Little Big Man

Directed by Arthur Penn, Little Big Man is a 1970 movie based on a 1964 novel by Thomas Berger. It stars Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George. The story begins as old Jack Crabb tries to recall the events of his long life for a biographer William Hickey. He had been a frontiersman, Indian scout, gunfighter, buffalo hunter, adopted Cheyenne homesteader, and witness and survivor of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. However, among his varied life events, the fact that he was adopted by the Cheyenne gives him an unique perspective on both the white and Native American cultures of the 19th century. The movie unravels the white man’s attempted genocide of the Indian and provides an indirect commentary upon genocide then occurring in Vietnam. However, the movie is most noted for its celebrated toppling of the legend and heroic aura surrounding General George Armstrong Custer and his defeat at the Little Big Horn (Geyring, 1988).Little Big Man (1970) breaks many myths surrounding the w orld of the American West. It raises questions on many of the notions of the West that have come to dominate the popular consciousness. The new elements of Little Big Man that are in opposition to popular myths in western cinema include a decreased use of violence, increased use of non-traditional sexuality, critical views of historical masculine figures, more concern for the feelings of a woman, nontraditional sexuality and more focus on favoring â€Å"realism† over â€Å"romanticism†.Young Jack and his older sister Caroline were orphaned during a massacre of his wagon train. Jack is later raised by the Cheyenne leader Old Lodge Skins and taught the Cheyenne language whereas Caroline runs off.   Jack is given the name â€Å"Little Big Man† when, despite his short statures, he bravely volunteers to fight against the United States Army. After many adventures, he reunites with Caroline for a brief time. Jack finally settled down with a Swedish woman named Olga a nd even opens a general store. However, when his partner   deceives him and puts him in heavy debt, he is forced to close the store. George Armstrong Custer suggests they make a new beginning in the west.   But their stagecoach is attacked on the way and Olga is abducted by the Cheyenne. Jack later on, tragically finds Olga married to Younger Bear. He later marries Sunshine. Custer kills many of the Cheyenne leaders. Unable to take revenge on Custer directly, he leads them to their doom at the Little Bighorn in a smartly planned manner.Westerns Films   are the major defining genre of the American film industry. They usually represent the days of the expansive, untamed American frontier in the 19th century. The western film genre typically portray the conquest of the wilderness and the subordination of nature, in the name of civilization.   Usually, the film is based on forts, desert regions, isolated homestead, jail, small town main street etc. Other iconic elements in weste rns include the hanging tree, stetsons and spurs, lassos and Colt .45's, stagecoaches, gamblers, long-horned cattle and cattle drives, prostitutes with a heart of gold, and more (Dirks, 2007).The western film genre has been associated with America’s historical past.   Usually, the central plot of the western film is simple and based on conflicts between good and evil, white hat and black hat, settlers vs. Indians, humanity vs. nature, and so on (Dirks, 2007). Often the hero of a western meets his equal and opposite self in the form of the villain. Thus typical elements in westerns include enemies (often Native Americans), guns and gun fights, violence and human massacres, horses, trains and train robberies, bank robberies and holdups, runaway stagecoachs, shoot-outs and showdowns, outlaws and sheriffs, cattle drives and cattle rustling and distinctive western clothing (denim, jeans, boots, etc.) (Dirks, 2007).Little Big Man focuses on the settlement of the American West dur ing the middle- and late-nineteenth century. Crabb's is obsessively in search of his own origins. In relating his past, Crabb introduces several sets of parents over the course of the novel, including his birth parents, the Indians, and the Pendrakes. He does not sense any connection in the true sense to these people: â€Å"my Ma was well-meaning but ignorant. My Pa was crazy and my brother was a traitor. Then there was Caroline.They weren't much of a family, I guess, but then I was not with them long†. One also finds that Crabb could not have a family of his own despite two official marriages. He participates in almost every major event in the West at that time, beginning in 1852 and concluding in 1876 with the Battle of Little Bighorn.   Following Crabb in his search for roots the movie traces the complex issues of Western settlement, especially those raised by the collision of cultures and peoples.This breaks the myth of Western movies that the Native Indians are all sav ages and the white people are all decent settlers. Crabb is a White Man and he always remembers it. But he was brought up by the Cheyenne Indians from the age of ten.   When Crabb lives with the Indians, he cannot forget that he is white and while in the company of the whites, he seems more connected with the Indians; he confesses these conflicting attitudes when he runs away from the Pendrakes, his adopted parents in Missouri (Sinowitz, 1999).Crabb is derogatory in his speech and attitude towards both the Native Indians and the whites. When he is captured, he makes remarks such as â€Å"Indians of course invented the habit of smoking, and almost nothing else† and refers to the Indians as â€Å"barbarians.† As he proceeds to compliment them, he says â€Å"you couldn't get away from the fact that they wasn't white†. However, when he is among the whites later in the novel, Crabb realizes that he finds civilization meaningless. These ambivalent notions about the Indian world and civilization are very different from earlier Western type movies where the native Indians were the only villains.In most traditional Western movies, the settlement primarily involved bringing civilization to the West. In Little Big Man, Crabb even points out that the Indians are very mannerly.   He also indicates the barbarity of the whites. Instead of simply reversing the traditional roles of the Indians and whites, the movie shows us that in reality both groups are comprised of civil and savage men and values.In doing so, Penn revises traditional views of Western settlement and the tendency of observers neatly to categorize the roles various groups play in a historical process. The movie does not place any community as superior compared to another. But each culture along with its criticism is brought on an equal plane. The Little Big Man provides an increasingly positive representation of Native Americans who had been treated as â€Å"savages† in earlier films. Contrary to general American Western genre movies, this movie portrays the American Indians in a sympathetic light whereas the soldiers are portrayed as lunatics or violent barbarians (Sinowitz, 1999).Often considered the most American of film genres, the Western has long shaped the way the history of the West has been recorded in American culture.   When Western Movies brought in historical characters, the role they played was minimal. In this movie, we find that historical characters such as Custer and Wild Bill Hickok are treated with more detail. Crabb develops an obsessive hatred and then a strange admiration for Custer, and something of a friendship with Hickok.The film seems to make them more human and realistic with all their flaws and natural talents.   When Crabb meets Hickok, he is performing one of his famous stunts; however, Crabb downplays Hickok's shooting display and later does not really believe the legendary feats of Hickok. The movie reveals that the im ages of Hickok are most those projected by writers and press people. In effect, Crabb uses realistic portrayals of these historical figures to deflate the myths surrounding them (Sinowitz, 1999).In the movie Little Big Man, Penn parodies scenes and incidents from other Western movies (Sinowitz, 1999). There is a near reproduction of the climactic chase at the end of Stagecoach (1939), where John Wayne's Ringo Kid helps fend off an Indian attack on the coach . In Little Big Man, Penn converts this scene into a comic disaster instead of making it into a moment of heroic grandeur (Sinowitz, 1999). While in the movie â€Å"the Ringo Kid† and his companions shoot at Indians with a great deal of accuracy from the fleeing stagecoach, Crabb notes the need to use a shotgun, instead of a rifle from a moving stagecoach.Crabb also informs the reader that the apparent tough man traveling among the passengers on the coach dies of a heart attack before the Indians get close. Western movies such as Ford's The Searchers (1956) show Indians attacking a farm house in the   middle of the night and capturing Edwards's two nieces. In this movie, Crabb stresses that Indians never attack at night. Morever, Western movies generally involve the concepts of taking revenge. In Little Big Man, Crabb finally tracks down his own non-Indian wife and child and finds them   living with his greatest enemy among the Indians. But, knowing that they are content with Younger Bear, Crabb decides to leave them alone.The western films generally have a simplistic moral code.   For example, a white hat represents the good guy, a black hat represents the bad guy; two people facing each other on a deserted street leads to the expectation of a showdown; cattlemen are loners, townsfolk are family and community minded, etc. All western films can be read as a series of codes and the variations on those codes. Kevin Costner's Dances with Wolves actually resurrects all the original codes and conven tions but â€Å"reverses the polarities†: the Native Americans are good, the U.S.Cavalry is bad. Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven uses every one of the original conventions, only reverses the outcomes instead of dying bravely or stoically, characters whine, cry, and beg; instead of a good guy saving the day, irredeemable characters execute revenge; etc. Here, in Little Good Man, the original codes and conventions are rewritten. Every person is treated as an individual with his own flaws in personality. Traditional Western movies had cowboy like heroes who were ruthless in their killings. ‘Unforgiven’ however, shows that even the gunslingers of the western had their own feelings and had to deal with a conscience after killing. In Little Big Man, Crabb gives up his gunslinger role the moment he sees Hickok kill another person in self-defense. Thus, there is more of a humanizing treatment to the western protagonists in Unforgiven and Little Big Man.As for the Native Amer ican characters, Little Big Man is more similar to â€Å"Dances with Wolves†. In the movie Dances with Wolves, the main protagonist Dunbar realizes that contrary to his belief that native Indians are barbaric people, they are a remarkable people, who are at one with the land and the earth.   He'd earlier been told that Native Indians were thieves, savages, and barbarians. But after knowing about them, he finds them both noble and intelligent.Dunbar becomes a friend and eventual member of the Tribe. He has found his place in life, and he is content and at peace. Here again we find that the Little Big Man does not place a similar halo around the native Indians. Rather, the movie etches out great characters among them who also have their flaws. Little Big Man differs from Dances with Wolves in the fact that it does not totally glorify the native Indians though it does focus them in a positive light.The reason why Little Big Man provides a neutral perspective towards the native Indians as well as towards the main protagonist Crabb is best explained by the words of authors Michael Ryan and Douglas Kellner in their book â€Å"Camera Politica: the politics and ideology of contemporary Hollywood film†: â€Å"Fundamental social attitudes like patriotism, optimism, trust in government and business, sense of social security and so on were either deliberately overturned by such things as counterculture or undermined by events like Watergate.As a result the generic division which maintained boundaries around proper public dress and behavior or between public morality and immorality were crossed. Idealized cultural representations of public authority could no longer hold in a society in which young people scorned public figures and repudiated authority†. Thus, according to the authors, the neutral perspective is mainly due to the fact that during the period after 1967, America was in turmoil due to the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. Demarcatio ns between right and wrong were diffused and hence the movie of that period – Little Big Man (1970) – reflects that.Thus the movie â€Å"Little Big Man† marks a changing point in American Western Movies in many ways. This was due to changing times in history during the late sixties and changing perceptions. However, the movie was the first to start the revisionist Western trend in Hollywood, where age old western myths were shattered and new elements were added to this genre.Bibliography:Ryan, Michael. Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film.Dirks, Tim (2007). Westerns Films. http://www.filmsite.org/westernfilms2.htmlGehring, Wes D. (1988). Handbook of American Film Genres. Greenwood Press, 1988Meldrum, Howard Barbara (1985). Under the sun: Myth and realism in Western American Literature. Whitston Pub. Co., 1985Sinowitz, Leigh Michael (1999). The Western as Postmodern Satiric History: The Little Big Man. CLIO. Volume: 28. Issue: 2.

Coping with Methuselah

In the reading selection â€Å"Coping with Methuselah†, the authors Aaron and Schwartz work well together to convey their ideas using all three principles of argument to their readers. Aaron and Schwartz literally begin with the principle of ethos in their passage titled â€Å"About the Authors† which states their professional accomplishments (articles they have written, major universities they are associated with) individually and together. Immediately this reader is convinced that their knowledge base is extensive and they are a reducible source.Eifel it was especially convincing for these two colleagues to voice the same arguments to its audience together. There is more authority when two professionals with such expertise are voicing the same concerns. They also use the principle of pathos (probably the most) throughout the reading selection. Some examples are the title alone. â€Å"Coping with Methuselah† immediately takes the reader straight to religion whic h can bring to the table a large array of emotions.Another example is Aaron and Schwartz asking the reader open ended questions such as â€Å"Is the age of Methuselah at hand? And if so What does this mean for public policy in the U. S. Or the world? † This allows the reader to feel in control of their own thoughts but these questions are rhetorical. They are followed by information that transform your thoughts. The biggest emotional play here was their questions to the audience about if a patient refuses the extension of their wan life (has a choice).Would this be considered a form of suicide? Wow! Lastly, the authors use the principle of logos throughout the reading selection also. Aside from emotions, a great deal of the audience wants logical justifications as well. They give many ideas to how this will change the costs of Social Security, Medicare, etc. They suggest to the reader that money, stability and global demographics will be negatively affected.

