My odyssey free essay sample

As the destruction of one life began a new person is finally revealed and put to the ultimate test of reality. When I had finally arose from the darkness of inside my mother I knew I was in a long awakening. As a baby I didnt expect much besides making sure I was properly taking care of. I had the perfect life until I was forced to prove my Initiation that I was able to become a True Bonneville. For my refusal of call I had pulled off a temper-tantrum but I was threatened to get the belt so I sucked It up and dealt with the thought of what will Ill ahead. Fortunately I was wrong about the future because I thought I was going to be cut and clean and have directions to my part of becoming the True Bonneville. No but it turns out one of the many challenges is that I have to make my own rules and when finished I get to edit it at the end and put it in the rule book. We will write a custom essay sample on My odyssey or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page My challenge began when I was brought in the COPS (Child Protective Services) and I had to go to my grandparents. They were really strict and only like things done In a certain way. Every morning after you get done eating breakfast and getting ready for the day you were thrown outside.My older brother and I had to use our imagination in order to make it through. When it was a bad day due to humidity, coldness, or when my grandmother said it wasnt a good day we were In our bedroom and we had some few good sides into it and bad sides. As kids we had to play but I was able to brush her hair and play on her computer. Not only that but we were also able to watch 2 hours of television. Other than that you were only able to play with your toys and or read a book. When you would get into trouble you would have many consequences.My grandparents Invented the enmeshment of the chair in my family and all you had to do was after school or special occasion you had to place your butt in there and sit there and do work. You can only get up to use the bathroom, eat, and or drink. The other punishments were the usual: writing sentences, sit up against the wall and only read, and being grounded. I had to stay with them for about 18 months. It would have been shorter but my older brother and I had played a game that my older brother had made up. Its called The Slapping Game.It is where you have to slap your opponent and if you lunch then you get hit again until you dont flinch anymore. The next I was told to go wipe something off my face but I couldnt due to the fact that it was a bruise. Next thing you know the whole COPS people were on all of our butts and came to my school asking me all these questions about how my dad had hit me and its k if he did. Everyone told them he TLD but they didnt take no for an answer. Finally after Like a week they had finally stopped riding our butts and gave up. When the Kinsman, Arizona stated that me and my older brother were able to go back to our father we tot ready and started to move. I was a little excited because I was able to explore another place that I was able to do more research on for my rule book. The only challenge that I had saw for this one was the 1500 mile drive. It kind of scared me but I couldnt let something as silly as a long drive on highways get me all worked up. To wake up early in the morning so we can get there in the little amount of time we have to take out of our life so we can focus the rest on what we need to.I was up at around 6 in the morning and had to get dressed and eat. I was the second one to be up. The first one up was obviously my dad due to the fact that he had to make sure that everything was set and that there was nothing that could possibly go wrong while we are driving on the road. Next was my brother who is always the last minute guy we got used to it by now. We all got water, snacks, blankets, electronics, and pillows. Everyone was ready to head out at 8. So we got in our cars and the Journey began 2 will my life come into place?As the life goes on you have to pick what you need to accomplish and need in life. So what I have decided to do is to go too park. Preferably one that will have a bench so I an sit and think. As I walk to the park I always listen to music that will help me come up with some brainstorming of what my goals in life are. I already have some clear ideas that I will want to bring into my life and make me feel proud life. When I have finally gotten to the park and spotted a bench I take out the book of rules that I have in my bag that I always carry with me.I start writing the goals that I would want to accomplish. The following are: 1, I would want to make a difference in the world. 2, I would like to know why I am here and what I would influence on people and what hey would do in their life. 3, why the world always likes to bring people down and challenge them. As I keep going on and on about these goals I want to figure out on the way out of nowhere there is this kid that Just keeps on bugging me and finally ii wanted to know what he wanted and he said that in order for me to be here I had to claim my territory.Now I know that right now I am in the meeting of the goddess. While I was getting up he got to the starting line and I was baffled. I was curious of what this was. He told me that what we have to race all the way around the park and Hoover crosses the finish line first wins. So we got onto the line and out of nowhere here comes a tall person that told us that he is the referee and he will managed on who will win the race and claim the park. He asked if we were ready and we both shook our heads and he started counting. 3.. 2. 