A Critical Analysis on Wal-Marts Failure in Germany Essay Example for Free

A Critical Analysis on Wal-Marts Failure in Germany Essay After eight unprofitable years, Wal-Mart backed out of Germany in July 2006 and sold the entire retails outlets to Metro AG. After dominating the US market for quite a long time, Wal-Mart expanded its market to Germany in 1997. In 1997 Wal-Mart continued its strategy of globalization, and acquired two German retail chains for $1. 6 billion. After eight unprofitable years, Wal-Mart backed out of Germany in July 2006 and sold the entire retails outlets to Metro AG. The Essay examines why Wall-mart was a big failure in its international operations in Germany on a Cross-culture perspective. Inadaptability and ignorance f local culture can become a big problem in global business, even for a Corporate giant like Wal-Mart with proven success formulas. Being number one in the United States does not always guarantee for being number one elsewhere in the world. It is very important to understand the pulse of the local market and culture of the clients exactly and should make strategies accordingly and exactly that is where Wal-Mart went wrong in Germany. COMPANY PROFILE Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. s the largest retailer in the world, the worlds second-largest operates retail stores in various retailing formats in all 50 states in the United States. The Companys mass merchandising operations serve its customers primarily through the operation of three segments. The Wal-Mart Stores segment includes its discount stores, Supercenters, and Neighborhood Markets in the United States. The Sams club segment includes the warehouse membership clubs in the United States. The Companys subsidiar y, McLane Company, Inc. rovides products and distribution services to retail industry and institutional foodservice customers. Wal-Mart serves customers and members more than 200 million times per week at more than 8,416 retail units under 53 different banners in 15 countries. With fiscal year 2010 sales of $405 billion, Wal-Mart employs more than 2. 1 million associates worldwide. Nearly 75% of its stores are in the United States (Wal-Mart International Operations, 2004), but Wal-Mart is expanding internationally. The Group is engaged in the operations of retail stores located in all 50 states of the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom, Central America, Chile, Mexico,lndia and China Wal-Marts entry and operation in Germany Wal-Marts initial entry into German market was through the acquisitions of renowned 21 store Wertkauf chain for an estimated $1. 4 billion in December 1997. 1t was followed one year later by the acquisition of In-terspars 74 hypermarkets from Spar Handels AG, the German unit of the French Intermarch © Group , for ‚ ¬560 million. Thus Wal-Mart immediately became the countrys fourth biggest operator of hypermarkets. However, with a turnover of around ‚ ¬2. 9 billion, and a stagnating market share of Just 1. 1 per cent, the US giant still was a negligible one in the German retail market. Even worse, with estimated accumulated losses of more than ‚ ¬ 1 billion, it is literally drowning in red ink although, according to Wal-Mart Germanys CEO, Kay Hafner, its non food assortment, which accounts for around 50 per cent of its revenues, is profitable.. Instead of expanding its network of stores by 50 units by early 2001 , as originally planned, the company has been forced to close two big outlets, while at the same time it was only able to fully remodel three locations into its flagship Super center format. Due to its problems the company also had to lay off around 1. 000 staff. On July 2006,Wal-Mart announced its official defeat in Germany and would sell its 85 German stores to the rival supermarket chain Metro and would ook a pre-tax loss of about $1 billion (E536million) on the failed venture. A Critical Analysis of Reasons for Wal-Marts failure in Germany: There were several factors that contributed to Germanys unsuccessful business ride. Amazing management blunders have plagued Wal-Marts German operation from the very start.. Wal-Marts major mistakes on the German market may be summarized as follows. Cultural Insensitivity was the major reason of failure Entry to German market by acquisition strategy, Failure to deliver on its legendary every-day low prices and excellent service alue proposition. ? Bad Publicity about the company due to breaking of some prevailing German law In January 1997, Wal-Mart had first entry in Europe market with the acquisition of Wertkauf hypermarkets in Germany. Later in that year, Wal-Mart also acquired Interspar, another German hypermarket chain.. While its first move the 1997 takeover of the 21 Wertkaufstores was indeed a shrewd one, given that companys excellent earnings, its competitive locations, and its very capable management. Wal- Marts 1998 follow-updeal with Spar for 74 hypermarkets was widely Judged an ill- nformed, ill-advised act, for several reasons: Spar is considered to be the weakest player on the German market due to its mostly run-down stores, very heterogeneous in size and format, with the majority of them located in less well-off inner-city residential areas. Wal-Marts cultural insensitivity led to its failure in Germany. This Study focuses only on the flaws made by the Wal-Mart in its International operations in Germany from a Cross-cultural Managements perspective. Wal-Marts failure in Germany- A Case of cultural insensitivity: Most of the Global mergers and acquisitions failed to produce any benefit for the shareholders or educed value, which was mainly due to the lack of intercultural competence. Lack of sensitivity and understanding of language barriers, local traditions, consumer