Sunday, December 29, 2019

Critical Theory, Functionalism And Symbolic Interactionism...

In sociology, there are three major theories; critical theory, functionalism and symbolic interactionism. These theories express the structure of society in which each theory looks at a different aspects of sociology. Sociologists apply these theories in the study of society, but it becomes difficult if only one theory is applied. For that one applied theory, would only look at the aspect to which it is confined to. To successfully study sociology all three theories must be applied together. Critical theory was founded by the German philosopher Karl Marx (Little, 2016, p. 12). It was originally known as historical materialism which is â€Å"a critical analysis of capitalism that saw the material or economic basis of inequality and power relations as the cause of social instability and conflict† (Little, 2016, p. 12). Critical sociology can be defined as the â€Å"inequality and power relations in society in order to achieve social justice and emancipation through their transformations† (Little, 2016, p. 45). Novack describes critical theory as, â€Å"Marx’s sociology is essentially, the sociology of conflict and class† (Novack, 1982, p. 51-52). This was because some of Marx’s views were based on freeing the people from the capitalist structure, which to him were oppressing the lower-class citizens (Little, 2016, p. 14). As it is the aim of critical sociology to look at the power constraining class system, it also creates room for the sc ientific, â€Å"In this way the goal of sociology wouldShow MoreRelatedStructural Functionalism And Conflict Theory972 Words   |  4 Pagesand institutions. Some sociological theories are better at explaining the social world at a macro level than they are at a micro level, and vice versa. Structural Functionalism and Conflict Theory are best for macrosociology while Symbolic Interactionism is best for microsociology. The purpose of this paper is to explain how the sociological perspective has helped me better understand the social world on both a macro and micro level. Structural Functionalism is the idea that society is a unifiedRead MoreMax Durkheim And Weber Summary1032 Words   |  5 Pagessociety. Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber are the sociologists that had explained their own theories to approach problems in the early industrial revolution, and these theories are still used today in the twentieth century for people to find the answers for social change by employing these three concepts to approach the issues. The conflict theory, structural functionalism, and symbolic interactionism of Karl, Durkheim, and Webber, respectively have passed their legacy of knowledge to the currentRead MoreThe Theory Of Human Actions, Decisions, Behavior, And External Elements875 Words   |  4 PagesEarly sociologists, instrumental in the development of sociology’s three foundational theories, --George Herbert Meade, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and Karl Marx-- established the framework of symbolic interactionism, functionalism, and conflict the ory. Each played key roles in establishing the levels and focuses on analysis that are used in applying the three theoretical perspectives to the study of human actions, decisions, behavior, and other external elements, which can be explained not onlyRead MoreThree Theoretical Approaches to Sociology1326 Words   |  6 Pages3 Major Theoretical Approaches to Sociology Functionalism (a.k.a. Structural Functionalism, Functional Analysis, Positivism): Until relatively modern times the prevalent sociological perspective was Functionalism, a paradigm which analyzes social structures (such as religion, schooling, or race relations) to deduce what social functions (such as marriage conventions, college attendance, or hiring practices) derive from them. This theoretical approach views society as a system of inter-dependentRead MoreSociological Perspectives Of Structural Functionalism1490 Words   |  6 PagesThe three main sociological perspectives of structural functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactions, aid sociologist in gaining a broader understanding for purposes of this paper –religion (as a primarily social rather than theological or psychological phenomenon) and the effects on societies. In looking at how religion functions in social structures, social systems, and small group interpersonal interactions sociologists could formulate a better understanding of religion s role in societyRead MoreThe Theory Of Social Life1581 Words   |  7 Pagesrelated to each of these three theories. I will then identify which of these three theories I find most useful in studying sociology today and then I will explain the rationale behind my selection. Finally, I will provide my own argument to the debate as whether th e purpose of social research should be only to advance the understanding of human behavior or to investigate/reform harmful social arrangements. The first theory I will cover is symbolic interactionism. The symbolic interaction perspective,Read MoreInvisible Social Rules: Girl Code-- The Rules of Female Interaction1347 Words   |  6 Pagesabout your own body in a semipublic setting. This rule states that if body bashing is initiated by one of the women in a social circle, all the women must participate by offering critical commentary about their own bodies. Symbolic Interactionism From the perspective of symbolic interactionism, which is the sociological theory that focuses on the subjective meaning of human behavior on a micro-scale, body bashing allows the women involved to achieve a consensus regarding the definition of the situationRead MoreConstructivism, Symbolic Interactionism And Social Conflict Theory1509 Words   |  7 PagesSuch theoretical approaches of functionalism, symbolic interactionism and social conflict theory allow us to critically analyse and discuss the importance of globalisation, giving deeper insight into this social phenomenon. Globalisation according to Giddens is the intensification of worldwide social relations which distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by an event occurring many miles away and vice versa (1990, p.64). Due to the advancement in technology, globalisationRead MoreCapital Punishment And Its Impact On Society1292 Words   |  6 Pagesto recognize that capital punishment is a profound vi olation of human rights. There are many factors that weigh heavily on the productivity of our culture, specifically its impact on society, in terms of populace content and ineradicable norms. Theories in sociology provide us with different perspectives to view our past and current social structure. A perspective is simply one’s beliefs in how they view the world, which includes but are not limited to, the right way to punish society’s most violentRead MoreSociological Perspectives Of Functionalism, Conflict Theory And Symbolic Interactions882 Words   |  4 Pages By utilizing the different the three main sociological perspectives of functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactions. In looking at how religion functions in social structures, social systems, and small group interpersonal interactions a sociologist could formulate a better understanding of religion s role in society and the human experience. The sociologist looks at the individual, and how that individual connects to a specific societal location or setting and specifically at religion