1 . . GO! All you see is us two running all the way around the park.During the time I am running I look to my left and I see him neck and neck to me. So I decided to reduce my speed and come right up behind him so I dont have the wind right in my face and so I can gain acceleration when it comes to the end. As we come to the last mum sprint I gotten enough speed that I cut him off because I realized that he is tired. As I gained speed he looks at me shocked. I run as fast as my legs would take me and surprisingly I was running so fast he was going farther away from me. As soon as I passed the finish the finish line all I hear him say is FINISHED. When my opponent finally came up to me he congratulated me and told me I can go back and do what I was doing. When I had gotten back to my book I immediately put that experience in the rule book and finished up my goals. After I finished up putting in my last thought I closed it, put it back into my bag and Just sat there. I was tired of doing things I Just wanted to take a break and Just relax a bit before I continue my Journey. Right before it was hitting when I get up I Just walk up and follow a little cement path and it goes on for miles.I just walked and I dont know how long I walked until it gets to my cabin of where I was supposed to stay do to my challenge. I ended up getting there at around 10:30 pm. As I put my bag away I realize that I havent done what I wanted to do. Tomorrow I am focusing on me. My interests come into action When one commits to seriousness he has to have something as a getaway. When I always have the time or I Just dont feel like dealing with certain things I would focus on the one thing and that would be my track and field career.I need to get better at it so eventually I can go to state and letter in the events that I do. I am not a track runner I am more of a fielder. My events that I do is long and triple Jump. So far my record that was recorded in practice was 16 1 for my long Jump. When it comes to districts for long Jump I only got 153. 5 because I scratched on my 3 Jump. As for my triple Jump my longest recorded was 324. As for districts I had wrong footing so I only got 316. 5. I want to get stronger at it so what I need to do is focus on my strategy. Once I do that then I can focus on how to make me have faster acceleration so I can be able to get more momentum to Jump no only higher but farther as well. When I have accomplished those 2 things in my head I will be unstoppable. What I always start out for training is running at least a mile. I do that because it calms me down and gets me worked up for the competitiveness that I bring to myself. I love to halogen myself because it helps me understand that I can overcome even myself. When I get done with my run I usually do some stretching right after that.When I am feeling rushed I dont necessarily do the stretching I go straight into the work. For this kind of thing I do I mainly do it for not wanting to go home while challenging my mental stability? So I am having an apotheosis phase right now. I Just want to do things that helps me have fun and be a kid instead of worrying things right now. I guess the main reason why I like track is based on me instead of a team. I like Just to ark alone when being a competitive person. I dont really have a reason I guess I just like to be territorial and keep me limits to myself instead of having to share what I got.That is why I train so much and keep my training at a precise schedule and follow through it so that I know that no matter what I will come up on top. When I lose my meets and dont get placed into the top 4 1 feel down on myself because I feel like I didnt put in the amount of work that I should have for this reason. I believe that is why I am in MAMA (Mixed Martial Arts). I have really bad OPTS and that causes me to eave anger management. When I get into tournaments for my fighting career I release all the anger that I get. I mostly get my anger from my family.I dont really enjoy my family so thats why I am in these activities to make sure that when I do take stuff out on it isnt the people I end up getting in trouble with. I was never a champion for my fighting career but I was a champion for my grappling and grounding career. I study under McMahon Brazilin Juju-jujitsu. Not only do they teach me about different types of scenarios but also we fight in different types of clothing as well. We get into GIs and we have to fight in those and we fight without them. I enter in what is called NAG tournament and that is a tournament held in many different 4th time going into there.Since I became experienced in the tournament I can already Judge people and use the certain moves based on what they look like of their stance and previous performance. It was my first time getting first in the tournament and it felt great. Some things I believe are here for a reason due to the fact of what you have and what you know you can overcome based on your past. I do this based n a stress reliever and not having to worry what next horrible thing will come into my pathway because I am more focused on what I have that is more important than that. I like to see myself as the one that did bad things but turned it into a good thing based on its experience in certain areas. 4 the curiosity of my life Finally the day shall come and you show your true colors. I usually like to Just get away for a little bit so I get packed up and I Just go off running. I never know what I will find but the fact that when I do find something that will suit me in the moment I ill take that chance and hopefully I can get something out of it. I mostly like to Just run to the woods and par core there.I like to do exploration of the nature because of what happened when I was in the 5th grade. In the 5th grade we were supposed to create a society and give where and when it will be. So my friend Gavin and I we created a Native American society and we called it Redwood. We made little bits of badges that look like peace symbols. So what we would do is we would go to the woods and find the creek and we would go to the frozen waterfall and right on top we loud start building our society there. We wanted this to become a reality and get actual people to come and Join.First we had to figure out what is what and who will run certain things. We had to create anthems and money system. As we come up with this while we build our society we also came up with what food we would have. Since we cant actually get fish and stuff from the creek and the waterfall so what we do is we would earn money from our parents and go to the Mint mart right across the street and get some food for our place. I wanted to create a place that I could get way from the world but I realize that I couldnt unless I look everywhere and find out which is the best place that is suitable for me.As I continue to run to the woods I find that this person standing right in front of the cement path. I run up to the man as temptress and all he is doing is holding up a sign saying if you are a member of Redwood clan come to me I was quite shocked on what is going on and so I told him that I was the person that created the clan and he was finally happy from what I could tell because all I see him smiling. He takes me to what he calls is his secret lair ND what it looks like is Just a trousers. But in the trousers it looks like a place that has a whole bunch of ideas.He tells me he has been wanting to Join since he was in the group. As I keep talking to him he finally tells me his name. My name is Xavier Johnson I remember his name from somewhere. I asked him where have we met before and he told me that we were in basketball tryouts together. 