Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) Analysis

Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO) Analysis The Anglo-American alliance during World War II (WWII) launched a series of strategic bombing campaigns against the Germans in what is now known as the Combined Bomber Offensive (CBO). The justness of the CBO is and has always been a controversial one, as some schools of thought see it as being just, and had as its primary objective the progressive destruction and dislocation of the German military, industrial and economic system. Thus, undermining the morale of the German people to a point where their capacity for armed resistance was fatally weakened[1]. However, other schools argue the aim of the CBO should be unambiguously stated as the destruction of German cities, the killing of German workers, and the disruption of civilized life throughout Germany[2]. These bombing campaigns on German cities like Dresden, which led to deliberate mass killings or murder of civilians on a large scale by the CBO, is seen as unjust. The bombing of the German city of Dresden will be used as a case study to give a balanced analysis of the CBO in this essay as it is the most controversial. This essay will analyse both schools of thought, taking into consideration if the CBO met the elements of justice in war -Jus in Bello. Analysing the involvement of the Anglo-American alliance in the CBO and the bombing of Dresden during WWII by the principles of Jus in Bello military necessity, proportionality, discrimination and humanity; this essay will determine that the CBO against Germany was just. Jus in Bello has been used as criteria to analyse and determine the justness of CBO against due to the fact that the CBO was an act in the war, which has to be analysed in order to determine if the act of the CBO met the legal and ethical justness. The CBOs objective to attack the city of Dresdens industrial and economic system was a legitimate military necessity. The doctrine of military necessity, states an attack or action must be intended to help in the defeat of the enemy; it must be an attack on a legitimate military objective[3]. Looking at the CBO attack of Dresden from this perspective, it was a legitimate military necessity; because the bombing of the industrial centres and other targets of the economic system was crucial for the CBO in order to slow down the German war machine. The concept is known as the Industrial Web theory, which was developed by Sir Hugh Trenchard, Colonel Billy Mitchell and General Giulio Douhet. Boog et. al support this principle of military necessity as they argue that the Germans could best be eliminated by destroying her armaments industry and the result of that will be breaking the civilian populations will to resist[4]. However, critiques of the principle of military necessity have debated on its controversy, and a grey area on their minds is that of the justness of the CBO on Dresden. Their argument is that the attack on Dresden might be military necessity, but why was it ok for the CBO to kill non-combatants; also their argument is based on the fact that Dresden wasnt of any importance to the Germans. Michael Walzer gives a counter argument to this school of thought when he argues that military necessity supersedes the killing of civilians in a supreme emergency, and he uses Nazi Germany in WWII as an example of supreme emergency for Great Britain[5]. He goes on further to state that: if the situation is grave enough to justify killing or putting at risk ones own citizens to accomplish military objectives, then military necessity may also justify the same risk to other non-friendly non-combatants[6]. Further to that, the arguments of the critiques on the less importance of Dresden to the Germans at the time of the CBO are incorrect. The veracity of this argument is seen in the RAFs briefing notes to its Squadrons which attacked Dresden: Dresden has developed into an industrial city of first-class importanceà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ its multiplicity of telephones and rail facilities is of major value for controlling the defence of that part of the front now threatenedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. The intentions of the attack are to hit the enemy where he will feel it most, behind an already partially collapsed frontà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦[7] These justifies of the attack on Dresden, on the basis of military necessity, which, resulted in production in industries stopping. The bombing of Dresden was therefore not wanton but was justified by military necessity and it was also aiming at civilian morale[8], in order to slow down the German war machine. Jus in Bellos principle of proportionality is an area of contention used by critiques to analyse the unjustness of the CBO. Proportionality means avoiding needless destruction to achieve justified ends[9]. One school of thought argues that the firebombing in Dresden caused more destruction than was necessary. John V. Denson, in his book, Costs of War, supports this theory: it seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.The destruction of Dresden remains a serious query against the conduct of Allied bombingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. I feel the need for more precise concentration upon military objectivesà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. rather than on mere acts of terror and wanton destruction, however impressive[10]. Other schools have a different perception of what is proportional and hold that the CBO was proportional with the destruction of civilian targets in Dresden. Proportionality is a hard criterion to apply, as there is no ready way to establish an independent or stable view of values against which the destruction of war is to be measured[11]. The use of the firebombing in Dresden was proportional, despite the argument that sees it as not fulfilling Jus in Bello principle of proportionality. Michael Walzer, in his book supports the justness on the basis of proportionality when he says: it would be difficult to condemn soldiers for anything they did in the course of a battle or a war that they honestly believed, and had good reason to believe, was necessary, or important, or simply useful in determining the outcome[12]. The justness of this principle is the lack of technology at the time of the attack on Dresden, which was the best approach to be utilised at the time. Precision bombing had been used prior to that and it was impracticable, thus, area bombing had to be the means employed[13]. Moreover, with the bombing of Dresden, the Germans supplies of liquid fuels were eliminated with a far smaller cost in causality than would have been incurred had there been no resort to the bombing and destruction of the industrial capacity[14]. Discrimination is another principle which has been used in this essay to analyse how just the CBO on Germany in WWII was. Discrimination within Jus in Bello means avoiding direct and intentional harm to non-combatants[15]. Looking at the CBO based on this, it was a just act, as it did not set out with the intention of attacking and killing civilians. A.C. Grayling in his book argues that there is no such thing as putting non-combatants to the sword during the course of sacking their towns, as this is not classed as murder; for this is no less than their soldiers would do if matters were the other way round and they were sacking your town instead[16]. However, some school of thoughts hold that the attack on Dresden was a deliberate bombing of the civilian population, thus, makes the CBO unjust. They further support their argument that attacks on civilian populations have often happened in wars throughout history, but this fact does not amount to a justification of the practice; moreover, there are no acceptable circumstances in which killing civilians is allowed[17]. This essay argues in line with Douhet, an air power theorist that war as a national phenomenon, involves the totality of a nations activities and forces, and no longer organised forces alone; this is why the distinction between combatants and non-combatants are superseded[18] . The CBO, therefore, was against Germany and not the Nazi government, thus, all the Germans are classed as combatants. Thus, the principle of discrimination was respected and followed, as the CBOs main aim was to attack the enemys industry, and civilian casualties were an unavoidable side-effect[19] as was the case in Dresden. Jus in Bello principle of humanity, also shows how just the CBO against the Germans in WWII was. Humanity is defined as regulating the conduct of those involved in fighting as well as safeguarding human life and curbing the level of violence[20]. Critiques argue that the CBO was inhumane especially with the firebombing which caused untold pain and suffering to the population: it was a war of despair and mounting torments there were no signs that the bombings would lead to a collapse. It was incomprehensible how people struggled on.[21] They also hold that the wholesale destruction of German cities, Dresden foremost among them, could have been averted, even if attacks on urban rail centres had continued[22]. The above argument is flawed given that the degree of devastation suffered by the people of Dresden in the firestorm was an unfortunate weather condition, as prevailing wind helped, and did much of the damage and caused many of the deaths, and was not intended by the CBO, who, at the request of the Russians forces, had seen Dresden as an important choke-point for supplies and troops moving[23]. Further to that, the CBO was just, as it was humane as it shortened the war and prevented a lot more death and loses on both sides. Hasting in his book sums this humanity point when he states: we just wanted to get it over with if we could bring the end closer by dropping bombs on Germany that was fine by us[24]. In conclusion, the CBO was just, despite the controversies surrounding the bombing of Dresden, which others might see as an unjust and legally wrong act of the CBO which goes against Jus in Bello principle of proportionality. However, the principle of military necessity outweighs this school of thought as the German armament production figures continued to rise through much of 1944, and these would undoubtedly have been very much higher but for the effects of the bombing on both industry and workforce[25]. Thus, the CBO was a necessary and ethically just act, and attacks on industrial targets like supplies of fuel, which resorted to the bombing of industrial capacity[26] in order to slow down the Germans fighting edge. References Archives, The National Archives. The Rise and Fall of the German Air Force 1933-45. Kew, Richmond, Surrey: United Kingdom, 2008. Bess, Michael. Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2008. Biddle, Tami Davis. Rhetoric and REality in Air Warfare. New Jersy: Princeton University Press, 2002. Charles Guthrie, Michael Quinlan. Just War; The Just War Tradition: Ethics in Modern Warfare. London, New York and Berlin: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007. Christopher, Paul. The Ethics of War Peace. Uppper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc., 2004. Denson, John V. The Cost of War: Americas Pyrrhic Victories. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publisher, 1997. Grayling, A C. Among the Dead Cities. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2006. Green, Leslie C. The Contemporary Law of Armed Conflict. Manchester, Canada: Manchester University Press, 2008. Hastings, Max. Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-45. Chatham, Kent: Mackays of Chatham plc, 2004. Hippler, Thomas. Bombing the People: Giulio Douhet and the Foundations of Air-Power Strategy, 1884-1939. Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2013. Horst Boog, Gerhard Krebs, Detlef Vogel. Germany and the Second World War, Volume VII. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Johnson, James Turner. Morality and Contemporary Warfare. Binghamton, New York: Yale University Press, 1999. Overy, Richard J. The Air War, 1939-1945. New York: Stein and Day, 1980. Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars. New York: A Member of the Perseus Books Group, 2000. [1] Biddle, (2002), p.215 [2] Denson, (1997) p.352 [3] Walzer, (2000), p.144 [4] Boog et. al, (2006), p.365 [5] Christopher, (2004), p.163 [6] id. [7] Hastings, (2004), p.387 [8] Grayling, (2006), p. 202 [9] Johnson, (1999), p36 [10] Denson, (1997), p.352 [11] Walzer, (2000), p.129 [12] id. [13] Grayling, (2006), p. 227 [14] The National Archives (2008) p.298 [15] Johnson, (1999), p36 [16] Grayling, (2006), p.4 [17] ibid., (2006), p.4 [18] Hipper, (2013), p.170 [19] Grayling, (2006), p.216 [20] Green, (2008), p.17 [21] Hastings, (2004), p.376 [22] Ibid. p. 355 [23] Grayling, (2006), p.224 [24] Hastings, (2004), p. 370 [25] Ibid.378 [26] The National Archives, (2008), p.298

Contributions of Feminism to Security studies

The contribution of feminists to security studies have been described as four separate categories; where the International Relation feminists query the hypothetical nonexistence and peripheral nature of women in international security politics, interrogate the extent to which women are secured by state protection in times of war and peace, critique the ever ever-existence assumption that gendered security practices address women only and contest the discourses wherein women are linked unreflectively with peace. Feminists have conceptualized the core concepts like security, the state, violence, war and peace while at the same time uncovering new hardheaded knowledge about sexual violence in war, gendered participation in armed conflict as well as the masculinity of militarization (Carpenter, 2002: 300). International Relation feminists have studied specific empirical situations to deduce explanatory as well as ethical theories of International Relation. They have traversed the crisis in Bosnia, African peace keeping operations, civil military relations in South Korea and the wars in Iraq. Though some of the emerging exemplar of human security as well as Copenhagen school stress the significance of individuals within the security issues they still fail to recognize that not all individuals face those issues the same. Feminists have decided to make women noticeable as subjects in international security (Edkins & Epstein, 1997: 120). They portray attention to the invisibility of female and gender subordination within the theory and practice of security politics. Less than 10% of the heads of state of the world are women. Feminists ask why this should be the case and how this is likely to affect the structure as well as the practice of global politics. The empirical case studies of the more current new generation feminists have manly focused on hitherto underrepresented issues like military prostitution, sensitive households, domestic service as well as home-based work which are always performed by women. Through the use of gendered lenses, we are able to see that in spite of the myth that wars are fought by men as a way of protecting the ‘vulnerable people’, a category to which women and children are assigned, women and children represent a significant portion of the causalities in the recent wars. And while are underrepresented as military casualties in terms of their participation in militaries all over the world, they are over represented as civilian victims in terms of their percentage of the population in war zones. Women and children make up between seventy five to eighty percent of the refugees displaced by the effects of war. Feminists have drawn the attention to the frequency as well as the severity of wartime rape, characterizing it as a war crime, as genocide and extreme form of torture. War affects women drafted to provide sex to the soldiers. For instance, more than one million Korean women have suffered in the same way since the beginning of the Korean War (Moon, 1997: 112). Looking at the sound effects of war on women, we are able to gain a better understanding of the unequal feminine relation that sustains the military activity. Whereas feminists highlight the essentiality of seeing women understand conflict and war, they too put emphasis on how these gendered constructions are able to help us understand not just some of the causes of war but certain ways of think about the nature of security have been legitimized at the expense of others. Gendered lenses do not just show where women are during conflict and war but also the structure of war and conflict. Realists define security primarily in terms of state security. A state that is secure is one that is position to protect its physical borders against an anarchical global system. Neorealist put much emphasis on the anarchic international- system’s structure. In this case there is no sovereign to regulate the state behavior. They paint states like Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq as unitary actors whose internal structures as well as policies are less crucial than the anarchic condition for explaining their insecurity and security. The power seeking nature of a state together with the military capabilities are viewed as avenues designed at increasing security of the state; security specialists believe than that the habit of power seeking so as to promote the level of security explains much of the international behavior of the states. Poorest Nations of the world have active military operations within their borders. Consequently, the conflicts contribute to high number of civilian casualties to the extreme structural violence which is done to people when their basic requirements are not met as well as environmental destruction. Security is all about an individual safety. The survival of an individual is therefore the key to his or her safety. But survival has always been threatened by bombs, but this is not even all. Inadequate food, health care, shelter, and transportation threatens the physical integrity of the bodies of individuals, and the most affected are women and children. The safety of an individual is of importance than just being able to stay alive. It is also about the ability to have a home and raise a healthy family. Most women in war affected countries spent the better part of their lives in refugee camps and have never known the meaning of a happy leaving. According to feminists, security is about the safety issues which affect the lives of people, mostly women (Edkins & Epstein, 1997: 208). Civilian casualties, power outrages, food shortages, structural violence, militarism together with the human rights are security issues. The lives of women can be insecure even when the states feel safe. Security has to be seen from marginalized members of the societies, those that are highly susceptible to insecurity. Feminist security prioritizes justice together with emancipation. Feminism exclusively contributes the perspective of how the lives of women demonstrate the violence in the events that are not traditionally perceived as security threats. Without Gender, Security is Incomplete Scholarly work that accepts a gender-subordinating world the way it appears akin to the history of a victor: no matter how good it may be, it is incomplete with adverse moral problems. This is verified by the look at the non-combatant principle of immunity and what feminists refer to as an illusion of the protection of women or the protection racket. In her piece of writing, Women, Children and other Susceptible Groups, Charlie Carpenter emphasize the importance of gender in international advocacy concerning the protection of civilians through reference to the beliefs of the advocates that their message is likely to be salient incase it is understood in terms of defending women and children particularly (Carpenter, 2002: 302). The immunity structure of women has been greatly distorted through reliance upon the proxy of women and children for civilians. The distortion is likely to affect the protection in sub-optimal ways. There is need for a clear understanding of what needs protection and why. The principle of immunity within the just war tradition is hazy and highly subject to considerable manipulation for political purposes. This kind of problems may be enough to cause the current lack of effectiveness. Whereas the principle of immunity appears to protect women, in real sense, it risks the lives of women and also perpetuates gender subordination at the same time. The modernization of the Malaysian economy in 1970’s led to an increase in the number of the underpaid and exploited foreign female household workforce within the country. It was a case of rejecting the traditional economic validation due to the fact that the economic theory overlooks the involvement of the state or the social dynamics that surround foreign domestic worker involvement. In order to win the support of the middle class and lessen the ethnic tension, the state of Malaysia backed the hiring of foreign female domestic workers and the workers worked in slave-like conditions. In such a case, just like in many other countries, the state played the role of manipulating class, gender as well as race to control power in order to benefit a few citizens and disadvantage others. The scholars reveal gender that is entrenched within the power structures and consistence with the critical International- Relations theory, ultimately aimed at changing the status quo. The works of feminists contribute to the realm of the protection in an untraditional way. For instance, they bring to light the insecurities that women have inside and outside of the traditional war zones. To add on that, because they have the ability to recognize the physical, ecological, structural as well as sexual violence as security threats, they appropriately apply security on the individual level. Through underscoring human safety, mainly at the political margin, feminists refocus security discourses from the policies of the state to the lives of the individuals. Certainly, wars are known to threaten safety. But oppressive relationship of work as well as sexual slavery also threaten it and therefore has to be recognized as universal issues of the human insecurity and justifiable topics within international security. Through bringing about the discussion and concentrating