Tradition and Individual Talent by T.S Eliot: Analysis

Tradition and Individual Talent by T.S Eliot: Analysis T.S Eliot Tradition and Individual Talent and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock Tradition and individual talent Eliots essays actually map a highly personal set of preoccupations, responses and ideas about specific authors and works of art, as well as formulate more general theories on the connections between poetry, culture and society. Perhaps his best-known essay, â€Å"Tradition and the Individual Talent† was first published in 1919 and soon after included in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism (1920). Eliot attempts to do two things in this essay: he first redefines â€Å"tradition† by emphasizing the importance of history to writing and understanding poetry, and he then argues that poetry should be essentially â€Å"impersonal,† that is separate and distinct from the personality of its writer. Eliots idea of tradition is complex and unusual, involving something he describes as â€Å"the historical sense† which is a perception of â€Å"the pastness of the past† but also of its â€Å"presence.† For Eliot, past works of art form an order or â€Å"tradition†; however, that order is always being altered by a new work which modifies the â€Å"tradition† to make room for itself. This view, in which â€Å"the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past,† requires that a poet be familiar with almost all literary history not just the immediate past but the distant past and not just the literature of his or her own country but the whole â€Å"mind of Europe.† Eliots second point is one of his most famous and contentious. A poet, Eliot maintains, must â€Å"self-sacrifice† to this special awareness of the past; once this awareness is achieved, it will erase any trace of personality from the poetry because the poet has become a mere medium for expression. Using the analogy of a chemical reaction, Eliot explains that a â€Å"mature† poets mind works by being a passive â€Å"receptacle† of images, phrases and feelings which are combined, under immense concentration, into a new â€Å"art emotion.† For Eliot, true art has nothing to do with the personal life of the artist but is merely the result of a greater ability to synthesize and combine, an ability which comes from deep study and comprehensive knowledge. Though Eliots belief that â€Å"Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality† sprang from what he viewed a s the excesses of Romanticism, many scholars have noted how continuous Eliots thought and the whole of Modernism is with that of the Romantics; his â€Å"impersonal poet† even has links with John Keats, who proposed a similar figure in â€Å"the chameleon poet.† But Eliots belief that critical study should be â€Å"diverted† from the poet to the poetry shaped the study of poetry for half a century, and while â€Å"Tradition and the Individual Talent† has had many detractors, especially those who question Eliots insistence on canonical works as standards of greatness, it is difficult to overemphasize the essays influence. It has shaped generations of poets, critics and theorists and is a key text in modern literary criticism. According to Eliot, Every nation, every race, has not only its own creative, but its own critical turn of mind (page 47 ). And herein lies the impossible task of defining tradition. All we do is based upon this creative or critical turn of mind, based upon our religions or our morals or our art; and this has been true throughout all of history. And this is on one side tradition. But when a nation rises and falls, when a kingdom expands or a city dies in a cloud of flame, tradition is lost. I would add to Eliots words that every city, every family, every individual has his or her own tradition. Habits, ideas, though process these are all part of this turn of mind that Eliot speaks of in his essay. Thought process is tradition; although Eliot says, Yet if the only form of traditionconsisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before ustradition should be positively discouraged, still my claim is this: tradition is in ones own critical and creative turn of mind, within ones self the masses have no place in this tradition, no place in its creation, its encouragement, or its defining. And so this word, as many others, goes forever undefined; it eludes the human mind as something invisible and impalpable eludes our fingers, as a scent eludes our grasping hands. This is tradition. And beyond this, we can only speculate. Criticism is an inevitable as breathing, and that we should be non the worse for articulating what passes in our minds when we read a book and feel and emotion about it. (T. S. Eliot Tradition and individual talent, 1920, page 48) I really never thought about how much we criticize authors and poets. When we read a book we compare it to another author of the same genre or we compare it to another book by that same author. In almost every single one of Literature classes in my secondary school, we compared one writer to another one. Whenever you read a book or a poem there is some kind of criticism going on inside your head. When we criticize a poet, author, or some other writer we always look at their history, we have to find out every part of their background because that may explain why they wrote this or that. I have to ask, why do we do this? Im sure there are times where the author/poet/whoever is not writing about their life and general experiences but something they are interested in. It is a tradition in schools, that we have to learn not only the poem or a novel, but also we have to know everything about the writer. In my opinion is that, when we getting older and older we realize that we do not need t o look after the writers life to understand his or her work. Without knowing these facts we can enjoy the book and understand it. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock This poem, the earliest of Eliots major works, was completed in 1910 or 1911 but not published until 1915. It is an examination of the tortured psyche of the prototypical modern man overeducated, eloquent, neurotic, and emotionally stilted. Prufrock, the poems speaker, seems to be addressing a potential lover, with whom he would like to â€Å"force the moment to its crisis† by somehow consummating their relationship. But Prufrock knows too much of life to â€Å"dare† an approach to the woman: In his mind he hears the comments others make about his inadequacies, and he chides himself for â€Å"presuming† emotional interaction could be possible at all. The poem moves from a series of fairly concrete (for Eliot) physical settings a cityscape (the famous â€Å"patient etherised upon a table†) and several interiors (womens arms in the lamplight, coffee spoons, fireplaces) to a series of vague ocean images conveying Prufrocks emotional distance from the world as he comes to recognize his second-rate status (â€Å"I am not Prince Hamlet). â€Å"Prufrock† is powerful for its range of intellectual reference and also for the vividness of character achieved. C. S. Lewis once stated, Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one. To love is to be vulnerable. Throughout T. S. Eliots The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a mans characterization explains why he hides his true self behind an impenetrable shell, unintentionally stunting his personality. This poem uses J. Alfred Prufrock, a nervous and obsessively introspective man, to show readers that only open vulnerability, not fantasy and dreams, can serve as a bridge to meet emotional needs and provide meaning to life. References B.C. Southam: A Students Guide to the Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot (Fifth Edition, 1990) T.S Eliot: The Sacred Wood Essays on poetry and criticism ( Seventh Edition 1950) George Williamson: T.S. Eliot (1980) Jay Martin: A collection of critical essays on â€Å"The Waste Land† (1968) B.C. Southam: T.S. Eliot: ‘Prufrock, ‘Gerontion, Ash Wednesday and other shorter poems (1994)

What the Cinderella Story Has to Teach Young Girls Essay -- Literature

At first glance, what makes a fairy tale a fairy tale may seem obvious—some kind of magic, hidden symbols, repetition, and of course it’s evident it’s fiction—but fables are more than that. As Arthur Schelesinger puts it, it’s about â€Å"[expanding] imagination† and gaining understanding of mysterious places (618). While doing this, it also helps children to escape this world, yet teach a lesson that the reader may not be conscious of. A wonderful story that achieves all of this is Cinderella, but not the traditional tale many American’s have heard. Oochigeaskw, or The Rough-Faced Girl, and Ashputtle would be fitting for a seven-year-old because they get the gears of the mind turning, allowing for an escape on the surface, with an underlying enlightenment for children of the ways of the world. The Rough Faced Girl is the Native American variation of Cinderella. It was originally told in the language of the Algonquin, who resided in the Eastern Woodlands of the United States and greatly differs from all the other stories of Cinderella. This tale’s focus is of an invisible man who will marry the woman who can see him. His sister, who has the ability to view him, cares for him and brings different woman to the wigwam to test their sight of the â€Å"Invisible One† (639). Many woman tried as they might, are unable to see him except one, Oochigeaskw. This woman is the youngest of three siblings, and is treated the poorest—scars covered her body from where her sisters burned her (640). I prefer this story to the rest because there isn’t the use of magic†¦or magic for the woman’s own benefit. Instead, once the sister proves The Rough-Faced Girl can see her brother, she bathes her and all her scars disappear. My interpretation of this is tha t Ooch... ...on. Works Cited Behrens and Rosen. Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum 11 ed. Longman, 2011. Print. Bettelheim, Bruno. â€Å"’Cinderella’: A Story of Sibling Rivalry and Oedipal Conflicts†. Behrens and Rosen 651-657. Cullen, Bonnie. â€Å"The Rise of Perrault’s ‘Cinerella’†. Behren and Rosen 645-650. Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm. â€Å"Ashputtle.† Behrens and Rosen 628-633. â€Å"Oochigeaskw – The Rough-Faced Girl (A Native American ‘Cinderella’). Behrens and Rosen 639-640. Orenstein, Peggy. â€Å"Cinderella and Princess Culture†. Behren and Rosen 670-673. Panttaja, Elisabeth. â€Å"Cinderella: Not so Morally Superior†. Behrens and Rosen 658-661. Poniewozik, James. â€Å"The Princess Paradox†. Behrens and Rosen 666-669. Schlesinger, Arthur Jr. â€Å"What Great Books do for Children†. Behrens and Rosen 617-618. Thompson, Smith. â€Å"Universality of the Folktale†. Behrens and Rosen 619-622.