000000HHHHHH!!!! Now I get it. See I wasnt the kind of person that was extremely sporty but the fact that I got in during 7th grade I thought I would make it back in 8th grade at my old school. When we finally know about when we knew each other he showed me some good ideas on about how to make the civilization more efficient and with it.We came up with the solution that we would put the government in its own little place to protect it from being bombarded and whoever would walk there would have to be its own messengers gathered from people that would take up all the ideas, complaints, and records that have been kept. Not only that but we came up with the fact that we who created it dont have to be the one that will be held for the government position, but that we will be getting whatever we want but there is some assure way into it.We wouldnt want to get special treatment and that there will be no social class and everyone will be treated the same and that no one will be secluded from a specific event. If you disk obey the rules you will have to either choose a punishment that is between 2 decent ones or take one that all the civilians would think is best. We are not a democracy and force people to do specific things that doesnt need to be. Finally we have decided that we will let everyone decided on what they will believe in when it comes to the higher power.Now that we have everything overdo I think it would be best that will get started right away so in the end I can put this in my rule book. 5 The one that helps you the most When my Journey becomes tough I have my spirits that help me. As we get done building I start to wonder who is there to tell you what is right and what there is to fix. Not Just in your projects that you build but everything that you do. While I put the last little bit of rules that I do I am missing Just one part. MY SPIRIT!!!! I cannot believe this happened I thought I got this squared away. I wanted to find this out quick because today is the day I come home.So I dont even know where to start. I guess I would have to go to a certain place that is alone. Wait I got it. Ill Just go to the one place that I only know where it is. The center of the field. It is very hard to get. When I get there I bring sacrifices of its own land to put it on what is called the Tree of life. After I put the sacrifices there (a marking of your sign, a dandelion, and a fallen branch), I go in the tree that has an opening that my family put ritual candles surrounding the middle of the tree. In the center of the inside of the tree was a mat that is for only prayer use. There I sit and Just meditate. I dont pray because I dont have a religion I Just as my past for some advice so they can help me not make the mistakes that they made in the past. Finally after a couple of minutes I finally get supernatural aid from my ancestors. From what I get out of it I need to take things slow and take everything inn and so that eventually I can use that into my greater use. While I get up to thank them I noticed that something wasnt how it was supposed to go. I knew that it was supposed to blow wind but the only time it shouldnt is when something is happening in the family.Snap I forgot it was my brothers birthday that is why I was supposed to return home with my rule book complete. Now I was going to give it to him so that I can give this for his birthday present. Oh everything is making sense now and all this is because all of my ancestors. It is making me feel like I am a master of 2 worlds. Due to the fact that I got help and actually understood them for the first time. As I run back to the cabin to get my things I am starting to believe that there really is something that is above us and will pin-point us to the right direction no matter what they are.Here I am I need to hurry I have to be home in 2 hours. That means I got to book it. So as I run I am trying to write the rest of my spiritual words in there. As the day comes to an end I see the but will they accept me once I show them my book? I guess we are going to have to find out. As I walk in everyone looked at me and Just stared. Eventually all you see is my father walk up to me and told me how proud he was to see me return. I told him that I have finished my book and that I am ready to share with everyone. We walked to the dining table where my brother was and he has gotten bigger.I would say he has grown about a couple of inches of when I last seen him. After we got done getting settled of when I came back we actually had a good time. Until the time I had to hand my rule book over. As I handed it over I was getting really nervous and I feel like they might not accept me and my rules. Finally it comes to them reading it aloud. After he spoke the first word my OPTS started coming and it is driving me crazy. They kept reading on and on until they couldnt read no more. When my older brother finally got done reading my book everyone was dead silent. A minute later my brother tot up from his seat walked over to me and told me that it is very interesting and that he accepts that. WHOA! I have one person accept me I wonder if my dad will to. My brother walks over to my dad and all you see is them talking in the corner for a really long time. Regardless if it was really 5 minutes it seemed forever. When the time pasted my dad comes over and for once I finally see him shed a tear and tell me that he is proud to accept me as not only a son but also a Bonneville. YES!!!! Now that I am a TRUE Bonneville I am able to Join in the activities and finally reunite with my family in happiness.