Automotive Technology

My life has always been filled with dreams and aspirations. As a young child, I have always been interested in things that required thinking. I remember as a young child, I was fascinated with the way cars work. The work of mechanics would always leave me with a lot of questions in my mind. So when I grew older, I decided to fulfill my long time dream, and took Automotive Technology. I believe that The South Seattle Community College would be the answer to all my queries, with regards to Automotive Technology. I will be given the chance to experience a technologically advance training that would help me learn more about the processes involved in the automotive industry. In the long run, I may be able to share my talents and knowledges to those who are in need of my service. With the Automotive Technology degree, I may be hired as a Service Manager, or as a Service Advisor, and earn as much as $34. 00 an hour. This would be enough to suffice for my other needs at home. As of now, I guess my biggest barrier in acquiring my degree is my financial status. I am currently unemployed, with no means of sufficing for my education. I am only armed with my will, dedication, and passion to learn new ideas so that I can be the best person that I can be. I know that financial problems can never hinder me from striving hard and learning. I believe that the best way to overcome my obstacles is to just keep my drive in accomplishing my hopes and dreams of acquiring a degree from your university. In addition to this, I would also like to inspire people to do the same thing I did – to study hard and overcome barriers in education.

Twelve Angry Men Analysis Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Twelve Angry Men Analysis Paper - Essay Example At the start of their deliberations, all the jurors pass a guilty verdict against the defendant except one juror. This forces the juror to examine the evidence and after tireless arguments, they emerge with a not guilty verdict. Analysis Due process is one of the major principles of American jurisprudence, which is enshrined in the fifth amendment of the constitution. Due process requires that no person be detained to respond for a capital, or an infamous offense, except on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury. Before a person is convicted on a criminal offence, due process requires that the Jury come to a unanimous decision. Lack of a unanimous guilty verdict in the first vote in Twelve Angry men, ensures that the jury re-examines the evidence until not all of them vote guilty as their verdict. This is to ensure that the correct verdict has been reached which is a sign of agreement by all the jurors, solidarity, and unity and to prove that the decision lacks any doubt. A unan imous decision will also ensure that the accused does not face another trial (Siegel, Schmalleger and Worrall 39). Due process also requires that the prosecution prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt to ensure that the jury returns a conviction of guilty. In case the Prosecution fails to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, then the defendant will always be acquitted. Proving guilt beyond reasonable doubt also ensures that the prosecution has given enough evidence to show that evidence establishes a particular point to a moral certainty and that it is beyond dispute that any reasonable alternative is possible (Siegel, Schmalleger and Worrall 44). The prosecution could not prove their case beyond reasonable doubt in Twelve Angry Men hence the jury’s decision to come back with a not guilty verdict. Due process of law requires a presumption of innocence by the government on a criminal in case of lack of any contrary evidence. Presumption of innocence is applied in due process to ensure that the government proves the case of the defendant beyond reasonable doubt. The defendant in this case is presumed innocent before the hearing and when due process takes effect, he is found not guilty because the prosecution’s case could not be proved beyond reasonable doubt. A defendant in any criminal case has a right to a jury of his peers. This ensures that the defendant gets a fair verdict, which will be morally held and cannot be contested (Siegel, Schmalleger and Worrall 56). One of the jurors who voted the defendant guilty at first is juror 3. He has preconceived notions about the case and quite antagonistic to juror 8 who votes not guilty. He is a temperamental man who loses his temper whenever anyone opposes his ideas. He has a bad relationship with his son and this makes him to judge the defendant guilty for his crime due to his problems at home. He argues that based on the evidence provided, the case was simple and straightforward thus his conviction that the defendant is guilty. He however changes his mind and is the last person to vote not guilty after coming to terms with his problem. Juror 10, Ed Begley is one of the jurors who show prejudice in terms of his judgment. He votes guilty at the start because he believes that the defendant comes from the ghetto and people from the ghetto kill

Customary law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Customary law - Essay Example This essay discusses that customary laws still reside the basis of new laws in modern societies. For instance in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries custom laws takes the form of common law. Modern legal issues such as the application of commerce laws to the internet in the 1990s, started as customary laws. For custom laws to be applied in the international law it needs to have met three conditions. One it should have widespread recurrence in that many states need to be applying that law in their countries. Secondly, each nation should have a sense of obligation to have the set standard and in enforcing the laws. Third the laws should bring about little dispute among the states internationally to be able to be applied. Customary legal systems tend to the following basic principle in their application. One there should be a strong concern for individual rights. Two; laws enforced by victims backed by reciprocal agreements. Thirdly, standard adjudication procedures mu st be observed to avoid violence. Four offences treated as torts punishable through economic restitution, five legal changes by means of an evolutionary process of developing customs and norms. Cultural law can be seen to have some advantages for the following reasons. They are flexible and easy to implement to suit the situation at hand. Because most of the customary laws are from the peoples who believe they are normally are easily changed and accepted. The peoples and the community’s cultures are given some sense of recognition by these customary laws hence making them easily acceptable to many people in the world. It also gives assurances to the minorities in the world that their way of life is given some preference in the application of law universally3. Through the application of customary laws, it gives the people a sense of belonging and recognition in the application of the laws. Most customary laws have undergone changes in their content, interpretation, and enforce ment. While changing, they can also stagnate if amid their evolution, the people give them a rigid interpretation especially if the customs continue when their social base has changed. A community may justify their continuance or avoidance by stating that its forefathers have ordained them. The customary laws change also when they are codified particularly when the formal system that has a written document as its base recognizes them. Discussion Presently, in a majority of cases, where customary law conflicts with domestic law the latter prevails, the exception being where a national law can be shown to conflict with constitutionally recognized customary rights. In such cases, the aggrieved party will still need the authorities to amend the offending legislation, and to take such remedial measures as may be required to redress any wrong, which has occurred. In some cases, there may be little hope of redress where irreversible exploitation of resources has occurred. Where no constitu tional protection exists, communities will forever be dependent upon the goodwill of the national authorities, as legislative action can at any time result in the abrogation of ancestral rights. Customary law and practice may be undermined by adoption of culturally insensitive national laws. Similarly, traditional authority is being eroded as those unhappy with their decisions seek

Nursing Practice Gap Analysis Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Nursing Practice Gap Analysis Paper - Essay Example However, attempts to develop have been faced with the challenge caused by the gap between theory and practice. What the students learn is viewed as ideal and not the reality of what happens in healthcare. Therefore, there is need to analyze the gap and reconcile theory with practice for advanced nursing practice. This paper analyses an area of nursing practice with a gap between theory and practice. it will talk about an area that lack of theoretical support, theory developments and rationale for theory. 2. Nursing Practice Gap. Theory presents information that form a basis for understanding nursing, therefore, information offered in the classroom is a representation of what happens in practice as Walker and Avant (2005, p. 9) note. Nursing students often find themselves in challenging situations where they have to find solutions in practice after successfully engaging in theoretical studies. 2.1. Area of nursing that lacks theoretical support. Caring theory is an area that provides understanding to the gap between theory and practice. According to the caring theory nurses can show care by upholding the well being of a patient. The nurse will administer drugs and participate in prevention of infections. The challenge lies in the actions of the nurse, the process of care and meeting expectations of the patient. Theory of care does not adequately cover the measure of care a nurse can poses given a specific situation. The capacity of care may vary from one individual to another. Commitment of the nurse in their relationship with the patient for care is not adequately supported. Additionally, a complimentary environment for giving care is required and not often clearly emphasized in the theory. Caring actions are overlooked and not given priority in the theory as it is in practice. Caring actions include enabling, assisting, staying together, recognizing and beliefs of the patient. In practice, nurses realize that caring actions have consequences. Although the nurs e may give out, the intended outcome may not be realized. The conditions for giving care can be complicated. Patients and their relatives need care, which is shown through professionalism, leadership and care delivery. Care may be hindered by problems emanating from either the organization, nurse or the patient. The caring theory may require the nurse to spend time with the patient to know how they are coping with the illness. This may not be practical because the nurse must find a balance between their assigned tasks. 2.2. Current theory development. In order to improve giving care to patients in the hospital, unique and specific actions have been proposed as the appropriate ways of giving care. Actions that would make the patient obtain and believe in care have been preferred. The actions would translate theory into practice. According to Tonges and Ray (2011, p. 376), developments in care theory propounds that nurses participate in maintaining the faith or belief of the patient t o aid in the transition of their well being. The nurse strives to know and understand issues and events happening that could affect the well being of the patient. Taking care of a patient has incorporated the emotional support to the patient and relatives. In an attempt to close the gap between caring theory and practice, nurses practice doing for others what they would like done to them. Furthermore, there are situations where giving care in person can be a challenge; hence, it is recommended that the nurse facilitates for others so that they can take care of

Energy Sources In the 21st Century Research Paper

Energy Sources In the 21st Century - Research Paper Example lly and it is a mixture of hydrocarbons primarily methane and other higher alkanes in various proportion and it also contains nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide in lesser proportions. It is found in deep underground formations of natural rock along with other hydrocarbons like coal, methane clathrates, etc. (b) Natural Gas Reserves According to a recent assessment by the Potential Gas Committee the reserves of natural gas in the US have increased by 26 percent by the end of 2012 than it used to be in 2010. Now the present estimated reserve is 2,384 trillion cubic feet. The reserves of the natural gas in the US are primarily located in Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, Federal Offshore, Alaska, California, and North Dakota and Texas is the largest reserve (Cathy Proctor, 2013). Extracting natural gas from the ground is a complicated and expensive process. The gas is odorless and colorless requiring extra precautions. Extracting the gas from deep underground decreases the pressure in the reservoir and decrease in pressure might cause sinking of the above ground affecting ecosystem, water and sewer systems, water ways, foundations, etc. The process used to release the natural gas from low-permeability reservoir is called hydraulic fracturing or "hydrofracking". Water is forced inside the shale to release the natural gas which breaks or fracks the shale for releasing the gas. Sand and chemicals are added to the frack fluid for reducing friction and combating corrosion. It is a challenge to deal with fracking fluid (Cathy Proctor, 2013). (c) Transportation The reserves of the natural gas in the US are primarily located in Texas, the Gulf of Mexico, Federal Offshore, Alaska, California, and North Dakota and fortunately most of them are close to either major cities or... This essay stresses that the major sources of energy in the United States are fossil fuels like oil, natural gas and coal which are used for generating electricity, driving cars and other vehicles, running industries, etc. The fossil fuels are non-renewable sources of energy which constitute for major consumption while renewable sources such as solar energy or wind energy contribute marginally to the total energy consumption in the United States. This paper makes a conclusion that extracting natural gas from the ground is a complicated and expensive process. The gas is odorless and colorless requiring extra precautions. Extracting the gas from deep underground decreases the pressure in the reservoir and decrease in pressure might cause sinking of the above ground affecting ecosystem, water and sewer systems, water ways, foundations, etc. The process used to release the natural gas from low-permeability reservoir is called hydraulic fracturing or "hydrofracking". Water is forced insid e the shale to release the natural gas which breaks or fracks the shale for releasing the gas. Sand and chemicals are added to the frack fluid for reducing friction and combating corrosion. It is a challenge to deal with fracking fluid. natural gas can help in solving some major environmental issues like Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Smog, Air Quality and Acid Rain, Industrial and Electric Generation Emissions, Pollution from the Transportation Sector - Natural Gas Vehicles. Etc.

