Allusion = the use of other culturally well=known works from the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, famous art, etc. Idea or Theme †¢ Idea = results of general and abstract thinking †¢ Literature embodies values along with ideas – In literature, ideas relate to meaning, interpretation, explanation and significance – Ideas are vital to an understanding and appreciation of literature †¢ Ideas are not as obvious as character or setting. It is important to consider the meaning of what you’ve read and then develop an explanatory and comprehensive assertion. †¢ Theme can be found in any of these: – – – – – Direct statements by the authorial voice Direct statements by a first-person speaker Dramatic statements by characters Figurative language, characters who stand for ideas The work itself.

Coverage of Child Rights Issues in Pakistani Print Media

Coverage of Child Rights Issues in Pakistani Print Media Chapter 2 Literature Review A literature review is an evaluative report of information found in the literature related to the selected area of study. It is a process of reading, analyzing, evaluating, and summarizing scholarly materials about a specific topic. The results of a literature review may be compiled in a report or they may serve as part of a research article, thesis, or grant proposal.(Hart,1998) A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic. Literature reviews are secondary sources, and as such, do not report any new or original experimental work. Also, a literature review can be interpreted as a review of an abstract accomplishment (Dellinger, Leech, 2007). A well-structured literature review is characterized by a logical flow of ideas; current and relevant references with consistent, appropriate referencing style; proper use of terminology; and a comprehensive view of the previous research on the topic (ibid). In this research â€Å"Coverage of child rights issues in Pakistani Print Media; a comparative study of English and Urdu newspapers† researcher uses thematic order for literature review. Thematic reviews of literature are organized around a topic or issue, rather than the progression of time. Researcher divides the literature review into two sections. Studies on child rights in Pakistan International studies on child rights Studies on Child rights in Pakistani media Studies on Child rights in International media Studies on Human rights Media studies on Human rights 2.1. Studies on Child Rights in Pakistan OMCT (2003) reported in Pakistan Report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by Pakistan that in particular, that children are at a high risk to be subject to various forms of abuse and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment and punishment. OMCT is aware that many of the structural causes of the violations of childrens rights require economic and social change at a structural level, we nevertheless feel that some fundamental legislative and administrative changes in the country would enable a better implementation of children’s rights that could lead to a considerable improvement in the lot of children. Therefore, OMCT would like to make several conclusions and recommendations, both legislative and practical. Sadruddin (2011) identified in study on the important issues of child rights in Pakistan that the important issues of children in Pakistan, during 2004-2008. This research article aims to inform practitioners and policy makers, in an effort to move child rights and childrens plight in especially difficult circumstances to the forefront of the public conscience. The value and importance of children has also been highlighted in the study. The efficacy of the implementation of child rights by Pakistani Government has also been revealed. The study revealed that the issues of children were over shadowed in Pakistan during the last few years. The Convention on the Rights of Child did not serve as a guaranteed savior. Education, security and social rights were not given proper attention during the last five years due to which, much effective results were not produced in improving child rights. Although the needs of children and their rights, particularly social and security rights were well understood, but were not well addressed, both on social and political platform. The study concluded that Pakistan was unsuccessful in addressing the issues of Children in Pakistan to its best as the issues of children were found in a vulnerable state. Khan (2011) determined in his work implementing law against child labor: a research study of Pakistan that child Labor is always related to the violation of the basic rights of children. However, every work that children indulge in cannot be categorized as child labor. This article assesses the International norms regarding child labor after understanding the notion of child labor. This article aims to highlight the socio-economic issues responsible for the profusion of child labor in a society. This article thus analyzes the different approaches towards child labor eradication and the prominent hurdles in implementing international and national norms against child labor. A case study of assessing hurdles in laws implementation is done in Pakistan. Pakistan is an economically developing state, that is why the cases of children indulging in health hazard work is prominent. 2.2 International studies on Child rights Jones (2011) described in what are children’s rights? Contemporary developments and debates how the idea of child rights has emerged, identifying the ways in which different pressures for change continue to develop the way rights are legislated for and understood. It has given brief examples of the kinds of policies that are emerging and has shown how changes in long-held attitudes and practices are a consequence of the child rights agenda. The chapter introduced areas key to child rights including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), and the UK’s Human Rights Act 1996 (HRA). Examples that link child rights to their lived experiences were used to illustrate the ways in which the practical application of legislation affects children and those working with them. Kim (2008) paper considers whether letting children combine work and school is a valid and effective approach in Cambodia. Policy makers’ suggestions that child labor should be allowed to some extent due to household poverty appear ungrounded as no signià ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ cant relation between children’s work and household poverty is found while arranging school time table s à ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¡exibly in order to accommodate households’ perceived need for children’s labor may increase problem s of insufà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ cient teaching hours if schools conduct their time tables un reliably. Considering these issue s, the paper suggests the need for a more diversià ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã‚ ed app roach to dealing with the impact of child labor on their school education. Claire (2012) Investigated the relationship between representation and cognition in a study with 105 3-7 yr olds designed to test the implications of 2 major theories of childrens drawings. The classical or conceptual theory considers the young childs drawing of the human figure as an index of his concept of a man, and predicts uniformity across representational tasks which vary media and instructions. In contrast, R. Arnheim defines the representational process as the invention of structurally equivalent forms in a given medium, and predicts that representation will vary as a function of the task and the medium. Results of 11 representational tasks support Arnheims theory that representation varies as a function of the medium, instructions, practice, the provision of parts, and the childs developmental level. Sadruddin (2012) evaluated in critical studies on the Asian countries assessment on children rights that the Implementation of Children rights in few Asian Countries, particularly, Pakistan. The study identified the important issues of children in Asian Countries besides highlighting the value and importance of children. The study conclude that although the issues of children were highlighted by most of the Asian countries but the practical Implementation of the Children Rights in Asia, particularly Pakistan, were over shadowed during the last few years. Very few laws were imposed in favor of children rights without practical imposition to resolve the issues of children in Asia. 2.3 Studies on child rights in Pakistani media IFJ (2002) reported in Putting Children in the Right that Those looking for a check list to work from may find this section annoyingly imprecise. The overall duty of a journalist or other media professional doing this kind of work is to act in the best interests of the child and of children and to try to deal with ethical issues with clarity and honesty. This will not guarantee that they make no mistakes, but would dramatically improve the quality of media coverage of children’s issues. The Convention on the Rights of the Child is based on the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity. Journalists should extend those qualities to children. The daily challenge to journalists and media organizations is particularly felt in coverage of children and their rights. Jabeen (2014) This research article child protection data: an analysis of news coverage of child protection issues in Pakistan, argues for the need of systematic data, not only for recognition of child protection issues, but also for formulation and implementation of policy and practice responses in Pakistan. Through a systematic review of the newspaper coverage of child protection issues over a period of 20 years, the actual and potential risks to children are highlighted, thus, providing a methodological justification to use newspapers coverage as a record of child protection problems. Further, with its focus on the language and content of the coverage, this article shows how representation of child protection issues in the print media reflect the existing reality on the one hand, and on the other may affect people’s perceptions of these issues. 