on how the ideas on how gender affects and are affected by politics, the constructivists of feminism build on the foundation that is availed by the social constructivists. In his book, Modern Security Studies, Collins examines international dialogue and law in relation to home based work. He reveals that the dominantly home-based female workforce is highly undervalued. Because the work takes place in a private sphere, it is not considered to be legitimate by many. As a result, women suffer low wages as well as poor working conditions without being provided with an opportunity to change their circumstances. Due to the fact that the workforce is dominantly women, the institutionalization of the rights of the workers is vital to feminists. In terms of war, the constructionists of feminism try to determine the reasons as to why the issue of security remain absent within the mainstream of security discourse. For example, though not included in the description of conventional warfare, the economic sanctions on Iraq between the Gulf wars had incredible security impact on Iraqi communities as well as the citizens, excessively on women. While implementing the policy, the United Nation Security Council was aiming at instigating the opposition of the citizens to the government of Iraq. In a sense, through making the residents of Iraq suffer, the United Nation hoped they would revolt against their government. This kind of policy at the end of the day became a war against the innocent citizens. Whereas the well-off Iraqi in government or in the upper class were able to acquire goods through black market, the majority with lower incomes, particularly women, children as well as the elderly could hardly get anything Though the sanctions do not constitute a declaration of war from those concerned, military attacks, they contribute to emergence of war. Feminists mainly focus on the physical as well as the structural violence existent on the ground within the affected communities. And for them, conventional wars as well as economic sanctions both deserve recognition as significant and momentous security issues (Sassen, 2000: 508). Concerning the use of language in society as well as the effect on our understanding of the reality, poststructuralists stress the relationship that exists between knowledge and power. In most societies, those who posses intellect also have the capability to frame most crucial agendas and discussions, that endow with them the needed power. Traditionally, men are known to dominate the sphere of learning and intelligence. On the other hand, women are viewed as less intelligence followers who react to the supremacy of men. In particular, feminist stress the linguistic dichotomies in international security discourse which favor the attributes of masculinity. Pairs of words like strong/weak in security studies have obvious gender link because women are stereotypically feeble and more emotional. Feminists perfect in one of these divisions are point out that the gendered as well as racial implication within them have direct consequences (Collins, 2007: 28). Through donating inferiority of a given gender or race, the dichotomies shape the current perception of gender within our society. Through the demolition of the hierarchical language, feminists hope to minimize the hierarchy in our realism as well. Postcolonial Feminism Just as feminists assert a society exists with knowledge that mainly set forth by men, postcolonial feminists find fault within the knowledge that is solely based upon the experiences of the privileged western women. They do not consider female’ a homogenous category. The class, geography, race and culture experienced by individual women tend to change their perception of the world. Accordingly, postcolonial feminists’ state that contrary to the beliefs of western women, almost all women do not have the same level of emancipation needs and wants (Jackson, 1998: 70). They are fond of fighting the stereotype of the third world women as poor, victimized and lacking in agency. In due course, the feminists believe that gender subordination takes place through interaction of gender, culture and race. Through acknowledging this fact, they aspire in defining the needs of the women based on the factors rather than creating a universal list of them. Sexualized Discourse and War Sexualized discourse within the international security takes place in varied form and aspects of the military and war. For instance, in weapons technology gendered language pervades the discourse. When a weapon is first created, the makers refer to it as if it is a male being born. When it is completed, it penetrates the enemy lines the same way men penetrate women. The aggressive sexual language eventually joins with feminine language to make war seem civilized in spite of its violent nature. The abuses, for instance rape that occur during the war go away completely unmentioned (Collins, 2007: 78). Within the international security dialogue, there are cases of sexualized and gendered discourse. When describing the Gulf Wars, various politicians as well as other people draw a comparison of the situation to the sexual intercourse. During the discussion of the overthrow of Saddam, the U. S officials mentioned the frustration that though the forces had ‘penetrated’ the ‘inner sanctum’, they had not yet achieved a satisfying outcome. International Security on the Lives of Women Quite a number of Feminists employ a more micro-level scrutiny in determining the effects of international security on individual lives of women. For example, (Hansen 2000) tries to improve the analysis of feminists of foreign policy through asking them why, how and when the governments use women not just on a gendered ideology but also as instruments of foreign policy. About the South Korean women ‘working’ for the military of the U. S. , Hansen concludes that individuals and organizations should incorporate military prostitution within the global security discussion of the gender rules in war times. Conclusion In an attempt to broaden the sphere of security studies, feminists emphasize those aspects of security that have been ignored by the dominant social science. They recognize the presence of women in international security politics and query the state protection which women supposedly receive in time of war and peace (Elshtain, 1995: 49). They also scrutinize the alleged link between women and peace and show that gendered discourses usually affect the entire population. Through highlighting the differences and also exploring the current literature relating to feminist security learning, this review was aimed at showing the reasons as to why the aspects of commonly ignored aspects are actually critical to the study of security. Instead of simply being a supplement to the prevailing security theory, feminist security studies require utmost consideration to enable full understanding of the world.

Public Education in the Philippines Essay

Literacy rate in the Philippines has improved a lot over the last few years- from 72 percent in 1960 to 94 percent in 1990. This is attributed to the increase in both the number of schools built and the level of enrollment in these schools. The number of schools grew rapidly in all three levels – elementary, secondary, and tertiary. From the mid-1960s up to the early 1990, there was an increase of 58 percent in the elementary schools and 362 percent in the tertiary schools. For the same period, enrollment in all three levels also rose by 120 percent. More than 90 percent of the elementary schools and 60 percent of the secondary schools are publicly owned. However, only 28 percent of the tertiary schools are publicly owned. A big percentage of tertiary-level students enroll in and finish commerce and business management courses. Table 1 shows the distribution of courses taken, based on School Year 1990-1991. Note that the difference between the number of enrollees in the commerce and business courses and in the engineering and technology courses may be small – 29.2 percent for commerce and business and 20.3 percent for engineering and technology. However, the gap widens in terms of the number of graduates for the said courses. On gender distribution, female students have very high representation in all three levels. At the elementary level, male and female students are almost equally represented. But female enrollment exceeds that of the male at the secondary and tertiary levels . Also, boys have higher rates of failures, dropouts, and repetition in both elementary and secondary levels. Aside from the numbers presented above, which are impressive, there is also a need to look closely and resolve the following important issues: 1) quality of education 2) affordability of education 3) goverment budget for education; and 4) education mismatch. Quality – There was a decline in the quality of the Philippine education, especially at the elementary and secondary levels. For example, the results of standard tests conducted among elementary and high school students, as well as in the National College of Entrance Examination for college students, were way below the target mean score. Affordability – There is also a big disparity in educational achievements across social groups. For example, the socioeconomically disadvantaged students have higher dropout rates, especially in the elementary level. And most of the freshmen students at the tertiary level come from relatively well-off families. Budget – The Philippine Constitution has mandated the goverment to allocate the highest proportion of its budget to education. However, the Philippines still has one of the lowest budget allocations to education among the Asean  countries. Mismatch – There is a large proportion of â€Å"mismatch† between training and actual jobs. This is the major problem at the tertiary level and it is also the cause of the existence of a large group of educated unemployed or underemployed. The following are some of the reforms proposed: Upgrade the teachers’ salary scale. Teachers have been underpaid; thus there is very little incentive for most of them to take up advanced trainings. Amend the current system of budgeting for education across regions, which is based on participation rates and units costs. This clearly favors the more developed regions. There is a need to provide more allocation to lagging regions to narrow the disparity across regions. Stop the current practice of subsidizing state universities and colleges to enhance access. This may not be the best way to promote equity. An expanded scholarship program, giving more focus and priority to the poor, maybe more equitable. Get all the leaders in business and industry to become actively involved in higher education; this is aimed at addressing the mismatch problem. In addition, carry out a selective admission policy, i. e. , installing mechanisms to reduce enrollment in oversubscribed courses and promoting enrollment in undersubscribed ones. Develop a rationalized apprenticeship program with heavy inputs from the private sector. Furthermore, transfer the control of technical training to industry groups which are more attuned to the needs of business and industry.