Global Socities Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Global Socities - Essay Example However the real winners are the citizens themselves – more so because it is because of them that the mayors and legislators receive these prizes. Societal relationships the world over are regarded as pertinent since these form the basis of growth and interaction amongst people. The aspect of people-to-people contact is important because they form their own communities and yet live within the domains of the society of which they are an essential part of. Being good citizens of a society means so much more, rather than mere residents within the different locales. (Saul, 2002) It is a wholly different ideology – and one that needs proper understanding by the people who activate the citizens in a positive manner. A perfect society is one in which the citizens are actively geared to reach out to each other, help the fabric of the society and in essence carve out a niche for meeting their own problems on a proactive basis. (Lipschutz, 2001) Similarly, justice and its application is an important ingredient within the active domains of citizenship. It is not only about being fair but it also holds a great deal of importance on being fair and timely. (Stoddart, 2007) It is a true saying that justice delayed is justice denied; for this reason justice takes both these things when it is defined in the truest sense of the word. Justice is radically associated with the mighty men – the rulers and the ones who govern a particular area or a regiment of soldiers. The concepts of civil rights and of civil law are both functions of the concept of civil society whereby it is that bubble of private action free of government control. (Spiro, 1999) It is not free of government action, because government action secures the nature of civil society by the protection of persons against criminal wrongs. The essence of civil society is thus that people are left by government to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, while the government protects the

Employability in the Knowledge Economy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Employability in the Knowledge Economy - Essay Example Besides being pervasive, its central features of manipulation, storage, and transmission of large amounts of data at low cost, has made the IT revolution to influence every element of the economy as well as business chain. From its significant impact on both goods and services to R&D, production, marketing, distribution, and customer management, the overall knowledge application of knowledge to all facets of economy has been greatly simplified; and with this the knowledge intensity of economic activities has amplified. Besides this, globalization has increased with global competition, removal of trade barriers, FDIs, easy transfers of technology and capital, and network oriented economic activities. The concept of knowledge economy does not merely revolve high technology or generation of new knowledge, in fact it centers on the exploitation or effective use of all type of knowledge for the creation of wealth (Dahlman, n.d.). The nature of knowledge economy has been explained in terms of the significant role of knowledge as a factor of production and how it impacts on learning, skills, and innovation in the business organization. With the help of information and communication technologies, knowledge is increasingly becoming systemized which is leading toward information diffusion. This in turn is stressing for the possession of knowledge-based skills by human resource. Learning is in focus for both people and business organizations. (Houghton & Sheehan, 1999) For the purpose of employability, business leaders constantly advise people to acquire the skills, knowledge, and capabilities that are required by employers in the increasingly knowledge-driven economy (CBI, 2001). Drucker (1993) suggests that production is no longer driven by natural resources, capital, or labor, but ‘innovation and productivity’ – the major applications of knowledge. Since technological

A view from the bridge Essay Example for Free

A view from the bridge Essay When Arthur Miller first wrote A View from the Bridge in 1955 he wrote it as a one act play written in the style of a Greek melodrama. Later, in 1956, he wrote the full length version we know today in modern style. The theme of the Greek tragedy is continued however including historical facts used by Alfieri to demonstrate the history of violence and tragedy behind every Italian American.  Alfieri opens the play and speaks directly to the audience rather than at them. This gives the audience a sense of intimacy though like Alfieri they will have no influence on the play itself. Alfieris role in the play is to oversee the action and relate it to the audience and by the end of the play he is the only character that seems to have any sympathy for Eddie even though he has been described by critic Shay Daly as not a full flesh and blood character. Alfieri is effectively playing the chorus in this tragedy and like in Greek and Roman tragedies the chorus is always filled with foreboding for the coming events; Alfieri invests this sense of tragedy strongly in his opening narration and like the chorus of many Greek tragedies is powerless to stop an eventually tragic outcome. Alfieri mentions Al Capone, calling him the greatest Carthaginian. At first we might believe that he means Al Capone is a law breaker punished by the law as represented by Rome because Carthage was destroyed by Rome. By later mentioning Calabria and especially Syracuse as well as justly shot by unjust men we know Alfieri means Al Capone represents a Carthage from an earlier age. Rome hardly existed and Carthage, competing for the rule of Sicily, would punish those who broke the rules of war, such as the tyrant Agathocles of Syracuse who was famed for his cruelty and who, unprovoked, attacked his unsuspecting neighbours. Al Capone has become a kind of hero for the average Italian American upholding the Sicilian family ethos. Another key theme in the play is that of the relationship between Eddie and Catherine which from the very start of the play is lively intimate and flirtatious. Eddie greets Catherine first when he comes home imparting the feeling that she is more important to him than Beatrice. Eddies masculinity is outlined in this scene, he is very much a manly man who finds it difficult to come to terms with his emotional side and shows this by ordering Beatrice and Catherine around while he imparts news and drinks beer in his chair. Catherine sits by his chair in a pose of supplication, slave like, subdued and obedient to Eddie. A sense of foreboding runs not just through Alfieris opening speech but throughout Beatrice and Catherines lines. An example of this is Catherines shocked No! and Beatrice who is half in fear and afraid. These fearful premonitions point the way for the tragedy to unfold. Alfieri makes us aware of the law in Red Hook; it is not the law of the establishment but the law of Sicilian values upheld by its citizens. Alfieri is aware and is part of both types of law, he is aware of the limitations to both laws and the consequences of someone going outside either law.  We settle for half, as Alfieri says, or compromise which is one of the key ideas in this play. The audience is made aware of this idea of compromise early on in the play and the fact that Alfieri likes it better suggests that it is better because he no longer has to keep a pistol in his filing cabinet. Compromise defeats violence and those who wont compromise will be left behind; it is failure to compromise which is the eventual downfall of Eddie because he wont change. This is not Eddies fault, his character is usually described as forceful, obsessive, warm, protective, irrational, and self-interested. Alfieri suggests that Eddies type held back the civilisation of Red Hook, and as sympathetic as he is towards Eddie now he is dead and they are quite civilised, quite American. Like Stanley in A Streetcar named Desire, Eddie is little more than an uneducated and driven man but he has become obsolete next to a man like Rodolpho who Eddie criticises: he cooks, he sings, he could make dresses and the new working woman like Catherine.  Every theme and idea in this play is sowed by Alfieri, Catherine and Beatrice in the first five pages to be later expanded upon throughout-which is why these first few pages are so vital to the play. Bibliography  http://www.forumromanum.org