2.4 Studies on child rights in International media Cheity (2004) reported in his research work the coverage of child sexual abuse in popular magazines since the early 1990s. The article employs systematic analysis to identify and analyze articles in four popu-lar magazines. Articles are analyzed by subject, length, and publication. The results affirm established theories of newsworthiness related to the coverage of specific stories over time. However, inter-est in the subject waned in the past 10 years, with the brief and dramatic exception of coverage connected to the Catholic Church in 2002. The findings demonstrate systematic differences between the slants of the four magazines studied. The findings also suggest that child abuse professionals could improve the quality of cover-age by agreeing to interviews in connection with articles about childhood sexual abuse. Goddard Saunders (2000) explained in their research work the gander neglect and textual abuse of child rights in print media that in recent years the relationship between the media and child abuse has been subjected to closer inspection. Research at Monash University into the media portrayal of child abuse has led the researchers to examine the language used by the print media to represent both children who have been abused or neglected and the offences committed against them. This paper presents two findings from this research. The analysis firstly found that a child who has been abused or neglected may be objectified in print media language even when the child’s gender is previously identified. Secondly, the analysis found that the language used to describe the sexual abuse of children may serve to reduce the seriousness of offences. These phenomena, termed ‘gender neglect’ and ‘textual abuse’, are highlighted by examples from UK and Australian pri nt media. The authors argue that ‘critical language awareness’ is important for children, just as it has been identified in research that examines the representation of women in print media. Wilczynski, Sinclair, and young (1999) explained in their study Moral Tales: Representations of Child Abuse in the Quality and Tabloid Media that although child abuse is a favorite topic for media stories, there has been little research on how the media portrays such issues. The present research examined the media construction of child abuse in a comprehensive sample of all 1302 reports on the subject during 1995 in a representative quality and tabloid newspaper in NSW. Criminal justice agencies were the predominant sources used for the stories; child abusers were individualized and demonized by the press and used to promote ‘law and order’ agendas; and there was little coverage of the social causes of abuse and prevention issues. Although both the quality and tabloid press demonstrated these features, there were some marked differences between the coverage in the two sources, such as a much greater emphasis on individual cases in the tabloid press. 2.6 Media studies on Human rights Sial (2009) explained in his research named Human rights Reporting in Pakistani Media that Media reports on human rights influence people, but there is a lack of investigative reporting on human rights issues in Pakistan. The journalists do not have the required expertise and training to investigate and report on rights issues. Only a few journalists are committed to human rights reporting whereas most of them are either indifferent to or skeptical of rights issues. The environment is comparatively better for human rights reporting in the English media where journalists are not forced to work in multiple areas and have an educated audience. The Urdu media relies much on sensationalization, a narrative devoid of investigation and personal bias. A balanced and impartial analysis of the issues is largely misssing. Dunn (2012) explained in his research paper on emerging sociological theories on human rights: social structure, human agency, and inequality that sociological theories of human rights are relatively less developed, but such frameworks are crucial for the development of the unique contributions to the human rights topic that sociology can make. Foremost among these is conceptualizing the role of inter-relationships between social structure, human agency, and inequality as they impact human rights and efforts to promote them. Nwanko (2011) reported in his research work Role of the media in promoting human rights: an analysis of the BBC documentary chocolate: The bitter Truth. This study has tried to look into what role the media play in the promotion of human rights. This was done by looking into the case of BBC One and the documentary, chocolate: the bitter truthà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã… ¸, which it produced. The documentary dwelt on the use of child labour in cocoa farms in West Africa. The study was aimed at finding the reason why the BBC chose to promote human rights through the production of the documentary. It also tried to find out how the contents of the documentary are shaped to promote human rights. Human rights theories literature arc commonly incompatible to one or both of Aeijaz (n.d.) expressed in his thesis Theoretical and Philosophical foundation of human rights that human rights theories interpreted as expression of philosophical optimism, even arrogance. The philosophical task is to explicate Minows dilemma of difference† and acknowledge both the fact and fluidity of difference. The objectives of undercurrent research are intending to investigate the comparative analysis of coverage of child rights in Urdu and English Pakistani newspapers. The study of Sial (2009) reported coverage of human rights in Pakistani news media. The findings of that study revealed that Urdu Newspapers sensationalizing the issue. Other studies of literature review are also supporting the arguments of the current research.

Kant and the Morality of Anger Essay example -- Philosophy Papers

Kant and the Morality of Anger Introduction This essay does not comprise a defence of retributive punishment, neither does it imply a rejection of deterrent punishment. The writer suggests that one possible reason for the tendency to advocate punishment of offenders with ever increasing severity can be discovered in the concept of the 'morality of anger'. It is this explanation of the phenomenon that forms the principal burden of the arguments used in this essay. The salient characteristics of the two theories of punishment, which find expression in English law, will be found below [1]. In the absence of any definitive public policy an unresolved tension exists, which derives from attempts made to reconcile the two theories, with some degree of balance, in sentencing practice. Actual sentences in the English courts are often a compromise between the demands of retribution and deterrence. Any uncertainty that may exist about which theory is being used, in particular circumstances, leads to actions which cannot be completely justified by either theory [2]. Crime and Punishment in Kant's Civil Society According to Kant's moral theory an exacting principle of respect for humanity, in the form of the person, can be reconciled with the absolute necessity of punishment, because punishment, within a properly constituted civil society, is a legitimate and necessary response to crime — punishment must comply with the moral law as a 'categorical imperative [3]. Kant's theory of retributive punishment is of particular importance, because it is one of the most coherent and consistent of the retributive theories, and has not lost its relevance in contemporary discussions [4]. Kant's civil society rest securely on th... ...Foundation Course The Open University 1986, Units 13-15 pp. 68-76 Feinberg, Joel Harmless Wrong Doing, The Moral Limits of the Criminal Law Oxford 1988, pp. 159-165 Guyer, Paul (Ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Kant Cambridge 1992, Essay 10, 'Autonomy, obligation and virtue: An overview of Kant's moral philosophy', pp.309-341, also Essay 11, 'Politics, freedom and order: Kant's political philosophy,, pp.342-366 Hoffe, Otfried Immanuel Kant New York 1994 Honderich, T Punishment, The Supposed Justifications Oxford 1989, pp. 208-237 Paton, H J The Categorical Imperative London 1947 Rawls, John A Theory of Justice Oxford 1972 pp. 251-257 Singer, Peter A Companion to Ethics Oxford 1993 Essay 32, 'Crime and Punishment', C L Ten pp. 366-372 Sorell, Tom Moral Theory and Capital Punishment Oxford 1987 Walker, Nigel Why Punish? Oxford 1991

Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism

We study about three psychological school of thought Behaviorism, Cognitivism and Constructivism. In this reaction paper I notice my opinion and attitude and personal analyze about them briefly. One of the point that always think about it is that why some school of thought speak and focus on one factor of human being and deny many other factors of human nature as we see in BEHAVIORIST they believe that human nature like a tabula rasa and It assumes that each one behavior and acquisition either reflexes created by a response to sure stimulus within the environment. They didn't mention anything about inherited factors or inner of human obviously the environment, reinforcement and punishment play a great rule in acquisition but they ignore many aspect of human mind like creativity activity and looking a learner like automaton and passive creature. Radical Behaviorism maintain some important distinction with methodological form they acknowledge the view that organisms are born with innate behaviors, and also accept the role of genes and biological components in behavior. So it is more rational and moderate form of behaviorism. Cognitive theories center around the conceptualization of understudies learning procedures and address the issues of how data is gotten, sorted out, put away, and recovered by the mind. Learning is concerned not such a great amount with what students do but rather with what they know and how they come to get it. Cognitivism focus on that part of learning which deny in Behaviorism, mental activities of human mind they consider previous acquired knowledge, experiences and different abilities of each learners. They emphasize making learning significant furthermore, helping students sort out and relate new data to existing information in memory. The role of teachers in charge of helping students in sorting out that data in some ideal way. Originators utilize procedures, for example, advance coordinators, analogies, progressive connections, and grids to enable students to relate new data to earlier information. This school is more practical and flexible for considering the learner as active creature. Constructivism focus on learner and different aspect of attitude in every subject that learners can gain it. Individual and personal learning has a great role in their school. The learners in active mental process of learning should analyze and understand past experiences and adding them more details and knowledge through new experiences. We live in a real world we need practical knowledge that useful for our life so activity, knowledge, concept, culture, context are essential factors of process of learning. Plainly the focal point of constructivism is on making intellectual instruments which mirror the astuteness of the way of life in which they are utilized too as the bits of knowledge and encounters of people. There is no requirement for the mere obtaining of fixed, unique, independent ideas or subtle elements. Every different concept can be true and juxtaposition of individual ideas are gathering in social constructivism. In brief word we need all type of thinking in our world and combination of them are useful and meaningful to create more mature human being. In conclusion we can not select the best school of thought. Sometime we need to drill accents by repeation in some case we need to find out individual ability and rational and pragmatic analyze of our students. So I myself think all of them are effective in different situation and it depends on age and level of leaners and goals of lecturers. Combination of them can help us make an attractive method for language learner. Differ ideas and situation can challenge the students and help us to find out which one better work on every individual or group of learner.