Confederacy of dunces essays

Confederacy of dunces essays John Kennedy Toole was only 32 when he took his life in 1969. Tooles story A Confederacy of Dunces was not published during his lifetime. When it was finally published 11 long years after his death, it immediately won the Pulitzer prize. Through out the entire novel there is any underlying sense of pathos that which suggests that A Confederacy of Dunces may be some sort of personal depiction of Tooles life. The epigraph by Jonathan Swift on the first page of the book reads, When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. Now given that this quote was not written specifically for this novel, there is not a more effective way to sum up the life of the main character, Ignatius J. Reilly. Never before has a person been more convinced of his own genius, and the idiocy of those surrounding him. Yet, at the same time, he is the most unsuitable candidate for such a flattering title. Ignatius is an obese, unemployed, self-centered, and socially challenged man that wears a green hunting cap, wool coat, and scarf all year long, despite the fact that he resides in balmy New Orleans. He lives with his widowed mother in a dingy, working-class neighborhood. Because his diet strictly consists of pastries and Dr. Nut, a local Louisiana cola, he is always complaining of gastric difficulties, and relieving them with various eruptions. And when under any sort of pressure Ignatius is likely to suffer from a shutting of the pyloric valve, this gastric malady is more than likely a figment of his imagination. On top of this Ignatius believes himself to be some sort of Christian philosopher that maintains and open disgust with the modern world in which he lives. The events of the novel center around a few weeks in Ignatius life. In the first main scene, Ignatius mother, ...

Critically assess the proposition that collective bargaining is the Essay

Critically assess the proposition that collective bargaining is the most appropriate channel to redress the power imbalance within the employment relationship - Essay Example With the cases of Company A and B, such demands can be regarded as a non-issue since it is the right of every employee to be provided with their basic needs. However, the unwillingness of employers to grant the aforementioned requests pose a big problem, and might eventually strain the relationship between the management and its numerous employees. Without a proper venue to hear both parties, a collective decision may render impossible to happen. If this happens, employees would have no other choice but to go to the streets and hold the picket lines until other labour unions or government agencies get hold of their case. Hence, there is a need to emphasise the fact that every company or organisation must acknowledge the rights of their employees. And the only way to meet halfway through the conflict is through a collective bargaining agreement between the two parties involved (Cornell, 2007). In the UK alone, collective bargaining has been exercised by at least 15.5 million employees from a manpower population of about 17.5 million since 1945 (Cite filename: Personnel & HRM). British Academic Beatrice Webb was said to have coined such term in her 1891 book entitled ‘Cooperative Movement’ in an effort to provide an alternative movement from individual bargaining between a company and its individual employee. However, it was the definition made by Allan Flanders, as a ‘process of rule-making leading to joint regulation in industry,’ that further refined the meaning of collective bargaining (Wikipedia, 2007). He even expanded the significance of the term as not only limited to determining pay but as well as in the (cite filename: employee relations): †¦management acceptance of a style of employment relationship which is based on the legitimisation of the expression of the different interest within the organisation (conflict), on joint regulation (constraining the unilateral exercise of managerial authority over

Jaguar Land Rover Management Report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5250 words

Jaguar Land Rover Management Report - Essay Example The company is highly concerned in developing a business model that will contribute the overall nature and climate protection, by investing into green technology, implementing low-carbon solutions into the vehicle building technologies, and developing green materials for vehicle production. Therefore, product life cycle is considered as the key aspect of the proper strategy development, since it involves all the three components of the strategy. It is divided into 7 phases:1.  Design: This is the basic step of developing a â€Å"green† product, and reducing CO2 emissions for the future models. The stage involves developing safety, energy saving and durability technologies.2.  Raw material production: the company deals with the sustainable suppliers. This is also important for the final cost reduction, since â€Å"green† suppliers offer lower prices (Jaguar Land Rover Annual Report, 2014)3.  Transporting: the properly developed logistics strategy helps reducing the transportation costs, as well as CO2 emissions. 4.  Manufacturing: emissions to air, soil, and water are thoroughly controlled by implementing filters, and energy saving technologies. Additionally, the waste and emission control helps implementing the waste recycling technologies, which is also helpful for cost reduction. 5.  Delivery to customers: the shorter delivery ways help reducing emissions and costs, emissions to air. Similarly to material and components transportation, shorter ways are required for cost and emission reduction.

