Chemistry of Chocolate Essay Example for Free

Chemistry of Chocolate Essay Chocolate is made from the cacao bean. According to Rodney Lipson, â€Å"Cacao has been a cultivated crop for at least three thousand years, probably quite a bit more. The people who first utilized Cacao were the inhabitants of what is now Venezuela† (Lipson) This group of people would eventually spread the cacao bean in northwestern South America. Cacao was clearly highly valued by these people and they spread it northward through trade with their neighbors. It was probably the Maya, over 1500 years ago, who brought Cacao to Yucatan in what is now Mexico. The Aztecs who got Cacao from the Maya, used Cacao in a number of ways, one common way was as a bitter spice in food and possibly also as a base for pasta or bread, but the most well-known way that Cacao was as a drink. While the Maya drank Chocolate hot, the Aztecs seem to have often taken it cold. The Aztecs called the drink, and apparently the bean as well, Xocoatl. From this word comes the pan-European word Chocolate. When Europeans first made contact with the Aztec civilization, Cacao was being cultivated and used extensively. The Spanish Conquistadors quickly noticed the benefits of Chocolate and used it to keep their armies marching long distances with little food. From the Aztecs the Spanish took it to Europe. Chocolate was widely used in Catholic countries after 1569 when Pope Pius V declared that Chocolate, the drink, did not break the fast, despite the hearty nutritional aspects of Chocolate† (Lipson). Chocolate continued to be moved from country to country through trade and exploration. Soon chocolate found its way into America, and according to Lipson, â€Å"In 1900 Milton Snavely Hershey, a Mennonite from Pennsylvania, began producing milk-chocolate bars and kisses with great success. He was anti-alcohol and saw Chocolate as a good, profitable alternative. His empire grew even larger during World War I, when Milton Hershey encouraged the US Army to add four Hershey bars to each soldiers daily ration† (Lipson). Because of Hershey, chocolate was now affordable for everyone, and his methods of making chocolate are still used today. Peter’s chocolate tells us that chocolate is made by, â€Å"storing the cacao beans in silos or warehouse. These rooms are well aired, kept at cool temperature and the humidity regularly checked. Before the production stage, the beans are sorted and cleaned. Cocoa does not acquire the richness of its color and the fullness of its flavor until it is roasted. The degree of care given to this operation has considerable influence on the ultimate quality of the end product either cocoa powder or chocolate. When roasting is complete, the beans are cooled and their thin shells removed by a winnowing machine. The husked and winnowed beans are called nibs. Heres where the first secrets of the chocolate manufacturer come in. The nibs are blended, combining as many as eight to ten varieties. It is control of these subtle mixtures that maintains a constant quality and brings out the flavor of each particular variety of chocolate. The roasted and winnowed nibs then pass through refining mills and are ground. The heat generated by grinding causes the cocoa butter or fat to melt and form a fine paste or liquid known as chocolate liquor. This goes to large hydraulic presses which remove most of the cocoa butter. The cake which is left may eventually be made into cocoa powder. The cake goes through several processes in which it is crushed, milled and finely sifted. After the cocoa paste, cocoa butter, milk, sugar and additional flavorings have been carefully weighed out in accordance with the recipe, they go into a mixer where rotating, kneading arms thoroughly mix all the ingredients. The result is a homogeneous, paste-like mixture which is already pleasant to taste, but still feels gritty to the palate. The chocolate is put in a conching machine. While in the machine, the chocolate turns over in the conching machine, a controlled amount of air ventilates the mass, allowing the full aroma and flavor to develop. The still-warm conched chocolate is placed in a tempering machine so that it can be slowly and steadily cooled. The tempering prevents separation in the chocolate when its filled into bar molds and hardens† (Peter’s). This results in the average chocolate bar.