The Use Of Technology To Improve Mathematics Education Essay

The Use Of Technology To Improve Mathematics Education Essay This project is based on the use of technology to improve mathematics in secondary schools of Mauritius. It discusses about the various theories associated in the application of new means of communication and teaching-learning mathematics, as well as the available technological tools and their applications. After much research work, this project has been successfully completed and applied on a sample of Lower six students. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY Mathematics is a very important subject at the primary and secondary educational level. The subject finds its own place in all sciences, accountability, economics and technology. To be able to understand concepts or application of statistics in the latter subjects, a good foundation in mathematics is highly recommended. Also, after completion of secondary education, a student is required to give evidence of a good analytical and numeracy skill through his/her mathematics results so as to qualify for a seat for most of the field of the tertiary education locally or overseas. Consequently, teachers and the school administration should leave no stone unturned in creating an efficient teaching-learning environment and incentives for their students. THE PROBLEM Mathematics is a subject which has been regarded as being very difficult by many students and parents. This stereotype way of thinking has acted as a demotivating factor and has lead to a downfall in the performance of students in mathematics, especially in upper secondary classes (Form 4 Upper 6). Many students take the subject as a burden since it is a compulsory subject to their study stream. Hence, Mathematics, including Additional Mathematics, is neglected resulting in homework undone or uncompleted and poor performance in assessments and exams. JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY At the start of every academic year, lots of problem are faced by teachers and school administration to convince students and explain to them the importance of mathematics in their subject combination for Lower Six. Also, after the first few weeks of following Additional Mathematics classes, many students wish to drop the subject, but since the subject is mandatory for science, economics and technology streams, students find no alternative. This situation arises because students are being exposed to more abstract mathematics than the basic. As a solution to this mathematics crisis, efforts have to be done to develop the educational psychology and mathematical pedagogy. Technology is the tools or the ways used by individuals to improve the standard of living or comfort of living in their civilization. The youngsters of this era are highly and easily fascinated by technology. In other words, it can be said that it is the fashion of technology; consequently, technology can be more easily used as a teaching-learning tools to achieve educational goals. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY The use of technology in teaching mathematics will attract students towards liking the subject, thus motivating them to work harder, get a clearer understanding of concepts, develop their reflex, logical thinking and problem-solving skills, and improve their performance as a whole in the subject. LIMITATION OF THE STUDY Despite all the theories and technological tools existing, it is very depressing that due to limiting resources, materials and finance in our educational system, it is very difficult to apply all instantaneously. Also, though technology is reaching the society very fast, there are still families who cannot afford to provide their children with all technological facilities. Therefore, children from such families would feel very underprivileged if technology is fully applied to teaching and learning. For instance, these children will be deprived if any computer-based or internet-based homework is given. SUMMARY OF THE CHAPTERS (Yet to be written) CHAPTE TWO LITERATURE REVIEW PSYCHOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY IN MATHEMATICS EDUCATION Piaget and the learning of Mathematics Jean Piaget (1896 1980) was a Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. He placed great importance on the education of children. Piagets theory is a theory of intellectual development rather than a theory of learning, teaching, instruction or curriculum in general or with respect to mathematics in particular. But much writing and many investigations have been directed toward hypothesized implications of Piagets theory for mathematics learning, teaching and instruction, for the nature and sequence of curricular content, and for classroom structure, organization and management. Also, concerns have been expressed regarding ways in which Piagets theory has been applied to different aspects of education and mathematics. Very often it has been suggested that certain Piagetian tasks (conservation tasks, for instance) provide a good basis for determining students willingness for learning one aspect or another of school mathematics. But Hiebert and Carpenter (1982) have indicated that the available research evidence suggests that Piagetian tasks are not useful willingness measures. The hypothesis was that Piagetian tasks can be used to identify children who would be unable to benefit from instruction in mathematics, but all the available evidence clearly suggested that the hypothesis was null. Instead, many children who fail Piagetian tasks are able to learn mathematical concepts and skills. Kirby and Biggs (1980) indicated that Cognition returned to psychology in the 1960s and flourished in the 1970s, permeating most areas of psychology. Its metaphor, information processing, became dominant in that discipline. More directly to the point, Groen and Kieran (1983) pointed out that A few years ago, research on childrens mathematics was dominated by Piaget. To many in the field, the task was to extend Piagets theory or reinterpret it. Information-processing theory, broadly conceived, has replaced the Piagetian framework as a broad explanatory model. The significance of information-processing theory in cognitive development has grown concurrently with a retreat from the Piagetian framework. Within the present-day context of cognitive science, emphasis is placed upon understanding and comprehension. The learning of mathematics and research associated with such learning is more and more commonly being described or explained in relation to a system that includes provision for the intake of information, for its compilation within a working memory, and for interaction with other information stored within and retrieved from a long-term memory. Latest research associated with the learning of mathematics is much more likely to focus upon individuals than upon groups. It looks beyond observable performance related to behavioral objectives for its data base. Romberg and Carpenter (in press) have indicated that internal cognitive processes are acknowledged. Rational task analysis, which is based on a logical analysis by experts, has evolved to empirical task analysis, which focuses on what children actually do when they solve mathematics problems. Some of this doing may be observable in a students explicit actions, but much of the doing may be not only terms of a students observable but self-reportable thinking. The term metacognition refers to a persons awareness of and sensitivity to her or his own thought processes, and includes the ability to monitor and control such processes to some degree. There is growing evidence that learning associated with problem solving is facilitated or enhanced by a students increased awareness of metacognitive aspects of the problem-solving process. Also, there is evidence that some of the differences between expert and novice problem solvers may be attributed to differences in metacognitive skills. Romberg and Carpenter (in press) believe that We currently know a great deal more about how children learn mathematics than we know about how to apply this knowledge to mathematics instruction. Research is clearly needed to explore how knowledge of childrens learning of mathematics can be applied to the design of instruction. Furthermore, Although the emphasis in research on learning has changed dramatically in the last 15 years, the connection between theories of instruction and theories of learning remains an issue. Cognitive Guided Instruction Cognitively Guided Instruction is a professional development program based on an integrated program of research on the development of students mathematical thinking; instruction that influences that development; teachers knowledge and beliefs that influence their instructional practice; the way that teachers knowledge, beliefs, and practices are influenced by their understanding of students mathematical thinking. CGI is an approach to teaching mathematics rather than a curriculum program. At the core of this approach is the practice of listening to childrens mathematical thinking and using it as a basis for instruction. Research based frameworks of childrens thinking in the domains of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, base-ten concepts, multi-digit operations, algebra, geometry and fractions provide guidance to teachers about listening to their students. Case studies of teachers using CGI have shown the most accomplished teachers use a variety of practices to extend childrens mathematical thinking. It is a belief of CGI that there is no one way to implement the approach and that teachers professional judgment is central to making decisions about how to use information about childrens thinking. The research foundation on childrens mathematical thinking upon which CGI is based shows that children are able to solve problems without direct instruction by drawing upon informal knowledge of everyday situations. For example, a study of kindergarten children (Carpenter, et al., 1993) showed that young children can solve problems involving what are normally considered advanced mathematics such as multiplication, division, and multistep problems, by using direct modeling. Direct modeling is an approach to problem solving in which the child, in the absence of more sophisticated knowledge of mathematics, constructs a solution to a story problem by modeling the action or structure. The motivation for learning Another crucial assumption regarding the nature of the learner concerns the level and source of motivation for learning. According to Von Glasersfeld (1989) sustaining motivation to learn is strongly dependent on the learners confidence in his or her potential for learning. These feelings of competence and belief in potential to solve new problems are derived from first-hand experience of mastery of problems in the past and are much more powerful than any external acknowledgment and motivation. This links up with Vygotskys zone of proximal development, where learners are challenged within close proximity to their current level of development. By experiencing the successful completion of challenging tasks, learners gain confidence and motivation to embark on more complex challenges. EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY The term educational technology is often associated with, and includes, instructional theory and learning theory. Educational technology, also known as e-learning, instructional technology and learning technology, is the use of technology to support the learning process. It is an innovative way to design, deliver, facilitate, and manage instruction for learners of all ages, whether it is face-to-face in a classroom, online, or a combination of methods. While instructional technology covers the processes and systems of learning and instruction, educational technology includes other systems used in the process of developing human capability. It includes, but is not limited to, software, hardware, as well as internet applications and activities. Although technology is widely used in the administration, management of education and in research, educational technology is only concerned with the impact of technology on the learning process. In other words, technology is used as a tool or su pport to deliver learning materials, to facilitate communication and to provide assessment and feedback. In this present information age, the demand for knowledge is growing at a very fast rate leading to the emergence of e-learning at a much higher pace. Some of the various types of technologies which can be used in todays traditional classrooms are: Computer With a computer in the classroom, a teacher would be able to demonstrate a new lesson, present new material, illustrate how to use new programs, and show new websites. Class website In todays society, children know how to use the computer and navigate their way through a website. Therefore, a class web page is an easy way to display students work. Once a web page is designed, the teacher can post homework assignments or other student works. Class blogs and wikis Blogs allow students to maintain a running dialogue, such as a journal, thoughts, ideas, and assignments. They also provide for student comment and reflection. Wikis are more group focused to allow multiple members of the group to edit a single document and create a truly collaborative and carefully edited finished product. Wireless classroom microphones Noisy classrooms are a daily occurrence, and with the help of microphones, students are able to hear their teachers more clearly. Children learn better when they hear the teacher clearly. The benefit for teachers is that they no longer lose their voices at the end of the day. Mobile devices Mobile devices such as clickers or smartphone can be used to enhance the experience in the classroom by providing the possibility for professors to get feedback. SmartBoards An interactive whiteboard provides touch control of computer applications. These enhance the experience in the classroom by showing anything that can be on a computer screen. This not only aids in visual learning, but it is also interactive, that is, students can draw, write, or manipulate images on the SmartBoard. Online media Streamed video websites can be utilized to enhance a classroom lesson, for instance, United Streaming, Teacher Tube, etc. Podcasts Podcasting is a relatively new invention that allows anybody to publish files to the Internet where individuals can subscribe and receive new files from people by a subscription. The primary benefit of podcasting for educators is quite simple. It enables teachers to reach students through a medium that is both the new style of todays youngsters, as well as a part of their daily lives. For a technology that only requires a computer, microphone and internet connection, podcasting has the capacity of advancing a students education beyond the classroom. When students listen to the podcasts of other students as well as their own, they can quickly demonstrate their capacities to identify and define quality and develop their creativity. This can be a great tool for learning and developing literacy inside and outside the classroom. Podcasting can help sharpen students vocabulary, writing, editing, public speaking, and presentation skills. Students will also learn skills that will be valuable in the working world, such as communication, time management, and problem-solving. There are many other tools being utilized depending on the local school board and funds available. These may include digital cameras, video cameras, document cameras, or LCD projectors. EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP Educational leadership, also known as school leadership, is the process of enlisting and guiding the talents and energies of teachers, pupils, and parents toward achieving common educational aims. Educational leadership came into attention in the late 20th century since demands were made on schools for higher levels of pupil achievement, and schools were expected to improve and reform. These expectations were accompanied by calls for accountability at the school level. The concept of leadership was favored because it conveys dynamism and proactivity. The school head is commonly thought to be the school leader. However, school leadership may include other persons, such as members of a formal leadership team and other persons who contribute toward the aims of the school. CHAPTER THREE RESEARCH AND METHODOLOGY THE MAURITIAN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM BRIEF HISTORY The education system in Mauritius, prototyped after the British model, has improved greatly since independence. After the country became independent in 1968, education became one of the main preoccupations of the Mauritian Government to meet the new challenges awaiting the country. New dimensions have been added to education, which have gradually democratized the whole system. The government made an effort to provide adequate funding for education, occasionally straining tight budgets. Considerable investment of resources, both human and material, has been put into the Education sector and impressive progress has been achieved in terms of free and universal education. Since 1976, education has been free for all and from the year 1991, education has become compulsory for both boys and girls. As from the year 2005, with the introduction of 11-year schooling, education has been free at all levels and compulsory for all up to the age of 16. STRUCTURE From Primary school onwards, education has been structured in a 6-5-2 system, whereby a child follows a minimum of 6 years free and compulsory Primary Schooling leading to a Certificate of Primary Education (CPE). This is followed by a minimum of 5 years Secondary Schooling which is free and, compulsory until the age of 16. This 5 years schooling leads the pupil to a School Certificate (SC) or General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level, which henceforth enables him to pursue another 2 years schooling leading to a Higher School Certificate Advanced Level (HSC), which is the key towards Tertiary Education, either locally or overseas. Students who fail to attain a CPE are admitted to pre-vocational schools set up specially by the government to enable them to learn only basic subjects such as Mathematics, English and French, and some skilled works such as plumbing, electrical, handicrafts, art and painting, agriculture, etc. MASTER PLANS Today the education sector is being marked by a series of reforms based on innovation and creativity from pre-primary to tertiary level. The reforms are aligned on developments worldwide and they focus on empowering the Mauritian child to face the challenges of the new millennium and to use information and technological tools available. One of the main components of the reforms is the National Curriculum Framework for primary and secondary education. It brings about an all-around development of the individual, hence allowing him to lead a balanced, active and productive lifestyle together with an understanding of the biological, physical and technological world. Education would also make the child conscious of the notions of equity and social justice. As concerns secondary and tertiary education, innovations brought are mainly designed to enable schools and institutions to respond effectively to local, national and international priorities. Further, the new reforms 2010 aim to meet individual learning needs of all students, provide a strong foundation for lifelong learning and instill in all learners the skill they need to adapt to an ever-changing world. The curriculum framework for secondary education is based on the need to engage students in meaningful and integrated learning experiences. Sustainable development, citizenship, developing and maintaining a culture of peace and coping with stress are elements that will cut across the learning process. The curriculum base programme at the secondary level has been broadened with emphasis on the teaching of science and technology to those not intending to take science as their field of study in higher classes. General Science will become compulsory till Form V for students not opting for a pure science subject in view of the increasingly important role of science. Changes at the secondary level also comprise the vocationalization of the curriculum through the introduction of new subjects like Travel and Tourism, Physical Education, Marine Science and Environmental Management and the pedagogy will be reinforced by the use of ICT and multimedia. The inclusion of extra and co-curricular activities for all in secondary schools is also proposed by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Human Resources. Thus students will have activity time during which they can choose from a range of co-curricular activities. These activities include arts and crafts, computing, debating, drama, dance, music, singing and a wide range of physical activities. Students at the end of Form III will be initially assessed at national level in literacy in English and French, Numeracy, ICT and Social Studies, leading to a National Certificate of Achievement. This certificate will provide a statement of the level achieved by each student in these core competencies. The new secondary education curriculum has been developed by keeping in view the following key characteristics: Holistic Flexible Contextually relevant Promoting global awareness Integrated with other disciplines Acceptable to the community Thematic / Spiral in approach Fair to the learner Despite the fact that major innovations have been introduced into the system, there are still a number of challenges that need to be faced and overcome as a complement to the reforms undertaken. Today, the major challenge is the reorganization of the secondary education to ensure the fostering and development of the skills and knowledge required for socio-economic growth. TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT Since the year 1991, all state schools have been equipped with a television set and VCR player so that educators could make the most of the tools in the process of teaching and learning, by providing more visual support. Lately, the VCR players have been replaced by DVD players and schools have been provided computers and projectors. For the past 5 years, most schools even have internet connection to enable teachers to do their research work in preparation of their lessons. Also, students are allowed to use internet in school libraries to improve their research skills. However, only 33% of secondary schools in Mauritius have ADSL connection and others are still using the dial-up connection. In 2009, the Ministry of Education launched the EDU-WEB project. This project enables live broadcast and interactive session in real time between the Minister and senior officials and heads of both primary and secondary schools and the education staff. Furthermore, two State Secondary schools have been equipped with Interactive Whiteboards by the Ministry of Education on a pilot base. Subsequently, the government, in collaboration with the Sankorà © Project, is coming with the setting up of at least one Interactive Whiteboard in each of its primary and secondary schools by the end of this year. The Sankorà © Digital Education for all in Africa programme is part of the French contribution to the Franco-British partnership designed to achieve the Millennium objectives in education in Africa. In its 2010 2015 programme, the Sankorà © project is providing digital classroom equipment, resource creation and sharing, professional and schoolmaster training. The equipments provided include computers, projectors and Interactive Whiteboards (IWB). AIMS OBJECTIVES PROCEDURES Synchronous and asynchronous Learner-centered environment ANALYSIS There is a growing body of evidence that young children invent or construct much of their own mathematical knowledge, and that they come to school with some well-developed, although understandably immature ways of dealing with various mathematical situations. We do not seem to take full advantage of childrens conceptions in our programs of mathematics teaching and instruction. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS VISION STATEMENT MISSION STATEMENT SURVEYS QUESTIONNAIRES SURVEY RESULTS EFFECTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS EMPHASIS ON TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION The ultimate objective of any educational enterprise is to improve student achievement so that individuals may fulfill their personal aspirations and become contributing members of society. This requires meaningful change in the way educators do their work. It requires new structures, new tools and new knowledge. But more than anything, the culture of the education system must change. And creating a culture of achievement throughout an education system requires a different mindset altogether. MOTIVATION AND COMMITMENT ON APPLYING TECHNOLOGY RECOMMENDATIONS Equipment Lab Internet LMC Training of teachers and students