International Diversification and the Market Value of New Product

Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of International Management International diversi? cation and the market value of new product introduction Chi-Feng Wang a,1, Li-Yu Chen b,? , Shao-Chi Chang c,2 a b c Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan Department of Management, Fo Guang University, Taiwan Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan article info Article history: Received 11 January 2011Received in revised form 31 March 2011 Accepted 31 March 2011 Available online 2 May 2011 Keywords: International diversi? cation New product introduction Technological capability Marketing capability Event study abstract Although previous studies on international diversification are plentiful, they mainly focus on the effect of international diversification on overall firm performance, and the results are mixed. This study extends this line of research and explores the impact of international diversification on new product performance.Specifically, we ask if international diversification explains the stock market reactions to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. We find an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversification and the announcement returns of NPIs, revealing that the market value of NPIs initially improves and then declines with increasing international diversification. The results also show that intangible assets, such as technological and marketing capabilities, positively moderate the relationship between international diversification and the market value of NPIs.Our study not only highlights the importance of considering both sides of international diversification in affecting investors' assessments of corporate new product strategies, but also shows the possibility of internal capabilities in changing the fixed relationship between international diversification and the market value of new products.  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction According to the theory of foreign direct investment (FDI) (Caves, 1996; Dunning, 1988; Hymer, 1976) and portfolio theory (Jacquillat and Solnik, 1978; Lessard, 1973, 1976; Solnik, 1974), international diversi? ation will lead to higher ? rm value. However, existing studies examining the impact of international diversi? cation on ? rm performance have yielded inconclusive results. The results on the relationship between international diversi? cation and ? rm performance has been found to be positive (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Grant, 1987; Rugman et al. , 2008), negative (Collins, 1990; Zaheer and Mosakowski, 1997), U-shaped (Capar and Kotabe, 2003; Gaur and Kumar, 2009; Lu and Beamish, 2001), inverted-U-shaped (Brock et al. , 2006; Garbe and Richter, 2009; Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Hitt et al. 1997) and horizontal-S-shaped (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). To better understand the in? uence of international diversi? cation, we extend this line of research by studying the impact of international diversi? cation on new product performance. Speci? cally, we test if international diversi? cation explains the stock ? Corresponding author at: Present address: Department of Management, Fo Guang University, No. 160, Linwei Rd. , Jiaosi, Yilan County 26247, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 3 9871000 23816. E-mail addresses: [email  protected] net. tw (C. -F. Wang), [email  protected] fgu. edu. w (L. -Y. Chen), [email  protected] ncku. edu. tw (S. -C. Chang). 1 Present address: Department of Business Administration, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, No. 123, University Road, Section 3, Douliou, Yunlin 64002, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 5 5342601Ãâ€"5245. 2 Present address: Institute of International Business, National Cheng Kung University, No. 1, University Road, 701, Tainan, Taiwan. Tel. : + 886 6 2757575Ãâ€"53506. 1075-4253/ $ – see front matter  © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10. 1016/j. intman. 2011. 03. 002 334 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 arket responses to new product introduction (NPI) announcements. NPIs are an important dimension of innovation output. 3 Firms with the ability to introduce new products are signaled as those with the opportunity for differentiation and future earnings (Chaney et al. , 1991; Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In order to improve the performance of NPIs, many ? rms are engaged in international diversi? cation activities (Kogut and Zander, 1993; Peng and Wang, 2000). Previous studies have documented that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? s and costs (Contractor et al. , 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004; Ruigrok et al. , 2007). We suggest that these bene? ts and costs might create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms to develop new products, and hence in? uence investors' assessment of the new products introduced by ? rms. International diversi? cation may have positive effects on NPIs. For example, it allows ? rms to reach outside their domestic boundaries, providing them with more opportunities to gain new ideas in terms of the types of new products that can be developed (Hitt et al. , 1997). Internationally diversi? ed ? ms also have better access to the resources resident in foreign countries that may be necessary for producing these new products (Craig and Douglas, 2000; Peng and Wang, 2000). Furthermore, international diversi? cation creates the bene? t of economies of scale by ef? ciently leveraging the initial investments on new products over a broader market base (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). In spite of the bene? cial effects of international diversi? cation, we suggest that international diversi? cation may also entail disadvantages when it comes to introducing new products. For instance, cross-nationa l distances increase the dif? ulty for internationally diversi? ed ? rms to transfer technological knowledge between countries. Differential environmental settings among countries might also constrain the ? rm's ability to absorb and apply resources towards new product development. In such cases, new products are expected to be less worthwhile for introducing ? rms with international diversi? cation activities. In addition to investigating the direct impact of international diversi? cation on the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, we postulate that investors' assessments of the value of new products may depend on a ? m's internal capabilities. Extending previous research documenting the importance of technological and marketing capabilities in determining new product success (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Yeoh and Roth, 1999), we argue that both marketing and technological capabilities assist in enhancing the bene? ts of international diversi? cation while simulta neously restricting its drawbacks with regard to the introduction of new products. We test our hypotheses by measuring the stock market responses to NPI announcements using the event-study methodology framework.The events of NPI announcements are collected for the period 1997–2005. Under the assumption of the ef? cient markets hypothesis (Fama, 1970), NPI announcements bring unanticipated information into ? nancial markets that may change the market value assessments of the announcing ? rms. In response to the new information, changes in stock prices occur, which represent investors' revision of their expectation with regard to the net present value of a ? rm's risk-adjusted expected cash ? ow generated by the new products, or stated differently, the investors' expectation of the wealth impact of NPIs.This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides the theoretical background and develops the hypotheses. Section 3 introduces the sample and methodology. The empirical res ults are presented in Section 4. Finally, Section 5 contains the discussion and concluding remarks of this study. 2. Theoretical background and hypotheses International diversi? cation has been suggested by FDI theory and portfolio theory to provide ? rms with bene? ts ranging from the ability to realize scale economies (Grant, 1987; Porter, 1986), the possibility to spread investment risks over different countries (Kim et al. 1993), the potential to arbitrage factor cost differentials across multiple locations (Kogut, 1985) and the opportunity to access resources resident in foreign countries (Hitt et al. , 1997). However, there is considerable theoretical evidence that international diversi? cation comes with both bene? ts and costs. We suggest that that these bene? ts and costs that accompany foreign expansion may create both opportunities and challenges for ? rms in terms of developing new products, and thereby affect the stock market reactions to NPI announcements.In this secti on, we review various theoretical domains in order to identify the channels through which international diversi? cation might in? uence value creation for ? rms in the context of NPIs. 2. 