Comparison Essay on “Dead Souls” and “Taras Bulba”

I. The great achievement of prose of the XIX century (from the 1840s to the 1890s) was Russian Realism, which is represented by many great Russian writers and Nikolai Gogol is not the last in this list. It is often mentioned that after 1830 Pushkin turned more and more to prose, although being the greatest poet of the time. However, the writer who established really innovating novelistic and narrative tradition in Russian literary culture was Gogol. Gogol's example, combined with the authoritative literary pronouncements of the greatest literary critic of the period, V. G. Belinsky, proved prose to be the literary medium of the future. Later, the great Russian novelist   (and not the worst philosopher of religious thought) Dostoevsky have said, referring to himself and his fellow Realists, â€Å"We have all come out from under Gogol's â€Å"Overcoat†Ã¢â‚¬  (meaning the famous story by Gogol, â€Å"Shynel† or Overcoat).Vladimir Nabokov highly esteemed Gogol as a grea t Russian (in no case Ukrainian, he is sure, in spite of the fact that Nikolaj Gogol-Ianovski originates from Ukraine, Mirgorod, and his world outlook is obviously marked by Ukrainian national tradition) novelist, dramatist, satirist, and founder of the so-called critical realism in Russian literature, best-known for his novel â€Å"Mertvye Dushy† (1842, Dead Souls). Praising the imaginative power and linguistic playfulness of the writer’s latest works (â€Å"Shynel† or Overcoat, â€Å"Mertvye Dushy† etc), Nabokov states that Gogol is everything but the romantic folklore novelist.Actually, there can be defined two main periods in Gogol’s writing: conservative romantic and vernacular idealism of the Ukrainian past (which we find in Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka and Taras Bulba) and the next evolutionary period of modernistic urban life reflection with all its psychological abnormality and deviations. If to believe Nabokov, in the mature age Gogol was ashamed of the playful artificialness of his early works; and as for the famous Russian critic, it is a dreadful nightmare even to imagine Gogol scribbling Ukrainian folkloristic novels volume by volume†¦ Had he chosen this path, the world would have never heard his name. So, let’s compare these two antagonistic periods of Gogol’s writing corresponding to the most vividly representative works of his: â€Å"Taras Bulba† and â€Å"Dead Souls†.II. Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka, the book of Ukrainian folklore stories, which appeared in 1831-32, was Gogol's breakthrough work (Gogol had greatly admired Pushkin, and he used in this work the same narrative device as Pushkin did in his Tales of Belkin). It showed his skill in mixing fantastic and demonic ideas of his people with macabre, and at the same time he said something crucial about the Russian and Ukrainian (ignoring Nabokov’s imperialistic snobbism, it is important to mark Gogol’s Ukrainian roots) character. After failure as an assistant lecturer of world history at the University of St. Petersburg (1834-35), Gogol became a full-time writer. Under the title Mirgorod (1835) Gogol published a new collection of his stories, also inspired by Ukrainian vernacular culture, beginning with â€Å"Old-World Landowners†, which described the decay of the old way of life.The book also included the famous historical tale (poem in prose) â€Å"Taras Bulba†, which according to many literary critics showed the influence of W.Scott and L.Stern. However, it is rather ignorant not to take into account the original Ukrainian novelistic tradition, which is widely based on folklore (Gulak-Artemovski, Kvitka-Osnovjanenko and many other writers of Ukrainian romanticism are evidently folkloristic). The protagonist of â€Å"Taras Bulba† is a strong, heroic character, absolutely non-typical for Gogol’s later cavalcade of bureaucrats, lunatics, swindlers, and losers, numerously represented on the pages of â€Å"Dead Souls†.In 1569, dominion over the right-coast Ukraine passed to Poland.   