Saturday, December 21, 2019

Marketing Strategy and the Contemporary Challenges in...

MARKETING STRATEGY AND EVAULATING THE CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGE IN MARKETING EFFECTIVNESS: A case study of Tikur Abay Transport Share Company By: Belay Getachew A senior essay submitted to St. Mary’s University College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Management in Distance Education Division July 2009 Addis Ababa Chapter One Introduction 1. Back ground In present competitive world and business environment things would not move in a steady way and as planned. As a result for the past few years every organization and company follows the pattern of strategic planning process. In most of business organization, besides creating strategic or business plan, it will be†¦show more content†¦Thus, it is more important now than at any time in the history of marketing to really understand your target market and to let this understanding drive not only your marketing decisions, but the entire decision making framework of the company. (Hiebing Cooper, 2004:4). Since the preference of customers vary from time to time and meeting their needs, wants and expectation is an impressive challenge to service providers, strategic thinking of marketing could be the best way to find the right track as competition is stiffer than the past trend. One to this developing marketing strategy is crucial in business firms and as Orville C.Walker, Jr., et,al explained the primary focus of marketing strategy is to effectively allocate and coordinate marketing resources and activities to accomplish the firms objectives with in a specific product market. Therefore, the critical issue concerning the scope of a marketing strategy is specifying the target market(s) for a particular product or product line. Next, firms seek competitive advantage and synergy through a well integrated program of marketing mix elements (Primarily the 4Ps of product, price, place, promotion) tailored to the needs and wants of potential customers in that target market. (2004:12). As the study of this paper is attributed to service providing firms like Tikur Abay Transport Share Company it would be vital to examine the behavior of business service from theoretical point of view. Thus for an