1. Effects of international diversi? cation International diversi? cation provides several advantages towards developing new products. First, international diversi? cation offers opportunities for ? rms to gain new and diverse ideas from a variety of perspectives (Hitt et al. , 1997). Being exposed to heterogeneous customers, technology, cultures, and competitive practices, internationally diversi? d ? rms are able to learn from the experience in foreign operations to ? nd new solutions to bettering product design and improving the quality of manufacturing know-how (Craig and Douglas, 2000). For example, the launch of a new cordless telephone by Sanyo, which had been adjusted to better meet the phone use habits of American consumers (Barkema and Vermeulen, 1998), consequently expanded the company's sales in the U. S. market. 3 Prior studies have used several ways to measure the performance of innovation, which includes R intensity (Hill and Snell, 1988; Hitt et al. 1997), number of NPIs (Cardinal and Opler, 1995; Hitt et al. , 1996) and number of patents (Francis and Smith, 1995). Though they have provided valuable insights, the measures they developed have some limitations in capturing the true value of innovation (Chaney et al. , 1991; Schankerman and Pakes, 1986). For example, R intensity is more related to the input value of innovation but does not directly measure the output value of innovation. Furthermore, numbers of NPIs or patents only measure the quantity of inventive output without considering the quality of innovation.As well, patent counts often represent a very noisy measure of the underlying value of innovation because most patents are not worth anything. The measure used in our study allows us to directly measure the wealth effect of innovation, rather than on ly considering the quantity of inventive output as has been done in prior studies. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 335 International diversi? cation also allows ? rms to gain access to resources that may only be available in foreign markets but not frequently obtainable in the home countries to develop new products (Peng and Wang, 2000).By tapping into the technological skills and knowledge that originates from other countries, multinational ? rms may be able to successfully increase their technological strength in developing new products (Hitt et al. , 1997; Kotabe, 1990; Peng and Wang, 2000; Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001). Moreover, international diversi? cation provides a ? rm with a wider national network, which helps increase its ability to effectively leverage technological resources and rationalize production processes. These economies of scale can enable the ? m to obtain higher returns from new product innovations (Bartl ett and Ghoshal, 1989; Kogut, 1985). Furthermore, the broader market outlets available to new products create higher returns on the sunk costs of innovative spending (Subramaniam and Venkatraman, 2001), while cash ? ows generated from large-scale foreign operations provide ? rms with the resources needed for extra investment in new product development (Kobrin, 1991; Kotabe, 1990). Notwithstanding the above bene? ts, international diversi? cation can bring challenges to the development of new products. The ? rst challenge comes from the dif? ulty in transferring technological knowledge between countries. The more countries within which the ? rm operates, the larger geographic distance the technological know-how has to be transferred, and the less effective the ? rm will be in developing new products. Furthermore, with increasing diversi? cation, the differences in cultural, economic and technological settings among the countries increase. These differences reduce the effectiveness in assimilating and applying the technological knowledge that is critical for new product development (Chang and Wang, 2007; Hitt et al. 1997); while knowledge diversity can create greater learning value (Inkpen, 2000), differences in knowledge does not guarantee successful learning (Bowman and Helfat, 2001; Chang and Singh, 2000; Szulanski and Winter, 2002). In addition, arguments from the economic law of diminishing returns suggest that the higher degree of international diversi? cation a ? rm is involved in, the more likely it is to be entering markets whose marginal contributions are relatively minor (Contractor et al. , 2003). Beyond a certain point, after already having expanded into the most advantageous markets, the ? m is left with minor or peripheral foreign markets whose resources for and cash ? ow from new product development will exhibit diminishing returns. By drawing on various theoretical perspectives, the above discussions suggest that international diversi? cation no t only create opportunities but also impose barriers to the value creation provided by new product innovation. With moderate levels of international diversi? cation, ? rms can capitalize on valuable bene? ts of knowledge learning, resource access and production ef? ciency in producing new products.At the same time, economic pro? ts rise as the ? xed costs of new product development are spread across more markets (Kogut, 1985; Porter, 1986). However, ? rms that expand internationally beyond an optimal level may ? nd that the costs of international diversi? cation eventually exceed the bene? ts. Firms at this stage often enter countries that are more geographically and culturally dissimilar, which increases the dif? culties of transferring technological knowledge between countries. The value of new product innovation may also exhibit diminishing returns when international diversi? ation is increased beyond the optimal level. Based on the above, this study proposes a non-linear and inv erted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements, suggesting that the market value of NPIs is expected to improve with increasing international diversi? cation at lower levels of international diversi? cation and then decline with increasing international diversi? cation at higher levels of international diversi? cation. For these reasons, we propose our ? rst hypothesis as follows: Hypothesis 1.The relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements is inverted-U-shaped, with a positive slope at lower levels of international diversi? cation and negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. We utilize event-study methodology to capture the valuation effect of corporate new product strategies. This approach not only permits direct investigation of changes in announcing ? rms' shareholder value, but is also suited to conduct cross-sectional analysis of the strategies underlying the value creation or destruction (Reuer, 2001).Applying event-study methodology to NPIs also facilitates comparisons with previous studies on other corporate major strategic events. 4 2. 2. Interaction effects of intangible assets and international diversi? cation Although our theoretical framework should hold for all ? rms, the effect of international diversi? cation on new product performance may depend on ? rms' intangible assets. Scholars in international business have shown that multinational ? rms with greater marketing and technological capabilities may receive higher returns from international expansion (Kotabe et al. , 2002; Lu andBeamish, 2004). Other researchers also document the importance of marketing and technological capabilities in the success of new products (e. g. , Cooper and Kleinschmidt, 1987; Danneels, 2002; Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). We make advances in linking these two stre ams of study by investigating the moderating effect 4 Previous studies have used event-study methodology to test the wealth effect of major corporate events, such as diversi? cation (Doukas and Lang, 2003; Hoskisson et al. , 1991), divestitures (Benou et al. , 2008), alliances (Das et al. 1998; Kale et al. , 2002), regulatory change (Bowman and Navissi, 2003), NPIs (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995), R expenditures (Szewczyk et al. , 1996), and patents (Austin, 1993). 