The growth of car industry in a developing country - CHINA, USA and UK Essay

The growth of car industry in a developing country - CHINA, USA and UK - Essay Example Two phases are Literature review and an original research. In original research, a questionnaire would help in supporting a few findings. Main focus of this research would be on the Literature Review that would actually help in 80% of the recommendations and findings. In the last, crux of all the findings would be discussed that would also identify the fuel influence so that to know if the petroleum is a restricted reserve and gasoline will perhaps develop into a very luxurious liveliness foundation. The assessment indicates the practicability of the UK car development in the sequential conditions and at in present creation forecasts about its prospective expansion trends. The literature review touches the comprehensive car industrialized industry to identify the causes of the decline in the United Kingdom car industry as well as the strengths and weaknesses of British car manufacturers. The methods for investigate are based on the examination of secondary data appropriate to the cla ssification of the trends in the UK automobile industrialized. Conclusions are made about the car-industrialized outputs in the UK and the anticipated ricochet in the production levels. Automotive production is the mounting at an unparalleled momentum in Asian district in the globe, mainly due to a saturating automotive manufacturing of a western world. China, India, & ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) countries are the main dynamic markets for Asian automotive trade. Asian Automotive Industry Outlook (2007 2011) testimony provides a purpose scrutiny on Asian Automotive industry to investigate the prospective opportunities and challenges faced by the production (Wire, 2008). The automotive trade designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells the worlds motor vehicles. In 2008, more than 70 million motor vehicles, counting cars and profitable vehicles were fashioned global (OICA, 2007). In 2007, a entirety of 71.9 million innovative automobiles were sold

Feminist Movement Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Feminist Movement - Research Paper Example This discussion will not only focus aspects of changing gender roles among females and males over the last 40 years. Before the 1960’s, a large percentage were only accepted in programs that were perceived as simple and involved social aspects of interaction for instance: Teachers, convent sisters, nurses and secretaries (tavaana.org). However, with the increased advocacy of equality in job opportunities for women in more technical programs in the 1960’s, a significant percentage of women began accessing enrolment in medical schools as well as colleges that provided, many women also began accessing employment in manufacturing industries; however at a lower wages compared to men (tavaana.org). In article published by the United States History, Arts & Archives, it is indicated that women were not given the right to vote before the introduction of the Women’s Suffrage movement. With the introduction of this movement, women were given the right to vote and occupy political offices (history.house.gov). These rights have since saw a shift in political power and decision making issues, leading to a scenario where women can lead the society and make pertinent decisions just like men. In a research undertaken by the Pew Research on Social and Demographic Trends, it was noted that the United States’ Labor Force accounts for 38% women and 62% men since that 1970’s. The research indicated that the number was attributed to the wide range of public consensus concerning the changing role of women and men in the society. Additionally, the study indicated that approximately 75% of the American populace agree that women should not go back to their traditional roles as home cares, but should work equally like men and contribute to their families’ income (www.pewsocialtrends.org). This is another aspect of a change in role between men and men. Over the last four decades, men and women have take almost equal roles in provision of responsibilities in

Grammatical constraints on code-switching

Grammatical constraints on code-switching Grammatical constraints on code-switching The behaviour of bilingual and multilingual speakers in a wide variety of speech communities and a broad range of social contexts has been the subject of research since the 1970s. Specific attention has been paid in the literature on bilingualism/multilingualism to the phenomenon of code-switching, one of the results of which has been the proposal of and subsequent debate surrounding a number of different grammatical approaches to it. This essay will attempt to examine and discuss some of the main grammatical approaches to code-switching, and go on to look at the arguments advanced to support (and undermine) these. As Poplack (1980) mentions, authors of the early literature when not focusing on the sociolinguistic and discourse elements relating to code-switching concluded that code-switching was a phenomenon that occurred at random. Subsequent research has shown that there are code-switching patterns and that switching is, in fact, subject to grammatical rules; the debate now is centred on what, exactly, those rules are. The various theories put forward by scholars in this field of research seek to elaborate universally-applicable rules that account for all instances of code-switching in all language pairs. As will be seen in this essay, and as is claimed by Gardner-Chloros and Edwards (2004) and Alvarez-Cà ¡ccamo (1998), none of these theories achieves its aim. It is worth bearing in mind that, broadly speaking, there are two main â€Å"types† of code-switching: intersentential and intrasentential. The latter is arguably of greater interest to researchers as â€Å"it is only there that the two grammars are in contact† (Myers-Scotton and Jake (1995)). There are several main grammatical approaches to code-switching which fall into a number of broad categories, each of which will be discussed in turn. Gardner-Chloros and Edwards (2004: 3-4) argue that any given grammatical approach to code-switching depends on the sense of the word â€Å"grammar†. They claim that at least five senses of the term can be identified and, of those five senses, grammatical approaches to code-switching have focused (explicitly or otherwise) on the following two: Formal grammar; and Chomskyan/Universalist grammar Poplacks study of code-switching amongst a sample of bilingual Puerto-Ricans in New York City (1980) is an empirical test of two simple constraints that, she claims, are universally applicable: the Equivalence Constraint and the Free Morpheme Constraint. The Equivalence Constraint dictates that intrasentential switches will only be made by any bilingual speaker (regardless of the speakers proficiency in his or her L2) â€Å"at points in discourse where juxtaposition of L1 and L2 elements does not violate a syntactic rule of either language, i.e. at points around which the surface structures of the two languages map onto each other†. So a bilingual speaker implicitly obeys the syntactic rules imposed by the respective grammars (which, in this model, are deemed to share rules that apply to the use of particular lexical items or language constituents) and will only make a switch from one code to the other at points where that switch will not violate the rules of either grammar. Indeed, the title of Poplacks paper is a case in point: (1) Sometimes I start a sentence in Spanish y termino en espanol(â€Å"and finish in Spanish†) Here, the switch is made at a point in the sentence where the Spanish subordinate clause â€Å"y termino en espanol† does not violate the grammatical rules of English (which are deemed to set the framework for the sentence): the verb â€Å"terminar† is correctly inflected (â€Å"termino† first person singular, present indicative) as the English verb â€Å"to finish† would be (i.e. â€Å"I finish†) had the clause been uttered in the latter language and indeed, the grammar of the subordinate clause does not violate any grammatical rules of Spanish, were the entire sentence to be uttered solely in Spanish. The Free Morpheme Constraint states that an intrasentential switch may be made by any bilingual speaker â€Å"provided [a] constituent is not a bound morpheme†. Thus a sentence such as: (2) And what a tertuliait was, Dios mio! (And what a gathering it was, my God!) is acceptable under the Free Morpheme constraint (note that idiomatic expressions such as Dios mio above are â€Å"considered to behave like bound morphemes in that they show a strong tendency to be uttered monolingually†), unlike a sentence such as: (3) *Estaba type-ando su ensayo (She was type-ing her essay) Subsequent discussion and research have shown that Poplacks Constraints theory is not universally applicable to all language pairs or all instances of code-switching. It would appear that the Constraints model sits perfectly with Poplacks own data set drawn from her sample Puerto-Rican speech community, and may be appropriate for language pairs which share particular grammatical, syntactic or lexical features, such that these facilitate switches that indeed do not violate any grammatical rules of either of the languages in contact. Nevertheless, Poplack has continued to defend and refine the model, arguing that instances of code-switching that violates either or both of the constraints are not code-switches at all, but rather what are termed by Poplack â€Å"nonce borrowings† (a term first coined by Weinreich (1953)). These, it is argued, are tantamount to single-word code-switches: words from the L2 are used in an L1-dominant utterance but have yet to become an established pa rt thereof. Poplack argues that the Free Morpheme constraint is â€Å"a consequence of the nonce borrowing hypothesis (Sankoff et al, 1990)†. However, further research has yet fully to substantiate the claim of universal applicability of the Constraints model to all language pairs and all instances of code-switching. Other constraints models have also been put forward, amongst others, by Pfaff (1979) in her study of Spanish-English code-switching and borrowing. She argues that there are four main types of constraints on constraints: functional, structural, semantic and discourse-related.   