14 Elements Of A Successful Safety & Health Program :: essays research papers

Element 1: Hazard Recognition, Evaluation and Control. Establishing and maintaining safe and healthful conditions required indenifing hazards, evaluating their pontential effects, developing ways to eliminate or control them and planning action priorities.This process is the essence of successful safety and health management. Element 2:Workplace Design and Engineering Safety and health issues are most easily and economically addressed when facilities, processes and equipment are being designed. Organizations must incorporate safety into workplace design, production processes and selection.They also need to evaluate and modify or replace exisiting processes, equipment and facilities to make them safer. We explore how the design and function of the workplace can complement safety and health goals, minimize exposure to hazards and promote safe practices. Element 3: Safety Performance Management As in all areas of operations, standards must be set for safety performance. They should reflect applicable regulatory requirements, additional voluntary guidelines and best business practices. We describe how managers, supervisors and employees can be made responsible and held accountable for meeting standards within their control. We look at how job performance appraisals can reflect performance in safety and health, as well as in other areas. Element 4: Regulatory Compliance Management The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) and state safety and health agencies establish and enforce safety and health regulations.Other agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, also issue and enforce regulations relating to safety and health in the United States. We discuss key aspects of international regulations in the European Union, Canada and Mexico. Staying informed about and complying with regulations are essential goals of safety and health programs.We also look briefly at conducting regulatory compliance inspections. Element 5: Occupational Health Occupational health programs range from the simple to the complex. At a minimun, such programs address the immediate needs of injured or ill employees by providing first aid and responce to emergencies. More elaborate medical services may incude medical surveillance programs and provision for an in-house medical capability. In addition, some companies are beginning to focus on off-the-job safety and health through employee wellness and similar programs. ELEMENT 6: Information Collection Safety and health activities, including inspections, record keeping, industrial hygine surveys and other occupational health assessments, injury/illness/incident investigations and performance reviews, produce a large quantity of data. Safety and health professionals must collect and analyze this data. Small incidents often provide early warning of more serious safety or health problems. Complete and accurate records can be used to identify hazards, measure safety performance and improvement, and through analyses, help identify patterns. ELEMENT 7: Employee Involvement Design and engineering controls are limited in their ability to reduce hazards. Companies now understand that their real

Revisiting the Eclectic Theory of the Choice of International Entry Mode

Theoretical Issues on Marketing UIBE PhD Program Juan Pablo Dominguez Fall 2012 Final Examination for Theoretical Issues of Marketing (Doctoral Course) Nov. 28, 2012 Essay questions for â€Å" An Eclectic Theory of Choice of International Entry Mode † 1. What are the major variables that affect the decision of entry mode? Should they be weighted equally? Why yes or why no? 2. Given that different variables may pull the MNC in the different directions, what approach is suggested by the authors? 3. What theories have been taken as the basis for conceptualization? 4.Considering the nine propositions, do they all make sense to you? In case you find any fault with them, state it with your arguments. 5. Review the methodology adopted by this paper and make your comment on its appropriateness. 6. Discuss briefly what contributions this thesis has made to the theory of international entry mode choice. 7. What do you think of the limitation of this thesis? Revisiting the Eclectic Theor y of the Choice of International Entry Mode During the internationalization process of a company, the decision of entry mode to a particular market is determined by a set of different considerations.The paper â€Å"An Eclectic Theory of Choice of International Entry mode† is a theoretical approach to answer the questions of which factors are relevant and which are not. It reflects on how contemporary studies (particularly, Transaction Cost Theory) had a limited view of the problem by not including a globalstrategy factor in the analysis, therefore the authors try to advance the discussion by enriching the construct of additional variables that were disregarded by economical orthodoxy at the moment. This short paper is aimed to introduce in part the aforementioned document and present more recent findings in the topic.In that fashion I have divided the paper into 4 main parts besides this short introduction. The first section is a brief literature review of the theoretical bac kground behind the understanding of entry mode in the internationalization process given that the paper was published more than two decades ago. The second section aims at synthesizing the main propositions of the paper and what I consider its limitations and contributions. The third section displays empirical evidence that aimed to negate or confirm the different propositions of the authors and finally, the fourth and last section is a set of concluding remarks. Literary reviewThere is no short list about existing research regarding the internationalization process of MNEs?. When focusing on the entry mode (or ownership strategies), one can begin to see that there are