Managment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 5000 words

Managment - Essay Example was done by HSE (2001), it was seen that the the way health and safety is maintained is of equal importance just like the way other sectors are managed because it reflects how efficient and relevant the (HSE, 2001) system could be in the working place. The objective of this report is to asses how health and safety management system is being observed and implemented at Carillion place. This objective ha sto be met by checking the main elements of the system at Carillon plc. The main elements include: planning, performance, performance assessment and performance improvement of the health and safety system. Carillion is a multinational construction company located in Wolverhampton, United Kingdom. It mainly deals with construction and engineering activities both civil and building and employs approximately 51,000 across the globe. One of the major sectors that Carillon keeps watch on is the health and safety management of the company. Due to its value for that sector it was given an award of OHSAS certification in 2000. With Carillon having the certification of BS OHSAS 18001, it meets the requirements for the methodology that is located which it is named Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach, that has been illustrated using a diagram in Fig 1.0.0 (HSE 2001, p.6). it has a certification for OHSAS 18001, this makes OHSAS 18001 health and safety management system the body that is used to check it and it can also be checked by the HSG65 gap analysis model. A summary of this review has been shown in Appendix B. Factors that make the health and safety management of Carillion effective is the fact that it has its health and safety policies written that sets the trend for maintaining health and safety in the organization. A copy of this policy statement has been put in Appendix A. The policy statement document has been written and undersigned by Richard Howson, the CEO of Carillion construction company. It clearly says that the Health and Safety of the people that work

Crisis Communications Toyota UK’s sticky accelerator pedal

Crisis Communications Toyota UK’s sticky accelerator pedal Toyota UKs sticky accelerator pedal recall of January 2010 was considered by journalists as a disaster for its reputation with UK customers (Booth and Teather, 2010 and Hutton, 2010). Yet just three weeks after the crisis broke comments left by customers on the companys UK website revealed that they did not share this opinion. This essay will seek to understand these reactions, explain them and suggest ways Toyotas own crisis communication efforts may have helped and hindered them. After establishing the Toyota recall as a crisis, the essay will undertake a content analysis of customer comments to the companys UK website. The Situational Crisis Communications Theory (SCCT) of Coombs and Holladay (1996, 2001 and 2002) will then be applied to the results to start to explain these responses. The essay will then move on to assess how Toyotas own crisis communication efforts, as evidenced by a content analysis of company statements uploaded to Toyotas UK website, followed the tenets set o ut by SCCT. The aim will be to demonstrate how Toyotas crisis response strategies could have negatively and positively influenced these customer reactions. The essay will then conclude by suggesting further research needs to be done to prove any direct causal relationship between Toyotas crisis communication strategies and the resulting customer reactions. Before beginning this analysis it is important we give the essay a strong foundation by establishing that the Toyota accelerator recall was in fact a crisis and therefore warrants the application of crisis communications theory. Underpinning this process is the definition of a crisis as a an event or a perception of an event that threatens or violates important value expectancies of stakeholders and [where] stakeholders reactions can seriously impact the organizations performance and generate negative outcomes (Coombs, 1999, quoted in Tomasz and others, 2010, p. 637). Within this definition is the concept of stakeholders, which is interpreted as any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisations objectives (Freeman, 1984, p. 46). In the case of Toyota this could include the customers who buy the cars; the staff, who make them and the shareholders, who finance the company. According to Tomazs and others (2010) the expectations mentioned in this definition above centre on what they perceive to be an agreement or promise by the organisation. These are formed from exposure to information about the organisation, published by the organisation itself and the media; societal norms and interpersonal interactions with the company and other parties. Tomasz and others (2010) go on to explain that an episode that threatens or violates these expectations can be considered a crisis. The result of which can make stakeholders change their attitudes towards the organisation and/or change their behaviours, thus negatively affecting profitability and stockholder value. How well a company is meeting expectations can be described as reputation (Coombs, 2004a). So, it is important that, before applying this theory to the sticky accelerator pedal recall, we ascertain Toyotas reputation. From Toyotas own corporate material (Toyota, 2010a and Toyota, 2010b) and media articles (The Telegraph, 2010) about the car marque, the brand promises are clear. By buying a Toyota customers are promised safety, reliability and quality. By applying the theory above to the accelerator recall, it is reasonable to suggest that if the sticky accelerator fault occurred, a car could become unpredictable thus making the vehicle unreliable and unsafe to drive, and threatening two key customers expectations As a consequence, because these issues had never occurred before, customers could begin to feel like the quality associated with the marque had diminished, thus potentially violating the third brand pillar. With Tomasz and others (2010) placing a direct link between the