The Polish lords (lyahy) promptly tried stamping out Ukrainian culture by savagely exploiting the peasantry, outlawing the Ukrainian language and imposing Catholicism (Unia) and Papal supremacy on the Orthodox population.   In response, Ukrainian male peasants flocked to join the military groups known as the Cossacks. They founded the Zaporizhian Sitch on the Hortycya Island.The Cossacks, essentially a wild cross between mercenary crusaders and highwaymen,  became the focus of resistance to the Poles, the Turks and the Crimean Tatars. Gogol’s novel tells the story of the old and wise warrior Taras Bulba who, with his sons Ostap and Andrij, sallies forth to join the Sitch. Gogol's incontestably romantic adventure was as much a propaganda piece for his own time as an elegy for a way of life that had passed.   In â€Å"Taras Bulbaâ €  we meet conservative Gogol, who has just arrived to Petersburg and is not yet sophisticated in the city life. He is shocked by the corruption and moral decay of the city dwellers. He craves for the Golden Age of his people’s history and this age, he thinks, was the glorious times of the Zaporizhian Sitch.â€Å"Taras Bulba† is a remarkable example of the early romantic Gogol (if to call Gogol the writer’s texts). However, this novel works on both levels (historical and pshycological, more typical for the later Gogol’s works) and is surely one of the most exciting masterpieces in world literature.  Set sometime between the mid-sixteenth and early-seventeenth century, Gogol’s epic tale recounts both a bloody Cossack revolt against the Poles (led by the bold Taras Bulba of Ukrainian folk mythology) and the trials of Taras Bulba’s two sons. As Robert Kaplan (translator) writes, â€Å"[Taras Bulba] has a Kiplingesque gusto . . . that make s it a pleasure to read, but central to its theme is an unredemptive, darkly evil violence that is far beyond anything that Kipling ever touched on. We need more works like Taras Bulba to better understand the emotional wellsprings of the threat we face today in places like the Middle East and Central Asia.† (Jane Grayson and Faith Wigzell; p.18).And the critic John Cournos has noted, â€Å"A clue to all Russian realism may be found in a Russian critic’s observation about Gogol: ‘Seldom has nature created a man so romantic in bent, yet so masterly in portraying all that is unromantic in life.’(The Rise of Prose: Nikolai Gogol). But this statement does not cover the whole ground, for it is easy to see in almost all of Gogol’s work his â€Å"free Cossack soul† trying to break through the wall of gloomy and non-heroic ‘today’ like some ancient demon, essentially Dionysian. So, through the years, this novel sounds at once as a reproa ch, a protest, and a challenge, ever calling for joy, ancient joy, that is no more with us.This wide interpretation lies far beyond previously often-uttered accusation of vernacular populist romanticism. Nikolai Gogol searched for the joy and sadness in the Ukrainian songs he loved so much. Ukrainian was to Gogol the language of the soul, and it was in Ukrainian songs rather than in old chronicles, of which he was not a little contemptuous, that he read the history of his people. So, here in this novel the writer’s intention is not the historical but rather the psychological picture of his people. Hence no one (even Nabokov) has the right to accuse Gogol of Ukrainian culture profanation as if following the modern literary trend of his time.Indeed, so great was his enthusiasm for his own land that after collecting material for many years, the year 1833 finds him at work on a history of ‘poor Ukraine’, a work planned to take up six volumes; and writing to a friend at this time he promises to say much in it that has not been said before him. However, Gogol never wrote either his history of Little Russia (Malorosiya) or his universal history, he didn’t become Ukrainian Balzac but is often called Ukrainian Goffman or Poe.Apart from several brief studies not always reliable, the result of his many years application to his scholarly projects was this brief epic in prose, Homeric in mood (The Rise of Prose: Nikolai Gogol). The sense of intense living, ‘living