three different streams of thought: one stream of research has often framed such a choice as determined by the need for control to minimize transaction costs arising from asset specificity and potential partner opportunism (Anderson & Gatignon, 1986; Williamson, 1985). According to transaction costs theory, for invest ments characterized by high asset specificity, integrated ownership structures, such as whole owned subsidiaries (WOSs), should be sed to enhance MNEs? strategic and operational control over the assets (Anderson & Gatignon, 1986) and to protect MNEs from the risk of knowledge dissemination to their partners (Davidson & McFetridge, 1985; Hill, Hwang, & Kim, 1990). Thus, transaction costs theory advocates the use of ex ante control mechanisms to minimize transaction costs arising from asset specificity and potential partner opportunism (Williamson, 1985). Another stream of research has suggested that the institutional environment shapes such a choice and proposed that MNEs may exchange ownership for legitimacy in the host country (Chan & Makino, 2007; Yiu & Makino, 2002).When foreign ownership is not prevalent or well accepted in the host country industry, MNEs can partner with local firms or keep the ownership level lower (Chan & Makino, 2007). By doing so, MNEs can show the local co mmunities that their activities are not ethnocentric or harmful to local firms, and they also obtain the local identity and legitimacy to acquire the resources that they need in the local environment (Xu & Shenkar, 2002). On the other hand, when FDI is well accepted in the local market, MNEs can pursue integrated ownership structures and high equity shares.Choice of an ownership structure thus does not necessarily reflect MNEs? deliberate efforts to economize on transaction costs for an efficient governance mechanism but may rather be a response to pressures from the institutional environment (Yiu & Makino, 2002). The third stream is as in the case of Hill et al. which posits that in addition to control and legitimacy, MNE ownership strategy is also fundamentally concerned with the choice between flexibility and commitment (Buckley & Casson, 1998; Chi & McGuire, 1996; Kouvelis, Axarloglou, & Sinha, 2001). More recent papers have taken again the same question.Li & Li in 2010 resuscit ated the topic and made a contribution by not only providing a theoretical background proposing similar hypothesis as in the case of Hill, Hwang and Kim in 1990 but also by analyzing the ownership structure and equity shares of over 5,000 new foreign investments in manufacturing industries in China during 2000 to 2006. Explaining the contents of the paper is outside of the objectives of this short essay, but the Li & Li? s took Hill et al style of theoretical constructions one step further and provided stronger empirical evidence (outside the realm of mall sample surveys) that supports the logic behind such framework. Empirical tests of MNEs' initial entry modes are rather limited, even though existing theoretical research has elaborated on the options features of JVs compared with other investment modes (Buckley & Casson, 1998; Chi, 2000; Lee, 2004; Pennings & Sleuwaegen, 2004). Cuypers and Martin (2010) observed that foreign investors are inclined to take a smaller equity share in a JV when they face strong exogenous uncertainty (e. g. , exchange rate uncertainty) rather than endogenous uncertainty (e. . , cultural uncertainty). Brouthers et al. (2008) showed that, in choosing international entry modes, MNEs tend to adopt JVs (over WOSs) under high demand uncertainty. Synthesis What are the major variables that affect the decision of entry mode? Given that different authors have considered variables like country risk, country familiarity, country development stage, technology, and transaction costs, Hill et al. begin their work with a vision to unify the framework and analyze how different factors affect the decision.The first attempt to create a unified framework was carried out by Anderson and Gatignon in 1986 through the use of transaction cost theory. I believe that the authors see the shortcoming of this initial unified proposal in the Ceteris Paribus assumption of Economics that is used only as a theoretical tool to analyze relations among events or va riables. Any theory that treats related events in isolation will be insufficient and that? s why the authors propose the strategic relationship as another vital element of the decision.Their proposal includes the following factors: !†#$%   ! â€Å"#$! ,! = ! (! â€Å"#$%†&, ! â€Å"#$%&'†   ! â€Å"##$%#&'%, ! â€Å"##$%†&'(â€Å")&   ! â€Å"#$#) Should they be weighted equally? Why yes or why no? Different factors in the decision often suggest different entry modes, it is according to the particular weights each company puts in this factors that the final choice of entry is done. In other words, when deciding entry mode different factors have different weights and according to each company’s strategic considerations, such weights will have different magnitudes.Given that different variables may pull the MNC in the different directions, what approach is suggested by the authors? The authors suggest that instead of focusing in a single var iable, the company will have a set of strategic constraints that will limit their decision options. They focus their attention on how much control the company wants, according to the resource commitment they will provide and taking into consideration the dissemination risks of their knowhow. This can be formulated as the following: ! â€Å"#$%   ! â€Å"#$! ,! = ! !†#$%†&, ! #$%&'†   ! â€Å"##$%#&'%, ! â€Å"##$%†&'(â€Å")&   ! â€Å"#$# !†#$†%&'(   ! â€Å"#$†%&'( = ! !†#$%! â€Å"&   ! â€Å"##$%$&'$(, ! â€Å"#$%   ! †   ! â€Å"#$#%&! ‘, ! â€Å"#$%†   ! â€Å"#! $%&'%(â€Å"# !†#$%&†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ(â€Å")*+   ! â€Å"#$†%&'( = ! !†#$%&'   ! â€Å"#$, ! â€Å"#$%&†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ   ! â€Å"#$%$†&$'(, ! â€Å"#$%! !