336 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 of internal capabilities on the association between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. We suggest that internationally diversi? ed ? rms that have greater marketing and technological capabilities are more able to extract the bene? ts and reduce the costs of international diversi? ation, resulting in higher returns from NPI announcements. Each moderating effect is disc ussed independently below. Marketing capability is related to a ? rm's ability to acquire external knowledge through the processes of gathering, interpreting, and using market information (Day, 1994). Though international diversi? cation gives ? rms opportunities to access new knowledge, ? rms that do not have ability to identify customers' needs and to understand the factors that in? uence consumer choice behavior will not be able to achieve better targeting and positioning of its products.Therefore, ? rms that have invested in developing their marketing capability are more able to integrate the information on consumer needs in diverse markets into new product designs, and thus generate higher returns from the new products (Dutta et al. , 1999). In addition, marketing capability is re? ected in a ? rm's ability to differentiate its products from those of competitors (Kotabe et al. , 2002). A higher level of product differentiation allows a ? rm to charge higher prices for its new p roducts (Day, 1994; Yeoh and Roth, 1999). Furthermore, ? ms that spend more money on advertising and promoting their products are more likely to build successful brands, which are essential to building awareness, reducing the perceived risk that consumers associate with new products, and ? nally increasing the adoption rate of new products introduced (Chandy and Tellis, 2000; Dowling and Staelin, 1994; Sorescu et al. , 2003). This is particularly important for ? rms that are completely new to foreign customers (Helsen et al. , 1993; Srivastava et al. , 1998). Consequently, we expect that NPIs are expected to be more worthwhile for internationally diversi? d ? rms with greater marketing capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 2: Hypothesis 2. Marketing capability will positively moderate the relationship between international diversi? cation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. As mentioned, technological capability is also likely to moderate the effect of international d iversi? cation on new product development. Technology capability might represent a ? rm's ability to absorb external knowledge (Penner-Hahn and Shaver, 2005; Tsai, 2001). A ? rm may be able to access certain new knowledge through international diversi? ation, but without the capacity to absorb such knowledge a ? rm may not enhance its capabilities within new product innovation. Since knowledge gained from international markets is often tacit and socially complex (Zahra and Hayton, 2008), ? rms that have established a capability in a particular research skill are better able to interpret and assess the knowledge in that area. Technological capability also refers to a ? rm's ability to apply knowledge gained from foreign markets to commercial ends (Krasnikov and Jayachandran, 2008; Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999).Kotabe et al. (2002) have stated that ? rms with greater technological capabilities are more capable of ? nding better product design solutions. The technical risks in developi ng new products are more likely to be reduced for such ? rms (Kelm et al. , 1995). Furthermore, ? rms with greater technological capability are more able to lower production costs by improving manufacturing processes. Moreover, technological capability helps ? rms to speed up the product development process and satisfy the market more quickly (Rabino and Moskowitz, 1981). Thus, ? ms that have greater technological capabilities are more likely to enhance their revenues in international markets by providing those markets with new products of better quality. Meanwhile, ? rms that leverage their technological capabilities in the greater scope of the global market may enjoy the bene? ts of economies of scale inherent in the innovation process. As a result, we expect that NPIs are more worthwhile for internationally diversi? ed ? rms with greater technological capabilities, leading to Hypothesis 3: Hypothesis 3. Technological capability will positively moderate the relationship between in ternational diversi? ation and the stock market reactions to NPI announcements. 3. Sample and methodology 3. 1. Sample design We test our hypotheses using a sample of NPI announcement events. We collect the sample data on ? rms listed on either the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or the American Stock Exchange (AMEX) from the Dow Jones News Retrieval Service (DJNRS) database, which provides news-service articles and selected stories from the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones News Wire, and Barron's. We use the words and phrases commonly used to describe NPIs as keys for a database search routine.Examples are â€Å"introduce,† â€Å"new product,† â€Å"unveil,† â€Å"launch,† â€Å"received approval,† â€Å"to market,† â€Å"test market,† â€Å"begin selling,† along with other pertinent words and phrases. When a repeat NPI announcement from a ? rm is found in a different publication, the announcement that has the earliest date is ch osen as it is the earliest date when the information about the NPI is publicly available (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Kelm et al. , 1995). The sample period is from January 1997 to December 2005. Four criteria are used when selecting ? rms for our sample: (1) the announcing ? rms should not have other announcements ? e days before and after the initial announcement date in order to avoid any confounding events that could distort the measurement of the valuation effects; (2) daily stock return information must be available from the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP), with a minimum of 50 daily returns in the estimation period; (3) companies' ? nancial information must be available from the COMPUSTAT ? les; and (4) since we want to test the effect of international diversi? cation, only those ? rms with foreign sales data available from the COMPUSTAT ? les are included. C. -F. Wang et al. Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 337 Following these procedures, we collect a ? nal sample comprising 3061 new product announcements made by 531 ? rms in 57 industries based on the two-digit Standard Industrial Classi? cation (SIC) codes. 5 Table 1 reports the distribution of the sample by year and industry. Our data shows no obvious cluster by time period. In 2004, there are 530 announcements, accounting for 17. 32% of the total. Observations are nearly evenly distributed through the remaining years. However, our sample shows certain levels of concentration in speci? c industries.The largest concentration comes from electrical equipment (33. 61%), computer equipment (18. 09%), electro-medical instruments (9. 38%), and business services (e. g. , computer programming and the software industry) (7. 19%). These three broad categories constitute nearly 70% of the total sample. As suggested by Chaney et al. (1991), this result is expected since neither the investment opportunities nor their valuation should be random across industries. 3. 2. Measuring the stock market responses to new product announcements We employ the event study methodology to examine the stock price responses to the announcements of NPIs. This approach has been widely used in the management, accounting, economics and ? nance disciplines to examine the impact of ? rm-speci? c events on ? rm value. The event study approach suggests that, in an ef? cient capital market, the market will adjust and result in returns different from those that are normally expected if the NPI announcement has unexpected information content (Hoskisson et al. , 1991). We use the market model suggested by Brown and Warner (1985) to estimate the abnormal returns to NPI announcements. This model captures a ? rm's stock price change after adjusting for general market-wide factors and the ? m's systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985). The abnormal return for ? rm i on day t, ARit, is computed by: ARit = Rit ? E? Rit = It ? 1 ? ; where Rit is ? rm i's actual returns on day t, and It ? 1 represents the information set available to the market about the ? rm at time t ? 1. The expected return for ? rm i on day t is estimated by: E? Rit = It ? 1 ? = ? i + ? i Rmt where Rmt is the return for the market portfolio on day t, ? i is the intercept, and ? i measures the risk or sensitivity of the ? rm's returns relative to the market portfolio. We de? e Day 0 (t = 0) as the initial announcement date. We use the value-weighted CRSP Index as the proxy for the market portfolio. The parameters ? i and ? i are estimated using data for the period of 200 to 60 days before the initial announcement date. The two-day cumulative abnormal returns, CAR (? 1, 0), are estimated by summing the daily abnormal returns over the window period of days ? 1 and 0. The equally weighted cross-sectional average abnormal returns on ? event day t, ARt , is further calculated by: 1N ? ARt = ? ARit ; N i=1 where N is the total number of sample NPIs. The cumulati ve average abnormal return over the period (? , 0) is similarly de? ned. 3. 3. Measuring international diversi? cation We use the entropy index to estimate international diversi? cation. 7 The entropy measure of international diversi? cation is de? ned as ? [Pi* ln(1/Pi)], where Pi is the percentage of sales in geographic segment i, and ln(1/Pi) is the weight of each geographic segment. This measure thus considers both the number of geographic segments in which a ? rm operates and the relative importance of sales contributed by each geographic segment. 