Outsourcing Voice-based Processes in Bangalore

Outsourcing Voice-based Processes in Bangalore Economists study the ways people earn a living and provide for their material needs. They study how people behave as a result of a change in price, income, or other variables. Many are employed in business and industry but there are many different areas of economics that economists specialize in. Industrial economists study many different forms of business organization. They study the production costs, markets, and investment problems. Agricultural economists study farm management and crop production. Labor economists study wages and hours of labor, labor unions, and government labor polices. Other fields of economics include taxes, banking, international trade, economic theory, and comparative economic systems. Some economists specialize in inflation, depression, employment, unemployment, and tariff polices. Others specialize in investments, the utilization of manpower, business cycles, and the development of natural resources. Societies are interested in economists conclusions beca use they keep us up to date with how the market economy is holding itself up. They give us information on how our wages will be affected, how prices on goods will alter, and how demand on products will go up because of certain decisions we make. Outsourcing has become particularly common in the information technology industry. Highly skilled positions that were once thought secure are now regularly finding their way overseas to places like India and China. Big corporations claim that there are not enough properly trained and educated workers in the United States. Labor advocates say it is all because a computer programmer, in say India, commands perhaps a third of the salary of his American counterpart. While the international human rights advocate sees the outsourcing process as a necessary step in the development of the developing world; a weapon in the fight against poverty and parochial prejudice. Still more interesting, is the argument that outsourcing is an unavoidable consequ ence of the dot.com collapse. It is as if the supporters of this theory purport that this stock market disaster was proof positive that American companies simply cant compete with American labor and much more significantly with American wages and prices. A leader in the outsourcing rush has been IBM. As one of the worlds leading information technology companies, it employs hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, and sets standards that others are bound to follow. IBMs stance on the issue is especially significant given the industrys dominance by only a very small number of large corporations: IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and handful of others. Using IBM as our prime example, we will examine the industry itself, IBMs own corporate policies, and all of the various political and social arguments for and against the computer giants course of action. A perfect example of this situation can be gleaned from a quick look at the latest available figures on the IT industry; IBM dominates the market in the production and sale of mainframe computers. From 2002 to 2003, IBMs market share increased by ten percent, as compared to an industry-wide average increase of only five percent. With this increase, IBM now holds a solid 32% piece of the forty-six billion dollar global mainframe industry. Together, IBM and its three largest competitors HP, Sun, and Dell – control nearly seventy-three percent of this market. IBM is a world leader in other fields as well. It shares the top five spots in computer notebooks with HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Acer. IBM lags only two-tenths of a percentage point behind Hewlett Packard in terms of IT storage revenue; the two companies together managing a hefty fifty-one percent share of the entire storage market. As a leading IT player, IBM and its few leading competitors thus have almost a stranglehold on the global industry. As for IBMs operations, the company employed 319,273 employees around the world in 2003. Though founded and headquartered in the United States, IBM has a large number of international facilities and the number of staffers overseas is growing. Certainly, this is a very significant proportion of the computer giants American workforce. Yet, IBMs management justifies such drastic demographic changes by appealing to the humanitarian side of the globalization debate. Executives at I.B.M. and many other companies argue that creating more jobs in lower cost locations overseas keeps their industries competitive, holds costs down for American consumers, helps to develop poorer nations while supporting overall employment in the United States by improving productivity and the nations global reach. In the year 2000, a computer programmer in India was earning an average of from $4000 to $7000 a year in United States currency. In contrast, in 2001, the average salary for computer programmers in the United States and those only with a bachelors degree in computer Science was $43,828. For those with a masters degree, salary rose to $52,149, while $66,899 typical for those with a PhD. And each of these American computer programmer salaries, were first-year offers to recent graduates. The wages themselves brook no comparison. It is obviously vastly cheaper – by a factor of at least ten – to do the same work in India. Corporate executives and globally-minded humanitarians as well point to the large pool of highly-skilled, university-educated workers in many of todays developing countries. A survey by the National Opinion Research Center of the university of Chicago found that, not only did the number of IT degrees awarded drop by that alarming percentage over the period from 1998 to 2001, but for the first time in nearly a decade, the number of IT doctorates awarded in the United States dropped below 41,000. Meanwhile, the number of Computer PhDs produced by China, Russia, India, and other countries is increasing. Nor, is the situation helped by the fact that just as these foreign nations are investing heavily in their technology programs, the United States government is trimming down its budgets. This means both less money for government programs, and more pressure on already financially-strapped schools. At the same time, in 2001, more than forty percent of science and engineering doctorates awarded in the United States went to foreign studentsIn other words, the internationalization of the computer, and with it, the computer industry, can be seen as a way of bringing the peoples of the world closer together. Universal standards – computer platforms, languages, and so forth – can facilitate communication and build up economic relationships that can lead to greater understanding across cultural lines, and to a lessening of international and interethnic conflict. But the benefits of outsourcing should be much greater than that represented by a company introduces its product to other nations. IBM, and large corporations like it, inv ests in the infrastructures of many developing countries. IBM India has made a significant investment in that countrys infrastructure. One need only go to the companys web site to see how many different businesses it has established there, or partnered with in the Republic of India: an IBM Solution Partnership Centre in Bangalore, a Linux Solution Centre in Bangalore, an IBM Linux Competency Centre, also in Bangalore, Software Labs in Bangalore and Pune, a Research Laboratory, a Global e-business Software Centre in Gurgaon, and even a Manufacturing Facility in Pondicherry. While these facilities contribute to the growth of the Indian IT Industry, and help to foster manufacturing and intellectual activity, and provide good-paying jobs for thousands of people, the philanthropic goals behind these considerable investments in the Subcontinent are perhaps best expressed by IBM Indias own mission statement description of its activities. Chapter II: Literature review THE CONTEXT: OUTSOURCING VOICE-BASED PROCESSES IN BANGALORE Bangalore, with its temperate weather and good infrastructure, had currently established itself as a South Indian centre for IT and general enterprise method outsourcing in the1990s, before voice-based methods started to be outsourced in the form of call centres. Call hubs in India drop into two groups: captive call hubs are set up and run by the (usually) transnational company for demonstration General Electric, Microsoft, Dell, HSBC; and third-party call hubs are run by Indian businesses for a international purchaser – for demonstration, Norwich Union values a call centre run by an Indian business called 24/7. The third-party call centre can of course furthermore be run by an worldwide company – Accenture sprints several call hubs in India for international clients. Voice-based methods can comprise of mechanical support, clientele support and transactions for example protection assertions (mostly inbound calls), as well as outbound calls for example sales. Many of the se interactions can be distinuished as the high-volume, low-value, routinized end of call centre work which tends to be moved to India (Taylor and Bain, 2005: 270). Both captive and third-party call hubs use bureaus for example Excellence to handle their soft skills or non-product-related teaching, which normally encompasses clientele care abilities, and any thing seen as language-related. Excellence begun as a business in 1999 that managed teaching for health transcription. It increased very quickly and now has agencies in five foremost Indian cities. There are a number of competitor bureaus in Bangalore with alike histories. Excellences foremost purchasers are inclined to be high-profile transnationals with captive call centres. The customers of these call hubs are predominantly American, but some transnationals have British, Canadian and Australian customers as well. We will glimpse that this disperse of clientele inside the identical business is important in agree to training. T he enterprise connection between call hubs and supple abilities teaching bureaus is a volatile one. Typically a call centre will have checked out more than one such bureau, and experimented with conveying the supple abilities teaching in-house (often in the pattern of the agencys identical trainers) and then dispatching it out again. Partly this is because the call centre is unconvinced about the assistance of the teaching bureau, and partially it is about expense. However, three weeks at Excellence is not inevitably that exorbitant to the call centre, as trainees are not generally on full pay for this time span, after which they are certified. This means in effect that the Excellence teaching time span is part of the recruitment method, and certifying at Excellence is the status on which a trainee can contain up on his or her job offer. The certification method is elaborate: trainees are checked three times over the three week period. For each check they are noted and this notes is made accessible to their future call centre employer. The last around of checks may be came to by a agent of the employer. Thus Excellence supposess substantial significance for the trainee, but the note she or he obtains from the boss is that time expended there is a honeymoon period. In 2003, between 75,000 and 115,000 Indians were engaged in call hubs (Taylor and Bain 2005: 267). The usual employ is in his or her early 20s, and as expected to be male as female. The job does appeal older persons from a variety of occupations, for demonstration dentistry, or the inn commerce, because of the somewhat higher pay suggested by call centres. Most junior employees will have a tertiary requirement, but this is not advised so significant when they are chartered, as connection abilities, in India as in another location, are privileged by call hubs (Taylor and Bain, 2005: 275). The way that these new employees are recounted in the English dialect broadsheets for example Times of India or As ian Age is ambivalent. On the one hand they are the cooling new lifetime, symbolic of Indias financial development, who have work hard play hard ways of life and are financially independent. On the other hand they are cyber coolies who are not in a genuine job. According to Taylor and Bain (2005) the stresses of call centre work, for example holding calls inside goal times, are overstated in India. Night moves are considered as so awful for wellbeing and communal life6 that one will bear burnout after a greatest of two years. Conditions outcome in high grades of attrition which are a foremost anxiety for employers. Furthermore, the juvenile men and women that extend to work for call hubs can effortlessly defect to another, better-paying call centre as they gain experience. Recruitment bureaus, which are inclined to be in the local area run and in the local area staffed, are therefore under force to employ as numerous candidates as possible. Judging by anecdotes in the Western newspa pers of thousands of English-speaking graduates prepared to break up call centre occupations, this barely appears a large challenge. Yet is provide actually so large as we are directed to believe? The mark English-speaking is, of course, in the context of a multilingual homeland with a well-established L2 kind, highly complex. The image offered by the press supposess that a tertiary requirement is an sign of competence in English, as tertiary organisations are normally English-medium. Recruiting staff, although, are more expected to consider a (usually urban) English-medium lesser school learning (such as they themselves have had) as the only assurance of ample skill in English and an agree to adequately free of MTI (mother tongue influence). Undesirable MTI, for the recruiters as well as for Excellence managers and trainers, as a mark, variously mentions to pan-Indian agree to characteristics for example the need of a phonemic distinction between /v/ and /w/ and more expressly loca l features. The most of these persons, who Bansal (1990) would likely mark Type A speakers, and Kachru (1994) might mark educated, are expected to consider their own kind as free of MTI. Some fact of the recruitment method (in the Excellence recruitment department) displayed that skill in syntax was seldom prioritised over accent. When interrogated about their assortment, recruiters emphasised the pan-Indian or MTI characteristics, and some local characteristics were especially singled out, for demonstration Bengali /b/ for /v/ (where the recruiter was South Indian). Recruitment staff report that the pool of English-medium-educated school leavers has dehydrated up, particularly in Bangalore, and so they should employ amidst those who have been to a regional-medium lesser school. Probably a most of the trainees at Excellence had been to regional-medium lesser schools. Thus ridding trainees of MTI is ostensibly the foremost anxiety of employees at Excellence. Part of what I will be sp eaking to is how employees and trainees at Excellence reconcile themselves to an evidently unrealistic situation: trainees have to assure trainers, trainers have to assure managers, managers have to assure controllers, and controllers have to assure purchasers that change can be wrought in an unrealistically short three-week period. Recruits from a call centre purchaser are kept simultaneously in batches of round 20 for their three-week stint at Excellence. The batches are split up into categories as asserted by if the method they will be considering with is British or American. The most of batches are American, as Excellences enterprise was primarily and still is mainly American, as is most call centre enterprise in Bangalore and India generally. As documented previous, the call centre of a transnational company will often have both British and American customers. For numerous of the trainees, this is not their first supple abilities teaching stint at Excellence. Some have returned more than two times with each new call centre job, and are expected to have been taught for both American and British calls, possibly accounting for British customers often described know-how of talking to Americanized Indian agents. Excellence has a somewhat convoluted