†#$%&%†#', ! â€Å"#$%&#&%'   ! †   ! â€Å"#$%&'&'†( !†#$%#&'()$   ! â€Å"#! â€Å"#$%& = ! (! à ¢â‚¬Å"#$%   ! †   ! â€Å"#$ ? !†#$%&%$   ! â€Å"#$ ? ?! â€Å", ! â€Å"#$! !†#$%&   ! †   ! â€Å"#$ ? ?! â€Å") These factors come from previous research and theoretical constructs. One important analysis that needs to be done is how these factors correlate to each other.One factor that I? m not sure if it? s included in any of these variables is regulation. For example, many automobile giants in the world wanted to enter the Chinese market as WOSs but because of regulation they are forced to enter as JVs. This makes me believe that there is an unspoken assumption that the markets the authors were conceiving in their constructs were open markets with little participation of the government (maybe they include it with country risk? ). What theories have been taken as the basis for conceptualization? This heoretical construct is a criticism to the Transaction Cost analysis to the entry mode decision, but in the words of Hwan, the theoretical heritage of the Eclectic Theory can be traced in part to the seminal work of Perlmutter [1969], which acknowledged the increasing existence of geocentric approaches to multinational management. The geocentric approach outlined by Perlmutter provided a succinct explanation for the existence of and benefits attached to managing subsidiary units not as a portfolio of independent units but as an interdependent network.Another foundation, upon which their argument rests, is the rich body of literature on global strategy (e. g. , Hout, Porter and Rudden [1982]; Hamel and Prahalad [1985]; Kogut [1985a, 1985b]; Kim and Mauborgne [1988]; Yip, [1989]), which has either explicitly or implicitly built upon Perlmutter's geocentric conception. I believe that the biggest theoretical difference from this global-strategy construct and classical economics theory within the entry mode decision is that the overriding objective is overall corporate success, not the maximization of each individual subsi diary unit's efficiency.The second is that in achieving this objective, interdependencies across subsidiary units must be actively managed, meaning that sometimes it would mean that in order to maintain global strategy, some SBUs might even be required to operate at a loss (which is a rationale outside the boundaries of traditional economics). Considering the nine propositions, do they all make sense to you? In case you find any fault with them, state it with your arguments. The first thing I noticed is why are they called propositions instead of Hypothesis? Any theory is based in hypothesis because its aim is to provide chances for something to be proved or not.The second thing I notices is that the propositions are not â€Å"symmetrical†. By this I mean that when you make such kind of propositions, in order to fully understand the relationship of the explanatory variables with the dependent variable, the author must not only look at one side of the coin but at both. For exa mple, Proposition 1: Other things being equal, firms that pursue a multi-domestic strategy will favor lowcontrol entry modes. That is one side of the coin, the other side would be: Other things being equal, firms that do not pursue multi-domestic strategy will not favor low-control entry modes.The value of such construct is that it gives a more robust base for empirical testing. Each proposition is set to analyze the validity of each factor within the whole unified framework, so its validity remains to be tested empirically. Review the methodology adopted by this paper and make your comment on its appropriateness. This paper is a theoretical construct based upon the works of others with the addition of new factors, it does not apply specific methodological tools for testing its validity. In terms of epistemological value, the theory is constructed in the same fashion as Falsificationism (Popper? ) would propose because the validity of the theory that was accepted previously was put into question by the authors and therefore they provided a new set of hypothesis that should accommodate more accurately to reality than Transaction Costs theory. To discuss the appropriateness of such construct without empirical evidence would be to begin an epistemological debate about the validity of theories and their validity into describing â€Å"Truth†. If it were me who wrote the paper I would have not done a theoretical construct without any experimental study about its validity. I believe that? why some of the authors (specifically Hwan) wrote another paper a couple of years later were with the use of surveys they tried to analyze the validity of such constructs. Methodologically speaking, I believe that is a much more fruitful contribution to science than providing list of propositions that may or may not be of use. Discuss briefly what contributions this thesis has made to the theory of international entry mode choice. The biggest contribution of this paper was th e search of different factors that could explain the decision of mode of entry for the internationalization process of a company.Previous studies at the moment had already identified a diversity of variables that influence the entry mode decision decision, and the authors grouped them into one of two categories: environmental or transaction specific factors. Furthermore, according to the theoretical constructs of the time, the studies of the factors had an underlying assumption that each entry decision is made in isolation and is driven essentially by efficiency considerations at the level of the individual entrant or subsidiary unit.This paper made a case directed towards establishing the importance of a third group of factors: global strategic, namely the strategic relationship it envisages between its operations across borders, in reaching its entry mode decision. For a business manager who is in such internationalization process, this theoretical