dangerously† – to cite Nietzsche – the recognition of courage as the greatest virtue, the God in man, inspired Gogol, living in times which tended toward grey monotony, with admiration for his more fortunate forefathers, who lived in a poetic time, when everything was won with the sword, when every one in his turn strove to be an active being and not a spectator. In â€Å"Taras Bulba† we find the people of action, and â€Å"Dead Souls† gives us th e gallery of people of things.Russia! Russia! I see you now, from my wondrous, beautiful past I behold you! How wretched, dispersed and uncomfortable everything is about you†¦(Nikolai Gogol)III. Gogol began working on â€Å"Dead Souls† in 1835. The plot and the main idea of the story was suggested to Gogol by Pushkin who seemed to have understood Gogol as a writer quite well. Pushkin felt that the idea of a man travelling all over the Russian Impire buying up the ownership rights to serfs who had died (‘mertvye dushy’) would allow Gogol to make at once the literary success. In fact, it was an opportunity to introduce a multitude of characters, varied settings, mountains of detail, and the scope within which to be able to elaborate the anecdotal story of the work to his heart's content and to reveal all the sins of his contemporary. Gogol had big ideas of becoming a scriptor of his age a sort of Balzac†¦For the next six years, he devoted almost all of hi s creative energy to â€Å"Dead Souls†. His compulsive craftsmanship is evident in that the entire work was revised at least five times; the author stated that some passages had been rewritten as many as twenty times. He felt that this novel should be his best one.Unfortunately, only the first part of Dead Souls, twelve chapters in all, was completed by Gogol. The second part, as we know it, (some chapters of which are often published with the first part) is a recreation from various sources of what Gogol might have done with the continuation of his work. Influenced by the fanatical priest Father Konstantinovskii, he burned what he actually had already written for the second part of the novel just nine days before his death.The situation from which the novel develops is based upon a scheme which theoretically was possible in Gogol's day. The government had a policy of loaning money to landowners, feeling that this class was its strongest support. Lands owned, however, were me asured not in acres, but by the number of â€Å"souls† (serfs, or here, mertvye dushy) residing on them. De facto, landowners were serf owners†¦ The government was ready to accept the land (that is, the serfs) of an individual as collateral for a loan. Thus, a method was required by which the holdings of an individual landowner could be established at any given time.This method stated that an individual possessed the number of ‘souls’ recorded as such that belong to him/her in the most recent population census. The census was taken every ten years, which meant that near the end of the ten-year cycle almost every landowner would have some serfs who were not recorded in the preceding census because they had recently been born, and some serfs still recorded even though they had died long ago since the last census. In â€Å"Dead Souls†, the main character, Chichikov, schemes to buy from the serf holders a number of those â€Å"souls† who had died b ut were still counted as living until the next census. An absurd situation becomes possible: dead souls are sold as being alive people, which ar estil able to work. â€Å"It's cheap at the price.A rogue would cheat you, sell you some worthless rubbish instead of souls, but mine are as juicy as ripe nuts, all picked – they are all either craftsmen or sturdy peasants†, – Sobakievich boasts to his weird buyer (Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich). Once Chichikov had a number of such souls, he would apply to the government bank for a loan, using the â€Å"souls† as his collateral. With this low-interest loan in hand he would then buy and work an actual country estate, eventually paying back the loan and purchasing living souls to work the land. Well, passing the