The Perils Of Obedience, By Philip Zimbardo Essay

In 1963, Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a disputable, but highly revered, study on obedience. The experiment was designed to test people’s morals versus an extreme authority, but, as predicted, obedience prevailed. Then in 1973, Philip G. Zimbardo created his own experiment, not unlike Milgram’s, that analyzed the potential of individuals to withstand the pressure of succumbing to an obedient role based on the environment. Both Stanley Milgram, author of â€Å"The Perils of Obedience,† and Philip Zimbardo, author of â€Å"The Stanford Prison Experiment,† conducted controversial experiments that proved that when an ordinary person was put into a different role it affected their obedience to authority. In his article, Milgram pointed out that his study found that sixty percent of ordinary people would agree to obey an authority figure even to the point of severely hurting another human being (Milgram 582). Zimbardo wanted to study and comprehend how prisoners lost their freedom, rights, privacy, and become more obedient but, he also wanted to understand how the guards gained their power and control from the situation (Zimbardo 620). Either way, the experiments highlighted how much of a person’s obedience could be affected based off of the specific roles that they are put in. Zimbardo began his experiment by publically arresting his prisoners, and he made sure that there was no difference between all of the men. They were all average and separated into the two groupsShow MoreRelatedThe Perils Of Obedience, And A Few Good Men1059 Words   |  5 Pagesdefend the nation. It required unquestioning commitment and obedience to orders. The articles, â€Å"The Perils of Obedience† by Stanley Milgram and â€Å"The Stanford Prison Experiment† by Philip G. Zimbardo mainly focuses on potential of â€Å"evil in ordinary people when placed in situations where a higher authority is operated against the individuals own moral (Milgram) or when potential perpetrators are given total power over defenseless victims (Zimbardo). A Few Good Men is a story about two Marines, Lance CorporalRead MoreEssay on Obedience to Authority574 Words   |  3 PagesObedience to Authority Today our society raises us to believe that obedience is good and disobedience is bad. We are taught that we should all do what we’re told and that the people that are disobedient are almost always bad people. Society tells us this, but it is not true. Most people will even be obedient to the point of causing harm to others, because to be disobedient requires the courage to be alone against authority. In Stanley Milgram’s Perils of Obedience experiment, his studiesRead MoreThe Perils Of Obedience By Milgram And The Stanford Prison Experiment1207 Words   |  5 PagesHumanity will always question the idea of obedience. Two prestigious psychologists, Stanley Milgram and Philip G. Zimbardo, conducted practical obedience experiments with astonishing results. Shocked by the amount of immoral obedience, both doctors wrote articles exploring the reasoning for the test subjects unorthodox manners. In The Perils of Obedience by Milgram and The Stanford Prison Experiment b y Zimbardo, the professionals reflect their thoughts in a logical manner. Milgram s experimentRead MoreSummary Of The Perils Of Obedience Essay979 Words   |  4 Pagesa profound psychologist, conducted an experiment of obedience, which became immensely popular and revealed the power of obedience in today s world. Milgram presented his findings in his article, The Perils of Obedience. Like Milgram, Philip Zimbardo, professor of psychology at Stanford University at the time, conducted the Stanford Prison Experiment, which tested average people s abilities, or lack thereof, to resist authority or obedience. Lee Ross, professor of psychology at Stanford UniversityRead MoreThe Negative Effects of Obedience1308 Words   |  6 Pages Throughout the years obedience has had an enormous effect on human history. It has caused nations to rise and fall, prosper and suffer; yet it has also brought destruction among innocent people. The Jewish holocaust is one of the best public ized examples of the perils of obedience. Hitler caused otherwise normal people to commit atrocious acts, acts that greatly reduced the number of Jewish people. Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford university, questions to whatRead MoreEssay on Best-Known Examples of the Perils of Obedience1294 Words   |  6 PagesThroughout the years obedience has had an enormous effect on human history. It has caused nations to rise and fall, prosper and suffer; yet it has also brought destruction among innocent people in several gruesome measures. The holocaust is one of the best known examples of the perils of obedience. Hitler caused otherwise normal people to commit atrocious acts, acts that nearly exterminated all of the Jewish people. Philip Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford university, questions toRead MoreObedience to Authority Essay1331 Words   |  6 Pagessuccumb to obedience even when common sense tells them that what they are doing is wrong. Zimbar do’s Stanford Prison experiment, Milgram’s electric shock study, and the scandal surrounding Abu Ghraib are reflections on the outcome of obeying a command regardless of the results and why someone would do so. An experiment by Zimbardo provided insight on how a regular person changes roles when placed within a specific social setting. The Stanford Prison Experiment was conducted by Zimbardo strictly onRead MoreObedience As the Means to a Peaceful Life Essay1542 Words   |  7 Pagesthe name of obedience. Zimbardo, Milgram and Orwell show that obedience is a response to the role one assumes in life; to find personal satisfaction and inner peace, one must demonstrate obedience. As found in the infamous Stanford Prison Study, the conviction with which people assume their roles, as well as the extreme behavior they are willing to go to perpetuate their role and demonstrate obedience to the perceived authority stunned even the designer of the study, Phillip Zimbardo. In this studyRead MoreThe Stanford Prison Experiment Essay1207 Words   |  5 PagesAnthony Westcott English 252-Instructor Levine Writing Assignment 2 October 26, 2015 The Stanford Prison Experiment During the summer of 1973 an experiment of the psychology of imprisonment was conducted by psychologist Philip K. Zimbardo. Zimbardo created his own jail in the basement in the Stanford University psychology building. Every participant had to be mentally and physically fit in order to participate in this experiment. Participants were randomly split into two groups’, guards and prisonersRead MoreAnalysis Of Zimbardos The Perils Of Obedience1189 Words   |  5 PagesStanley Milgram, an American social psychologist, writes in his article â€Å"The Perils of Obedience† about an experiment he designed which forced participants to either obey the demands of an authority figure, in this case the experimenter, or to turn against obedience and refuse to proceed in the experiment (Milgram 78). He found from this experiment that a minority of the participants refused to obey orders by the experimenter; therefore, most of the participants followed the orders given by the experime nter

Scholarship Essay Samples for College Students Features

Scholarship Essay Samples for College Students Features It is quite a bit easier to compose an essay having a plan and comprehension of what and where you're speaking about. If you've completed Step 1 (above), then you need to already have a notion of what things to write. Specify the most critical steps that you should undertake in the class of a year or two, in addition to during some 5-10 decades. An example is offered below. No matter your purpose, before you start to write, consider your audience. Therefore, you don't need to fret about your private information whenever you order with us. So since you can see, the registration procedure is very simple and understandable, so there are not any conundrums or trick to do that correctly. The scholarships you find are likely to fit into specific themes that you must have the ability to identify so as to save your family time, frustration, stress, and most significantly money. It's simple to point out an essay which has been written solely for the interest of it. An essay has a specific structure. Even though this kind of essay should only be 250 words long, you must organize your ideas ahead of time. A leadership essay provides the readers an intensive perspective on the expression and the way it varies in many fields of life. The significance of leadership ought to be clear to the readers in the essay with good comprehension. For example, if you're assigned with scholarship essay on leadership then it is vital to know every aspect and essentials of leadership before writing the essay. The ending of the leadership essay another major part that needs the utmost attention on the face of the essay writer. Paragraph i state a summary of what you're going to speak about in the essay. Scholarship essays are extremely similar to your college application essays concerning strategy. Amongst various sorts of essays, a scholarship essay steps from the crowd. It is a pretty brief piece of writing. Writing a scholarship essay may not be a very simple job for many students. The scholarship committee would like to observe how investing in your education will aid your career. As a consequence, their scholarship applications become rejected. College education is extremely critical for my future. Since the scholarship is for an education, an individual should include things like acquiring a superb education as a significant aim. Scholarship sponsors search for applicants with vision and motivation, so they may ask about your targets and aspirations. Scholarship essays shouldn't be considered a burden since they are your gateway to land entrance into a prestigious university with lots of benefits and perks that have the scholarship. Be mindful of the way the Scholarship money is going to be disbursed. Scholarships can come to the provider choosing involving you and dozens or maybe hundreds or thousands of quite similar students. Getting into one of the highest colleges is the initial step towards a thriving career. Start brainstorming now, and you might find yourself a winner! If you want more money to cover college, odds are you will be applying for several college scholarships. The excellent news is there are several scholarship opportunities available for students just like you.

Feedback and Evaluation for a Federal Program to Give...