threat or violation of expectations and negative stakeholder behaviour, it is also reasonable to suggest that the recall episode could have some damaging consequences for Toyota and its business goals, including a potential drop in car sales as customers stopping purchasing the marque, which would then lead to a drop in the companys share price. This therefore shows that the sticky accelerator pedal recall defiantly fits into definition of a crisis, as outlined above. What was at stake was Toyotas relationship with its customers. That is why this essay will focus on looking at the crisis from their point of view, in particular its UK customers. In the next part of the essay I will seek to start to understand how customers reacted to this crisis by analysing messages this stakeholder group left on Toyotas UK website. The aim of this examination is to start to build a picture of what damage was done to the relationship between Toyota and its customers due to the crisis episode. This analysis is heavily influenced by the work of Tomasz and others (2010) and as a result breaks the possible harm into two categories; negative changes in customer attitudes to the organisation and negative changes to customer behaviours. With these categories in mind 400 posts were analysed that had been left on Toyotas UK website in reaction the companys pleas for Your Experiences of the Recall (Toyota, 2010c).Toyota uploaded this appeal to their blog two weeks after the countrywide fix of affected models began, therefore giving an indication of the final thoughts of customers. Firstly, these posts were coded as positive, negative or neutral in their attitude towards Toyota. Each post was then broken down further and coded for evidence that the customers perceived Toyota to be responsible for the crisis, that their opinion of the car marquee had been damaged and that the crisis had affected their purchase intentions. Reputation was examined by looking for evidence of the three stakeholder expectations, as established above. These results showed that only 16% of customers in this sample had a negative attitude towards Toyota and only 1.3 % blamed the car marque for what had happened (Purnell, 2010). As for the three pillars of Toyotas reputation, just 2.6% of the customers sampled thought Toyotas were now unsafe, 1.9 % considered them unreliable and 1.3 % thought quality had dropped (Purnell, 2010). However, most interestingly just 2.7 % said the crisis had put them off buying a Toyota (Purnell, 2010). It is therefore fair to say that overall the posts were positive, with comments including not a major problem; not changed my loyalty ; will keep buying Toyotas and 11 out of 10 for Toyota acknowledging the problem and actually doing something about it. With percentages high in the not mentioned categories it is also interesting to stop for a moment and look at the topics that customers were concerned about. Many customers were concerned and confused about how they were affected by the way the recall had been handled. In the next section of the essay I will apply the tenets of SCCT as developed by Coombs and Holladay (1996, 2001 and 2002) to the sticky accelerator crisis in a bid to shed light on why customers may have reacted in the ways established above. The reason SCCT was chosen was because the core proposition of the theory is that during crisis situations organisations need to protect their reputations. The way they can do this is by developing crisis responses based on the specific circumstances of a particular situation. Successfully implementing such tailored responses will have a positive effect on stakeholder perceptions. The match between the situation and the response strategy is based on attribution of responsibility and different responses strategies imply different degrees of responsibility (Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001 and 2002). SCCT ( Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001 and 2002) suggests that a match between the Toyota crisis and the suggested crisis response strategy can be identified using a two step process, which involves determining the frame stakeholders use to categorise the crisis and then establishing if any intensifying factors are present. SCCT (Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001 and 2002) offers three frames, victim, accidental and intentional. The categories present increasing levels of attributions of responsibility and therefore threat posed by the crisis. Using this model in relation to the Toyota recall, reveals that the episode fits into the accidental crisis category which has a low attribution of crisis responsibility. This is because the situation was caused by the failure of a mechanism in certain models of their cars that could not be detected by normal inspection and could therefore be considered technical error product harm, one the subsets of the accidental crisis category. With this base level of threat established the next step is to look at whether any intensifying factors were present during Toyotas sticky accelerator pedal recall. SCCT identifies two intensifying factors, a crisis history and prior reputation (Coombs, 2004b). In SCCT if an organisation had a similar crisis in the past or is suffering from a poor reputation with stakeholders, the current crisis will be a much greater reputational threat because it will establish a pattern of behaviour by an organisation (Coombs and Holladay, 2004). In Toyotas case one of the two intensifying factors is present. The company, despite having a strong reputation with customers, had been having problems with product recalls since 12 months before the accelerator pedal problem. In January 2009, Toyota issued a global recall of 1.3million cars, including some in Britain, because of seatbelt and exhaust problems. The companys woes in this department were also exacerbated by the fact that two weeks into the sticky accelerator pedal crisis, the company issued another global recall for its Prius model because of suspected brake problems. SCCT (Coombs, 2007b) then combines these factors to evaluate the reputational threat presented by