Further constraints have also been formulated by Woolford (1983) in her generative model of code-switching (again based on data from Spanish-English bilinguals). Such constraints models can be contrasted with the far more elaborate Matrix Language Frame model developed and advocated by Myers-Scotton and her collaborators (1993 and subsequently refined: 1995, 2000), in which sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics are combined within a grammatical approach to code-switching. The notion of a base or matrix language was not new when the MLF model was initially published by Myers-Scotton. Work by Klavans (1985), Joshi (1985) and others had already posited a â€Å"frame† or â€Å"matrix† into which elements of the other language could be embedded. The broad lines of the MLF are as follows. Myers-Scotton makes the case for code-switching to involve a base or matrix language (ML), into which pockets of embedded language are inserted. The ML, then, is the â€Å"unmarked† language choice that provides the grammatical structure for the utterance or discourse, with â€Å"islands† of EL inserted at grammatically acceptable points of that utterance. She distinguishes between different types of morphemes and the role they play in code-switching: the ML supplies the system morphemes (closed-class items) in the sentence, while the EL supplies a proportion of the content morphemes (open-class items). There is also a psycholinguistic dimension to the MLF model, in that the ML is deemed to be more â€Å"activated† than the EL; it therefore lends itself more readily to providing the frame for code-switching between a bilingual speakers two (or more) languages. In seeking to define â€Å"matrix language† Myers-Scotton argues that the decision made on the part of bilingual speakers to make intrasentential switches is â€Å"based on social, psychological and structural factors†. It is these factors that essentially form the basis of a definition of the ML. There are two structural criteria involved:  § The ML is the language that projects the morphosyntactic frame for the CP that shows intrasentential CS. This is operationalised by two principles: the morpheme order principle, which states that the â€Å"surface morpheme order (reflecting surface syntactic relations) will be that of the ML†; and the system morpheme principle, which states that â€Å"all system morphemes that have grammatical relations external to their head constituent (i.e. participate in the sentences thematic role grid) will come from the ML†.  § The ML generally supplies the greater number of morphemes in intrasentential code-switching. The sociolinguistic aspects of the MLF model underpin the psycholinguistic ones: as stated above, the ML is the â€Å"unmarked† or expected language choice for the exchange between code-switching speakers. It is pointed out, however, that this is not always the case, for instance when the speakers do not share the same first language. It is also argued that the ML can change over the course of an exchange, in relation to situational changes for example. The distinction between content and system morphemes is central to the MLF model, in that they help to identify the ML and EL. Under the MLF model, content morphemes come mainly from the EL, with system morphemes coming principally from the ML to form the frame in which code-switching can occur. There are, however, difficulties in using morphemes to identify the ML, particularly when a speakers bilingualism is quite balanced. The quantitative criterion states that the majority of the morphemes in a code-switched utterance will come from the ML. However, this raises the issue of sample size which Myers-Scotton herself concedes is difficult to determine and comes up against instances of code-switching by balanced bilingual speakers who use both of their languages more or less equally; the number of morphemes from each language will, therefore, be more or less equal, thus undermining the applicability of the quantitative criterion posited in the MLF model in identifying the ML. . Like the Constraints model, subsequent research and commentary have led to the MLF model being refined into its current form, the 4-M Model. In this theory, further distinctions are drawn between categories of system morpheme. Attempts are also made to resolve issues in the original MLF model, such as double morphology. An interesting aspect of the MLF model is that it does not adopt the â€Å"sentence† as an appropriate unit for the grammatical analysis of code-switching. Myers-Scotton instead uses the CP (complement phrase) as an analytical unit, which she defines as a syntactic structure expressing the predicate-argument structure of a clause, plus the additional syntactic structures needed to encode discourse-relevant structure and the logical form of that clause. Because CP explicitly assumes that the unit of structure includes COMP (complementizer) position, it is a more precise term than either clause or sentence. For all of its innovation and complexity which sets it in stark contrast with the simplicity of the Constraints model discussed above the MLF model does not account for all instances of code-switching in all language pairs, fitting only with certain language pairs, and particularly with Myers-Scottons data set drawn from East African languages and dialects; as well as â€Å"cases of very asymmetric bilingualism† where the speakers proficiency in one or other of the languages in contact is weaker. So neither the Constraints model nor the MFL model gives a complete grammatical description of code-switching; instead, they each describe a particular form or class of code-switching into which particular language pairs or forms of bilingualism fit. A more complete view is therefore required. Muysken (2000) proposes a typology of code-mixing (a term that he favours over â€Å"code-switching†, which he reserves for referring to instances of rapid interchange between languages in the same discourse) that attempts to encompass both of the models discussed above, with an additional component that he terms â€Å"congruent lexicalization†. He argues that there are three main types of CS: Alternation: this is a form of code-switching in which bilingual speakers alternate between their two (or more) languages. An example of alternational code-mixing is Poplacks Constraints model. Insertion: in this form of CS, speakers insert chunks of switched constituents from the L2 into discourse framed in L1. Muysken argues that the MLF model is an illustration of insertional code-mixing. Congruent lexicalization: this is code-mixing between language pairs that share close morphological and phonological ties. An example of one such language pair (and the corresponding code-switching) is provided by Clynes study of Dutch-English code-switching in Australia (1987). Muysken argues that different language pairs will fit into one or other of those types. So, rather than proposing a â€Å"one size fits all† grammatical approach to code-switching/code-mixing, he acknowledges that code-mixing/code-switching between different languages pairs will display different characteristics, rather than claiming that all instances of code-mixing/code-switching will fit into a single immutable model or theory. It is interesting to note that Muysken is also a proponent of the Chomskyan Government model of code-switching. In a paper co-authored with Di Sciullo and Singh (1986), it is argued that the government constraint, whereby there can be no switch in codes between a governor constituent and its corresponding governed item, will serve to predict which switches will and will not be acceptable, regardless of the languages in contact in a bilingual persons lexicon. The model, however, does not account for or predict all instances of code-switching; indeed, bilingual speakers will code-switch at any point in any given utterance, Government or no. Even when the scope of the model is restricted to lexical government by non-function words (Muysken 1990), it remains an overstatement. It must also be borne in mind that this model will change as many times as Chomskys theory of Universal Grammar goes through its various transformations; in its current incarnation of the Minimalist Program, the not ion of Government has been cast aside altogether owing to definitional difficulties Another take on the generativist approach to code-switching is the â€Å"null theory† of code-switching. A number have been put forward (Mahootian (1993), Chan (1999), MacSwan (1999, 2000), Woolford (1983)). The basic premise of the â€Å"null theory† approach whether it is couched in terms of Tree Adjoining Grammar (Joshi 1985) or the Minimalist Program/Principles and Parameters is that code-switching can be described in terms of grammatical principles relevant to monolingual grammars, without postulating additional devices or constraints that are specific to code-switching itself. This is an attractive argument, but far from compelling. Generativist models are highly abstract, to the point where they are too far removed from the realities of bilingual speech. The underlying premise of Chomskys notion of the monolingual â€Å"ideal speaker† is not helpful here, as it leads to generalisations about bilingual speakers that are simply not accurate, as they are not a reflection of how bilinguals combine their languages in speech. Additionally, the â€Å"ungrammatical† nature of speech weakens any grammatical model of code-switching (see below). There are a number of reasons why none of these models (perhaps with the exception of Muyskens proposed typology of code-mixing) can account for all instances of CS. 1. Variability: As Gardner-Chloros and Edwards rightly point out, this variability is found between communities, within a single community, right down to the speech of individuals and even within the speech of a single individual within the same conversation (2004: 4). This may be the end result of and, at the very least, related to the idiolectal competence of individual speakers. 