The Government as far back as the 1950s backed subsidized and unsubsidized student loans. However, over the years the cost of a college education has increased and has become a financial burden for some families as their debts began to rise. The U. S. Department of Education amended the Title IV of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 1965. Student loans are a form of financial aid that a student can receive while in college and consist of federal loans and private loans. The Internal and External feedback mechanisms A high number of students are graduating from college with a debt that is stemming from student loans with high interest. Over the years, students who entered into low paying positions after college or experienced a†¦show more content†¦The financial markets begin to show signs of non-payments of credit on student loans, which was alarming to policy makers who eventually intervened. The feedback received from this brought on the amendment of the Title IV of the Higher Education Act. Students were struggling to make ends meet with the worry of repaying their student loans as they entered into the workforce, they found that they were unable to purchase homes, prepare for retirement, nor have the option to start their own small businesses and so forth. Suggestions were made to the task force for policymakers to implement repayment options that would be affordable to students, and have private lenders to restructure loans. Anoth er suggestion was to repair a student’s credit if and when they repay their loan in full. Federal student loans can be issued directly to the student or to the parents. However, if that loan is made to the student, the student is not required to make any payments if enrolled as a part-time student. Should the student drop below the part-time status, there is a six month grace period to rekindle your status and the payments will be deferred, otherwise there is no grace period. Any loans made to the parents can have large loan amount, however, payments will have to start immediately. Private loans can be made toShow MoreRelatedThe American Education System Is Important For National Prosperity And Individual Success1424 Words   |  6 Pagessuccess. Huge achievement gaps and opportunities must shrink to non-existence, and every student must receive a well education that prepares them for college and careers in the world as it is today. Comparing the United States education s ystem to other countries shows that the United States scored lower than nineteen other counties and education systems in reading in the 2012 Program for International Student Assessment. Germany and Poland in particular are two countries that have now surpassed theRead MoreEssay about Recidivism: Prison and Ex-offenders2347 Words   |  10 Pagesthings. Luke indicated that one of his ex-offenders who was incarcerated for a non-violent offense and was released in 2007 has been successful with reentry. This individual obtained employment immediately upon release, enrolled in a mental health program, and welcomed the support of family and friends. Much is being done to help ex-offenders overcome the barriers that complicate reentry into the community and develop into successful, productive citizens. Recidivism is a major problem because itRead MoreStudent Learning Outcomes Into My Writing3418 Words   |  14 Pagesany goal we want, if we give it the time and effort. It does not matter how much we have to write or how many assignments we are asked to do. If we work step by step and plan ahead, we will success in achieving our goal. Throughout this portfolio I will discuss how these assignments have helped me to incorporate various aspects of Student Learning Outcomes into my writing, and how I have revised the two of the major writing assignments. Part A: Discussion of Student Learning Outcomes The EnglishRead MorePRACTICUM REPORT ON THE ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES, FUNCTIONS AND STRUCTURES OF THE KADUNA NORTH LOCAL GOVERNMENT EDUCATION AUTHORITY, KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA.3501 Words   |  15 Pagespracticum is a practical field of study which students studying Educational Administration and Planning must carry out as a partial requirement for the fulfillment of the award of Bachelor Degree in Educational Administration and Planning. The students who offer Educational Administration and Planning as their course of study are expected to within the period of their programme to be attached to any of the educational organizations so as to provide the students an opportunity to acquire practical knowledgeRead MoreResource and Capability4994 Words   |  20 PagesOrganization 15 5.4 Branding 15 6 Risk Analysis 16 6.1 Financial Risks 16 6.2 Political Risks 17 6.3 Human Resource Risks 17 6.4 Operational Risks 17 6.5 Scale of Risk 18 7 Monitoring and Evaluation 19 7.1 Operations 19 7.2 Finance 19 7.3 Human Resource 20 7.4 Customers 20 7.5 Business Development 20 7.6 Technology 20 8 Conclusions 21 9 References 22 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Read Morewells fargo case study Essay14125 Words   |  57 Pagesour marketing plan. Through examination of the information in the situation analysis, our team came up with a new product service, tax preparation. This service will coincide with our home loans by making it a free service to customers who have a home loan with us. If a customer does not have a home loan with us; the service can still be used in-house with a specialized and licensed tax preparer or with software for a fee. Our target market is people in the age range of 26 to 60 years old andRead MoreBanking Industry Financial Analysis Ppt8348 Words   |  34 Pages 56-59 Limitations 59 Data Presentation 60-71 Findings and Suggestions 72 Conclusion 73 Bibliography 74 Annexure (Questionnaire) 75-78 DECLARATION I Ankita Srivastava the student of Dayanand Academy of Management Studies, Kanpur studying in MBA hereby declare that the work done by me in project titled â€Å"AN ANALYSIS ON ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM AND ITS PROBLEMS† is original and completed to the best of my knowledge and beliefRead MoreRecent Trends in Hrm8914 Words   |  36 Pages Preface The underlying aim of the seminar on contemporary issue as an integral part of MBA program is to provide the students with practical aspects of the organization – working environment. 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Further, it will reviseRead MoreFundamentals of Hrm263904 Words   |  1056 Pagestextbook with the most effective instructor and student resources With WileyPLUS: Students achieve concept mastery in a rich, structured environment that’s available 24/7 Instructors personalize and manage their course more effectively with assessment, assignments, grade tracking, and more manage time better study smarter save money From multiple study paths, to self-assessment, to a wealth of interactive visual and audio resources, WileyPLUS gives you everything you need to personalize the

Marketing Myopia Essay Example For Students

Marketing Myopia Essay A R T I C L E www. hbr. org BEST OF HBR 1960 Marketing Myopia by Theodore Levitt †¢ NO DO copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 Product 7243 TC OP Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article: 1 Article Summary The Idea in Brief—the core idea The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work 2 Marketing Myopia 15 Further Reading A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications YO RP OS T BEST OF HBR 1960 The Idea in Brief What business are you really in? A seemingly obvious question—but one we should all ask before demand for our companies’ products or services dwindles. The railroads failed to ask this same question—and stopped growing. Why? Not because people no longer needed transportation. And not because other innovations (cars, airplanes) filled transportation needs. Rather, railroads stopped growing because railroads didn’t move to fill those needs. Their executives incorrectly thought that they were in the railroad business, not the transportation business. They viewed themselves as providing a product instead of serving customers. Too many other industries make the same mistake—putting themselves at risk of obsolescence. How to ensure continued growth for your company? Concentrate on meeting customers’ needs rather than selling products. Chemical powerhouse DuPont kept a close eye on its customers’ most pressing concerns—and deployed its technical know-how to create an ever-expanding array of products that appealed to customers and continuously enlarged its market. If DuPont had merely found more uses for its flagship invention, nylon, it might not be around today. The Idea in Practice We put our businesses at risk of obsolescence when we accept any of the following myths: Myth 1: An ever-expanding and more affluent population will ensure our growth. When markets are expanding, we often assume we don’t have to think imaginatively about our businesses. Instead, we seek to outdo rivals simply by improving on what we’re already doing. The consequence: We increase the efficiency of making our products, rather than boosting the value those products deliver to customers. Myth 2: There is no competitive substitute for our industry’s major product. Believing that our products have no rivals makes our companies vulnerable to dramatic innovations from outside our industries—often by smaller, newer companies that are focusing on customer needs rather than the products themselves. COPYRIGHT  © 2004 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 page 1 NO TC OP Myth 3: We can protect ourselves through mass production. Few of us can resist the prospect of the increased profits that come with steeply declining unit costs. But focusing on mass production emphasizes our company’s needs—when we should be emphasizing our customers’. Myth 4: Technical research and development will ensure our growth. When RD produces breakthrough products, we may be tempted to organize our companies around the technology rather than the consumer. Instead, we should remain focused on satisfying customer needs. YO RP OS T Marketing Myopia BEST OF HBR 1960 by Theodore Levitt OP COPYRIGHT  © 2004 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. DO We always know when an HBR article hits the big time. Journalists write about it, pundits talk about it, executives route copies of it around the organization, and its vocabulary becomes familiar to managers everywhere—sometimes to the point where they don’t even associate the words with the original article. Most important, of course, managers change how they do business because the ideas in the piece helped them see issues in a new light. â€Å"Marketing Myopia† is the quintessential big hit HBR piece. In it, Theodore Levitt, who was then a lecturer in business administration at the Harvard Business School, introduced the famous question, â€Å"What business are you really in? and with it the claim that, had railroad executives seen themselves as being in the transportation business rather than the railroad business, they would have continued to grow. The article is as much about strategy as it is about marketing, but it also introduced the most in? uential marketing idea of the past half-century: that businesses will do better in the end if they concentrate on meeting customers’ needs rather than on selling prod- TC NO copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 2 YO ucts. â€Å"Marketing Myopia† won the McKinsey Award in 1960. RP Every major industry was once a growth industry. But some that are now riding a wave of growth enthusiasm are very much in the shadow of decline. Others that are thought of as seasoned growth industries have actually stopped growing. In every case, the reason growth is threatened, slowed, or stopped is not because the market is saturated. It is because there has been a failure of management. Marketing Myopia Fateful Purposes The failure is at the top. The executives responsible for it, in the last analysis, are those who deal with broad aims and policies. Thus: †¢ The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was ? lled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes, and even telephones) but because it was not ? lled by the railroads themselves. They let others take custom- OS T Sustained growth depends on how broadly you define your business— and how carefully you gauge your customers’ needs. Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO Theodore Levitt, a longtime professor of marketing at Harvard Business School in Boston, is now professor emeritus. His most recent books are Thinking About Management (1990) and The Marketing Imagination (1983), both from Free Press. ers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business. The reason they de? ned their industry incorrectly was that they were railroad oriented instead of transportation oriented; they were product oriented instead of customer oriented. Hollywood barely escaped being totally ravished by television. Actually, all the established ? lm companies went through drastic reorganizations. Some simply disappeared. All of them got into trouble not because of TV’s inroads but because of their own myopia. As with the railroads, Hollywood de? ned its business incorrectly. It thought it was in the movie business when it was actually in the entertainment business. â€Å"Movies† implied a speci? c, limited product. This produced a fatuous contentment that from the beginning led producers to view TV as a threat. Hollywood scorned and rejected TV when it should have welcomed it as an opportunity—an opportunity to expand the entertainment business. Today, TV is a bigger business than the old narrowly de? ned movie business ever was. Had Hollywood been customer oriented (providing entertainment) rather than product oriented (making movies), would it have gone through the ? scal purgatory that it did? I doubt it. What ultimately saved Hollywood and accounted for its resurgence was the wave of new young writers, producers, and directors whose previous successes in television had decimated the old movie companies and toppled the big movie moguls. There are other, less obvious examples of industries that have been and are now endangering their futures by improperly de? ning their purposes. I shall discuss some of them in detail later and analyze the kind of policies that lead to trouble. Right now, it may help to show what a thoroughly customer-oriented management can do to keep a growth industry growing, even after the obvious opportunities have been exhausted, and here there are two examples that have been around for a long time. They are nylon and glass—speci? cally, E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company and Corning Glass Works. Both companies have great technical competence. Their product orientation is unquestioned. But this alone does not explain their success. After all, who was more pridefully product oriented and product conscious than the erstwhile New England textile companies that have been so thoroughly massacred? The DuPonts and the Cornings have succeeded not primarily because of their product or research orientation but because they have been thoroughly customer oriented also. It is constant watchfulness for opportunities to apply their technical know-how to the creation of ustomer-satisfying uses that accounts for their prodigious output of successful new products. Without a very sophisticated eye on the customer, most of their new products might have been wrong, their sales methods useless. Aluminum has also continued to be a growth industry, thanks to the efforts of two wartime-created companies that deliberately set about inventing new customer-satisfying uses. Without Kaiser Aluminum Chemi cal Corporation and Reynolds Metals Company, the total demand for aluminum today would be vastly less. Error of Analysis. Some may argue that it is foolish to set the railroads off against aluminum or the movies off against glass. Are not aluminum and glass naturally so versatile that the industries are bound to have more growth opportunities than the railroads and the movies? This view commits precisely the error I have been talking about. It de? nes an industry or a product or a cluster of know-how so narrowly as to guarantee its premature senescence. When we mention â€Å"railroads,† we should make sure we mean â€Å"transportation. † As transporters, the railroads still have a good chance for very considerable growth. They are not limited to the railroad business as such (though in my opinion, rail transportation is potentially a much stronger transportation medium than is generally believed). What the railroads lack is not opportunity but some of the managerial imaginativeness and audacity that made them great. Even an amateur like Jacques Barzun can see what is lacking when he says, â€Å"I grieve to see the most advanced physical and social organization of the last century go down in shabby disgrace for lack of the same comprehensive imagination that built it up. What is lacking is] the will of the companies to survive and to satisfy the public by inventiveness and skill. †1 NO TC OP copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 3 YO RP Shadow of Obsolescence It is impossible to mention a single major industry that did not at one time qualify for the OS T Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO magic appellation of â€Å"growth industry. † In each case, the industry’s assumed strength lay in the apparently unchallenged superiority of its product. There appeared to be no effective substitute for it. It was itself a runaway substitute for the product it so triumphantly replaced. Yet one after another of these celebrated industries has come under a shadow. Let us look brie? y at a few more of them, this time taking examples that have so far received a little less attention. Dry Cleaning. This was once a growth industry with lavish prospects. In an age of wool garments, imagine being ? nally able to get them clean safely and easily. The boom was on. Yet here we are 30 years after the boom started, and the industry is in trouble. Where has the competition come from? From a better way of cleaning? No. It has come from synthetic ? bers and chemical additives that have cut the need for dry cleaning. But this is only the beginning. Lurking in the wings and ready to make chemical dry cleaning totally obsolete is that powerful magician, ultrasonics. Electric Utilities. This is another one of those supposedly â€Å"no substitute† products that has been enthroned on a pedestal of invincible growth. When the incandescent lamp came along, kerosene lights were ? nished. Later, the waterwheel and the steam engine were cut to ribbons by the ? xibility, reliability, simplicity, and just plain easy availability of electric motors. The prosperity of electric utilities continues to wax extravagant as the home is converted into a museum of electric gadgetry. How can anybody miss by investing in utilities, with no competition, nothing but growth ahead? But a second look is not quite so comforting. A score of nonutility c ompanies are well advanced toward developing a powerful chemical fuel cell, which could sit in some hidden closet of every home silently ticking off electric power. The electric lines that vulgarize so many neighborhoods would be eliminated. So would the endless demolition of streets and service interruptions during storms. Also on the horizon is solar energy, again pioneered by nonutility companies. Who says that the utilities have no competition? They may be natural monopolies now, but tomorrow they may be natural deaths. To avoid this prospect, they too will have to develop fuel cells, solar energy, and other power sources. To survive, they themselves will have to plot the obsolescence of what now produces their livelihood. Grocery Stores. Many people ? nd it hard to realize that there ever was a thriving establishment known as the â€Å"corner store. The supermarket took over with a powerful effectiveness. Yet the big food chains of the 1930s narrowly escaped being completely wiped out by the aggressive expansion of independent supermarkets. The ? rst genuine supermarket was opened in 1930, in Jamaica, Long Island. By 1933, supermarkets were thriving in California, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere. Yet the establis hed chains pompously ignored them. When they chose to notice them, it was with such derisive descriptions as â€Å"cheapy,† â€Å"horse-and-buggy,† â€Å"cracker-barrel storekeeping,† and â€Å"unethical opportunists. The executive of one big chain announced at the time that he found it â€Å"hard to believe that people will drive for miles to shop for foods and sacri? ce the personal service chains have perfected and to which is accustomed. †2 As late as 1936, the National Wholesale Grocers convention and the New Jersey Retail Grocers Association said there was nothing to fear. They said that the supers’ narrow appeal to the price buyer limited the size of their market. They had to draw from miles around. When imitators came, there would be wholesale liquidations as volume fell. The high sales of the supers were said to be partly due to their novelty. People wanted convenient neighborhood grocers. If the neighborhood stores would â€Å"cooperate with their suppliers, pay attention to their costs, and improve their service,† they would be able to weather the competition until it blew over. 3 It never blew over. The chains discovered that survival required going into the supermarket business. This meant the wholesale destruction of their huge investments in corner store sites and in established distribution and merchandising methods. The companies with â€Å"the courage of their convictions† resolutely stuck to the corner store philosophy. They kept their pride but lost their shirts. A Self-Deceiving Cycle. But memories are short. For example, it is hard for people who today con? dently hail the twin messiahs of electronics and chemicals to see how things could possibly go wrong with these galloping industries. They probably also cannot see how copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 4 NO TC OP YO RP OS T Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 5 NO TC It is hard for people who hail the twin messiahs of electronics and chemicals to see how things could possibly go wrong with these galloping industries. a reasonably sensible businessperson could have been as myopic as the famous Boston millionaire who early in the twentieth century unintentionally sentenced his heirs to poverty by stipulating that his entire estate be forever invested exclusively in electric streetcar securities. His posthumous declaration, â€Å"There will always be a big demand for ef? cient urban transportation,† is no consolation to his heirs, who sustain life by pumping gasoline at automobile ? lling stations. Yet, in a casual survey I took among a group of intelligent business executives, nearly half agreed that it would be hard to hurt their heirs by tying their estates forever to the electronics industry. When I then confronted them with the Boston streetcar example, they chorused unanimously, â€Å"That’s different! † But is it? Is not the basic situation identical? In truth, there is no such thing as a growth industry, I believe. There are only companies organized and operated to create and capitalize on growth opportunities. Industries that assume themselves to be riding some automatic growth escalator invariably descend into stagnation. The history of every dead and dying â€Å"growth† industry shows a self-deceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay. There are four conditions that usually guarantee this cycle: 1. The belief that growth is assured by an expanding and more af? uent population; 2. The belief that there is no competitive substitute for the industry’s major product; 3. Too much faith in mass production and in the advantages of rapidly declining unit costs as output rises; 4. Preoccupation with a product that lends itself to carefully controlled scienti? c experimentation, improvement, and manufacturing cost reduction. I should like now to examine each of these conditions in some detail. To build my case as boldly as possible, I shall