construct can provide him a road map to which variables he/she should pay attention to in order to make the decision of entry.In my opinion, managers tend to first see how other companies enter the market in their initial stages and see if that would be a viable choice and such â€Å"contextual† approach is not included in the factors. What do you think of the limitation of this thesis? The biggest limitation of any theoretical construct is that it remains just a theory and not be applicable. That? s why I took it upon me to see if someone had tried to prove or deny the Eclectic Theory. The results of that search are shown in section three of this paper.Empirical evidence 2 years after the publication of Hill et al. Eclectic Theory, one of the co-writers, Peter Hwang along with W. Chan Kim published the paper: â€Å"Global Strategy and Multinationals? Entry Mode Choice†. The main objective of the paper was to provide empirical tests to the propositions made by the Eclectic Theory. They used a survey f rom ninety-six multinational managers and had a fundamental result that an express incorporation of global strategic variables into an analysis of the entry mode decision is warranted. DataThe survey was a mail questionnaire composed of four parts: modes of entry, global strategic factors, environmental factors, and transaction-specific factors. It was distributed to 629 U. S. based MNE, mostly from the manufacturing sector and targeted senior-level management. 137 questionnaires were returned (22% response rate), of which 41 were disregarded because of incomplete answers. Another 18 were disregarded because respondents provided a positive response to the control question of whether government regulations imposed restrictions on the mode options available.The respondents operations were geographically wide with 25 located in Asia Pacific, 17 in South America, 25 in Europe, 16 in North America, 4 in Africa and 9 in the Middle East. One big methodological problem to measure the validi ty of the propositions is that such variables are not easy to measure. This translates that the nine key variables recognized to influence the focal decision of foreign entry mode are linked to the empirical world only through indicators.Moreover, they appear to be wide-ranging, multifaced constructs. As such, psychometric measurement based on multiple items rather than a single-item proxy seemed a more fitting approach [Peter 1979; Fomnell 1982; Churchill 1979], and was used in the analyses. I personally believe that psychometric variables do not fully reflect the necessary information, but that is just because I am biased towards more robust statistical data and believe that what people think they know is not actually what they know.Continuing with the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to evaluate the foreign venture under discussion across each of these items on a 7-point Likert-type scale. After data collection, an iterative procedure was employed to refine the set of in dicators for each construct. The item-to-total correlation, i. e. , the correlation between the score of each indicator and the total score of those indicators used to capture each construct, was then examined. Following the steps suggested by Nunnally [1978], those indicators with a low correlation with the total score (i. e. , r Revisiting the Eclectic Theory of the Choice of International Entry Mode Theoretical Issues on Marketing UIBE PhD Program Juan Pablo Dominguez Fall 2012 Final Examination for Theoretical Issues of Marketing (Doctoral Course) Nov. 28, 2012 Essay questions for â€Å" An Eclectic Theory of Choice of International Entry Mode † 1. What are the major variables that affect the decision of entry mode? Should they be weighted equally? Why yes or why no? 2. Given that different variables may pull the MNC in the different directions, what approach is suggested by the authors? 3. What theories have been taken as the basis for conceptualization? 4.Considering the nine propositions, do they all make sense to you? In case you find any fault with them, state it with your arguments. 5. Review the methodology adopted by this paper and make your comment on its appropriateness. 6. Discuss briefly what contributions this thesis has made to the theory of international entry mode choice. 7. What do you think of the limitation of this thesis? Revisiting the Eclectic Theor y of the Choice of International Entry Mode During the internationalization process of a company, the decision of entry mode to a particular market is determined by a set of different considerations.The paper â€Å"An Eclectic Theory of Choice of International Entry mode† is a theoretical approach to answer the questions of which factors are relevant and which are not. It reflects on how contemporary studies (particularly, Transaction Cost Theory) had a limited view of the problem by not including a globalstrategy factor in the analysis, therefore the authors try to advance the discussion by enriching the construct of additional variables that were disregarded by economical orthodoxy at the moment. This short paper is aimed to introduce in part the aforementioned document and present more recent findings in the topic.In that fashion I have divided the paper into 4 main parts besides this short introduction. The first section is a brief literature review of the theoretical bac kground behind the understanding of entry mode in the internationalization process given that the paper was published more than two decades ago. The second section aims at synthesizing the main propositions of the paper and what I consider its limitations and contributions. The third section displays empirical evidence that aimed to negate or confirm the different propositions of the authors and finally, the fourth and last section is a set of concluding remarks. Literary reviewThere is no short list about existing research regarding the internationalization process of MNEs?. When