and complicated curriculum, contrasted to its competitor teaching businesses in Bangalore. There are not less than five subjects: Customer Care, Culture, Attitude, English, and Phonetics. Customer Care and Phonetics override the curriculum. A competitor that I travelled to suggested only these two topics, whereas in that business Phonetics was sent an account as Voice and Accent. Trainers as well as trainees at Excellence expressed anxieties that Excellences approach was too learned, and really, as we will glimpse, much of the Phonetics components utilised are learned in nature. English was vitally English dialect educating to a lesser school grade, which initiated resentment amidst trainees, who contended that they did not need this remedial teaching. Here, much more so than for agree to teaching, trainees were assertive about the adequacy of their English for the task. Attitude engaged some equitably benchmark enterprise motivational seminars, and Culture from my facts did really appear to comprise mostly of the sealed past notes and observing of lather operas described in the British and American press, whereas these categories tended to become highly personalised by the trainer and were often considered by trainees as some delightful time off. Culture categories have routinely captivated the vigilance of anthropologists, butmy prime anxiety here will be with Phonetics, as this is seen by all to be the locus of agree to training. In A.T. Kearneys annual review of peak bosses of Global 1000 businesses for 2004, it was declared that China and India competitor one another and are hard-hitting demanding the United States as the worlds most highly ranked place travelled to for foreign direct buying into (FDI). Chinas place as the worlds premier constructor and assembler has been well established for some years, but Indias emergence in the peak three is a new phenomenon. When peak bosses were inquired what types of undertakings they foreseen would be relocated to India, potential investors demonstrated programs development (IT), enterprise method outsourcing (ITES), and study and development. A clear characteristic of these undertakings is the focus on information power and dematerialized services production. A.T. Kearneys outcome about Indias enticements as a FDI place travelled to might appear unsurprising granted the fast development of its programs part over the past ten years and the expanding attractiveness of enterprise method outsourcing to India. The supposed risk to white-collar paid work in the United States impersonated by the development of the Indian IT and ITES part even boasted in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election. However, for scholars of worldwide enterprise in appearing markets, the development of Indias IT and ITES part is anomalous. Hitherto, developed development was considered to accelerate throug h phases amply following a discovering bend premier to expanding technological sophistication. Industrialization was vitally examined as a sequential method engaging the progressive household development of developed parts through a combine of government-orchestrated defence and inducements (Dicken 2003). As liberalization and world trade increased quickly in the 1960s, industrializing nations for example South Korea and Taiwan identified the advantages to be had from taking up an export-oriented principle stance as a way of getting away from the limits of a somewhat little household market (Gereffi and Wyman 1990; Rodrik 1997; Young 1994). When China started to liberalize starting in 1978, an export-oriented, outward-looking industrialization scheme was appearing as the superior orthodoxy encouraged by the worldwide economic organisations for example the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and was grabbed by the Chinese authorities. The freshly industrialized finances (NIEs) of East and Southeast Asia vitally established themselves as the constructing positions of alternative by leveraging their primary relative benefit of a large and bargain work force through concentrated buying into in personal infrastructure (including trade items processing zones), a business-friendly buying into weather (including considerable economic and levy incentives), and the assurance of a tractable work force (Henley 2004). By 2005, China, a somewhat late starter, was no longer a marginal supplier. Now the third biggest swapping territory in the world after the United States and Germany, China performances a foremost function in working out the charges paid for numerous of the worlds constructed trade items (Kaplinsky 2001). India, by compare, has lagged in evolving its constructing exports. For household political causes mostly drawn from from the difficulties of neutralizing the vested concerns affiliated with the previous principle regime of developed defence and author ising, India did not start to gravely liberalize its finances until 1991. By evaluation with China, Indias merchandise trade amounted to less than 15 per hundred of Chinas trade in 2003 (World Bank 2004). Yet at the identical time, affray from Indias IT and ITES part supposedly intimidates white-collar paid work in the United States and the United Kingdom. Identified in this paper are several alterations in the international enterprise natural environment and improvement in data and communications technologies (ICTs) that have facilitated the outsourcing of programs output and, more lately, ITES. Indias emergence as a world foremost in the part is attributed to a paradox. While government principle after the 1960s boosted hefty buying into in technical and technology learning, developed principle disappointed personal buying into in constructing activities. Industrial stagnation, in turn, directed to important immigration of high-level manpower, particularly to the United States, an d diversion of entrepreneurial power into the programs services part in alignment to bypass the regulatory problem afflicting the constructing sector. The components that have facilitated the development and development of the IT and ITES part are identified. Analysis of the economic presentation of Indian-owned IT/ITES businesses discloses quickly expanding engrossment and considerably higher grades of profitability by evaluation with Indian constructing industry. Next, the appearing structure of the Indian IT/ITES part is analyzed, and a number of characteristics are distinguished. These encompass the altering function of foreign-owned captive and Indian-owned providers, and the constraints on development of the sector. Achieving service-provider integrity is pinpointed as the lone most significant component interpreting the pattern of development of the part in India. Finally, the motives behind the latest moves in the direction of outward FDI by the foremost Indian-owned program s and IT-enabled services providers in the context of the ongoing seek for service provider integrity are explained. The data utilised in this paper was assembled from fieldwork meetings with older bosses and government agents in the south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad), Karnataka (Bangalore), Orissa (Bhubaneswar), Tamil Nadu (Chennai), and West Bengal (Kolkatta) in 2003 and 2004 as part of a broader study of FDI in India, searching to interpret the underperformance of India relation to China in appealing FDI. The sources of programs and IT-enabled services outsourcing A cursory written check of the GDP of all sophisticated finances discloses the well-established down turn in the assistance of constructing worth supplemented to GDP to round 25 per hundred and the increase of the services sectors assistance to GDP to between 70 and 75 per hundred of GDP. Even in constructing companies, worth supplement is progressively accomplished through knowledge-intensive undertaking s for example study and development (RD), trading, supply-chain administration, logistics, and customer-relationship administration, and less through human intervention in the constructing process. If it has proceeded to verify financial to offshore more and more constructing procedures to appearing markets, it is possibly unsurprising that the identical cost-driven reasoning has started to be directed to business-services offshoring. The identical improvements in data and communications expertise that have allowed the explosive development of outsourcing of constructing and assembly procedures in appearing markets are now impacting on services. If constructing no longer needs face-to-face interaction on a every day cornerstone, are back-office purposes and services different? For demonstration, health notes transcription; assertions processing; data-entry kinds of activity; customer-contact hubs and help lines; as well as a variety of data-interpretation jobs, for example organisin g levy comes back or bearing out statistical investigation of economic data, seldom need face-to-face communicate between purchaser and service provider. In the past, numerous of these services were nontradable in that they needed purchasers and sellers to be often accessible in the identical place. For demonstration, organising levy comes back or investigating a companys presentation needed familiarity with the companys procedures and its management. However, in perform, numerous of the jobs engaged in bearing out these undertakings do not need comprehensive framework perception but extend to happen face to face because of mechanical constraints, custom, or custom. Developments in data and communications technologies (ICTs) have taken numerous of the mechanical constraints and revolutionized the tradability of information-centered services and, thus, the possibilities for outsourcing and offshoring. As stated: The use of ICT permits information to be codified, normalized and digiti zed, which in turn permits the output of more services to be divide up, or fragmented, into lesser constituents that can be established in another location to take benefit of cost, value, finances of scale or other factors. . . . Progress in ICT has explained the mechanical difficulty of non-transportability and, for numerous services, that of non-storability. (UNCTAD 2004, 149) ICT on its own, of course, seldom explains the difficulties of integrating the multitude of jobs (only part of which are outsourced) that proceed to make up a entire enterprise method inside the buyers organization. Telecommunications connectivity is conspicuously a essential smallest obligation for services offshoring, as is the accessibility of an befitting variety of abilities in a lower-cost enterprise environment. Drafting and then overseeing a clear and accurate service grade affirmation (SLA) is the base of outsourcing. It is mechanically convoluted for all but the simplest of tasks. The first stage o f evolving such an affirmation engages characterising the enterprise method and the set of undertakings to be conveyed out. A conclusion then has to be made as to if a granted set of undertakings can be modularized and outsourced, and what linkages and command means are needed to reintegrate the outcomes of the outsourced method into the purchaser association, one time processing has been completed. Kobayasi-Hillary (2004) wisely counseled the significance of utilising easy dialect and the need for realism on both edges in organising a SLA. Fulfillment, as with any subcontract, has to rely, to a larger or lesser span, on mutual believe and forbearance. The span and deepness of the interdependence between primary and outsourcing agency, if things proceed well, is expected to evolve over time, as each party discovers about the capabilities and capabilities of the other. Even where the outsourcing supplier is a captive subsidiary of the parent business, absolutely in the early days, in tegrity is still a key topic in triumphant over heads of enterprise purposes buying these services from offshore. The economics of outsourcing IT and ITES The financial reasoning behind outsourcing is clear sufficient one time businesses start to gaze critically at the way enterprise services are organized. Dossani and Kenney (2004) pinpointed the seminal leverage of the reengineering action that cleared administration in the 1990s—in specific, its focus on decomposing, analyzing, and normalizing undertakings essential to entire a enterprise process. Reengineering, by worrying the comprehensive concern of the cost-effectiveness of enterprise methods, sensitized administration to the possibilities of outsourcing. The development of digitization and scanning expertise and over-investment in telecommunications infrastructure throughout the Internet bubble of the late-1990s intended that while capability amplified spectacularly, the charges of facts and numbers transmission dropp ed sharply. Dossani and Kenney (2004) furthermore proposed that the prevalent adoption of normalized programs stages evolved by businesses, for example IBM and Oracle for databases, Peoplesoft for human asset administration, Siebel for clientele relatives, and SAP for supply-chain administration (enterprise asset designing [ERP]), facilitated, for demonstration, the outsourcing of dataentry kinds of undertakings, premier over time to the outsourcing of blame for more and more complicated analysis. The emergence of several programs packages as global-standard stages has made it progressively very easy to circulate undertakings between sites and countries. Bartel, Lach, and Sicherman (2005) evolved a prescribed form to illustrate empirically that an boost in the stride of technological change in IT schemes and infrastructure rises outsourcing. This arises because technological change boosts companies to outsource services founded on leading- for demonstration technologies in alignment to decrease the ever more common gone under charges of taking up these new technologies. In specific, they find that the generality and portability of the abilities affiliated with IT innovations signify that companies face smaller outsourcing charges of IT-based services and so have a larger propensity to outsource these services. For the identical causes, the more IT intensive the technologies in use in a granted firm, the smaller are the outsourcing costs. The disintegrate of world supply markets in 2000, the ensuing recession, and precipitous down turn in profitability of companies from 2000 to 2003 produced in companies all through Europe, the United States, and Japan opposite strong charge pressure. At the identical time, the aftermath of the late 1990s amalgamations and acquisition rise, especially in the banking and economic services part, was compelling companies to undergo foremost restructuring in seek of vague synergies and a decreased cost base. Offshoring quickly beca me an appealing proposition for chopping costs. Why India? Indias financial principle emphasized state-led, import-substituting industrialization from self-reliance in 1947 until the financial urgent position in 1991 and the starting of important liberalization (Gupta 2005). Yet it is clear that, by Chinese measures, India has not evolved a broad-based and robust world-class constructing commerce, and today, Indias GDP development rate per capita is slower than Chinas. Indias mean annual GDP development rate between 1990 and 2003 was 5.8 per hundred, and per capita whole nationwide earnings on a buying power parity (PPP) cornerstone was US$2,880 in 2003. China, by compare, accomplished an annual GDP development rate of 9.5 per hundred over the identical time time span, and this is echoed in its higher per capita whole nationwide earnings of US$4,990 in 2003 (World Bank 2004). Indias general developed principle structure, until 1991, was conceived to regulate the development of the p ersonal part (Rajakumar 2005a). There were three pillars to this policy. The first, the Industrial Development and Regulation Act of 1951, and the second, the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act of 1970, were conceived to convey the personal part into alignment with nationwide financial policies. The first principle regulated the personal part through a firmly controlled scheme of authorising, and the second set out to constraint the development of the engrossment