2. Nature of bilingual speech: Bilingual speakers are known to employ all kinds of devices and â€Å"tricks† to avoid being constricted by the dictates of grammatical rules. Speakers use pauses, interruptions and other means to neutralize any grammatical awkwardness resulting from switching at a particular point in the sentence.These devices serve a functional purpose in allowing speakers to make full use of both of their languages, and legitimising combinations from languages that are typologically different (e.g. word order). 3. Abstract nature of the notion of â€Å"grammar† and â€Å"sentence†: These are abstractions used by linguists to conceptualise language behaviour, in this instance amongst bilingual speakers. The issue here is whether such abstractions are relevant to the analysis of CS as seen in bilingual speech. The concept of the â€Å"sentence† may not be appropriate to the analysis of code-switching in any event: speakers rarely utter fully-rounded, grammatical sentences in everyday discourse and code-switch at will with seemingly little concern for the grammaticality of the (intersentential or intrasentential) switches that they make so effortlessly. Furthermore, from a grammatical analysis perspective, Gardner-Chloros and Edwards argue that even if the sentence were to be accepted as the â€Å"upper limit of grammar† and a meaningful unit in the context of code-switching, this would mean that grammatical approaches would only seek to explain intrasentential swit ches whilst omitting intersentential switches and conversational â€Å"moves† (2004: 5). The fundamental question at issue is whether or not a grammatical approach to code-switching is even appropriate. Given the variability of code-switching and the nature of speech in general and bilingual speech more specifically it seems particularly difficult to formulate any kind of universally applicable principle or constraint that accurately predicts how, where and when a bilingual speaker will switch codes, let alone whether that switch will â€Å"grammatical†. Variability lays at the very heart of code-switching; it is a reflection of a human ability to handle and manipulate language in any way that serves the speakers purpose in any given situation and with any given interlocutor(s). Another salient point that emerges is whether code-switching is even an observable fact. Gardner-Chloros (1995) argues that CS is an â€Å"analyst construct†, a product of linguists conceptualisations of language contact and language mixing and, as such, not separable from borrowing, interference or pidginisation (1995: 86), be it in ideological or practical terms. She also argues that the abstract concept currently accepted in bilingualism research is â€Å"fuzzy† and should in fact be used as a much broader term for a range of interlingual phenomena in which strict alternation between two discrete systems is the exception rather than the rule (1995: 68). If that is indeed the case, is it possible to begin to formulate a â€Å"grammar of code-switching† when there is still uncertainty as to what code-switching actually is? The arguments put forward by Alvarez-Cà ¡ccamo (1998) are also related to the points raised by Gardner-Chloros. In tracing the development of code-switching as a field of bilingualism research and of applied linguistics as a whole, he distinguishes between linguistic varieties and communicative codes, arguing that code-switching pertains to the former category and, as such, suggests that â€Å"code-switching† is perhaps a misnomer. He proposes that the concept of CS in its current form be both narrowed to exclude unrelated phenomena that have come under the banner of â€Å"code-switching†, and broadened to include those elements that have been excluded (including aspects of monolingual speech). It is difficult to see how an all-encompassing approach to code-switching can be put forward until the phenomenon of code-switching has been properly identified (and presumably labelled: â€Å"In order to argue convincingly for or against the existence of â€Å"code-switching constraints† and â€Å"code-switching grammars† () research should first convincingly prove that (a) speakers who code-switch possess two (or more) identifiable systems or languages, each with its identifiable grammatical rules and lexicon; and (b) â€Å"code-switched† speech results from the predictable interaction between lexical elements and grammatical rules from these languages.† (Alvarez-Cà ¡ccamo (1998: 36)) However, the issue here again lays in the conceptualisation of bilingual speech. Abstractions used by linguists in examining language phenomena such as code-switching remove the â€Å"human† element reflected in discourse strategies employed by bilingual speakers (discussed above; see below). A further aspect of code-switching, while not strictly grammatical, is discussed by Bentahila and Davies (1995):   the variables related to language contact situations, and how those change depending on developments in the contact situations. In a study of different generations of Moroccan Arabic-French bilinguals, they examine the relationship between patterns of code-switching and patterns of language contact and the influence of extraneous factors on those patterns. They point out that code-switching is affected by the nature of the contact between a particular pair of languages: duration of contact, for instance, and the impact of governmental language planning policies. They found that while all the bilingual speakers in their sample speech community used the same languages, their use of those same languages depended on their proficiency in both, which in turn depended on their age and the effects of governmental language planning and nationalist policies pursued in the post-c olonial continuum. It could be argued that evolving patterns of code-switching contribute to the variability of code-switching practices amongst bilingual speakers and, therefore, constitute another (indirect) reason why grammatical approaches to code-switching so often fall short. In summary, then, a number of grammatical models of intrasentential code-switching, with each claiming to predict where in the sentence a bilingual person will switch languages and that such switches will be made in such a way as not to violate any of the grammatical rules of either of the languages in contact. It is contended that, rather than achieving that aim, each model is specific to the data sets on which they are based, and can only really apply to similar language pairs. They therefore only describe an aspect of a phenomenon that is far more complex than the models would suggest. Furthermore, the applicability of the various models also depends on the â€Å"kind† of bilingual concerned and their proficiency in their respective language pairs: the Constraints model appears to be more relevant to more balanced bilinguals, for instance, while the MLF model seems to be more appropriate to more asymmetric bilinguals. It must be remembered that the models are not in stasis but rather continually refined and amended in relation to developments in their particular theoretical backdrop: the Government model of code-switching, for instance, is based on a theory of Universal Grammar that is itself evolving over time. Muyskens typology of bilingual speech (2000), which draws on the leading models of code-switching/code-mixing and seeks to account for all instances of code-switching by taking into account the various aspects involved therein, appears to be the most rounded of the grammatical approaches to the phenomenon, in that it encompasses the disparate aspects that have formed the focus of individual models. There is also the issue of whether code-switching is a phenomenon in its own right and, if not, what linguistic phenomena the concept of code-switching can be deemed to cover. Has the concept become an umbrella term used to describe a number of different linguistic devices employed by bilingual speakers? Or are these elements that are indistinguisha ble from a wider phenomenon? To conclude, it would appear that research into and grammatical approaches to code-switching have lost sight of the fact that code-switching is an abstraction used by linguists to conceptualise an aspect of the behaviour of bilingual speakers. After all, â€Å"languages do not do things; people do things, languages are abstractions from what people do† . Such a conceptualisation has led to researchers attempting to fit bilingual speech behaviour to a particular model rather than the other way around, discounting aspects such as variability, bilingual discourse strategies and the fact that code-switching is a creative, innovative process designed, it would appear, almost to avoid grammatical constraints altogether. Abstract grammatical models cannot reflect the realities of language contact and use. Not only that, but code-switching is also a gauge of language change and shift; this being the case, it is plausible that a grammatical shift would ensue, thus undermining a given m odel. Factors such as those mentioned by Bentahila and Davies (1995) must also have some kind of impact on grammatical models when these are based on a language contact situation which is shifting and evolving. A step back towards the realities of bilingual communication and speech acts, combined with an acceptance of the variability that they necessarily entail as reflected in the typology proposed by Muysken (2000) would constitute a more appropriate starting point for any grammatical approach to code-switching that sets out to be all things to all bilingual speakers.