whole plot, it is imporatnt to state Gogol’s idea of small marginal people actually decaying in their small towns and farms. The Russia of small towns is the country of odd and irreversibly narrow-minde d people. What Gogol proves is that these small landowners are actually dead†¦ They have burried themselves alive in their dirty stinking flea-bitten houses.Contrudicting the wide-sprea yet contested idea of Gogol’s evolution as a writer, it is possible to say that either completing histoical heroic plot or conveying contemporary decayed society, Gogol’s intention stays the same – to show the depth of a human soul and how this soul can be filled with live brightness of heroism or by dead wickedness and miserable oddity. Bibliography Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich. Taras Bulba and Other Tales. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library// http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/GogTara.htmlNikolay Gogol: Text and Context, ed. by Jane Grayson and Faith Wigzell (1989).N. V. Nabokov: Nicolai Gogol, 1944.The Rise of Prose: Nikolai Gogol// http://www1.umn.edu/lol-russ/hpgary/Russ3421/lesson6.htm

The Three Rats Essay Example

The Three Rats Essay Example The Three Rats Paper The Three Rats Paper Candida is Morells wife and mother of their two young children. Shaw explains that she possesses the double charm of youth and motherhood. Her ways are those of a woman who has found that she can always manage people by engaging their affection, and who does so frankly and instinctively without the smallest scruple. She deeply loves her husband Morell, but is quite taken with Eugene Marchbanks naive, poetic nature. This comes of James teaching me to think for myself, and never to hold back out of fear of what other people may think of me. The Reverend James Mavor Morell Morell is a mature man, well-established in life, and husband to Candida. He is a Christian Socialist and clergyman of the Church of England. Shaw describes him as a vigorous, genial, popular man of forty, robust and good-looking, full of energy, with pleasant, hearty, considerate manners, and a sound unaffected voice, which he uses with the clean athletic articulation of a practiced orator, and with a wide range and perfect command of expression. These people forget I am a man: they think I am a talking machine to be turned on for their pleasure every evening of my life. Eugene Marchbanks Shaw states that he is a strange, shy youth of eighteen, slight, effeminate, with a delicate childish voice, and a hunted and tormented expression and shrinking manner that shew the painful sensitive of very swift and acute apprehensivenes s in youth. This young poet is madly in love with Candida, an affliction that torments him throughout the play. We all go about longing for love: it is the first need of our natures, the first prayer of our hearts; but we dare not utter our longing: we are too shy. Mr. Burgess Shaw states that Candidas father has been made coarse and sordid by the compulsory selfishness of petty commerce, and later on softened into sluggish bumptiousness by overfeeding and commercial success. He is a vulgar ignorant guzzling man. Burgess is a businessman always eeping an eye out for his own advancement. When I pay a man, an is livin depends on me, I keep him in is place. The Reverend Alexander Lexy Mill Lexy is a young curate chosen by Morell as his assistant. He is a well-intentioned, enthusiastic novice. He idolizes Morell, and tries to be just like him, and although he isnt very successful at it, he has won Morell over by his doglike devotion. I try to follow his example, not to imitate him . Miss Proserpine Prossy Garnett Shaw tells us that she is a brisk little woman of about 30, of the lower middle class notably pert and quick of speech, and not very civil in her manner, but sensitive and affectionate. She is secretly in love with Morell, and jealous of how he constantly gushes over Candida. Its enough to drive anyone out of their senses to hear a woman raved about in that absurd manner merely because shes got good hair, and a tolerable figure.