focusing on the entry mode (or ownership strategies), one can begin to see that there are three different streams of thought: one stream of research has often framed such a choice as determined by the need for control to minimize transaction costs arising from asset specificity and potential partner opportunism (Anderson & Gatignon, 1986; Williamson, 1985). According to transaction costs theory, for invest ments characterized by high asset specificity, integrated ownership structures, such as whole owned subsidiaries (WOSs), should be sed to enhance MNEs? strategic and operational control over the assets (Anderson & Gatignon, 1986) and to protect MNEs from the risk of knowledge dissemination to their partners (Davidson & McFetridge, 1985; Hill, Hwang, & Kim, 1990). Thus, transaction costs theory advocates the use of ex ante control mechanisms to minimize transaction costs arising from asset specificity and potential partner opportunism (Williamson, 1985). Another stream of research has suggested that the institutional environment shapes such a choice and proposed that MNEs may exchange ownership for legitimacy in the host country (Chan & Makino, 2007; Yiu & Makino, 2002).When foreign ownership is not prevalent or well accepted in the host country industry, MNEs can partner with local firms or keep the ownership level lower (Chan & Makino, 2007). By doing so, MNEs can show the local co mmunities that their activities are not ethnocentric or harmful to local firms, and they also obtain the local identity and legitimacy to acquire the resources that they need in the local environment (Xu & Shenkar, 2002). On the other hand, when FDI is well accepted in the local market, MNEs can pursue integrated ownership structures and high equity shares.Choice of an ownership structure thus does not necessarily reflect MNEs? deliberate efforts to economize on transaction costs for an efficient governance mechanism but may rather be a response to pressures from the institutional environment (Yiu & Makino, 2002). The third stream is as in the case of Hill et al. which posits that in addition to control and legitimacy, MNE ownership strategy is also fundamentally concerned with the choice between flexibility and commitment (Buckley & Casson, 1998; Chi & McGuire, 1996; Kouvelis, Axarloglou, & Sinha, 2001). More recent papers have taken again the same question.Li & Li in 2010 resuscit ated the topic and made a contribution by not only providing a theoretical background proposing similar hypothesis as in the case of Hill, Hwang and Kim in 1990 but also by analyzing the ownership structure and equity shares of over 5,000 new foreign investments in manufacturing industries in China during 2000 to 2006. Explaining the contents of the paper is outside of the objectives of this short essay, but the Li & Li? s took Hill et al style of theoretical constructions one step further and provided stronger empirical evidence (outside the realm of mall sample surveys) that supports the logic behind such framework. Empirical tests of MNEs' initial entry modes are rather limited, even though existing theoretical research has elaborated on the options features of JVs compared with other investment modes (Buckley & Casson, 1998; Chi, 2000; Lee, 2004; Pennings & Sleuwaegen, 2004). Cuypers and Martin (2010) observed that foreign investors are inclined to take a smaller equity share in a JV when they face strong exogenous uncertainty (e. g. , exchange rate uncertainty) rather than endogenous uncertainty (e. . , cultural uncertainty). Brouthers et al. (2008) showed that, in choosing international entry modes, MNEs tend to adopt JVs (over WOSs) under high demand uncertainty. Synthesis What are the major variables that affect the decision of entry mode? Given that different authors have considered variables like country risk, country familiarity, country development stage, technology, and transaction costs, Hill et al. begin their work with a vision to unify the framework and analyze how different factors affect the decision.The first attempt to create a unified framework was carried out by Anderson and Gatignon in 1986 through the use of transaction cost theory. I believe that the authors see the shortcoming of this initial unified proposal in the Ceteris Paribus assumption of Economics that is used only as a theoretical tool to analyze relations among events or va riables. Any theory that treats related events in isolation will be insufficient and that? s why the authors propose the strategic relationship as another vital element of the decision.Their proposal includes the following factors: !†#$%   ! â€Å"#$! ,! = ! (! â€Å"#$%†&, ! â€Å"#$%&'†   ! â€Å"##$%#&'%, ! â€Å"##$%†&'(â€Å")&   ! â€Å"#$#) Should they be weighted equally? Why yes or why no? Different factors in the decision often suggest different entry modes, it is according to the particular weights each company puts in this factors that the final choice of entry is done. In other words, when deciding entry mode different factors have different weights and according to each company’s strategic considerations, such weights will have different magnitudes.Given that different variables may pull the MNC in the different directions, what approach is suggested by the authors? The authors suggest that instead of focusing in a single var iable, the company will have a set of strategic constraints that will limit their decision options. They focus their attention on how much control the company wants, according to the resource commitment they will provide and taking into consideration the dissemination risks of their knowhow. This can be formulated as the following: ! â€Å"#$%   ! â€Å"#$! ,! = ! !†#$%†&, ! #$%&'†   ! â€Å"##$%#&'%, ! â€Å"##$%†&'(â€Å")&   ! â€Å"#$# !†#$†%&'(   ! â€Å"#$†%&'( = ! !†#$%! â€Å"&   ! â€Å"##$%$&'$(, ! â€Å"#$%   ! †   ! â€Å"#$#%&! ‘, ! â€Å"#$%†   ! â€Å"#! $%&'%(â€Å"# !†#$%&†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ(â€Å")*+   ! â€Å"#$†%&'( = ! !