5 For the industry classi? cation, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the our-digit SIC codes as the indicator of the industry or business segment that a ? rm operates. Therefore, two variables in this study, namely product diversi? cation and industry R&D intensity, are estimated basing on the four-digit SIC codes. However, for the sake of brevity, we report the sample distribution by industry on the basis of the two-digit SIC code s. 6 Other performance measures of new product strategies that are most commonly used in previous studies include return on assets, return on sales, return on equity, return on investment and pro? t margin (e. g. , Li and Atuahene-Gima, 2001; Moorman, 1995).However, these accounting measures have several limitations in measuring new product performance (Chang and Wang, 2007; Kalyanaram et al. , 1995; Pauwels et al. , 2004). For example, the differences in accounting policies across ? rms make performance comparisons dif? cult. These measures are also not risk-adjusted as they do not consider business risks associated with individual ? rms when measuring performance, and they are based on historical accounting data and thus may not adequately re? ect future expected revenue streams resulting from the new products. More importantly, these measures re? ect aggregate ? m performance, making it more dif? cult to directly link them to the effect of speci? c new product introductions. Due to these limitations we employ an event study methodology in order to examine stock price responses to announcements of NPIs. This method captures the ? rm's stock price change after adjusting for the ? rm's systematic risk (Bowman, 1983; Brown, 1989; Brown and Warner, 1980, 1985), as well as re? ects investors' expectations of a ? rm's future cash ? ow related to this new product (Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Chen et al. , 2002; Kelm et al. , 1995). 7 Previous studies have used several proxies of international diversi? ation. The most commonly used measures are the ratio of foreign sales to total sales (Grant, 1987; Tallman and Li, 1996), the ratio of foreign assets to total assets (Daniels and Bracker, 1989; Ramaswamy, 1995), numbers of foreign countries in which a ? rm has subsidiaries (Delios and Beamish, 1999; Tallman and Li, 1996) or a composite index encompassing these three dimensions (Gomes and Ramaswamy, 1999; Sullivan, 1994). However, these measures only capture the extent but not the distribution of international diversi? cation. In this study, we follow Hitt et al. (1997) and use the entropy measure of international diversi? ation to account for the extent of sales in global markets and their weighting. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 338 Table 1 Distribution of new product introduction. Panel A. Sample distribution by year Year Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 Total 354 279 370 313 232 247 391 530 345 3061 11. 56 9. 11 12. 08 10. 22 7. 58 8. 07 12. 77 17. 32 11. 30 100. 00 Panel B. Sample distribution by industry Two-digit SIC code Industry group 01 12 13 15 16 17 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 33 34 Agricultural production cropsCoal mining Oil and gas extraction Building construction: general contractors Heavy construction other than building construction contractors Construction: special trade contractors Food and kindred produc ts Tobacco products Textile mill products Apparel, ? nished prdcts from fabrics and similar materials Lumber and wood products, except furniture Furniture and ? xtures Paper and allied products Printing, publishing, and allied industries Chemicals and allied products Petroleum re? ning and related industries Rubber and miscellaneous plastics products Leather and leather products Primary metal industriesFabricated metal products, except machinery and transportation equipment Industrial and commercial machinery and computer equipment Electronic and other electrical equipment and components, except computer equipment Transportation equipment Measuring, analyzing, and controlling instruments; photographic, medical and optical goods Miscellaneous manufacturing industries Railroad transportation Motor freight transportation and warehousing Transportation by air Pipelines, except natural gas Transportation services Communications Electric, gas, and sanitary services Wholesale trade: durabl e goods Wholesale trade: non-durable goodsBuilding materials, hardware, garden supply, and mobile home dealers General merchandise stores Food stores Apparel and accessory stores Home furniture, furnishings, and equipment stores Eating and drinking places Miscellaneous retail Depository institutions Non-depository credit institutions Security and commodity brokers, dealers, exchanges, and services Insurance carriers Insurance agents, brokers, and service Real estate Holding and other investment of? ces Hotels, rooming houses, camps, and other lodging places Personal services 35 36 37 38 39 40 42 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 67 0 72 Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 1 1 8 1 1 1 28 4 2 2 3 6 13 76 118 2 9 2 23 21 0. 03 0. 03 0. 26 0. 03 0. 03 0. 03 0. 91 0. 13 0. 07 0. 07 0. 10 0. 20 0. 42 2. 48 3. 85 0. 07 0. 29 0. 07 0. 75 0. 69 554 1029 18. 09 33. 61 72 287 2. 35 9. 38 41 4 2 144 1 1 120 20 19 10 2 3 3 8 6 14 13 2 18 17 34 5 3 9 6 6 1. 34 0. 13 0. 07 4. 70 0. 03 0. 03 3. 92 0. 65 0. 62 0. 33 0. 07 0. 10 0. 10 0. 26 0. 20 0. 46 0. 42 0. 07 0. 59 0. 56 1. 11 0. 16 0. 10 0. 29 0. 20 0. 20 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 339 Table 1 (continued) Panel B. Sample distribution by industryTwo-digit SIC code Industry group 73 78 79 80 82 87 Business services Motion pictures Amusement and recreation services Health services Educational services Engineering, accounting, research, management, and related services Nonclassi? able establishments 99 Total Number of announcements Percent of sample (%) 220 13 4 2 1 10 7. 19 0. 42 0. 13 0. 07 0. 03 0. 33 36 3061 1. 18 100. 00 As data is not available at the country level, we use sales of regional markets to measure international diversity (as used by e. g. , Hirsch and Lev, 1971; Hitt et al. , 1997; Miller and Pras, 1980). Following Hitt et al. 1997), we group foreign markets into four regions based on economic and political conditions: Africa, Asia and the Paci? c, Europe, and the Americas. Although not perfect, this approach allows us to focus on between-market heterogeneity (Kim et al. , 1989). The international market sales data are from the COMPUSTAT geographic segment tapes for the ? scal year preceding the announcements. 8 3. 4. Measuring intangible assets We measure marketing capability as the average marketing intensity (the ratio of advertisement expenditures to net sales) for the three ? scal years prior to the announcements. 9 We suggest that ? ms who invest more in marketing activities are considered to have superior marketing capabilities. We measure technological capability as the average R&D intensity (the ratio of R&D expenditures to net sales) for the three ? scal years prior to the announcements. We suggest that ? rms outspending their competitors in R&D are considered to have greater technological capabilities. We scale the measures of ? rm capabilities by ? rm size in order to ensure that the capability measure does not merely re? ect higher levels of ? nancial resources of large-scaled ? rms (following Moorman and Slotegraaf, 1999). 3. 5. Other variablesOther potential variables that could affect the value of NPIs are controlled. The ? rst is ? rm size, measured by the natural logarithm of total sales of the announcing ? rm for the ? scal year preceding the announcement (following Kotabe et al. , 2002; Lu and Beamish, 2004). We next control for a ? rm's leverage ratio, measured as the ratio of total debt to total assets for the ? scal year prior to the announcement (following Chen et al. , 2002; Chen, 2008). We also control for the degree of product diversi? cation for the ? scal year preceding the announcement. Product diversi? cation is measured by the entropy index (? Pi * ln(1/Pi)], where Pi is the percentage of ? rm sales in business segment i, and ln(1/Pi) is the weight of each segment). Following Hitt et al. (1997), we de? ne business segments as those having the same four-digit SIC codes. The product-speci? c effects are also controlled. This is necessary as some researchers have suggested that high-newness products are expected to create better opportunities for product differentiation and competitive advantage (Kleinschmidt and Cooper, 1991; Meyer and Roberts, 1986), and as such, high-newness products should receive a larger market value than updates of existing products.Furthermore, scholars have argued that ? rms introducing multiple products are more competitive in the product market and seize more market share than those announcing single products. This implies that ? rms announcing multipleproducts announcers may appropriate much of the bene? ts associated with new products, and are thus expected to experience a larger increase in market value than those announcing a single product (Acs and Audretsch, 1988; Hendricks and Singhal, 1997). Moreover, researchers have documented that the ? rst to introduce a new product in the marketplac e usually enjoys ? st-mover advantages stemming from the creation of entry barriers and switching costs, and from high consumer recognition and preference to the ? rst product (Jovanovic and MacDonald, 1994; Lee et al. , 2000). Therefore, ? rst-moving ? rms are predicted to gain a higher announcement return at the time of NPIs than followers do. The aforementioned ? rms that introduce high-newness and multiple products or ? rms that are the ? rst to introduce new products are suggested to obtain sustained competitive advantage. This argument corresponds to Williamson (1999) that ? ms getting ahead of their competitors by providing multiple and new technology, products and business solutions have more opportunities to ensure lasting sales growth. We identify these product announcement types by using structural content analysis on the news content (as in Chaney et al. , 1991; Lee et al. , 2000; Firth and Narayanan, 1996). Based on the analysis of the news content, we create three dumm y variables: NEWNESS, MULTIPLE and TIME. 8 The main reason for using data one year before the announcements is to capture the most recent impact of a ? m's attributes on the market reactions to new product introductions. Several independent variables are measured by the data one year preceding the announcements, including international diversi? cation, ? rm size, debt-to-asset ratio, product diversi? cation and two industry sector dummy variables. 