the crisis. Therefore Toyotas accelerator pedal recall rates as an accidental crisis, with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility but because of the intensifying factor it has the potential to produce greater reputation damage than would normally be for this category. This means that although customers see the event as largely out of the control of Toyota and unintentional, there is an increased chance that it will damage the companys reputation with customers The application of SCCT to the Toyota recall supports the results of the content analysis above and goes a long way to explain by customers reacted this way. A much stronger attribution of crisis responsibility and therefore threat would have been levelled at Toyota, if customers considered the product recall has been intentional, perhaps a human error crisis caused by someone not doing their job properly(Coombs, 2007a; Coom bs and Holladay, 2002). Although the SCCT model (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002) starts to explain the customers reactions represented above, especially as to why they did not blame Toyota, what we cant forget is that SCCT to the predicts that the episode has the potential to create serious damage to Toyotas reputation with its customers in the posts analysed. It is reasonable then to expect to see a significantly larger proportion of negative feedback from this audience group. However, this is not evidenced, which suggested that Toyotas own crisis communications efforts may have helped to minimise the impact the crisis had on the companys relations with its customer base. The next section of the essay will analyse how well Toyotas own crisis communication efforts met the tenets of SCCT (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002). By analysing statements made by the company on its UK website between January 28 2010- when the crisis began and February 10 when the company began fixing the affected v ehicles. On January 28 Toyota UK issued its first public statement explaining that the accelerator pedal problem currently affecting the US could now affect the UK and Europe (Toyota, 2010d). It focussed on explaining to drivers what signs to look out for and what Toyota was doing to rectify the situation. This is the type of message that SCCT would consider to be instructing information, i.e. information that would help affected people cope physically with the crisis. Instructing and adjusting information are the two types of information that SCCT suggests begin and are part of every crisis response strategy (Coombs, 2010). So it was entirely appropriate that Toyota began its crisis communication efforts in this way. But it is equally important that this hard work was sustained Organisations must protect their stakeholders to protect themselves (Coombs, 2010, p. 29). However, Toyota did not do this. Once the first statement was issued Toyota waited three days before issuing any further statement (Toyota, 2010 e) on their website or elsewhere, leaving customers with no instructing information during this period. To make matters worse there was also a complete lack of adjusting information. Adjusting information are expressions of compassion and the efforts the company is making to prevent a repeat of the crisis (Coombs, 2010) Such information makes victims feel better about the crisis and hold less animosity toward the organisation (Cohen, 2002). Yet until day five of the crisis, February 1(Toyota, 2010e), Toyota had not expressed any sympathy towards those affected and had not announced what steps the company was making to prevent a reoccurrence. This evidence shows that during the initial stages of their crisis response Toyota broke both of the basic tenets set out by SCCT, which Coombs ( 2010) would suggest meant that the company failed in helping customers deal practically or psychologically with the crisis. Although this was not a strong start Toyotas efforts from February 1(Toyota, 2010e) were significantly better. They regularly updated their website with instructing information, including confirming what vehicles were affected, that a fix had been found and how the fix process would work (Toyota, 2010f, Toyota, 2010g, Toyota, 2010h, Toyota, 2010i, Toyota, 2010j, Toyota,2010k, Toyota, 2010l and Toyota, 2010m). This instructing information was also supported by a steady flow of adjusting information, including comments by President and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe, Tadashi Arashima, on February 1( Toyota, 2010e), which expressed regret that it( the crisis) was causing concern; and a statement by the world-wide President of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, on February 5( Toyota, 2010i), which indicated that the company deeply regretted the inconvenience and concern caused to our customers(by the crisis) and confirmed that he would lead a special quality task force to address the problems. This demonstrates a strong use of both instructing and adjusting strategies, but Toyotas crisis response efforts did not stop there. The companys January 28 release also shows the start of a third strategy (Toyota, 2010d). Toyota explains that the accelerator problem only occurs in rare instances which this author interprets as the beginning of what SCCT theorists would consider a diminishing strategy. This strategy continues in subsequent posts and is Toyotas bid to minimise the seriousness of the crisis. This strategy continued throughout the crisis, as evidenced by statements such as Toyota is not aware of any accidents resulting from this condition in Europe (Toyota, 2010e) and that the recall is merely a precautionary measure to guarantee the highest quality standards to all customers (Toyota, 2010e). These efforts are in line with the SCCT tenets for crises which attract minimal responsibility but have an intensifying factor. The use of such strategies significantly strengthene d Toyotas efforts and these are further bolstered by correct application of reinforcing strategies alongside these primary strategies, as suggested by SCCT (Coombs, 2006). These are demonstrated through the use of comments