Friday, December 13, 2019

Energy crisis Free Essays

string(56) " demand growing in winter beyond transmission capacity\." An energy crisis Is any great shortfall (or price rise) In the supply of energy resources to an economy. It usually refers to the shortage of oil and additionally to electrlclty or other natural resources. The crlsls often has effects on the rest of the economy, with many recessions being caused by an energy crisis in some form. We will write a custom essay sample on Energy crisis or any similar topic only for you Order Now In particular, the production costs of electricity rise, which raises manufacturing costs. For the consumer, the price of gasoline (petrol) and diesel for cars and other vehicles rises, leading to reduced consumer confidence and spending, higher transportation osts and general price rising. AIM 2. The aim of this assignment is to highlight the crises which Pakistan is facing in terms of energy. MAIN BODY 3. Energy resources have depleted! Whatever resources are available are simply too expensive to buy or already acquired by countries which had planned and acted long time ago. Delayed efforts In the exploration sector have not been able to find sufficient amounts of energy resources. Nations of the world which have their own reserves are not supplying energy resources anymore; only the old contracts made decades ago are active. Airplanes, trains, cars, motorbikes, buses and trucks, all odes of transportation are coming to a stand still. Many industries have closed due to insufficient power supply. Price of oil has gone above the ceiling. At domestic level, alternate methods like solar, biogas and other methods are being tried for mere survival 4. The above is a likely scenario of Pakistan and around the globe after 25 years. A pessimistic view, but realistic enough to think about and plan for the future. But are we doing anything about it? Lets have a look at the current energy situation of Pakistan and the world. Pakistan’s economy is performing at a very high note with GDP growing at an exceptional rate, touching 8. 5% in 2004-05. 1n its history of 58 years, there has been only a few golden years where the economy grew above 7%. This year official expectations are that GDP growth rate will be around 6. 5 – 7. 0%. For the coming years, the government Is targeting GDP growth rate above With economy growing at such a pace, the energy requirements are likely to increase with a similar rate. For 2004-05, Pakistan’s energy consumption touched 55. 5 MTOE (Million Tons of Oil Equivalent). 5. The energy consumption is expected to grow at double digit if the overall economy sustains the targeted GDP growth rate of 6% by the government. Pakistan’s energy requirements are expected to double in the next few years, and our energy requirements by 2015 is likely to cross 120MTOE. By 2030, the nation’s requirement will be 7 times the current requirement reaching 361 MTOE. Pakistan’s energy requirements are fulfilled with more than 80% of energy resources through Imports. 6. Pakistan is most likely to face a major energy crisis in natural gas, power and oll In the next three to four years that could choke the economic growth for many years to come, official estimates and energy experts suggest. Pakistan’s total energy requirement would Increase by about 48 per cent to 80 million ons of oil equivalent (MTOE) in 2010 from about 54 MTOE currently, but major petroleum minister on condition of anonymity for the simple reason that he had also served the present government. 8. Major shortfall is expected in the natural gas supplies, he said. According to official energy demand forecast, he added, the demand for natural gas, having about 50 per cent share in the countrys energy consumption, would increase by 44 per cent to 39 MTOE from 27 MTOE currently. Partly contributed by gas shortfalls, the power shortage is expected to be little over 5,250MW by 2010, he said, adding that the oil demand would also increase by over 23 er cent to about 21 million tons in 2010 from the current demand of 16. 8 million tons. This would leave a total deficit of about nine million tons of diesel and furnace oil imports, he said. Since the gas shortfalls were expected to be much higher, the country would need to enhance its dependence on imported oil, thus increasing pressure on foreign exchange situation, he added. 7. According to the former minister, the government had planned five major initiatives to meet these energy requirements. They included three gas import pipelines, Gwadar port as energy hub and LNG import. However, four of these measures, including the three import pipeline projects, show no signs of progress for various reasons while concentration on energy facilities in Gwadar would chiefly depend on security situation, besides oil and gas import pipelines. 8. Planning Commission sources said the government had planned to add an overall power generation capacity of about 7,880MW by 2010. Of this, about 4,860MW is to be based on natural gas, accounting for 61 per cent of capacity expansion. However, the gas-based power expansion of about 4,860MW would remain in doubt since these estimates were based on gas import options for ompletion in 2010, 201 5 and 2020, said the sources. The fifth initiative of LNG import was on schedule and would start delivering about 0. 3 billion cubic feet of gas (BCFD) by 2009 and another 0. 5 BCFD by 201 5, said the sources. 13. Pakistan’s gas reserves are 32. TCF at present, with reserve-production ratio in the order of 27 years, considering that domestic production does not grow substantially. Power sector demand represents 41 per cent of total gas consumption, general industries 24 per cent, fertiliser 7. 8 per cent and domestic-commercial 22. 8 per cent, cement 1. 5 per cent and CNG 2. 8 per cent. . Demand growth has been up to 8. 5 per cent in recent years and is expected to be seven per cent with power industries and domestic consumption accounting for 82 per cent. Gas demand already displays seasonal pattern with national demand growing in winter beyond transmission capacity. You read "Energy crisis" in category "Papers" Therefore, supplies to large users mainly industries and power plants are curtailed during winter months to ensure supplies to domestic, commercial and small industries. Annual production at present is about 1. 