†#$%&'   ! â€Å"#$, ! â€Å"#$%&†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ   ! â€Å"#$%$†&$'(, ! â€Å"#$%! !†#$%&%†#', ! â€Å"#$%&#&%'   ! †   ! â€Å"#$%&'&'†( !†#$%#&'()$   ! â€Å"#! â€Å"#$%& = ! (! à ¢â‚¬Å"#$%   ! †   ! â€Å"#$ ? !†#$%&%$   ! â€Å"#$ ? ?! â€Å", ! â€Å"#$! !†#$%&   ! †   ! â€Å"#$ ? ?! â€Å") These factors come from previous research and theoretical constructs. One important analysis that needs to be done is how these factors correlate to each other.One factor that I? m not sure if it? s included in any of these variables is regulation. For example, many automobile giants in the world wanted to enter the Chinese market as WOSs but because of regulation they are forced to enter as JVs. This makes me believe that there is an unspoken assumption that the markets the authors were conceiving in their constructs were open markets with little participation of the government (maybe they include it with country risk? ). What theories have been taken as the basis for conceptualization? This heoretical construct is a criticism to the Transaction Cost analysis to the entry mode decision, but in the words of Hwan, the theoretical heritage of the Eclectic Theory can be traced in part to the seminal work of Perlmutter [1969], which acknowledged the increasing existence of geocentric approaches to multinational management. The geocentric approach outlined by Perlmutter provided a succinct explanation for the existence of and benefits attached to managing subsidiary units not as a portfolio of independent units but as an interdependent network.Another foundation, upon which their argument rests, is the rich body of literature on global strategy (e. g. , Hout, Porter and Rudden [1982]; Hamel and Prahalad [1985]; Kogut [1985a, 1985b]; Kim and Mauborgne [1988]; Yip, [1989]), which has either explicitly or implicitly built upon Perlmutter's geocentric conception. I believe that the biggest theoretical difference from this global-strategy construct and classical economics theory within the entry mode decision is that the overriding objective is overall corporate success, not the maximization of each individual subsi diary unit's efficiency.The second is that in achieving this objective, interdependencies across subsidiary units must be actively managed, meaning that sometimes it would mean that in order to maintain global strategy, some SBUs might even be required to operate at a loss (which is a rationale outside the boundaries of traditional economics). Considering the nine propositions, do they all make sense to you? In case you find any fault with them, state it with your arguments. The first thing I noticed is why are they called propositions instead of Hypothesis? Any theory is based in hypothesis because its aim is to provide chances for something to be proved or not.The second thing I notices is that the propositions are not â€Å"symmetrical†. By this I mean that when you make such kind of propositions, in order to fully understand the relationship of the explanatory variables with the dependent variable, the author must not only look at one side of the coin but at both. For exa mple, Proposition 1: Other things being equal, firms that pursue a multi-domestic strategy will favor lowcontrol entry modes. That is one side of the coin, the other side would be: Other things being equal, firms that do not pursue multi-domestic strategy will not favor low-control entry modes.The value of such construct is that it gives a more robust base for empirical testing. Each proposition is set to analyze the validity of each factor within the whole unified framework, so its validity remains to be tested empirically. Review the methodology adopted by this paper and make your comment on its appropriateness. This paper is a theoretical construct based upon the works of others with the addition of new factors, it does not apply specific methodological tools for testing its validity. In terms of epistemological value, the theory is constructed in the same fashion as Falsificationism (Popper? ) would propose because the validity of the theory that was accepted previously was put into question by the authors and therefore they provided a new set of hypothesis that should accommodate more accurately to reality than Transaction Costs theory. To discuss the appropriateness of such construct without empirical evidence would be to begin an epistemological debate about the validity of theories and their validity into describing â€Å"Truth†. If it were me who wrote the paper I would have not done a theoretical construct without any experimental study about its validity. I believe that? why some of the authors (specifically Hwan) wrote another paper a couple of years later were with the use of surveys they tried to analyze the validity of such constructs. Methodologically speaking, I believe that is a much more fruitful contribution to science than providing list of propositions that may or may not be of use. Discuss briefly what contributions this thesis has made to the theory of international entry mode choice. The biggest contribution of this paper was th e search of different factors that could explain the decision of mode of entry for the internationalization process of a company.Previous studies at the moment had already identified a diversity of variables that influence the entry mode decision decision, and the authors grouped them into one of two categories: environmental or transaction specific factors. Furthermore, according to the theoretical constructs of the time, the studies of the factors had an underlying assumption that each entry decision is made in isolation and is driven essentially by efficiency considerations at the level of the individual entrant or subsidiary unit.This paper made a case directed towards establishing the importance of a third group of factors: global strategic, namely the strategic relationship it envisages between its operations across borders, in reaching its entry mode