Payouts to smokers who are ill :: essays research papers

Are payouts to those made ill by smoking justified? Over recent years research has clearly demonstrated the harms of smoking, both in terms of reduced quality of life and death. We are now able to gauge more accurately the real health impacts of direct tobacco use and environmental tobacco smoke. Of all drugs, both legal and illegal, smoking is the biggest killer. The social and economic cost of tobacco use in Victoria is more than $3 billion per year and more than two thirds the total cost of all drugs. Thirteen Victorians die every day from causes associated with cigarette smoking. Good morning/afternoon Mrs Birt and class, On Thursday the 11th of April the Supreme court of Victoria awarded Melbourne grandmother Rolah Ann McCabe $700,000 in damages after she sued one of the world's leading tobacco companies. The Victorian Supreme Court found that Australia's biggest tobacco company destroyed thousands of internal documents to deliberately subvert court processes and to deny Melbourne lung cancer patient Rolah McCabe a fair trial. Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court after her victory over British American Tobacco, Rolah McCabe pleaded with teenagers and especially girls not to smoke. Mrs McCabe is the first Australian smoker to successfully sue an international tobacco company and recently announced a donation of $70,000 to the Cancer Council of Victoria. The question raised by this is issue is are payouts to those made ill by smoking justified? Many non-smokers would say that everyone has the choice whether to smoke or not and that it is a voluntary action to smoke. But the nicotine in cigarettes is just like any other drug and can be as hard to quit has heroin. To understand whether or not people like Rolah McCabe deserve compensation from Tobacco companies, people who make opinions on this issue must be informed of the relevant information about the tobacco industry and each individual persons history. Mrs McCabe was born in Gippsland and started smoking the Capstan brand of cigarettes in 1962 at the age of 12, according to her statement of claim. Within four years she was smoking between 20 and 30 cigarettes a day. She then changed to the Escort brand in 1966 and smoked until 1992. At this stage in time anti smoking legislation had not been implemented by the Australian government as the dangers and health risks of smoking were not known. In a time of ignorance Tobacco products such as cigarettes were legally advertised on T. Payouts to smokers who are ill :: essays research papers Are payouts to those made ill by smoking justified? Over recent years research has clearly demonstrated the harms of smoking, both in terms of reduced quality of life and death. We are now able to gauge more accurately the real health impacts of direct tobacco use and environmental tobacco smoke. Of all drugs, both legal and illegal, smoking is the biggest killer. The social and economic cost of tobacco use in Victoria is more than $3 billion per year and more than two thirds the total cost of all drugs. Thirteen Victorians die every day from causes associated with cigarette smoking. Good morning/afternoon Mrs Birt and class, On Thursday the 11th of April the Supreme court of Victoria awarded Melbourne grandmother Rolah Ann McCabe $700,000 in damages after she sued one of the world's leading tobacco companies. The Victorian Supreme Court found that Australia's biggest tobacco company destroyed thousands of internal documents to deliberately subvert court processes and to deny Melbourne lung cancer patient Rolah McCabe a fair trial. Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court after her victory over British American Tobacco, Rolah McCabe pleaded with teenagers and especially girls not to smoke. Mrs McCabe is the first Australian smoker to successfully sue an international tobacco company and recently announced a donation of $70,000 to the Cancer Council of Victoria. The question raised by this is issue is are payouts to those made ill by smoking justified? Many non-smokers would say that everyone has the choice whether to smoke or not and that it is a voluntary action to smoke. But the nicotine in cigarettes is just like any other drug and can be as hard to quit has heroin. To understand whether or not people like Rolah McCabe deserve compensation from Tobacco companies, people who make opinions on this issue must be informed of the relevant information about the tobacco industry and each individual persons history. Mrs McCabe was born in Gippsland and started smoking the Capstan brand of cigarettes in 1962 at the age of 12, according to her statement of claim. Within four years she was smoking between 20 and 30 cigarettes a day. She then changed to the Escort brand in 1966 and smoked until 1992. At this stage in time anti smoking legislation had not been implemented by the Australian government as the dangers and health risks of smoking were not known. In a time of ignorance Tobacco products such as cigarettes were legally advertised on T.

Revisiting Recommendations of the Marketing Plan

The key focuses of the marketing plan are as follows: Cooperative Marketing: Techniques to create additional market awareness for two companies in one ad campaign. Offering discounts to the partners customer on the GGI products Advertising on Internet: Ads can be put on other companies’ websites, as well, in the form of banners and other â€Å"clickable† type links routing potential customers to our website. Another idea in the marketing plans talks of merging the two points mentioned. We can look at different internet sites for cities and towns, such as their respective Chamber of Commerce and other such sites where new residents, who are looking to furbish their homes, might look to for ideas of where to shop and what products to buy. The companies already respected and listed in the Chamber would be suitable for internet cooperative marketing ad campaigns. Collaborating with Dealers and Distributors : Dealers and/or independent distributors of our products could be allotted a budget to advertise based on a percentage of their net profits for the last year Measuring the effectiveness of the Marketing Plan Jaworski in his definition of marketing control states the Monitoring performance provides one informational means to help planned marketing activities produce desired results (Jaworski 1988, p.24). Control theory assumes that management has a strategy and a known set of intermediary stages (plans) with which actual performance can be compared. Metrics selection is a key process by which marketing managers can learn to improve performance by adjusting the utility levels associated with marketing. Say, if a company realizes that the performance in one of the marketing channel is not leading to the desired results they can look at realigning their strategy and look at a possibility of investing more in the other marketing avenues. Philip Kotler lists four types of marketing controls (table 22.1, p.685): annual-plan, profitability, efficiency and strategic. These distinguish whether the company is selecting the right goals (strategic), whether they are being achieved (effectiveness or annual-plan), where the company is making or losing money (profitability) and the return on marketing expenditure (efficiency). (Kotler 2003 pg 685) In the current landscape the most important for GGI is to expand its base and derive maximum mileage on minimum investment. The challenge is finding maximum share of voice in the cooperative marketing and raise Profit/Profitability Sales, Value and/or Volume Gross Margin Awareness Market Share (Volume or Value) Number of Consumer Complaints (Level of dissatisfaction) Consumer Satisfaction Distribution/Availability Total Number of Customers Marketing Spend Perceived Quality/esteem Loyalty/Retention TO achieve this, the following metrics are suggested for GGI The metrics for each marketing channel at a primary level should measure the efficiency of each channel i.e. the ROI on each channel as a whole, be it collaborative marketing or marketing through internet each channel has a role to play in the marketing strategy and that needs to be tracked. Share of wallet in case of distributor’s can be a good tool to be measured here. Each element of the channel needs to be measured on the following items: Consumer Attitudes consisting of Awareness, perceived quality, Satisfaction, relevance, image/personality, perceived differentiation, Consumer Behavior measuring Total number of customers, Number of new customers, reference customers and Loyalty Accounting would include sales, gross and net margins, profitability In case of GGI the stated metrics can be applied on the marketing channels like web marketing, cooperative marketing can be evaluated on the ROI. If the ROI of any channel is not satisfactory then the reasons can be explored from the metrics mentioned in point two (for each element). Perhaps one or more elements are not performing as expected. A remedial measure of finding a suitable element can be done. For example if the returns on the Cooperative marketing are not up to the mark we can view the performance of the elements. If they show inconsistency in data i.e. performance of some elements is satisfactory and others is not then we need to look at switching the partners chosen for cooperative marketing. On the other hand if all the elements reflect a poor quality then the channel strategy needs to be re-looked at. Improving on Metrics To improve on the metrics GGI needs to take the individual cases. For Web marketing the company needs to consider the different pricing model for putting up the banners at different websites. These models can be pay per click, fixed time banner, output based banners. The company can also look at Search Engine Optimization, Viral marketing as an extension to the Web marketing For Cooperative marketing the choice of channels would be the instrumental. Also improving on the share of voice in the common advertisement is importance.   The choice of partner is very critical. The partner should preferable be a complimentary or a reseller of similar products. But the channel dynamics become critical in these cases. References Jaworski, Bernard J. (1988), â€Å"Toward a Theory of Marketing Control: Environmental Context, Control Types, and Consequences†, Journal of Marketing, Vol.52, No.3, pp.23-39 Kotler, Philip (2003), Marketing Management, (11th edition), Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall   

PR Research Final Project Essay