of a Outsourcing Voice-based Processes in Bangalore Outsourcing Voice-based Processes in Bangalore Economists study the ways people earn a living and provide for their material needs. They study how people behave as a result of a change in price, income, or other variables. Many are employed in business and industry but there are many different areas of economics that economists specialize in. Industrial economists study many different forms of business organization. They study the production costs, markets, and investment problems. Agricultural economists study farm management and crop production. Labor economists study wages and hours of labor, labor unions, and government labor polices. Other fields of economics include taxes, banking, international trade, economic theory, and comparative economic systems. Some economists specialize in inflation, depression, employment, unemployment, and tariff polices. Others specialize in investments, the utilization of manpower, business cycles, and the development of natural resources. Societies are interested in economists conclusions beca use they keep us up to date with how the market economy is holding itself up. They give us information on how our wages will be affected, how prices on goods will alter, and how demand on products will go up because of certain decisions we make. Outsourcing has become particularly common in the information technology industry. Highly skilled positions that were once thought secure are now regularly finding their way overseas to places like India and China. Big corporations claim that there are not enough properly trained and educated workers in the United States. Labor advocates say it is all because a computer programmer, in say India, commands perhaps a third of the salary of his American counterpart. While the international human rights advocate sees the outsourcing process as a necessary step in the development of the developing world; a weapon in the fight against poverty and parochial prejudice. Still more interesting, is the argument that outsourcing is an unavoidable consequ ence of the dot.com collapse. It is as if the supporters of this theory purport that this stock market disaster was proof positive that American companies simply cant compete with American labor and much more significantly with American wages and prices. A leader in the outsourcing rush has been IBM. As one of the worlds leading information technology companies, it employs hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, and sets standards that others are bound to follow. IBMs stance on the issue is especially significant given the industrys dominance by only a very small number of large corporations: IBM, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and handful of others. Using IBM as our prime example, we will examine the industry itself, IBMs own corporate policies, and all of the various political and social arguments for and against the computer giants course of action. A perfect example of this situation can be gleaned from a quick look at the latest available figures on the IT industry; IBM dominates the market in the production and sale of mainframe computers. From 2002 to 2003, IBMs market share increased by ten percent, as compared to an industry-wide average increase of only five percent. With this increase, IBM now holds a solid 32% piece of the forty-six billion dollar global mainframe industry. Together, IBM and its three largest competitors HP, Sun, and Dell – control nearly seventy-three percent of this market. IBM is a world leader in other fields as well. It shares the top five spots in computer notebooks with HP, Dell, Toshiba, and Acer. IBM lags only two-tenths of a percentage point behind Hewlett Packard in terms of IT storage revenue; the two companies together managing a hefty fifty-one percent share of the entire storage market. As a leading IT player, IBM and its few leading competitors thus have almost a stranglehold on the global industry. As for IBMs operations, the company employed 319,273 employees around the world in 2003. Though founded and headquartered in the United States, IBM has a large number of international facilities and the number of staffers overseas is growing. Certainly, this is a very significant proportion of the computer giants American workforce. Yet, IBMs management justifies such drastic demographic changes by appealing to the humanitarian side of the globalization debate. Executives at I.B.M. and many other companies argue that creating more jobs in lower cost locations overseas keeps their industries competitive, holds costs down for American consumers, helps to develop poorer nations while supporting overall employment in the United States by improving productivity and the nations global reach. In the year 2000, a computer programmer in India was earning an average of from $4000 to $7000 a year in United States currency. In contrast, in 2001, the average salary for computer programmers in the United States and those only with a bachelors degree in computer Science was $43,828. For those with a masters degree, salary rose to $52,149, while $66,899 typical for those with a PhD. And each of these American computer programmer salaries, were first-year offers to recent graduates. The wages themselves brook no comparison. It is obviously vastly cheaper – by a factor of at least ten – to do the same work in India. Corporate executives and globally-minded humanitarians as well point to the large pool of highly-skilled, university-educated workers in many of todays developing countries. A survey by the National Opinion Research Center of the university of Chicago found that, not only did the number of IT degrees awarded drop by that alarming percentage over the period from 1998 to 2001, but for the first time in nearly a decade, the number of IT doctorates awarded in the United States dropped below 41,000. Meanwhile, the number of Computer PhDs produced by China, Russia, India, and other countries is increasing. Nor, is the situation helped by the fact that just as these foreign nations are investing heavily in their technology programs, the United States government is trimming down its budgets. This means both less money for government programs, and more pressure on already financially-strapped schools. At the same time, in 2001, more than forty percent of science and engineering doctorates awarded in the United States went to foreign studentsIn other words, the internationalization of the computer, and with it, the computer industry, can be seen as a way of bringing the peoples of the world closer together. Universal standards – computer platforms, languages, and so forth – can facilitate communication and build up economic relationships that can lead to greater understanding across cultural lines, and to a lessening of international and interethnic conflict. But the benefits of outsourcing should be much greater than that represented by a company introduces its product to other nations. IBM, and large corporations like it, inv ests in the infrastructures of many developing countries. IBM India has made a significant investment in that countrys infrastructure. One need only go to the companys web site to see how many different businesses it has established there, or partnered with in the Republic of India: an IBM Solution Partnership Centre in Bangalore, a Linux Solution Centre in Bangalore, an IBM Linux Competency Centre, also in Bangalore, Software Labs in Bangalore and Pune, a Research Laboratory, a Global e-business Software Centre in Gurgaon, and even a Manufacturing Facility in Pondicherry. While these facilities contribute to the growth of the Indian IT Industry, and help to foster manufacturing and intellectual activity, and provide good-paying jobs for thousands of people, the philanthropic goals behind these considerable investments in the Subcontinent are perhaps best expressed by IBM Indias own mission statement description of its activities. Chapter II: Literature review THE CONTEXT: OUTSOURCING VOICE-BASED PROCESSES IN BANGALORE Bangalore, with its temperate weather and good infrastructure, had currently established itself as a South Indian centre for IT and general enterprise method outsourcing in the1990s, before voice-based methods started to be outsourced in the form of call centres. Call hubs in India drop into two groups: captive call hubs are set up and run by the (usually) transnational company for demonstration General Electric, Microsoft, Dell, HSBC; and third-party call hubs are run by Indian businesses for a international purchaser – for demonstration, Norwich Union values a call centre run by an Indian business called 24/7. The third-party call centre can of course furthermore be run by an worldwide company – Accenture sprints several call hubs in India for international clients. Voice-based methods can comprise of mechanical support, clientele support and transactions for example protection assertions (mostly inbound calls), as well as outbound calls for example sales. Many of the se interactions can be distinuished as the high-volume, low-value, routinized end of call centre work which tends to be moved to India (Taylor and Bain, 2005: 270). Both captive and third-party call hubs use bureaus for example Excellence to handle their soft skills or non-product-related teaching, which normally encompasses clientele care abilities, and any thing seen as language-related. Excellence begun as a business in 1999 that managed teaching for health transcription. It increased very quickly and now has agencies in five foremost Indian cities. There are a number of competitor bureaus in Bangalore with alike histories. Excellences foremost purchasers are inclined to be high-profile transnationals with captive call centres. The customers of these call hubs are predominantly American, but some transnationals have British, Canadian and Australian customers as well. We will glimpse that this disperse of clientele inside the identical business is important in agree to training. T he enterprise connection between call hubs and supple abilities teaching bureaus is a volatile one. Typically a call centre will have checked out more than one such bureau, and experimented with conveying the supple abilities teaching in-house (often in the pattern of the agencys identical trainers) and then dispatching it out again. Partly this is because the call centre is unconvinced about the assistance of the teaching bureau, and partially it is about expense. However, three weeks at Excellence is not inevitably that exorbitant to the call centre, as trainees are not generally on full pay for this time span, after which they are certified. This means in effect that the Excellence teaching time span is part of the recruitment method, and certifying at Excellence is the status on which a trainee can contain up on his or her job offer. The certification method is elaborate: trainees are checked three times over the three week period. For each check they are noted and this notes is made accessible to their future call centre employer. The last around of checks may be came to by a agent of the employer. Thus Excellence supposess substantial significance for the trainee, but the note she or he obtains from the boss is that time expended there is a honeymoon period. In 2003, between 75,000 and 115,000 Indians were engaged in call hubs (Taylor and Bain 2005: 267). The usual employ is in his or her early 20s, and as expected to be male as female. The job does appeal older persons from a variety of occupations, for demonstration dentistry, or the inn commerce, because of the somewhat higher pay suggested by call centres. Most junior employees will have a tertiary requirement, but this is not advised so significant when they are chartered, as connection abilities, in India as in another location, are privileged by call hubs (Taylor and Bain, 2005: 275). The way that these new employees are recounted in the English dialect broadsheets for example Times of India or As ian Age is ambivalent. On the one hand they are the cooling new lifetime, symbolic of Indias financial development, who have work hard play hard ways of life and are financially independent. On the other hand they are cyber coolies who are not in a genuine job. According to Taylor and Bain (2005) the stresses of call centre work, for example holding calls inside goal times, are overstated in India. Night moves are considered as so awful for wellbeing and communal life6 that one will bear burnout after a greatest of two years. Conditions outcome in high grades of attrition which are a foremost anxiety for employers. Furthermore, the juvenile men and women that extend to work for call hubs can effortlessly defect to another, better-paying call centre as they gain experience. Recruitment bureaus, which are inclined to be in the local area run and in the local area staffed, are therefore under force to employ as numerous candidates as possible. Judging by anecdotes in the Western newspa pers of thousands of English-speaking graduates prepared to break up call centre occupations, this barely appears a large challenge. Yet is provide actually so large as we are directed to believe? The mark English-speaking is, of course, in the context of a multilingual homeland with a well-established L2 kind, highly complex. The image offered by the press supposess that a tertiary requirement is an sign of competence in English, as tertiary organisations are normally English-medium. Recruiting staff, although, are more expected to consider a (usually urban) English-medium lesser school learning (such as they themselves have had) as the only assurance of ample skill in English and an agree to adequately free of MTI (mother tongue influence). Undesirable MTI, for the recruiters as well as for Excellence managers and trainers, as a mark, variously mentions to pan-Indian agree to characteristics for example the need of a phonemic distinction between /v/ and /w/ and more expressly loca l features. The most of these persons, who Bansal (1990) would likely mark Type A speakers, and Kachru (1994) might mark educated, are expected to consider their own kind as free of MTI. Some fact of the recruitment method (in the Excellence recruitment department) displayed that skill in syntax was seldom prioritised over accent. When interrogated about their assortment, recruiters emphasised the pan-Indian or MTI characteristics, and some local characteristics were especially singled out, for demonstration Bengali /b/ for /v/ (where the recruiter was South Indian). Recruitment staff report that the pool of English-medium-educated school leavers has dehydrated up, particularly in Bangalore, and so they should employ amidst those who have been to a regional-medium lesser school. Probably a most of the trainees at Excellence had been to regional-medium lesser schools. Thus ridding trainees of MTI is ostensibly the foremost anxiety of employees at Excellence. Part of what I will be sp eaking to is how employees and trainees at Excellence reconcile themselves to an evidently unrealistic situation: trainees have to assure trainers, trainers have to assure managers, managers have to assure controllers, and controllers have to assure purchasers that change can be wrought in an unrealistically short three-week period. Recruits from a call centre purchaser are kept simultaneously in batches of round 20 for their three-week stint at Excellence. The batches are split up into categories as asserted by if the method they will be considering with is British or American. The most of batches are American, as Excellences enterprise was primarily and still is mainly American, as is most call centre enterprise in Bangalore and India generally. As documented previous, the call centre of a transnational company will often have both British and American customers. For numerous of the trainees, this is not their first supple abilities teaching stint at Excellence. Some have returned more than two times with each new call centre job, and are expected to have been taught for both American and British calls, possibly accounting for British customers often described know-how of talking to Americanized Indian agents. Excellence has a somewhat convoluted and complicated