History of Urbanization in Brazil in 1980

History of Urbanization in Brazil in 1980 Institutional environment explains how interaction between institution and organization shapes economic activity, and consequently managerial strategies and performance. It is well established that the availability of information is one of the determinant of efficiency of resource allocation growth and decisions in any economy.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on History of Urbanization in Brazil in 1980 specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Economic reform has brought about an accelerated urbanization in Brazil since 1980, as it has been manifested in population growth in many cities and in a growing number of cities. In Brazil, investment decisions from private sector are usually influenced by private sector perception of the economy (Coeurderoy Murray 2008). Brazil as a country has moved from a nation with great promise to a nation where many investment opportunities are available. A more stable currency and political sy stem, coupled with vast mineral and natural resources wealth have made the country a ‘must’ for all organizations with truly international or global ambitions to invest in the country (Makino, Isobe, Chan 2004). With a population of about 194 million people, Brazil is the 5th largest market in the world after India, China, Indonesia and the U.S. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, the report indicates that the country is a leading one when you compare it with other South American nations in terms of technological and infrastructure development. When you combine these facts with stable political and economic landscape, you see the reason why Brazil attracts a higher percentage of world’s FDI year by year (Makino, Isobe, Chan 2004). But when you compare Brazil to Hong Kong, starting or doing business in Brazil can be very difficult (Lumpkin Dess, 2001). The main cause is the bureaucratic hurdles that are found in almost all government agen cies and the accompanying barrier of business regulations. In fact, Brazilians are known as â€Å"biting around the bush (Chandler Hanks 1993) around the world. Instead, before they do business they would like to know an individual first. As compared to Hong Kong, Brazil financial is extremely expensive and individual competition is very tough. Therefore, businesses should have their special relations to find better financial loans or get their own financing. The Brazil justice system is also very slow and to some extent it is corrupt but in the last 10 years it has been slowly improving (Chandler Hanks 1993). Every manager needs to know the hierarchical business set up that is found in Brazil. Decision-making in Brazil’s organizational culture is often reserved for senior managers (Publishing, 2009). Therefore, a manager should take his/her time to build a working relationship with his/her junior staff. In addition, for a foreigner manager it is difficult, so it is import ant for non-Brazilian to have a third-party introduction when doing business (Publishing, 2009).Advertising Looking for report on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More A foreign manager needs to realize the importance of each employee’s distinct duties or roles in the company (Morrison 1994). Most Brazilians believe that a supervisor will be chosen because he/she has more experience than the rest of employees under him/her. They also believe it will be inappropriate to consult lower-ranking employees when making a decision (Morrison 1994). In addition, according to Morrison (1994), there is a disparity in term of salary or wage differentials, and therefore aspirations and lifestyles, among classes in the country. Minorities are the ones holding power. This hierarchical nature can be reflected in business situations. Great deference is paid to job function, authority figures, scope of responsibil ity, and reporting relationships are strictly followed and clearly defined (Publishing, 2009). Reference List Chandler, G. N. Hanks, S. H 1993, ‘Measuring the performance of emerging businesses: A validation study’. Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 8, pp. 391-408. Coeurderoy, R. Murray, G 2008,’Regulatory environments and the location decision:evidence from the early foreign market entries of new-technology-based firms’. Journal of International Business Studies, vol. 39 no. 4, pp. 670-88. Lumpkin, G. T. Dess, G. G 2001, ‘Linking two dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation to firm performance: The moderating role of environment and industry life cycle, Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 16 no. 5, pp. 429-51. Makino, S., Isobe, T., Chan, C 2004, ‘Does country matter? Strategic Management Journal, vol. 25 no. 10, pp. 1027-43. Morrison, E. K 1994, Leadership skills: developing volunteers for organizational success, Fisher Books Publisher , New York.Advertising We will write a custom report sample on History of Urbanization in Brazil in 1980 specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Publishing, F 2009, Leadership Skills, Ferguson Publisher, London.