CHAPTER 1 Introduction There is a widespread belief in the professional world that in today’s society the future of any one company depends critically on how it is viewed by key stakeholders such as shareholders and investors, customers and consumers, employees, and members of the community in which the company resides. Public activism, globalization and recent accounting scandals have further strengthened this belief; and have also brought the importance of strategic communications management into closer orbit. Not surprisingly, therefore, both the academic and professional worlds have been suggesting frameworks and models that prescribe steps towards the ‘strategic’ use of communications including such ideas as ‘integrated marketing communications’ (Kitchen and Schultz, 1999), ‘corporate identity management’ (Van Riel and Balmer, 1997), ‘reputation management’ (Fombrun, 1996), ‘stakeholder communications’ (Christensen and Cheney, 1994) and ‘excellent public relations’ (Grunig and Grunig, 1998). Much of this work has been prescriptive in suggesting frameworks for managing communications and for managing firm-stakeholder interactions, as opposed to a more grounded and detailed understanding of the practices of branding and communications professionals and how these may make a difference in the management of firm-stakeholder relationships. Such an understanding is, we suggest, particularly important given the rift between the importance placed by CEO’s and senior executives upon strategic corporate communications, that is, linking communications activities with the overall corporate strategy and objectives of the firm, and their views that there is a huge under-performance in the communications profession in the US, the UK and continental Europe because of a lack of qualified personnel and a limited understanding of what communication practices actually make a difference (Argenti et al. , 2005; Murray and White, 2004; Van der Jagt, 2005). Against this background, I conducted primary research into practices (responsibilities, roles and activities) of communications professionals in four corporations (Siemens, Nokia, Shell and Philips) that have had consistently strong and glowing reputations over the past years, despite market setbacks and negative coverage in the media. The overall aim here was to elicit and conceptualize in more detail the activities and issues that define CC as a public relation function in practice. This extended conceptualization is based upon a view of CC as a ‘practice’, which focuses upon how practitioners engage in the doing the ‘real work’ (Cook and Brown, 1999, p. 387) – a view that, I hope, will stimulate conceptual debate and empirical research and offer a more informed basis for practitioners to make sense of their professional realities and act upon it. CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND CRITIQUE According to writers Ewen (1996) and Cutlip (1995) the professional discipline of public relations (PR) – communication activities undertaken by an organization to inform, persuade or otherwise relate to individuals and groups in its outside environment – developed itself, expanding in its scope and activities, because of public skepticism, political reform, turmoil and activism throughout the 20th century. In PR’s early days as a discipline, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, power was largely concentrated with big businesses, although the balance has since then shifted towards powerful groups in society including governments, trade unions, investors and stockholders (Broom et al. , 1991). In response to the increased saliency and power of such groups, new areas of expertise such as investor relations, public affairs, issues management and employee communications were added to the existing specialties of media relations and publicity, and PR gradually developed into a full-fledged ‘managerial discipline’ in the early 1970s (Olasky, 1987). The ‘managerial discipline’ of PR has since then, as writers Van Riel (1995) and Cornelissen (2004) have documented, evolved into the ‘managerial function’ of CC. The fundamental contrast being that under CC communications activities and specialties (eg media relations, government relations, employee communications, community relations, advertising, investor relations, corporate design and issues management) have been increasingly taken together and consolidated into one or a few units or departments and, importantly, these activities are increasingly given shape and coordinated from the strategi c interests of the organization as a whole. Van Riel (1995: 26) for example suggests in this regard that CC as a managerial function is ‘an instrument of management by means of which all consciously used forms of internal and external communication are harmonized as effectively and efficiently as possible’, with the overall objective of creating ‘a favorable basis for relationships with groups upon which the company is dependent’. The evolution of PR into CC and its recognition as a managerial function is furthermore documented in the relatively high position of communications managers and departments (e.g. ‘Corporate communications’, ‘Public Affairs’ or ‘Corporate affairs’) within organizations’ hierarchical structures (Cornelissen, 2004), the rise of a new ‘style’ more business savvy ‘corporate communications’ manager (Freeman, 1984; Harris and Bryant, 1986; Marion, 1998), and the widespread adoption of the CC vocabulary of ‘stakeholders’, ‘identity’ and ‘reputation’ (Argenti, 1996; Van Riel, 1997). For example, a recent survey of Fortune 500 companies found that rather than using PR terminology around publics (ie people who mobilize themselves against an organization on the basis of some common issue or concern to them), managing ‘reputations’ with stakeholders is nowadays considered the lead philosophy among communication departments (Hutton et al. , 2001). In reviewing these literatures that have dealt with the function and process of communications between firms and groups in their respective environments, we observed two key points about the current conceptualization of CC and its embodiment as a managerial function in firms around the globe. First, theories and theoretical frameworks in these literatures implicate the importance of communications in firm-stakeholder interactions – and in that sense are coming together (cf Schultz et al. , 2000: 3) – but only focus on the process of communicating between a firm and stakeholders in its environment. These theories have been particularly focused on stakeholder effects and outcomes (e.g. images, reputations, relationships) established, but have paid very little attention to the managerial activities, professional issues and organizational contexts that characterize CC as a managerial function (cf Vercic and Grunig, 2000). Some work to this effect has emerged in recent years (Cornelissen, 2004; Scholes and Clutterbuck, 1998, 1997), but is still a long way off from fully conceptualizing and describing CC as a management function and practice – at least in comparison with other management functions and practices as for instance strategy (Whittington, 2003) and accounting (Hopwood and Miller, 1994). Second, there has been little actual empirical research into CC as a management function, despite the recognized importance of the function and a proliferating stream of literatures that directly or indirectly refer to it. Thus, there is a gap between theoretical deliberations on the relevance and importance of CC, and descriptive accounts of its actual use and embodiment in practice. We argue that a practice-based conceptualization of CC accounts for these limitations and provides not only a framework for extended theorizing and empirical research but also a means for practitioners to attain a fuller and richer understanding of this critical management function. The Organization of Communication Work The way in which communication practitioners and functional areas are organized is important as it not only determines to a large extent whether the communications function is enabled to provide strategic input into decision-making at the corporate level, but also whether the communication activities that are carried out at various places within the organization are streamlined and coordinated. In other words, the way in which communications is organized carries important strategic and political dimensions and is also crucial for the effective support and integration of communication activities. Ever since the 1970s, academic and practitioner writings have emphasized that firms should consolidate rather than fragment their communications by bringing practitioners and functional areas together into central organizational departments, with the purpose of pooling and enhancing communication expertise and increasing the organizational autonomy and visibility of communications within the organization (e.g. Cook, 1973; Dozier and Grunig, 1992; Grunig and Grunig, 1998; Schultz et al. , 1993; Van Riel, 1995). Siemens, for example, has consolidated all of its communications staff and their responsibilities into a ‘corporate brand and design’ department responsible for the strategic development and policing of the Siemens umbrella brand values, brand design and brand portfolio management, a ‘corporate communications’ department which includes advertising, internal communications and media relations, and a central ‘corporate messages’ unit encompassing both senior communications professionals responsible for developing and guarding the overall corporate story of Siemens and copy writers for speeches of senior managers. Such consolidation is according to a number of research surveys (eg Cornelissen and Thorpe, 2001) now commonplace, with the exception of a few large corporations like General Motors which rather than bringing functional areas together into a few central communications departments have devolved them as stand-alone units (eg a governmental affairs unit) or subordinated to other functions such as human resources or finance. Generally, then, there app-ears to be a greater consolidation of communications into a few departments, yet still in separate ‘corporate communications’ and ‘marketing’ or ‘corporate branding’ departments. Within large firms, such as multidivisional firms and multinational corporations like Siemens, Nokia, Philips and Shell, the relationship between the corporate center or group headquarters and the various business-units is usually a major strategic issue. One key structural consideration here, is as Argenti (1998: 5) suggests, to have ‘all communications focused by centralizing the activity under one senior officer at a corporation’s headquarters or to decentralize activities and allow individual business units to decide how best to handle communications’. Most large multinationals like Siemens, Shell, Nokia and Philips have a combination of centralized ‘global’ departments at the corporate center and decentralized ‘local’ departments, teams and professionals in business-units around the world. Within both Philips and Siemens, the ‘corporate branding’ and ‘corporate communications’ departments have defined a brand charter and a number of work processes to assist professionals within the business with their specific communication programs. The obvious reasoning behind these examples is that although bringing communications specialists together vertically into one or a few departments may lead to enhanced efficiency, to the ability to develop specialized, distinctive capabilities, and to ease of management through the centralization and consolidation of communication activities, it may not lead to coordination between communication-related departments and with other functional areas (eg human resources) outside those departments, and it risks ‘turf wars’, functional myopia, and over specialization. A horizontal structure overlaying the vertical structure, therefore, is often seen as necessary for coordinating disparate communications tasks and activities, which also recognizes that communications with key stakeholders might emerge from various places within the organization and that the process of developing and executing communication programs is therefore essentially cross-functional or cross-disciplinary (Heath, 1994). Horizontal structure can take various forms including multidisciplinary task or project teams, formal lines of communication, standardized work processes (Philips), council meetings (Shell, Siemens), communication guidelines (Siemens, Philips) a corporative vision and communications strategy (Nokia) or the use of ‘czars’ (senior practitioners working as integrators between departments). Large organizations in both the private and public sectors generally need at least some of these horizontal structures. Particularly in multidivisional firms operating across geographical borders, horizontal structures do not appear to be a luxury but an absolute necessity. In recent years there has been a lot of discussion around the departmental arrangement of communications and the reporting relationship of the central corporate affairs department (see Cornelissen, 2004). Ultimately, the stakes of this discussion are about the professional status of corporate communications (vis-à  -vis other established functions as human resources and finance) and its strategic involvement in decision-making at the highest corporate level. Claims that have been made to this effect include the arguments that different communications disciplines should be consolidated in a single department, and that the head of this department should report directly to the CEO or the senior management team (or be a member of this team) to bolster and secure the functional expertise as well as the strategic involvement of corporate communications in decision-making. Broom and Dozier (1986) and Grunig and Grunig (1998) characterized this involvement in organizational decision-making as perhaps most important to the communications practitioner than any other measure of professional growth. The guiding idea in this regard is that a direct reporting relationship to the CEO may be seen as an indication that there is indeed a broad, growing recognition among corporate executives and corporate boards that the ability to succeed will depend upon the firm’s ability to effectively communicate with its stakeholders; and that therefore the communications function is recognized as an absolute, integral part of the top management function. White and Mazur (1995) have added that such a direct reporting relationship is also important as it leads to excellent communications management as senior management is counseled on issues, and stakeholder and identity considerations may more easily get factored into the process of organizational decision-making. The results from a number of studies indicate that in the large majority of cases, there is indeed such a direct reporting relationship from the staff communications department to the CEO and/or executive team (e.g. Argenti and Forman, 2000; Cornelissen and Thorpe, 2001; Grunig and Grunig, 1998; Grunig et al. , 2002; Van Ruler and De Lange, 2003). In most large firms, such a direct reporting relationships consist of counseling and advising the CEO and senior executive team on stakeholder and reputation issues, rather than having a direct involvement (through a seat on the executive team) in corporate decision-making. In a recent study in the UK, Moss et al. (2000) found that within the sample of companies studied communications directors report directly to the CEO or chairperson of the senior management team, but were not formal members of the senior management team responsible for determining corporate strategy and strategic decision-making. In other words, all of the directors in the study indicated that ‘they were often consulted on important issues likely to affect their organizations, [but] their involvement in key operational decision-making was often limited to advising on how best to present policies to the outside world or to internal stakeholders’ (Moss et al. , 2000: 299). Similarly, within companies such as Shell, Siemens and Nokia, the senior vice-president in the area of CC sits on the second-tier management team (one level below the senior executive team), and in that capacity advises and counsels the CEO and senior executive team regarding corporate decision-making. Political and Cultural Issues This is not to say, of course, that the communications director should not have a seat on the executive board and should remain in this advisory capacity, but the UK study did show the current impediments to such a move. On the one hand, there is still a considerable lack of understanding and a lack of commitment to communications among senior managers. On the other hand, many senior communication practitioners often do not meet the needs of senior managers to provide communications advice and an input into corporate strategy in ways that contribute to the accomplishment of organizational objectives and that affect the bottom line. In other words, strategic corporate communications stands or falls with highly qualified input from the communication practitioner at the decision-making table; and only then will there be such a receptive environment for that contribution. The practitioner therefore needs to produce strategically focused recommendations for strategic corporate action; bringing to the attention of top managers a broad understanding of the strategic management process and of those issues that may affect and impact upon a company’s reputation (Cornelissen, 2004; Cropp and Pincus, 2001). Otherwise, communications will be seen as a largely tactical or ‘functionary’ activity; in which practitioners are considered ‘communications technicians’. Grunig et al. (2002) have argued that for many firms, the strategic potential of CC in its boundary-spanning role appears to go largely unrealized. This is the case, Grunig et al. (2002) argue, as senior management equally tends to treat communications largely as a tactical function, concerned primarily with the technical gathering of information and with carrying out publicity and promotion campaigns to external audiences. Contribution of Work and Activities The contribution and consumption of work and activities carried out by communication practitioners takes place at three levels within large firms: the corporate, market (or business-unit), and operational levels. Strategies and activities at the corporate level are concerned with the overall purpose (mission and vision) and scope of the firm to meet its various stakeholder expectations and needs. Strategies and activities at the market level are concerned with determining how the firm will compete successfully in particular markets. Strategies and activities at the operational level concern the way in which CC manages its own resources, processes and people to help deliver corporate and market-level strategic goals. Central to the question of what type of contribution CC makes and whether this is located at the corporate, business-unit or strictly operational level, is the definition and enactment of the function as either strategic or tactical. As a strategic function, there is likely to be strategic involvement of communications practitioners in managerial decision-making at the corporate and business-unit levels. Such a strategic view of communications, which in part has already been realized within the business world but in part is also still aspirational (Cornelissen, 2004), means that communications strategy is not just seen as a set of goals and tactics at the operational level – at the level of the CC function – but that its scope and involvement in fact stretches to corporate and business-unit-wide decisions and activities. At the corporate level, where strategy and activities are concerned with the corporate mission and vision as well as corporate positioning, communication practitioners can aid managers in developing strategies for interaction with the environment. In this sense, communication practitioners are directly involved or support strategic decision-making through their ‘environmental scanning’ activities which may assist corporate strategy-makers in analyzing the organization’s position and identifying emerging issues which may have significant implications for the firm and for future strategy development. Communication practitioners can at this corporate level also bring identity questions and a stakeholder perspective into the strategic management process, representing the likely reaction of stakeholders to alternative strategy options, and thereby giving senior management a more balanced consideration to the attractiveness and feasibility of the strategic options open to them. This happened in each of the four firms (Shell, Nokia, Philips, Siemens) in our case studies. In addition, communications practitioners in these four companies also implemented the corporate strategy by helping to communicate the firm’s strategic intentions to both internal and external stakeholders, which may help avoid misunderstandings that might otherwise get in the way of the smooth implementation of the firm’s strategy.