illustrate the points with reference to three industries: petroleum, automobiles, and electronics. I’ll focus on petroleum in particular, because it spans more years and more vicissitudes. Not only do these three industries have excellent reputations with the general public and also enjoy the con? dence of sophisticated investors, but their managements have become known for progressive thinking in areas like ? nancial control, product research, and management training. If The belief that pro? ts are assured by an expanding and more af? uent population is dear to the heart of every industry. It takes the edge off the apprehensions everybody understandably feels about the future. If consumers are multiplying and also buying more of your product or service, you can face the future with considerably more comfort than if the market were shrinking. An expanding market keeps the manufacturer from having to think very hard or imaginatively. If thinking is an intellectual response to a problem, then the absence of a problem leads to the absence of thinking. If your product has an automatically expanding market, then you will not give much thought to how to expand it. One of the most interesting examples of this is provided by the petroleum industry. Probably our oldest growth industry, it has an enviable record. While there are some current concerns about its growth rate, the industry itself tends to be optimistic. But I believe it can be demonstrated that it is undergoing a fundamental yet typical change. It is not only ceasing to be a growth industry but may actually be a declining one, relative to other businesses. Although there is widespread unawareness of this fact, it is conceivable that in time, the oil industry may ? nd itself in much the same position of retrospective glory that the railroads are now in. Despite its pioneering work in developing and applying the present-value method of investment evaluation, in employee relations, and in working with developing countries, the petroleum business is a distressing example of how complacency and wrongheadedness can stubbornly convert opportunity into near disaster. One of the characteristics of this and other industries that have believed very strongly in the bene? cial consequences of an expanding population, while at the same time having a generic product for which there has appeared to be no ompetitive substitute, is that the individual companies have sought to outdo their competitors by improving on what they are already doing. This makes sense, of course, if one assumes that sales are tied to the country’s population strings, because the customer can OP YO RP OS Population Myth T obsolescence can cripple even these industries, it can happen anywhere. Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO copying or posti ng is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 6 NO TC OP The history of every dead and dying â€Å"growth† industry shows a selfdeceiving cycle of bountiful expansion and undetected decay. compare products only on a feature-by-feature basis. I believe it is signi? cant, for example, that not since John D. Rockefeller sent free kerosene lamps to China has the oil industry done anything really outstanding to create a demand for its product. Not even in product improvement has it showered itself with eminence. The greatest single improvement—the development of tetraethyl lead—came from outside the industry, speci? cally from General Motors and DuPont. The big contributions made by the industry itself are con? ned to the technology of oil exploration, oil production, and oil re? ning. Asking for Trouble. In other words, the petroleum industry’s efforts have focused on improving the ef? ciency of getting and making its product, not really on improving the generic product or its marketing. Moreover, its chief product has continually been de? ned in the narrowest possible terms—namely, gasoline, not energy, fuel, or transportation. This attitude has helped assure that: †¢ Major improvements in gasoline quality tend not to originate in the oil industry. Shintoism In Japan EssayNone of them is spending a fraction as much on research in these profoundly important areas as it is on the usual run-of-the-mill things like reducing combustion chamber deposits in gasoline engines. One major integrated petroleum company recently took a tentative look at the fuel cell and concluded that although â€Å"the companies actively working on it indicate a belief in ultimate success†¦the timing and magnitude of its impact are too remote to warrant recognition in our forecasts. † One might, of course, ask, Why should the oil companies do anything different? Would not chemical fuel cells, batteries, or solar energy kill the present product lines? The answer is that they would indeed, and that is precisely the reason for the oil ? rms’ having to develop these power units before their competitors do, so they will not be companies without an industry. Management might be more likely to do what is needed for its own preservation if it thought of itself as being in the energy business. But even that will not be enough if it persists in imprisoning itself in the narrow grip of its tight product orientation. It has to think of itself as taking care of customer needs, not ? nding, re? ning, or even selling oil. Once it genuinely thinks of its business as taking care of people’s transportation needs, nothing can stop it from creating its own extravagantly pro? table growth. Creative Destruction. Since words are cheap and deeds are dear, it may be appropriate to indicate what this kind of thinking involves and leads to. Let us start at the beginning: the customer. It can be shown that motorists strongly dislike the bother, delay, and experience of buying gasoline. People actually do not buy gasoline. They cannot see it, taste it, feel it, appreciate it, or really test it. What they buy is the right to continue driving their cars. The gas station is like a tax collector to whom people are compelled to pay a peri- copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 10 NO TC OP YO RP OS T Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 11 NO TC It is not surprising that, having created a successful company by making a superior product, management continues to be oriented toward the product rather than the people who consume it. odic toll as the price of using their cars. This makes the gas station a basically unpopular institution. It can never be made popular or pleasant, only less unpopular, less unpleasant. Reducing its unpopularity completely means eliminating it. Nobody likes a tax collector, not even a pleasantly cheerful one. Nobody likes to interrupt a trip to buy a phantom product, not even from a handsome Adonis or a seductive Venus. Hence, companies that are working on exotic fuel substitutes that will eliminate the need for frequent refueling are heading directly into the outstretched arms of the irritated motorist. They are riding a wave of inevitability, not because they are creating something that is technologically superior or more sophisticated but because they are satisfying a powerful customer need. They are also eliminating noxious odors and air pollution. Once the petroleum companies recognize the customer-satisfying logic of what another power system can do, they will see that they have no more choice about working on an ef? ient, long-lasting fuel (or some way of delivering present fuels without bothering the motorist) than the big food chains had a choice about going into the supermarket business or the vacuum tube companies had a choice about making semiconductors. For their own good, the oil ? rms will have to destroy their own highly pro? table assets. No amount of wishful thinking can save them from the necessity of engaging in this form of â€Å"creative destruction. † I phrase the need as strongly as this because I think management must make quite an effort to break itself loose from conventional ways. It is all too easy in this day and age for a company or industry to let its sense of purpose become dominated by the economies of full production and to develop a dangerously lopsided product orientation. In short, if management lets itself drift, it invariably drifts in the direction of thinking of itself as producing goods and services, not customer satisfactions. While it probably will not descend to the depths of telling its salespeople, â€Å"You get rid of it; we’ll worry about pro? ts,† it can, without knowing it, be practicing precisely that formula for withering decay. The historic fate of one growth industry after another has been its suicidal product provincialism. Another big danger to a ? rm’s continued growth arises when top management is wholly trans? xed by the pro? t possibilities of technical research and development. To illustrate, I shall turn ? rst to a new industry—electronics—and then return once more to the oil companies. By comparing a fresh example with a familiar one, I hope to emphasize the prevalence and insidiousness of a hazardous way of thinking. Marketing Shortchanged. In the case of electronics, the greatest danger that faces the glamorous new companies in this ? ld is not that they do not pay enough attention to research and development but that they pay too much attention to it. And the fact that the fastest-growing electronics ? rms owe their eminence to their heavy emphasis on technical research is completely beside the point. They have vaulted to af? uence on a sudden crest of unusually strong gene ral receptiveness to new technical ideas. Also, their success has been shaped in the virtually guaranteed market of military subsidies and by military orders that in many cases actually preceded the existence of facilities to make the products. Their expansion has, in other words, been almost totally devoid of marketing effort. Thus, they are growing up under conditions that come dangerously close to creating the illusion that a superior product will sell itself. It is not surprising that, having created a successful company by making a superior product, management continues to be oriented toward the product rather than the people who consume it. It develops the philosophy that continued growth is a matter of continued product innovation and improvement. A number of other factors tend to strengthen and sustain this belief: 1. Because electronic products are highly complex and sophisticated, managements become top-heavy with engineers and scientists. This creates a selective bias in favor of research and production at the expense of marketing. The organization tends to view itself as making things rather than as satisfying customer needs. Marketing gets treated as a residual activity, â€Å"something else† that must be done once the vital job of product creation and production is completed. 