behavior, merchandising, and employment practices irreversibly damaged Wal-Marts image in Germany. One of the main reasons that failed Wal-Mart in Germany is when it attempted to transport the companys unique culture and retailing concept to the new country. The top management refused to even acknowledge the differences in customer behavior and culture in Germany when compared to its US customers, and the top management failed to listen to the feedback from its employees. Not every new cross- border retailer can be a retail giant outer its home. The mistake of exporting its culture wholesale, rather than adapting to local market, leads Wal-Mart failed in Germany market. Wal-Marts ambitions to position itself profitably in European markets through Germany have been hit badly by their inability to fully understand and to adapt to the specific conditions of doing business in other countries. This exposed their obvious lack of intercultural competence and management skills. The main challenge of post-merger integration is further complicated significantly if it is in a Cross- order Merger or acquisition, with all issues frequently being compounded by a lack of language and culture bridging skills. Failure to accomplish this task satisfactorily, results in mutual distrust, de-motivation and negatively impacts the merged companies competitiveness, profits and shareholder value. This is exactly what happened to Wal-Mart Germany. Following are the main two factors that Contributed to the Wal-Marts unsuccessful efforts in Germany: 1)Specific Difference in German Consumer behavior and Culture in comparison with US consumers: and impose an American boss on its German operations. Wal-Mart stores are esigned for customers who are willing to spend lot of time shopping. But in Germany, the shopping hours are shorter: Shops close by 5 PM on weekdays, and no shopping on Sundays. This meant that customers dont have the habit of spending lots of time in a store wandering around for the things they need. Coupled with this problem, German customers do not like to be assisted by Wal-Marts friendly store assistants. Germans prefer to do their own search for bargains. Instead of understanding and adjusting to the culture of its clients, Wal-Mart tried to impose their Culture on to the Customers, which never worked out. Germans like to see the advertised discount products upfront without having to ask the store assistant. This implies that the discount products must be placed at the eye level. Instead Wal-Mart chose to use its US style merchandise display strategy where premium priced products are kept at eye level and discount products are kept at higher shelf or in the bottom racks. This irritated the German shoppers. Wal-Mart also got its store inventory wrong, Wal-Mart stocked its store with clothes, hardware, electronics and other non-food products were given much bigger floor space than ood products, as a result more than 50% of the revenue was from non-food products. But other German retailers stock more of food products. For example for Metro, food products constitute more than 75% of the revenue. Germans prefer to bag groceries themselves into reusable carriers, or at least to pay a small fee for the avoidable sin of needing a plastic bag. Germans are introvert in nature and doesnt like display of emotion in public, as they always care for their private personal space. Employees, like the reserved customers, didnt care for Wal-Marts public displays of corporate moral such as the morning heer. The German Customers even didnt liked to be accompanied by the Cheerful employees either, as they would like to make choices by themselves. These are cultural misunderstandings as well, but one could say the cultural philosophy of Wal- Mart could not survive in the context of a German culture with a Happy Planet Index significantly higher than Americas 2)lnefficient Top Management which ignored the relevance of local Culture: It was clear that the cultural insensitivity of Wal-Mart started right at the top management. To begin with, it appointed four CEOs during its first four years of peration. The first head of German operations was Rob Tiarks ,an expat from the USA who did not understand Germany or its culture. He had previously supervised around 200 Supercenters in America. Not only did he not speak any German. Due to his unwillingness to learn the language ,English was soon decreed as the official company language at the management level. He also ignores the complexities and the legal framework of the German retail market, ignoring any strategic advice presented to him by former Wertkauf executives . This has resulted in the resignation nsuccessful in integrating German Outlets with the Wal-Marts Business model and culture. Suggestions and Recommendations: Cross-border, Cross-cultural business is a challenge even for the biggest companies. Companies have to be sensitive to the local cultures and tailor their offerings to local market. To localize their offerings, Wal-Mart and other Companies that are going global companies must carry out cultural assessment of the Citizens of the Country before acquisitions. All their Corporate Business and Communication strategies should be based on this cultural assessment. This will help companies measure the ffectiveness of its localization efforts and make adequate changes in local strategy ; tactics as and when required. Considering the following steps would help Wal-Mart or any other Company while they are on lookout of Global alliance or business. 