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   METHODOLOGY This research uses a case study approach to assess to asses the improved internal corporate communications in four firms.   Gerald R. Adams and Jay D. Schvaneveldt (1997) define the case study approach as â€Å"an in-depth study of one or a limited number of cases in which each case is treated as a whole†. The authors further added, â€Å"The case study approach is particularly helpful when deeper understanding is needed and when there is little concern about generalizing to a large population† (Adams & Schvaneveldt, 1997). These case studies were conducted with four European corporations with strong reputations with their stakeholders and the marketplace: Nokia, Shell, Phillips and Siemens. These four corporations were selected chiefly for two reasons. Firstly, each of these four corporations is a multi-divisional firm operating under the same corporate umbrella. As such, they are typical of other large firms with a corporate communications (CC) presence – as opposed to small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), where communications responsibilities and activities may not have evolved into one or more full-fl edged functional areas, let alone into a managerial function (cf Kotler and Mindak, 1978 ). Secondly, each of the four corporations has an excellent reputation in the eyes of their stakeholders and the general public according to ToMAC (Top of Mind Awareness of Corporate Brands) scores and reputation rankings published in recent years. The inclusion of these corporations therefore allows us to examine not only the range and kind of activities carried out within CC, but also to what extent these make a difference (given the strong reputations enjoyed by these four corporations). An analytical case-study approach was chosen as most appropriate for our theory-building purposes (Yin, 2003). It allowed us to examine CC holistically and address each of the ‘practice’ dimensions mentioned above. Interviews were conducted with up to four senior managers of each organization, for example, president of corporate communication and marketing communication, communication managers within divisions, and if possible, a board member who is responsible for (corporate) brand communication. Here, a topic guide was used with topics that are relevant in the context of the practice of CC. However, the guide left enough room for the respondent to communicate his or her particular views on in what way activities and dimensions (structure, political and cultural issues, professionals) are linked and it prevented us from pre-structuring the concept of ‘ practice ’ in any way. The topic guide consisted of the following themes: communication organization (How are communications activities and the staff responsible for them departmentalized and structured within the corporation? What organizational processes and facilities exist to support communications? What is the professional ethos and culture of communications staff and of people in other departments of the corporation?), communications work (What is the general view of people within the corporation (ie the CEO and senior managers, marketing staff, communications staff, and others) of communications and its role and contribution to the corporation? How is decision-making concerning communications strategy organized? What does the process of communications strategy formation look like, in both corporate and market-led communications? What general activities does your job involve?) and communications professionals (What is the general profile of communications practitioners working in the corporation? How are communications staff recruited and selected? What training and development initiatives and trajectories exist for communications staff?). We analyzed the data by looking for common themes across the interviewees and four corporations and by identifying links between the dimensions of CC practice. MAIN ARGUMENT The practice of CC was conceptualized   by circumscribing in very broad terms four dimensions: (1) the roles, skills and activities of practitioners, (2) the organization of these practitioners and their work, (3) political and cultural issues that contextualize and mediate these activities, and (4) the communication and consumption of the process and products of activities performed. Throughout discussion, and in the course of the primary research with Shell, Phillips, Siemens and Nokia, I identified two central processes in the practice of CC that cut across these four dimensions, and appear to be central to the field. The first process labeled as strategic positioning describes the ongoing efforts of communication practitioners to position themselves as credible communications managers to senior executives within the executive team and in other functions by developing staff, by finding appropriate mechanisms for coordinating work, by developing value-added activities and by communicating the contribution of CC. Underlying this process is perhaps the realization that communication practitioners need to enact managerial roles through management activities like environmental scanning, counseling and strategic planning that demonstrably add value to the corporation, and that they need to vie for an organizational arrangement that gives them a central, recognizable place in the firm from where to counsel and support senior management as well as managers in other functional areas. To illustrate, within Siemens the emphasis on corporate branding and the development of a corporate brand architecture was presented as central to the corporate strategy of the firm: We have to influence decisions about what businesses do we invest in and brand as Siemens and what businesses we do not want to be in †¦ We have a clear business strategy ‘ go for profit and growth ’ , which sounds really general but behind this is an intensive and very detailed program, the Siemens management system, which our branding architecture and systems tie into. The overall corporate target is to attain worldwide leadership in each of the businesses that we are active in. Business success is the most important thing and that is driving the brand values and the brand strategy’ (Director of Brand Architecture). There is a constant concern with the strategic positioning of corporate branding and corporate communications, not just to increase and communicate the current performance but also to secure a receptive environment at the senior management table. The head of corporate communication worldwide is a close advisor of our CEO. In fact, the incoming CEO, Kleinfeld, has a doctorate on the topic of corporate identity, and has a deep understanding of branding and communications’ (Vice President Corporate Brand and Design). A second process that we identified involves what we term cultural accommodation which describes how CC, its practitioners, its organization and the general way in which it is practiced is embedded in the cultural context of the firm. Effectively, the choices made by Philips, Nokia, Shell and Siemens regarding staffing, training and development, structuring and the model of communication strategy development are all highly varied, yet linked to the core of their business, history and culture. Such variety and cultural adaptation may point to what Gratton and Ghoshal (2005) call signature practices; practices and processes that embody a company ’ s character and are therefore somewhat unique and idiosyncratic, rather than general and universal for the entire industry. Signature practices are linked with the core values of the organization and evolve from a company-specific history and are embedded in its culture and core values. Within Philips, as mentioned, corporate communications is seen as a part of an Organization-wide technocratic engineering culture where every function and the work processes involved are documented and standardized, so that these can be constantly monitored, updated and optimized. Work processes (e.g. media inquiries) within corporate communications have equally been documented and standardized in flow-charts and worksheets (following ISO quality specifications). This kind of signature process may not work in other companies in the consumer electronics industry (or indeed other industries) as it is tied to Philips ’ core cultural values and company history. Within Nokia, in contrast, the corporate vision of ‘connecting people’ together with the fact that members of the company have a strong bond between them ( ‘ having embarked on the technological journey together ’ ) has led to an ‘ informal ’ , ‘ innovative ’ and ‘ can-do ’ culture of knowledge sharing and of coordinating work processes. There are little formalized work patterns or lines of communication between communication professionals within Nokia; they rather liaise frequently and informally with one another. CONCLUSIONS The preceding section is the conclusion on the ‘practice’ perspective on CC and conceptualized the important dimensions of this perspective.   