Wal-Mart Information Technology Company Analysis Research Paper

Wal-Mart Information Technology Company Analysis - Research Paper Example Wal-Mart owes much of its success to the early adoption of an Information Technology as compared to its competitors. The store has continually evolved to adapt to changing market needs through enhancing its Information Technology strategy. This has given it a competitive edge over other retailers by enabling it to price its products more competitively. Information Technology use by Wal-Mart continues to enhance its market leadership and dominance. 2.0 Information Technology characteristics and dynamics of Wal-Mart Despite of Wal-Mart’s large size, it has one centralized information system that is developed internally giving it much advantage in operations that enables it price its products competitively in comparison to other retailers. In 95% of Wal-Mart’s Information Technology endeavors, much of the development is done by internal staff, managing programming and process engineering and not relying on commercial software or outsourcing. The company has also been able to maintain its Information Technology budget at a lower rate than its market competitors. These costs do not grow at a similar rate to sales despite the entire Wal-Mart business model relying heavily on Information Technology. Wal-Mart as a whole relies on information technology to attain its business objectives and meet the needs of its clients (Sullivan, 2004). The information system at Wal-Mart is a centralized system that manages supplier and consumer data all in one avenue. The centralized system analyzes data from Wal-Mart’s Discount stores, Supercenters, Sam’s clubs, Neighborhood markets and world wide stores from one location. The Information Technology staffs concentrate on building software for all its systems, both at home and in international markets. As a result, any new code affects the global operations of the entire retail store. This leverages the Information technology efforts resulting into massive savings in investments in the department (Sullivan, 2004). Wal-Mart’s system enables it capture all of a day’s sales and product information in real time from all of its global operations. This information is instrumental in making timely decisions as regards sales of particular products. The information is also used by buyers to make buy decisions that eventually affect Wal-Mart’s sales. Availing real time data is one of Wal-Mart’s Information System’s hallmarks. This information enables decision makers at Wal-Mart to act fast and decisively and to take immediate corrective measures where a problem is noticed. This has worked to enhance Wal-Mart’s market leadership over the competition (Sullivan, 2004). Wal-Mart also seeks to synchronize its online operations as well. This it will be achieved through the synchronization of its online sites such as walmart.com, samsclub.com, asda.com, walmartmexico.com.mx. Such synchronization will result in similar efficiencies as those experienced through the centralization of the brick and mortar stores operational information. The platform to host this system will be scalable, Java based and running on IBM’s WebSphere and Informix database. The aim of this is to achieve efficiencies in growth and enhance scalability with the ultimate goal of cost effectiveness that translates to more affordable products for the final consumers enhancing its market leadership (Sullivan, 2004). One of the more identifiable uses of Information Technology by Wal-Mart is the use of radio frequency identification in tracking stocks.

IT Consultancies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

IT Consultancies - Essay Example This paper reports on information technology consultancies for small and medium enterprises. IT consultancies The small and medium enterprises have embraced information technology developments and have established demand for consultancy services. Some of the enterprises’ consulting services in information technology applications include the following, as are offered by SME consulting services. Web design Customer relationship management Content management system E-commerce Custom application development Design outsource (Sme, 2010) Justifications of the information technology consultancies Application of the consultancies by the enterprises, the derived benefits of the applications as well as the fact that the small and medium enterprises have limited financial capacities to purchase or develop their own applications justifies the need for information technology consultancies. Features of each consultancy however identify specialized justification for each consultancy services . Web design is for instance an essential tool to every organization because of the globalized market that is dominated by the internet technology. Having an organization’s web site is therefore essential to reaching its target stakeholders. The quality of a developed website is also essential to an organization’s target customers as a marketing strategy towards a competitive advantage. Achieving an objective of developing an effective website therefore require expertise knowledge in â€Å"web design,† â€Å"flash and multimedia,† developing sites that have â€Å"interactive sound,† and â€Å"content management system† (Sme, 2010, p. 1). The derived benefits from application of content management system also justify the need for its consultancy services. This is because of its scope that promotes effectiveness and efficacy in data management and management of website pages that is instrumental to forecasting and management of trends for orga nizational decision making, and marketing through exploiting audience’ tastes and attitudes in developing website’s content. Some of the specialized services from content management system include â€Å"professional content designs,† developed potential to adjust information content, search assistance options, and add inns to an organization’s web pages (Sme, 2010, p. 1). Similarly, technological developments towards reliance on the internet also identify the need for business initiatives over the internet. Communication towards agreements for sale of property and transfer of ownership is for example easier and faster over the internet, especially in the globalized market where geographical gap hampers traditional methods of written communication. Achieving the desired communication efficiencies however requires specialized tools that are offered by E-commerce consultancy. The consultancy accords diversified services such as interlinked classes of product s and suppliers, diversified currencies and languages for communication, products evaluation, and feedbacks on the products, services for ordering and paying for commodities, and relevant calculations from transactions. These services’ ability to enhance electronic business transactions therefore justifies the need for the consultancy towards efficiency and effectiveness (Sme, 2010). Customer relationship management is another essential element of an enterprise’s management, and development and application of its model justifies the nee