16 TCF. 10. The country may plunge into energy crisis by the year 2007 due to rising electricity demand which nters into double digit fgure following increasing sale of electrical and electronic appliances on lease finance, it is reliably learnt Thursday. The country may face energy crisis by the year 2007 following healthy growth of 13 per cent in electricity demand during the last quarter, which will erode surplus production in absence of commissioning of any new power generation project during this financial year,† informed sources told The Nation. 11. As per Pakistan Economic Survey 2003-04, electricity consum ption has increased by 8. 6 per cent during first three-quarter of demand surged up to 13 per cent during last quarter. The survey said household sector has been the largest consumer of electricity accounting for 44. per cent of total electricity consumption followed by industries 31. 1 per cent, agriculture 14. 3 per cent, other government sector 7. 4 per cent, commercial 5. 5 per cent and street light 0. 7 per cent. 12. Keeping in view the past trend and the future development, WAPDA has also revised its load forecast to eight per cent per annum as against previous estimates of five per cent on average. Even the revised load forecast has also failed all assessments due to which Authority has left no other option but to start load anagement this year, which may convert into scheduled load shedding over a period of two year, sources maintained. The country needs a quantum Jump in electricity generation in medium-term scenario to revert the possibilities of load shedding in future due to shrinking gap between demand and supply of electricity at peak hours. 13. According to an official report, the gap between firm supply and peak hours demand has already been shrunk to three digit (440 MW) during this fiscal and will slip into negative columns next year (-441 MW) and further intensify to (-1 ,457 MW) during the financial year 2006-07. The report maintained that the difference between firm supply and peak demand is estimated at 5,529 MW by the year 2009-10 when firm electricity supply will stand at 1 5,055 MW against peak demand of 20,584 MW. 14. Chairman WAPDA Tariq Hamid at a Press conference early this year warned about the possible energy crisis and stressed the need for ‘quantum Jump’ in power generation. The experts say it could only be possible through a mega project of hydropower generation, otherwise the gap between firm supply and peak demand will remain on the rise. They said the power generation projects, which are due to ommission in coming years are of low capacity and will not be able to exceed the surging demand of the electricity. 15. They say no power generation project will commission during this fiscal year and the total installed capacity of electricity generation will remain 19,478 MW to meet 15,082 MW firm supply and 14,642 MW peak demand. Giving details of projects, the sources said Malakand-lll (81 MW), Pehur (18MW) and combined cycle power plant at Faisalabad (450MW) are planned to be commissioned during the year 2007. Mangla Dam raising project would also add 1 50 MW capacity to the national grid by June 2007. Besides this, Khan Khwar (72MW), Allai Khwar (121 MW), Duber Khwar (130MW) and Kayal Khwar (130MW) are expected to be completed in 2008 along with Golan Gol (106MW) and Jinnah (96MW). Moreover, Matiltan (84MW), New Bong Escape (79MW) and RaJdhani (132MW) are expected by 2009 while Taunsa (120MW) is likely to be completed by 2010. Sources say WAPDA has also planned to install a high efficiency combined cycle power plant at Baloki (450MW), which is expected to be completed by 2010. In addition of these, power plant 1 2 of 300 MW each at Thar Coal with the assistance of China are also lanned for commissioning in 2009, sources said. Moreover, efforts are also under way with China National Nuclear Corporation for the construction of a third nuclear power plant with a gross capacity of 325 MW at Chashma, they added. 23. RECOMMENDATIONS that is generally considered feasible for tropical and equatorial countries. Even though the accepted standard is 1,000 W/m2 of peak power at sea level, an average solar panel (or photovoltaic † PV † panel), delivers an average of only 19-56W/m2. Solar plants are generally used in cases where smaller amounts of power are required at remote locations. PV is also the most expensive of all options making it less attractive. b. Industrialization around the world has taken place because of the abundance of reliable and cheap electrical power (infrastructure, human resource and government incentives follow). Reliable and cheap availability of electric power in Pakistan will lead to large-scale investment in industry, creation of Jobs, elimination of unemployment and poverty, greater manufacturing and exports, trade surplus and the reduction of deficits. It will lead toa prosperous Pakistan. c. Smaller windmills are also very feasible for remote villages, and in desert, mountainous and oastal regions, cutting down on the cost of power transmission and distribution networks. In remote farmlands, they have been successfully used for decades in the United States and Europe d. The supply of natural gas in Pakistan has been depleting over the years, and the country is now looking at the option of importing gas from Qatar and Central Asia. This leaves the possibility of exploring nuclear, coal and other alternative energy sources. e. Nuclear energy and coal form the lowest source of power production in Pakistan. On the other hand, the world average for nuclear energy is 16 per cent and for coal 40 per cent. There have been alarming predictions by groups such as the Club of Rome that the world would run out of oil in the late 20th century. CONCLUSION 24. Although technology has made oil extraction more efficient, the world is having to struggle to provide oil by using increasingly costly and less productive methods such as deep sea drilling, and developing environmentally sensitive areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The world’s population continues to grow at a quarter of a million people per day, increasing the consumption of energy. The per capita energy consumption of China, India and other developing nations continues to ncrease as the people living in these countries adopt western lifestyles. At present a small part of the world’s population consumes a large part of its resources, with the United States and its population of 296 million people consuming more oil than China with its population of 1. 3 billion people. Efficiency mechanisms such as Negawatt power can provide significantly increased supply. It is a term used to describe the trading of increased efficiency, using consumption efficiency to increase available market supply rather than by increasing plant generation capacity. How to cite Energy crisis, Papers