These are (1) the roles, skills and activities of practitioners, (2) the organization of these practitioners and their work, (3) political and cultural issues that contextualize and mediate these activities, and (4) the communication and consumption of the process and products of activities performed. Together, these dimensions (see Table 1) provide a framework for considering the practice of CC in its entirety and in a much more comprehensive manner than previous work has done. Table 1 : Summary of the practice conceptualization of corporate communications Dimension   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Themes Roles and activities of   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   — Manager vs technician practitioners   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   — Generalist vs specialist — Professional development, status and   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   contribution Organization of   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   — Departmental arrangement communication work   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   — Reporting relationship and/or seat on executive   Ã‚     Ã‚  team — Centralization vs decentralization Political and cultural issues Status of communication practitioners and their   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   work — Added value of communication activities — Cultural accommodation Contribution of work and activities   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   — Strategic or tactical contribution Input into corporate strategy and decision-   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   making Interface between communication and other Functional areas (e.g. Finance, Human Resources, etc)   I also articulated two processes (strategic positioning and cultural accommodation) that appear to be central to the practice of CC. In all, the practice-based conceptualization of CC makes the following contributions. First, it has started to open up the ‘black box’ of the organization in which CC activities take place. CC is conceptualized as an organizational phenomenon rather than a macro strategy problem detached from the internal dynamics of the organization. Internal politics, structure and cultural issues are introduced into the field of managing CC, not as inevitable failings or difficulties within firms, but as significant for communications strategy outcomes, perhaps even as attributes to be exploited positively for the status and contribution of CC. Second, the ‘practice’ conceptualization of CC has started to ‘humanize’ the field (cf Pettigrew et al., 2002: 12). Unlike much prior work that has focused on the strategic outcomes of CC activities (e.g. strong reputations and relationships with stakeholders), a ‘practice’ perspective populates the field of CC with human beings. In effect, all forces and activities are seen to emerge from human action – from the actions and contributions of communications practitioners, as well as the reactions by senior managers and managers in other functional areas (human resources, finance, etc.) of the firm. Third, and related to the previous points, the view of CC as ‘practice’ has started to explore the agency of communications practitioners to bring about changes in corporate strategy and in the interaction between the firm and its environment, amidst general professional as well as situational constraints (Whittington, 1988 ). Practitioners can be captured in wider professional belief systems about their roles and work – that is, the aforementioned distinction between ‘manager’ and ‘technician’ roles (Pieczka and L’ Etang, 2000) – that effect and constrain their possibilities for action. Similarly, the political and structural aspects of the work situation in their firms – that is, whether there is a receptive environment among senior managers for an input from CC, and whether communications practitioners are located in departments with access (through a reporting relationship or seat on the management team) to senior management at the corporate level of the firm – effects the micro activities and agency of communication practitioners. Fourth, a practice perspective and our case studies suggest that there are clear interrelations between the roles and backgrounds of practitioners, their activities, the political and cultural situation surrounding their work, the way in which they are organized, and their input and contribution to the firm at the corporate and market levels of the firm. As such, it connects macro phenomena with micro explanations. It does not deny the importance of research that has raised the awareness of key macro issues and challenges; the challenge of achieving and sustaining strong corporate reputations with stakeholders, of identifying and building on unique organizational assets or the ‘ corporate identity ’ of the firm, of managing international communications for multinational firms. Instead, it extends such macro level accounts with descriptions and explanations of the practices and activities that underpin and constitute such phenomena. In addition, as our case studies demonstrated, the practice of CC consists of interrelated dimensions, and as such we extend prior perspectives that have narrowly focused on either dimension or only on the strategic outcomes of CC activities. Any change in strategic outcomes (i.e. stronger corporate reputations with stakeholders) is not simply a case of a creative campaign or of improving one dimension (e.g. reputation measurement to demonstrate accountability) but ultimately depends on a whole range of factors, including the professional roles and competencies of practitioners and the way in which they are organized. Table 2 summarizes the main differences between a ‘practice’ perspective on CC and the more traditional perspectives on CC that have primarily focused on macro strategic outcomes. Table 2: A practice perspective versus traditional perspectives on corporate communications Traditional perspectives on CC   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   A practice perspective on CC Primary focus   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Macro: strategic outcomes   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Micro: practitioners, processes and   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   (reputations and reputation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  structures within the organization measurement) Explanations of  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Deductive: infer best practices from  Ã‚     Ã‚   Inductive: grounded in the actual Performance  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   reputation scores across firms  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚   activities of professionals and how   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   these add value and make a   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   contribution to a firm Key strategic  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   ‘Alignment’ between the reputation     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Strategic positioning and cultural processes  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  and the identity or positioning  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   accommodation within the firm   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   communicated A fifth contribution concerns its practical implications. A practice perspective on CC extends macro level explanations of CC as outcomes of what goes on in organizations to the activities that constitute them. This perspective is concerned with the same strategic issues of importance to senior managers and communication practitioners (i.e. how to build and maintain strong corporate reputations with stakeholders of the firm?), but in terms of the organizational activities and practices, which are their fabric. As such, it provides a more comprehensive and detailed picture of how communications is and indeed can be managed. The relationships between the practice dimensions (i.e. the backgrounds of practitioners, their activities, the political and cultural situation surrounding their work, the way in which they are organized, and their input and contribution to the firm at the corporate and market levels of the firm) in particular provide managers and communication practitioners with concrete factors or attributes that can be understood and, if needed, challenged or manipulated. To communications practitioners, the profound implication is not only a greater understanding of their work but also suggestions and prescriptions for how their work can be changed or improved. More specifically, if practitioners aspire a developmental shift from a ‘tactical’ or ‘craft ’orientation to communications, characterized by technician role enactment and communications service departments or units carrying out low-level communication mechanics, to a strategic management function, they know that they need to enact managerial roles through management activities like environmental scanning, counseling and strategic planning that demonstrably add value to the corporation, and that they need to vie for an organizational arrangement that gives them a central, recognizable place in the firm from where to counsel and support senior management as well as managers in other functional areas. The two processes of ‘ strategic positioning ’ and ‘ cultural accommodation ’ that we observed in our four case studies may also be taken to hand by practitioners to bring about changes in their firms in such a way that these changes are in line with their firms ’ culture and improve the performance and standing of CC. Recommendations for Research In sum, the practice conceptualization of CC suggests a need to put the micro into macro in order to both uncover plausible linkages to performance (with stakeholder groups) and to offer tangible guides to managerial action. Some important insights, albeit preliminary and illustrative, on micro issues in CC are offered through our four case studies. However, beyond these preliminary case studies, we make two main recommendations in line with this research agenda. First, we recommend further small sample in-depth studies of CC within firms, to develop the contextual and holistic understanding of the practice dimensions of CC that is essential to unpacking the complex driving forces of the management of CC and its strategic outcomes with stakeholders of the firm. In-depth studies, particularly at this early stage of theoretical development on CC, are a necessary feature of furthering the conceptualization and understanding of CC as an area of practice. Second, we recommend process research as a methodology for capturing and explaining how the practice of CC evolves within fi rms. Process research is concerned with understanding how things evolve over time and why they evolve in this way (see Langley, 1999; Van de Ven and Huber, 1990), and process data therefore consist largely of stories about what happened and who did what when – that is, events, activities, and choices ordered over time. In his classic work on organization theory, Mohr (1982) makes a distinction between what he calls ‘variance theory’ and   Ã¢â‚¬Ëœprocess theory’. Whereas variance theories provide explanations for phenomena in terms of relationships among dependent and independent variables (eg more of X and more of Y produce more of Z ), process theories provide explanations in terms of the sequence of events leading to an outcome (eg do A and then B to get C). Temporal ordering and probabilistic interaction between entities are important here (Mohr, 1982). Within the context of CC, the emphasis is with process research on understanding patterns in events (eg the link between activities and tools of communication practitioners and changes in stakeholder reputations), either as a narrative pattern or analytical sequence of events. 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