curriculum, contrasted to its competitor teaching businesses in Bangalore. There are not less than five subjects: Customer Care, Culture, Attitude, English, and Phonetics. Customer Care and Phonetics override the curriculum. A competitor that I travelled to suggested only these two topics, whereas in that business Phonetics was sent an account as Voice and Accent. Trainers as well as trainees at Excellence expressed anxieties that Excellences approach was too learned, and really, as we will glimpse, much of the Phonetics components utilised are learned in nature. English was vitally English dialect educating to a lesser school grade, which initiated resentment amidst trainees, who contended that they did not need this remedial teaching. Here, much more so than for agree to teaching, trainees were assertive about the adequacy of their English for the task. Attitude engaged some equitably benchmark enterprise motivational seminars, and Culture from my facts did really appear to comprise mostly of the sealed past notes and observing of lather operas described in the British and American press, whereas these categories tended to become highly personalised by the trainer and were often considered by trainees as some delightful time off. Culture categories have routinely captivated the vigilance of anthropologists, butmy prime anxiety here will be with Phonetics, as this is seen by all to be the locus of agree to training. In A.T. Kearneys annual review of peak bosses of Global 1000 businesses for 2004, it was declared that China and India competitor one another and are hard-hitting demanding the United States as the worlds most highly ranked place travelled to for foreign direct buying into (FDI). Chinas place as the worlds premier constructor and assembler has been well established for some years, but Indias emergence in the peak three is a new phenomenon. When peak bosses were inquired what types of undertakings they foreseen would be relocated to India, potential investors demonstrated programs development (IT), enterprise method outsourcing (ITES), and study and development. A clear characteristic of these undertakings is the focus on information power and dematerialized services production. A.T. Kearneys outcome about Indias enticements as a FDI place travelled to might appear unsurprising granted the fast development of its programs part over the past ten years and the expanding attractiveness of enterprise method outsourcing to India. The supposed risk to white-collar paid work in the United States impersonated by the development of the Indian IT and ITES part even boasted in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election. However, for scholars of worldwide enterprise in appearing markets, the development of Indias IT and ITES part is anomalous. Hitherto, developed development was considered to accelerate throug h phases amply following a discovering bend premier to expanding technological sophistication. Industrialization was vitally examined as a sequential method engaging the progressive household development of developed parts through a combine of government-orchestrated defence and inducements (Dicken 2003). As liberalization and world trade increased quickly in the 1960s, industrializing nations for example South Korea and Taiwan identified the advantages to be had from taking up an export-oriented principle stance as a way of getting away from the limits of a somewhat little household market (Gereffi and Wyman 1990; Rodrik 1997; Young 1994). When China started to liberalize starting in 1978, an export-oriented, outward-looking industrialization scheme was appearing as the superior orthodoxy encouraged by the worldwide economic organisations for example the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank and was grabbed by the Chinese authorities. The freshly industrialized finances (NIEs) of East and Southeast Asia vitally established themselves as the constructing positions of alternative by leveraging their primary relative benefit of a large and bargain work force through concentrated buying into in personal infrastructure (including trade items processing zones), a business-friendly buying into weather (including considerable economic and levy incentives), and the assurance of a tractable work force (Henley 2004). By 2005, China, a somewhat late starter, was no longer a marginal supplier. Now the third biggest swapping territory in the world after the United States and Germany, China performances a foremost function in working out the charges paid for numerous of the worlds constructed trade items (Kaplinsky 2001). India, by compare, has lagged in evolving its constructing exports. For household political causes mostly drawn from from the difficulties of neutralizing the vested concerns affiliated with the previous principle regime of developed defence and author ising, India did not start to gravely liberalize its finances until 1991. By evaluation with China, Indias merchandise trade amounted to less than 15 per hundred of Chinas trade in 2003 (World Bank 2004). Yet at the identical time, affray from Indias IT and ITES part supposedly intimidates white-collar paid work in the United States and the United Kingdom. Identified in this paper are several alterations in the international enterprise natural environment and improvement in data and communications technologies (ICTs) that have facilitated the outsourcing of programs output and, more lately, ITES. Indias emergence as a world foremost in the part is attributed to a paradox. While government principle after the 1960s boosted hefty buying into in technical and technology learning, developed principle disappointed personal buying into in constructing activities. Industrial stagnation, in turn, directed to important immigration of high-level manpower, particularly to the United States, an d diversion of entrepreneurial power into the programs services part in alignment to bypass the regulatory problem afflicting the constructing sector. The components that have facilitated the development and development of the IT and ITES part are identified. Analysis of the economic presentation of Indian-owned IT/ITES businesses discloses quickly expanding engrossment and considerably higher grades of profitability by evaluation with Indian constructing industry. Next, the appearing structure of the Indian IT/ITES part is analyzed, and a number of characteristics are distinguished. These encompass the altering function of foreign-owned captive and Indian-owned providers, and the constraints on development of the sector. Achieving service-provider integrity is pinpointed as the lone most significant component interpreting the pattern of development of the part in India. Finally, the motives behind the latest moves in the direction of outward FDI by the foremost Indian-owned program s and IT-enabled services providers in the context of the ongoing seek for service provider integrity are explained. The data utilised in this paper was assembled from fieldwork meetings with older bosses and government agents in the south Indian states of Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad), Karnataka (Bangalore), Orissa (Bhubaneswar), Tamil Nadu (Chennai), and West Bengal (Kolkatta) in 2003 and 2004 as part of a broader study of FDI in India, searching to interpret the underperformance of India relation to China in appealing FDI. The sources of programs and IT-enabled services outsourcing A cursory written check of the GDP of all sophisticated finances discloses the well-established down turn in the assistance of constructing worth supplemented to GDP to round 25 per hundred and the increase of the services sectors assistance to GDP to between 70 and 75 per hundred of GDP. Even in constructing companies, worth supplement is progressively accomplished through knowledge-intensive undertaking s for example study and development (RD), trading, supply-chain administration, logistics, and customer-relationship administration, and less through human intervention in the constructing process. If it has proceeded to verify financial to offshore more and more constructing procedures to appearing markets, it is possibly unsurprising that the identical cost-driven reasoning has started to be directed to business-services offshoring. The identical improvements in data and communications expertise that have allowed the explosive development of outsourcing of constructing and assembly procedures in appearing markets are now impacting on services. If constructing no longer needs face-to-face interaction on a every day cornerstone, are back-office purposes and services different? For demonstration, health notes transcription; assertions processing; data-entry kinds of activity; customer-contact hubs and help lines; as well as a variety of data-interpretation jobs, for example organisin g levy comes back or bearing out statistical investigation of economic data, seldom need face-to-face communicate between purchaser and service provider. In the past, numerous of these services were nontradable in that they needed purchasers and sellers to be often accessible in the identical place. For demonstration, organising levy comes back or investigating a companys presentation needed familiarity with the companys procedures and its management. However, in perform, numerous of the jobs engaged in bearing out these undertakings do not need comprehensive framework perception but extend to happen face to face because of mechanical constraints, custom, or custom. Developments in data and communications technologies (ICTs) have taken numerous of the mechanical constraints and revolutionized the tradability of information-centered services and, thus, the possibilities for outsourcing and offshoring. As stated: The use of ICT permits information to be codified, normalized and digiti zed, which in turn permits the output of more services to be divide up, or fragmented, into lesser constituents that can be established in another location to take benefit of cost, value, finances of scale or other factors. . . . Progress in ICT has explained the mechanical difficulty of non-transportability and, for numerous services, that of non-storability. (UNCTAD 2004, 149) ICT on its own, of course, seldom explains the difficulties of integrating the multitude of jobs (only part of which are outsourced) that proceed to make up a entire enterprise method inside the buyers organization. Telecommunications connectivity is conspicuously a essential smallest obligation for services offshoring, as is the accessibility of an befitting variety of abilities in a lower-cost enterprise environment. Drafting and then overseeing a clear and accurate service grade affirmation (SLA) is the base of outsourcing. It is mechanically convoluted for all but the simplest of tasks. The first stage o f evolving such an affirmation engages characterising the enterprise method and the set of undertakings to be conveyed out. A conclusion then has to be made as to if a granted set of undertakings can be modularized and outsourced, and what linkages and command means are needed to reintegrate the outcomes of the outsourced method into the purchaser association, one time processing has been completed. Kobayasi-Hillary (2004) wisely counseled the significance of utilising easy dialect and the need for realism on both edges in organising a SLA. Fulfillment, as with any subcontract, has to rely, to a larger or lesser span, on mutual believe and forbearance. The span and deepness of the interdependence between primary and outsourcing agency, if things proceed well, is expected to evolve over time, as each party discovers about the capabilities and capabilities of the other. Even where the outsourcing supplier is a captive subsidiary of the parent business, absolutely in the early days, in tegrity is still a key topic in triumphant over heads of enterprise purposes buying these services from offshore. The economics of outsourcing IT and ITES The financial reasoning behind outsourcing is clear sufficient one time businesses start to gaze critically at the way enterprise services are organized. Dossani and Kenney (2004) pinpointed the seminal leverage of the reengineering action that cleared administration in the 1990s—in specific, its focus on decomposing, analyzing, and normalizing undertakings essential to entire a enterprise process. Reengineering, by worrying the comprehensive concern of the cost-effectiveness of enterprise methods, sensitized administration to the possibilities of outsourcing. The development of digitization and scanning expertise and over-investment in telecommunications infrastructure throughout the Internet bubble of the late-1990s intended that while capability amplified spectacularly, the charges of facts and numbers transmission dropp ed sharply. Dossani and Kenney (2004) furthermore proposed that the prevalent adoption of normalized programs stages evolved by businesses, for example IBM and Oracle for databases, Peoplesoft for human asset administration, Siebel for clientele relatives, and SAP for supply-chain administration (enterprise asset designing [ERP]), facilitated, for demonstration, the outsourcing of dataentry kinds of undertakings, premier over time to the outsourcing of blame for more and more complicated analysis. The emergence of several programs packages as global-standard stages has made it progressively very easy to circulate undertakings between sites and countries. Bartel, Lach, and Sicherman (2005) evolved a prescribed form to illustrate empirically that an boost in the stride of technological change in IT schemes and infrastructure rises outsourcing. This arises because technological change boosts companies to outsource services founded on leading- for demonstration technologies in alignment to decrease the ever more common gone under charges of taking up these new technologies. In specific, they find that the generality and portability of the abilities affiliated with IT innovations signify that companies face smaller outsourcing charges of IT-based services and so have a larger propensity to outsource these services. For the identical causes, the more IT intensive the technologies in use in a granted firm, the smaller are the outsourcing costs. The disintegrate of world supply markets in 2000, the ensuing recession, and precipitous down turn in profitability of companies from 2000 to 2003 produced in companies all through Europe, the United States, and Japan opposite strong charge pressure. At the identical time, the aftermath of the late 1990s amalgamations and acquisition rise, especially in the banking and economic services part, was compelling companies to undergo foremost restructuring in seek of vague synergies and a decreased cost base. Offshoring quickly beca me an appealing proposition for chopping costs. Why India? Indias financial principle emphasized state-led, import-substituting industrialization from self-reliance in 1947 until the financial urgent position in 1991 and the starting of important liberalization (Gupta 2005). Yet it is clear that, by Chinese measures, India has not evolved a broad-based and robust world-class constructing commerce, and today, Indias GDP development rate per capita is slower than Chinas. Indias mean annual GDP development rate between 1990 and 2003 was 5.8 per hundred, and per capita whole nationwide earnings on a buying power parity (PPP) cornerstone was US$2,880 in 2003. China, by compare, accomplished an annual GDP development rate of 9.5 per hundred over the identical time time span, and this is echoed in its higher per capita whole nationwide earnings of US$4,990 in 2003 (World Bank 2004). Indias general developed principle structure, until 1991, was conceived to regulate the development of the p ersonal part (Rajakumar 2005a). There were three pillars to this policy. The first, the Industrial Development and Regulation Act of 1951, and the second, the Monopoly and Restrictive Trade Practices Act of 1970, were conceived to convey the personal part into alignment with nationwide financial policies. The first principle regulated the personal part through a firmly controlled scheme of authorising, and the second set out to constraint the development of the engrossment of a