decision. For a business manager who is in such internationalization process, this theoretical construct can provide him a road map to which variables he/she should pay attention to in order to make the decision of entry.In my opinion, managers tend to first see how other companies enter the market in their initial stages and see if that would be a viable choice and such â€Å"contextual† approach is not included in the factors. What do you think of the limitation of this thesis? The biggest limitation of any theoretical construct is that it remains just a theory and not be applicable. That? s why I took it upon me to see if someone had tried to prove or deny the Eclectic Theory. The results of that search are shown in section three of this paper.Empirical evidence 2 years after the publication of Hill et al. Eclectic Theory, one of the co-writers, Peter Hwang along with W. Chan Kim published the paper: â€Å"Global Strategy and Multinationals? Entry Mode Choice†. The main objective of the paper was to provide empirical tests to the propositions made by the Eclectic Theory. They used a survey f rom ninety-six multinational managers and had a fundamental result that an express incorporation of global strategic variables into an analysis of the entry mode decision is warranted. DataThe survey was a mail questionnaire composed of four parts: modes of entry, global strategic factors, environmental factors, and transaction-specific factors. It was distributed to 629 U. S. based MNE, mostly from the manufacturing sector and targeted senior-level management. 137 questionnaires were returned (22% response rate), of which 41 were disregarded because of incomplete answers. Another 18 were disregarded because respondents provided a positive response to the control question of whether government regulations imposed restrictions on the mode options available.The respondents operations were geographically wide with 25 located in Asia Pacific, 17 in South America, 25 in Europe, 16 in North America, 4 in Africa and 9 in the Middle East. One big methodological problem to measure the validi ty of the propositions is that such variables are not easy to measure. This translates that the nine key variables recognized to influence the focal decision of foreign entry mode are linked to the empirical world only through indicators.Moreover, they appear to be wide-ranging, multifaced constructs. As such, psychometric measurement based on multiple items rather than a single-item proxy seemed a more fitting approach [Peter 1979; Fomnell 1982; Churchill 1979], and was used in the analyses. I personally believe that psychometric variables do not fully reflect the necessary information, but that is just because I am biased towards more robust statistical data and believe that what people think they know is not actually what they know.Continuing with the questionnaire, the respondents were asked to evaluate the foreign venture under discussion across each of these items on a 7-point Likert-type scale. After data collection, an iterative procedure was employed to refine the set of in dicators for each construct. The item-to-total correlation, i. e. , the correlation between the score of each indicator and the total score of those indicators used to capture each construct, was then examined. Following the steps suggested by Nunnally [1978], those indicators with a low correlation with the total score (i. e. , r

Broken Eggs - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 1 Words: 383 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2017/09/14 Category Advertising Essay Did you like this example? The painting Broken eggs was created by Jean-Baptise Greuze in 1760 and suggests the beginning of the different direction in the art of painting. His work, free of fantasy, introduces new realism – the realism of daily life. French painting during 18th century was dominated by the Rococo style that was aristocratic in nature, sensual and elegant. From stylistic point of view, it had soft colors in its palette, free brushstrokes and complex surfaces. Created for rich patrons, Rococo concentrated on portraits of aristocrats and mythological themes, often performed in a plyful and erotic manner. Greuze’s moral dramas (one of which is the Broken eggs) reacted against Rococo. By pronouncing feelings and emotion they were also opposed by the rational and science-oriented representatives of Enlightenment. It puts Greuze’s creations exactly along with other artists in the 18th century who developed the same taste in their works– Taste for Natural. In this painting by Greuze, the artist depicts a scene from daily life of the middle class with its middle-class morality. The girl has lost her virginity to the young man who was trying to get away, but was stopped by the old lady. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Broken Eggs" essay for you Create order The girl’s face is sad and the position of her body suggests the frustration. Her shoulders are weighed down by the heaviness of what happened to her. The broken eggs next give the narrative quality to the painting and symbolize the lost virginity. It cannot be helped, and virginity, like the eggs that little boy is trying so hard to put together in the corner, cannot be returned back. The light falls on the girl in the center of the picture, drawing viewer’s attention to the epicenter of the moral story. The boy with the broken egg in his hands is trying very hard to fix it, his face concentrated and body language expressive. Perhaps, the painter intended to highlight the child’s naiveness, though the look in his eyes is far from childish and candid. Stylistically, the painting is performed in invisible brushstrokes, complete and rigid lines, similar to classical. The depth of space is great and many objects of peasants’ domestic life can be seen in the back. The artist made his moral point and with that he stepped aside from purely classical style of painting.