9 Since the values of advertising and R&D expenditures tend to ? uctuate substantially from year to year, we use the 3-year average values of advertising intensity, R&D intensity and industry R&D intensity to reduce the chance that a random and extreme value in one year disproportionately in? ences our measure of intangible assets. 340 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 NEWNESS equals one if the product is highly innovative, and zero if it is an update or an enhancement of an existing product (as in Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008). MULTIPLE equals one for multiple-products announced simultaneously by a ? rm, and zero for single announcements (as in Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, et al. , 2002). TIME equals one if the announcing ? rm is the ? rst mover, and zero otherwise (as in Lee et al. , 2000; Chen, 2008).Finally, we consider two industry-related factors. The ? rst is the technological opportunity of the industry in which the announcing ? rms operate. Chaney et al. (1991) asserted that the valuation effect of NPIs is higher for ? rms in more technologically based industries, as they are considered to have more innovation opportunities and greater potential for future growth. In contrast, Kelm et al. (1995) found that investors respond positively to new product announcements by ? rms in less-technology-intensive industries because new product announcements by these ? rms are relatively nexpected by investors. Technological opportunities at the industry level are measure d by the average industry R&D intensity (the average values of R&D expenditures divided by net sales for all ? rms in the same four-digit SIC industry) for the three ? scal years prior to the announcements (following Chan et al. , 1990; Kelm et al. , 1995). In addition, we control for the industry-speci? c effect with two dummy variables: MANUFACTURING and SERVICE. MANUFACTURING equals one for announcing ? rms in manufacturing industries, and zero otherwise. SERVICE equals one for announcing ? ms in service industries, and zero otherwise. This is done as several studies have argued that the effect of internationality on performance for manufacturing ? rms is different from that for service ? rms (Capar and Kotabe, 2003; Contractor et al. , 2003). We therefore separate the sample ? rms into service, manufacturing and other industries according to 2-digit SIC codes and apply two industry dummies to control for the industry-speci? c effects. Table 2 presents the means, standard deviati ons, and correlations for all variables for the sample of NPI announcements. 4. Empirical resultsTable 3 provides estimates of abnormal returns around the announcement date and the surrounding days. The results show that innovations such as NPIs are perceived by investors as value-increasing activities. For the two-day announcement period cumulative abnormal returns, CAR (? 1, 0), the new product announcers experience a positive cumulative average abnormal return of 0. 194%, signi? cant at the 1% con? dence level. No signi? cant abnormal returns are observed preceding and following the announcement period. As a result, we use CAR (? 1, 0) as the dependent variable in the following regression analysis.Our results are consistent with prior studies (e. g. , Chaney et al. , 1991; Chen, 2008; Chen et al. , 2002; Kelm et al. , 1995). Table 4 reports the regression results with the dependent variable CAR (? 1, 0). We present the results without centering the variables in the ? rst ? ve mod els, and results with centering the variables on their means in the latter ? ve models. 10 Models 1 and 6 are baseline models that include only the control variables and two measures of intangible assets. Among the control variables, leverage ratio is found to be positively associated with CAR (? 1, 0), though insigni? cant in some models.This result suggests that higher levels of debt lower the expected costs of free cash ? ow (Jensen, 1986), and new products announced by ? rms with a higher leverage ratio are therefore perceived as more worthwhile. Of the two ? rm-speci? c assets variables, both R&D and advertising intensities have a signi? cant and positive impact in most models. Moreover, industry R&D intensity is found to be signi? cantly negatively associated with CAR (? 1, 0). This result suggests that investors respond positively to new product announcements by ? rms in less technology-intensive industries because new product announcements by these ? ms are relatively unexpe cted by investors (Kelm et al. , 1995). Other control variables are not found to have signi? cant explanatory power in terms of the variation in announcement abnormal returns. In model 2 (7), we test the impact of international diversi? cation on the stock market reactions to NPI announcements by including the linear and squared terms of international diversi? cation. We ? nd our Hypothesis 1 is strongly supported, as CAR (? 1, 0) is positively related to the linear term of international diversi? cation and then negatively associated to the squared term of international diversi? cation.This result suggests an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? cation and the market value of NPIs. Models 3 (8), 4 (9) and 5 (10) test the moderating effects of intangible assets by including the interaction term of international diversi? cation and advertising intensity and the interaction term of international diversi? cation and R&D intensity. 11 Model 3 (8) tests the intera ction effect between international diversi? cation and marketing capability. The statistically signi? cant and positive coef? cient of the interaction term suggests that the market value of NPIs increases when internationally diversi? d ? rms have greater marketing capacities. Thus, Hypothesis 2 is supported. Model 4 (9) tests the interaction effect between international diversi? cation and technological capability. We also ? nd a statistically signi? cant and positive coef? cient of the interaction term. Thus, Hypothesis 3 is supported. To test the robustness of these ? ndings, we simultaneously include the interaction of international diversi? cation and advertising intensity and the interaction of international diversi? cation and R&D intensity in model 5 (10). Results remain unchanged to those in models 3 (8) and 4 (9).It is noted that the â€Å"main effects† between international diversi? cation and the abnormal returns of NPIs remain robust in all models with the additi on of the interaction terms. To gain further insights into our ? ndings, we construct Figs. 1 and 2 by drawing on the results of models 3 and 4. We use CAR (? 1, 0) as the measurement of market value of NPIs. When illustrating the impact of advertising intensity (R&D intensity) and 10 Since some variables are constructed from other variables, we follow Aiken and West (1991) by subtracting each variable from its mean value in the sample to minimize their collinearity. 11To test the robustness of our conclusion, we re-examine the regression analysis by incorporating the interaction of quadratic terms of international diversi? cation and intangible asset proxies. Our conclusions remain unchanged. Variables a Mean s. d. Min Max 1. Two-day announcementperiod abnormal return(%)a 2. International diversi? cation 3. Advertising intensity 4. R&D intensity 5. Product diversi? cation 6. Firm size b 7. Debt-to-asset ratio 8. Newness 9. Multiple 10. Time 11. Industry R&D intensity 12. Service in dustry 13. Manufacturing industry 0. 194 0. 037 ? 0. 242 0. 230 0. 653 0. 012 0. 081 0. 816 8. 541 0. 00 0. 827 0. 302 0. 359 0. 236 0. 236 0. 748 0. 424 0. 022 0. 148 0. 659 1. 860 0. 149 0. 379 0. 459 0. 480 0. 390 0. 425 0. 434 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 ? 0. 781 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 0. 000 1. 382 0. 317 4. 696 2. 533 12. 060 1. 099 1. 000 1. 000 1. 000 2. 334 1. 000 1. 000 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1. 000 ? 0. 033* 1. 000 0. 102*** ? 0. 071*** 1. 000 ? 0. 004 ? 0. 042** ? 0. 016 1. 000 0. 149*** 0. 092*** ? 0. 158*** 0. 399*** 1. 000 ? 0. 111*** 0. 001 ? 0. 090*** 0. 052*** 0. 075*** 1. 000 0. 036** ? 0. 002 0. 010 ? 0. 003 0. 027 ? 0. 021 1. 000 9 0. 076*** 0. 050*** 0. 015 ? 0. 024 0. 016 ? 0. 100*** 0. 33* 1. 000 The two-day period (? 1,0) abnormal return is estimated by summing up abnormal returns from the day before (day ? 1) to the announcement date (day 0). Firm size is measured by the natural logarithm of net sales. ***p b 0. 01, **pb0. 05, *pb0. 1. b 10 11 12 13 0. 045** ? 0. 022 0. 056*** 0. 