2. To this bias in favor of product research, development, and production is added the bias OP YO RP OS T Dangers of RD Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO in favor of dealing with controllable variables. Engineers and scientists are at home in the world of concrete things like machines, test tubes, production lines, and even balance sheets. The abstractions to which they feel kindly are those that are testable or manipulatable in the laboratory or, if not testable, then functional, such as Euclid’s axioms. In short, the managements of the new glamour-growth companies tend to favor business activities that lend themselves to careful study, experimentation, and control—the hard, practical realities of the lab, the shop, and the books. What gets shortchanged are the realities of the market. Consumers are unpredictable, varied, ? ckle, stupid, shortsighted, stubborn, and generally bothersome. This is not what the engineer managers say, but deep down in their consciousness, it is what they believe. And this accounts for their concentration on what they know and what they can control—namely, product research, engineering, and production. The emphasis on production becomes particularly attractive when the product can be made at declining unit costs. There is no more inviting way of making money than by running the plant full blast. The top-heavy science-engineering-production orientation of so many electronics companies works reasonably well today because they are pushing into new frontiers in which the armed services have pioneered virtually assured markets. The companies are in the felicitous position of having to ? ll, not ? nd, markets, of not having to discover what the customer needs and wants but of having the customer voluntarily come forward with speci? c new product demands. If a team of consultants had been assigned speci? cally to design a business situation calculated to prevent the mergence and development of a customer-oriented marketing viewpoint, it could not have produced anything better than the conditions just described. Stepchild Treatment. The oil industry is a stunning example of how science, technology, and mass production can divert an entire group of companies from their main task. To the extent the consumer is studied at all (which is not much), the focus is forever on getting informa tion that is designed to help the oil companies improve what they are now doing. They try to discover more convincing advertising themes, more effective sales promotional drives, what the market shares of he various companies are, what people like or dislike about service station dealers and oil companies, and so forth. Nobody seems as interested in probing deeply into the basic human needs that the industry might be trying to satisfy as in probing into the basic properties of the raw material that the companies work with in trying to deliver customer satisfactions. Basic questions about customers and markets seldom get asked. The latter occupy a stepchild status. They are recognized as existing, as having to be taken care of, but not worth very much real thought or dedicated attention. No oil company gets as excited about the customers in its own backyard as about the oil in the Sahara Desert. Nothing illustrates better the neglect of marketing than its treatment in the industry press. The centennial issue of the American Petroleum Institute Quarterly, published in 1959 to celebrate the discovery of oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, contained 21 feature articles proclaiming the industry’s greatness. Only one of these talked about its achievements in marketing, and that was only a pictorial record of how service station architecture has changed. The issue also contained a special section on â€Å"New Horizons,† which was devoted to showing the magni? cent role oil would play in America’s future. Every reference was ebulliently optimistic, never implying once that oil might have some hard competition. Even the reference to atomic energy was a cheerful catalog of how oil would help make atomic energy a success. There was not a single apprehension that the oil industry’s af? uence might be threatened or a suggestion that one â€Å"new horizon† might include new and better ways of serving oil’s present customers. But the most revealing example of the stepchild treatment that marketing gets is still another special series of short articles on â€Å"The Revolutionary Potential of Electronics. † Under that heading, this list of articles appeared in the table of contents: †¢ â€Å"In the Search for Oil† †¢ â€Å"In Production Operations† †¢ â€Å"In Re? nery Processes† †¢ â€Å"In Pipeline Operations† Signi? cantly, every one of the industry’s major functional areas is listed, except marketing. Why? Either it is believed that electronics holds no revolutionary potential for petroleum copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] arvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 12 NO TC OP YO RP OS T Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO marketing (which is palpably wrong), or the editors forgot to discuss marketing (which is m ore likely and illustrates its stepchild status). The order in which the four functional areas are listed also betrays the alienation of the oil industry from the consumer. The industry is implicitly de? ned as beginning with the search for oil and ending with its distribution from the re? nery. But the truth is, it seems to me, that the industry begins ith the needs of the customer for its products. From that primal position its de? nition moves steadily back stream to areas of progressively lesser importance until it ? nally comes to rest at the search for oil. The Beginning and End. The view that an industry is a customer-satisfying process, not a goods-producing process, is vital for all businesspeople to understand. An industry begins with the customer and his or her needs, not with a patent, a raw material, or a selling skill. Given the customer’s needs, the industry develops backwards, ? rst concerning itself with the physical delivery of customer satisfactions. Then it moves back further to creating the things by which these satisfactions are in part achieved. How these materials are created is a matter of indifference to the customer, hence the particular form of manufacturing, processing, or what have you cannot be considered as a vital aspect of the industry. Finally, the industry moves back still further to ? nding the raw materials necessary for making its products. The irony of some industries oriented toward technical research and development is that the scientists who occupy the high executive positions are totally unscienti? c when it comes to de? ing their companies’ overall needs and purposes. They violate the ? rst two rules of the scienti? c method: being aware of and de? ning their companies’ problems and then developing testable hypotheses about solving them. They are scienti? c only about the convenient things, such as laboratory and product experiments. The customer (and the satisfaction of his or her deepest needs) is not considered to be â€Å"the problem†Ã¢â‚¬â€not because there is any certain belief that no such problem exists but because an organizational lifetime has conditioned management to look in the opposite direction. Marketing is a stepchild. I do not mean that selling is ignored. Far YO from it. But selling, again, is not marketing. As already pointed out, selling concerns itself with the tricks and techniques of getting people to exchange their cash for your product. It is not concerned with the values that the exchange is all about. And it does not, as marketing invariably does, view the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse, and satisfy customer needs. The customer is somebody â€Å"out there† who, with proper cunning, can be separated from his or her loose change. Actually, not even selling gets much attention in some technologically minded ? rms. Because there is a virtually guaranteed market for the abundant ? ow of their new products, they do not actually know what a real market is. It is as if they lived in a planned economy, moving their products routinely from factory to retail outlet. Their successful concentration on products tends to convince them of the soundness of what they have been doing, and they fail to see the gathering clouds over the market. Less than 75 years ago, American railroads enjoyed a ? erce loyalty among astute Wall Streeters. European monarchs invested in them heavily. Eternal wealth was thought to be the benediction for anybody who could scrape together a few thousand dollars to put into rail stocks. No other form of transportation could compete with the railroads in speed, ? exibility, durability, economy, and growth potentials. As Jacques Barzun put it, â€Å"By the turn of the century it was an institution, an image of man, a tradition, a code of honor, a source of poetry, a nursery of boyhood desires, a sublimest of toys, and the most solemn machine—next to the funeral hearse—that marks the epochs in man’s life. 6 Even after the advent of automobiles, trucks, and airplanes, the railroad tycoons remained imperturbably self-con? dent. If you had told them 60 years ago that in 30 years they would be ? at on their backs, broke, and pleading for government subsidies, they would have thought you totally demented. Such a future was simply not considered possible. It was not even a disc ussable subject, or an askable question, or a matter that any sane person would consider worth speculating about. Yet a lot of â€Å"insane† notions now have matter-of-fact RP copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 13 NO TC OP OS †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ T Marketing Myopia †¢Ã¢â‚¬ ¢ †¢B EST OF HBR 1960 DO copying or posting is an infringement of copyright. [emailprotected] harvard. edu or 617. 783. 7860 harvard business review †¢ top-line growth †¢ july–august 2004 page 14 NO acceptance—for example, the idea of 100-ton tubes of metal moving smoothly through the air 20,000 feet above the earth, loaded with 100 sane and solid citizens casually drinking martinis—and they have dealt cruel blows to the railroads. What speci? cally must other companies do to avoid this fate? What does customer orientation involve? These questions have in part been answered by the preceding examples and analysis. It would take another article to show in detail what is required for speci? c industries. In any case, it should be obvious that building an effective customer-oriented company involves far more than good intentions or promotional tricks; it involves profound matters of human organization and leadership. For the present, let me merely suggest what appear to be some general requirements. The Visceral Feel of Greatness. Obviously, the company has to do what survival demands. It has to adapt to the requirements of the market, and it has to do it sooner rather than later. But mere survival is a so-so aspiration. Anybody can survive in some way or other, even the skid row bum. The trick is to survive gallantly, to feel the surging impulse of commercial mastery: not just to experience the sweet smell of success but to have the visceral feel of entrepreneurial greatness. No organization can achieve greatness without a vigorous leader who is driven onward by a pulsating will to succeed. A leader has to have a vision of grandeur, a vision that can produce eager followers in vast numbers. In business, the followers are the customers. In order to produce these customers, the entire corporation must be viewed as a customercreating and customer-satisfying organism. Management must think of itself not as producing products but as providing customercreating value satisfactions. It must push this OP idea (and everything it means and requires) into every nook and cranny of the organization. It has to do this continuously and with the kind of ? ir that excites and stimulates the people in it. Otherwise, the company will be merely a series of pigeonholed parts, with no consolidating sense of purpose or direction. In short, the organization must learn to think of itself not as producing goods or services but as buying customers, as doing the things that will make people want to do business with it. And the chief executive has the inescapable responsibility for creating this env ironment, this viewpoint, this attitude, this aspiration. The chief executive must set the company’s style, its direction, and its goals. This means knowing precisely where he or she wants to go and making sure the whole organization is enthusiastically aware of where that is. This is a ? rst requisite of leadership, for unless a leader knows where he is going, any road will take him there. If any road is okay, the chief executive might as well pack his attache case and go ? shing. If an organization does not know or care where it is going, it does not need to advertise that fact with a ceremonial ? gurehead. Everybody will notice it soon enough. TC YO RP 1. Jacques Barzun, â€Å"Trains and the Mind of Man,† Holiday, February 1960. 2. For more details, see M. M. Zimmerman, The Super Market: A Revolution in Distribution (McGraw-Hill, 1955). 3. Ibid. , pp. 45–47. 4. John Kenneth Galbraith, The Af? uent Society (Houghton Mif? in, 1958). 5. Henry Ford, My Life and Work (Doubleday, 1923). 6. Barzun, â€Å"Trains and the Mind of Man. † Reprint R0407L Harvard Business Review OnPoint 7243 To order, see the next page or call 800-988-