such as those made by MD of Toyota GB, Miguel Fonseca, on February 4 (Toyota, 2010g), which state that customer safety has been and will remain our top priority. These seek to add positive information about the organisation and remind people of its past good works. In summary then, it is reasonable to say that, despite a weak start, Toyotas crisis responses efforts did follow the tenets set out by SCCT (Coombs, 2010) and should therefore have worked to minimise the possible damage the recall had on the companys reputation, by positively influencing customer opinions. It is interesting at this point to return to the findings of the content analysis of customers reactions ( Purnell, 2010), which showed that minimal damage had been done to Toyotas relationship with important stakeholder group and where there was negative feelings towards to company, these reflected the areas of weakness subsequently found in Toyotas crisis response strategies. An example of this is that the lack of information and detail about the product recall and how the fix would be handled that occurred in the first few days of the crisis. The company then paid for this weakness, with many of the negative customer comments expressing confusion and worry about how the recall a ffected them and frustration about how the process was being handled. These findings are very useful because they strongly point to the fact that the weaknesses in instructing and adjusting information at the start of Toyotas response strategy did have an ultimate affect on customer perceptions. With this in mind, it is also reasonable to suggest that where Toyotas efforts correctly followed the tenets of SCCT (Coombs 2010), these may have had a positive effect on customer impressions of the organisation. But, although this analysis strongly suggests such a direct relationship, it far from proves one. It is therefore suggested that further research is needed to substantiate such claims and prove that Toyotas strategies actually influenced the resulting customer reactions and therefore definitely diminished the impact of the crisis episode had on the company. In conclusion, this essay would like to propose that, despite media warnings to the contrary ((Booth and Teather, 2010 and Hutton, 2010), the sticky accelerator recall of 2010 was not a disaster for Toyotas reputation with UK customers. Critical to understanding why this occurred is the recognition that despite threatening to violate customer expectations, the product recall did not actually do so. Insight into why this did not occur can be found by applying SCCT (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002) to the episode. This predicted that Toyota customers would attribute minimal responsibility to Toyota because the episode was caused by a technical fault; something that goes a long was to explain why so few customers blamed Toyota for the episode. But, nevertheless, SCCT (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002) points out that the recall still remained a substantial threat, because of Toyotas crisis history. This essay proposes that this threat was successfully minimised by Toyot as own crisis communication response. Despite weaknesses in the provision of instructing and adjusting information, the brand successfully followed the tenets of SCCT (Coombs, 2010) and used diminishing and reinforcing strategies to minimise the negative effect the recall had on customer perceptions. However, despite customer reactions appearing to mirror the strengths and weaknesses of Toyotas strategy, how they influenced them remains unconfirmed. It is therefore suggested that further research in undertaken to try to prove a direct causal relationship between Toyotas strategies and the resulting customer responses.

Gay Olympics :: essays research papers

I had always enjoyed the summer Olympics and the way the athletes strive to be their best, but after watching the winter Olympics I couldn’t help but ask, are these really sports. I have no doubt that the races are sport. There is a definite outcome and no dispute over who won. Then you have these other â€Å"sports† like figure skating and ice dancing. Somehow I cannot take any point of view that would support these two as sports. First you have figure skating that requires agility, endurance, stamina, and coordination yet the winner is purely based on the opinion of another. How is that a sport?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Then you have ice dancing†¦ common ice dancing! Through all the rejects that couldn’t make the figure skating squad, lower expectations, and †¦ you know what, just call them ice fairies. That is really what it is. They might as well play Fantasia over and over then judge how well the different animals attempt their aerials. After watching the Apolo Ohno get ripped off in the speed skating, I was treated to the wonderful world of tippy toeing on ice. What kind of transition was that?   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Then you have curling, an event that could only have come from the British Isles home of haggis, minced meat pie, and other culinary delights. How does a sport like this even get started? Curling is a combination of shuffle board and sweeping. This is a new addition to the Olympics, one that could have been done without. Tug of War used to be on the program, why didn’t they keep that at least it has a definite outcome. If you haven’t noticed by now, I have ended every paragraph with a question because I really have one question on my mind, are the winter Olympics geared towards women. I would hope that no man alive is sitting at home in anticipation of the ice dancers’ next amazing move. During highlights of figure skating and ice dancing, I look in the audience in amazement of how many proud fathers there are in the audience. I say fathers because that is the only guy I could ever forgive for actually putting any interest into these sports.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This is a shallow view on sports but I have always thought that sports should be determined by a definite outcome, not another’s opinion.