039** 0. 024 ? 0. 050*** 0. 170*** ? 0. 040** 1. 000 0. 257*** ? 0. 083*** 0. 252*** ? 0. 042** ? 0. 188*** ? 0. 098*** 0. 031* 0. 039** 0. 055*** 1. 000 ? 0. 382*** 0. 000 ? 0. 137*** ? 0. 206*** ? 0. 020 0. 199*** ? 0. 007 ? 0. 147*** ? 0. 064*** ? 0. 151*** 1. 000 0. 342*** 0. 017 0. 143*** 0. 151*** ? 0. 017 ? 0. 222*** . 009 0. 147*** 0. 068*** 0. 166*** ? 0. 960*** 1. 000 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Table 2 Descriptive statistics and correlations. 341 342 C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 Table 3 Abnormal returns for new product introduction announcements. Event day Mean AR (%) t-statistic ? 10 ?9 ?8 ?7 ?6 ?5 ?4 ?3 ?2 ?1 0 [? 1,0] +1 +2 +3 +4 +5 +6 +7 +8 +9 + 10 ? 0. 023 ? 0. 005 0. 025 ? 0. 016 ? 0. 025 ? 0. 005 0. 047 0. 001 ? 0. 039 0. 093 0. 101 0. 194 ? 0. 038 0. 058 0. 081 ? 0. 056 0. 027 ? 0. 073 ? 0. 055 0. 053 ? 0. 025 ? 0. 054 ? 0. 4 50 0. 092 0. 471 ? 0. 309 ? 0. 477 ? 0. 099 0. 888 0. 003 ? 0. 731 1. 918* 2. 038** 2. 885*** ? 0. 756 1. 086 1. 329 ? 1. 138 0. 529 ? 1. 403 ? 1. 078 1. 118 ? 0. 471 ? 0. 972 (0. 653) (0. 927) (0. 638) (0. 758) (0. 633) (0. 921) (0. 375) (0. 998) (0. 465) (0. 055) (0. 042) (0. 004) (0. 450) (0. 278) (0. 184) (0. 255) (0. 597) (0. 161) (0. 281) (0. 264) (0. 638) (0. 331) ***p b 0. 01, **p b 0. 05. Values in parentheses are p-values. international diversi? cation on CAR (? 1, 0), we hold other control variables at the average level. If the control variables are dummy ones, we substitute these variables with their modes. 2 Both ? gures provide supportive evidence for our hypotheses. First, the relationship between international diversi? cation and the market value of NPIs is found to be inverted-U-shaped, with the slope positive at lower levels of international diversi? cation but negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. For example, in Fig. 1, for ? rms with no mar keting capability, at the initial stage, there is a positive impact on the market value of NPIs with an increase of 0. 62% in CAR (? 1, 0) when the level of international diversi? cation increases from zero to 0. 8. Beyond this threshold of 0. , a higher level of international diversi? cation is associated with a decreasing CAR (? 1, 0). In Fig. 2, for ? rms with no technological capability, there is a positive impact on the market value of NPIs with an increase of 0. 63% in CAR (? 1, 0) when the level of international diversi? cation increases from zero to 0. 8. Beyond this point, more international diversi? cation results in lower market values of NPIs. In addition, these graphs illustrate the performance differences across ? rms with different levels of intangible assets. For example, in Fig. 1, for a ? rm with a degree of international diversi? cation of 0. and a level of marketing capability of 0. 3, there is an expected CAR (? 1, 0) that is almost 0. 89% higher than that for a ? rm at the same level of international diversi? cation but with the marketing capability of 0. 1; at a degree of international diversi? cation of 1. 2, there is an expected improvement in CAR (? 1, 0) of 3. 25% when the level of marketing capability increases from 0. 1 to 0. 3. The same procedure can be used to explain the moderating effect of technological capability. In Fig. 2, for a ? rm with a level of international diversi? cation of 0. 4 and a level of technology capability of 1. , there is an expected CAR (? 1, 0) that is 2. 09% higher than that for a ? rm at the same level of international diversi? cation but with the technological capability of 0. 4; at a degree of international diversi? cation of 1. 2, there is an expected improvement in CAR (? 1, 0) of 4. 92% when the technology capability of a ? rm increases from 0. 4 to 1. 6. 5. Discussion and conclusions This paper examines the importance of international diversi? cation in explaining the stock market reactions to NP I announcements. Using NPI announcements from the period 1997–2005, we found an inverted-U-shaped relationship between international diversi? ation and the market value of NPIs, with a slope positive at lower levels of international diversi? cation but negative at higher levels of international diversi? cation. This relationship is moderated by the intangible assets possessed by internationally diversi? ed ? rms. We ? nd that announcing ? rms with greater technological and/or marketing capabilities achieve higher abnormal returns from NPIs. The main effects of the international diversi? cation variables still hold after the inclusion of these moderating factors. In view of recent research having suggested a sigmoid performance effect of internationalization (Contractor et al. 2003; Lu and Beamish, 2004), we test our hypotheses in the framework of an S-shaped relationship by simultaneously adding linear, squared and cubed terms of international diversi? cation in the regressio n. However, our sample does not reveal the S-shaped association between international diversi? cation and the market value of NPI. 12 The equations for the graphs presented in Figs. 1 and 2 are as follows, respectively: CAR (? 1, 0) = ? 0. 0037 + 0. 0157 * ID ? 0. 0099 * ID2 ? 0. 0147 * AD + 0. 1476 * ID * AD and CAR (? 1, 0) = ? 0. 0049 + 0. 0168 * ID ? 0. 0112 * ID2 + 0. 0056 * RD + 0. 295 * ID * RD, where ID = international diversi? cation; ID2 = International diversi? cation squared; AD = advertising intensity; RD = R&D intensity. C. -F. Wang et al. / Journal of International Management 17 (2011) 333–347 343 Table 4 Regression analysis of new product introduction on international diversi? cation. Un-centered results Centered results Independent variables Model 1 Model 2 Intercept ? 0. 0005 (? 0. 072) ? 0. 0042 ? 0. 0017 ? 0. 0037 ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 591) (? 0. 233) (? 0. 525) (? 0. 122) 0. 0178 0. 0157 0. 0168 0. 0143 (3. 156)*** (2. 737)*** (2. 967)*** (2. 486)** ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0112 0. 0113 (? 2. 188)** (? 2. 175)** (? 2. 434)** (? 2. 455)** International diversi? cation International diversi? cation squared International diversi? cation ? Advertising intensity International diversi? cation ? R&D intensity Firm size a Debt-to-asset ratio Product diversi? cation Advertising intensity R&D intensity Newness Multiple Time Industry R&D intensity Service Manufacturing Adjusted R2 F value Number of observations a Model 3 Model 4 0. 1476 (2. 236)** ? 0. 0001 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 336) (? 0. 484) 0. 0072 0. 0071 (1. 531) (1. 516) ? 0. 0001 0. 0000 (? 0. 069) (0. 037) 0. 0667 ? 0. 0147 (2. 100)** (? 0. 04) 0. 0090 0. 0087 (1. 878)* (1. 832)* ? 0. 0003 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 182) (? 0. 138) 0. 0016 0. 0016 (1. 085) (1. 055) ? 0. 0007 ? 0. 0006 (? 0. 466) (? 0. 407) ? 0. 0034 ? 0. 0032 (? 1. 804)* (? 1. 686)* 0. 0020 ? 0. 0007 (0. 032) (? 1. 121) ? 0. 0005 ? 0. 0015 (? 0. 079) (? 0. 252) 0. 0051 0. 0064 2. 20*** 2. 41*** 3061 3061 Model 6 0. 0036 (0. 637) 0. 1629 (2. 458)** 0. 0295 0. 0003 (0. 676) 0. 0073 (1. 569) ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 744) 0. 0527 (1. 673)* 0. 0093 (1. 941)* ? 0. 0004 (? 0. 195) 0. 0017 (1. 141) ? 0. 0006 (? 0. 389) ? 0. 0018 (? 0. 977) ? 0. 0030 (? 0. 519) ? 0. 0012 (? 0. 218) 0. 0005 1. 15 3061 Model 5Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 0. 0022 0. 0032 0. 0030 0. 0042 (0. 392) (0. 567) (0. 517) (0. 726) 0. 0178 0. 0174 0. 0192 0. 0189 (3. 156)*** (3. 081)*** (3. 375)*** (3. 326)*** ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0099 ? 0. 0112 ? 0. 0113 (? 2. 188)** (? 2. 175)** (? 2. 434)** (? 2. 455)** 0. 1476 (2. 236)** 0. 0333 (1. 978)** (2. 225)** ? 0. 0001 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 257) (? 0. 410) 0. 0085 0. 0086 (1. 803)* (1. 824)* ? 0. 0001 0. 0000 (? 0. 102) (0. 012) 0. 0709 ? 0. 0185 (2. 226)** (? 0. 383) 0. 0056 0. 0049 (1. 107) (0. 971) ? 0. 0002 ? 0. 0001 (? 0. 109) (? 0. 051) 0. 0018 0. 0018 (1. 221) (1. 2061) ? 0. 0009 ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 641) (? 0. 99) ? 0. 0046 ? 0. 0046 (? 2. 341)** (? 2. 302)** ? 0. 0005 ? 0. 0016 (? 0. 082) (? 0. 265) ? 0. 0015 ? 0. 0027 (? 0. 252) (? 0. 463) 0. 0060 0. 0077 2. 33*** 2. 58*** 3061 3061 0. 1629 (2. 458)** 0. 0295 0. 0003 (0. 676) 0. 0073 (1. 569) ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 744) 0. 0527 (1. 673)* 0. 0093 (1. 941)* ? 0. 0004 (? 0. 195) 0. 0017 (1. 141) ? 0. 0006 (? 0. 389) ? 0. 0018 (? 0. 977) ? 0. 0003 (? 0. 519) ? 0. 0012 (? 0. 218) 0. 0005 1. 15 3061 Model 10 (1. 978)** ? 0. 0001 ? 0. 0002 ? 0. 0001 (? 0. 336) (? 0. 484) (? 0. 257) 0. 0072 0. 0071 0. 0085 (1. 531) (1. 516) (1. 803)* ? 0. 0001 0. 0000 ? 0. 0001 (? 0. 069) (0. 37) (? 0. 102) 0. 0667 0. 0817 0. 0709 (2. 100)** (2. 517)** (2. 226)** 0. 0090 0. 0087 0. 0249 (1. 878)* (1. 832)* (2. 659)*** ? 0. 0003 ? 0. 0002 ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 182) (? 0. 138) (? 0. 109) 0. 0016 0. 0016 0. 0018 (1. 085) (1. 055) (1. 221) ? 0. 0007 ? 0. 0006 ? 0. 0009 (? 0. 466) (? 0. 407) (? 0. 641) ? 0. 0034 ? 0. 0032 ? 0. 0046 (? 1. 804)* (? 1. 686)* (? 2. 341)** 0. 0020 ? 0. 0007 ? 0. 0005 (0. 032) (? 1. 121) (? 0. 082) ? 0. 0005 ? 0. 0015 ? 0. 0015 (? 0. 079) (? 0. 252) (? 0. 252) 0. 0051 0. 00 64 0. 0060 2. 20*** 2. 41*** 2. 33*** 3061 3061 3061 0. 0333 (2. 225)** ? 0. 0002 (? 0. 410) 0. 0086 (1. 824)*