1)Political, Social, Economic and Cultural Analysis of the Country Before expanding its business operations to a new country, the Company should understand the Political, Social, Economic and cultural aspects of the Country in depth. Wal-Marts case, Germany was selected primarily because of a central European location and economic attractiveness of the Wertkauf acquisition. But a serious research would have shown that Germany had strong national values resistant to change; possibly the most deeply rooted retail traditions in Western Europe. This could have avoided either Wal-Marts selection of the Country or the strategies it has adopted in Germany. 2)Go global and think they are local After conducting an in depth research about the prevailing trends in the customers Country, the Company should be ready to modify its own identity to suit itself to the cultural differences without compromising much on its Corporate Mission. This step will also force organizations to clearly define globalization goals. Wal-Mart put the company name on many German stores before being fully established. Immediately, the run down stores left an impression on consumers who formed a negative image of the Wal-Mart name. 3)Employment of Cross-cultural Management approaches like Hampden-Turner and Trompanaars Analysis: Employement of Hofsteds Culture Dimensions or HT;T Analysis will help Companies in understanding the minute cultural differences between the countries. For example, Communitarianism over Individualism Germans degree of communitarianism is on the higher side mainly because Germans prefer participating on a team. Most Germans see business as a group of related persons working together. But, most of Americans see their company as a set of difference in Cultural dimensions between the 2 countries has resulted in inside management conflict among the employees, which also resulted in resignation of efficient German executives from Wal-Mart post integration. Understanding the cultural dimensions of a Country through proven Cross-culture models will always help a company to formulate a specific approach that will encourage team spirit and joy among the Global Team. 4)Continuous Updation of Strategies to successfully ithstand the local competition It is very important for a Global firm to continuously analyse the impact of their various strategies on the local market. Understand the shortfalls, and modify it in such a way as to cater the local market in a much better way than the competitors. It is always better to scrutinize the strategies adopted by them with a panel of Local experts, as they will be having a better picture about the local consuming behavior and culture. Perceptions do matter a lot, So a surveys to find the customers perception about the company will also help them to change their trategies accordingly. Conclusion: Even though Wall-Mart was the Biggest of the companies, while going Global understanding the culture of customers, employees of the new Country is very critical for the success. The achievement in the U. S. market cannot always guarantee that Wal-Mart will also success in anywhere else. Companies need to understand the local culture in order to capitalize on the local market. The lessons learned from Wal- Marts experience in Germany, can be applied by other retailers who are planning to go global for expanding its market.. If the worlds largest retailer had taken the time o analyze the German mindset, it could have avoided a very painful lesson when Germans rejected Wal-Marts American-style which was highly successful in home country.

Kiliani-fischer Synthesis of Monosaccharides

Kiliani-fischer Synthesis of Monosaccharides Teoh Shi Hao Sean Introduction Monosaccharides are the most basic unit of carbohydrates, playing an essential role in the biochemistry of life. The most important and commonly occurring form is glucose, used as an energy source in cells (Solomon et al., 2011). Monosaccharides have the chemical formula (CH2O)n (where n 3) but those with eight or more carbons are uncommon due to their inherent instability (Solomon et al., 2011; McMurry, 2008). In a monosaccharide molecule, each carbon atom has a hydroxyl group bonded to it, except one which has an oxygen atom double bonded to it instead thus forming a carbonyl group (Solomon et al., 2011). The monosaccharide is an aldehyde if the carbonyl group is located at the end of the chain, and a ketone if the carbonyl group is located at any other position. Monosaccharides can exist in acyclic or cyclic forms, and usually switch between the two forms (McMurry, 2008). The Kiliani-Fischer synthesis is a technique for lengthening these important biomolecules. Mechanism Figure 1 below shows the reaction equation of the technique. A starting sugar is first reacted with sodium cyanide to form cyanohydrin, and subsequently hydrolysed through the application of heat to form two diastereomeric aldonic acid lactone intermediates. These intermediates are later separated through separation techniques, such as chromatography, and the desired lactone is reduced using a sodium amalgam to form a resultant sugar that has one carbon atom more than the starting sugar. In this written review, the starting sugar will be a aldopentose and the resultant sugar will be a aldohexose. Figure 1 – Reaction equation of the Kiliani-Fischer synthesis (Kilini-Fischer synthesis, 2014; Fischer, 1890). Nucleophilic addition of aldehyde to form cyanohydrin The first step in Kiliani-Fischer synthesis involves nucleophilic addition of the starting sugar, an aldehyde. NaCN and H2O are used as reagents (McMurry, 2008). Figure 2 below shows the mechanism of the reaction. A lone pair on a CN ion initiates the reaction by attacking the nucleophilic carbon atom at the carbonyl group, forming a tetrahedral intermediate. The O then attacks the H atom of a H2O molecule, forming a cyanohydrin. Figure 2 – Reaction of starting sugar to form cyanohydrin. Hydrolysis of cyanohydrin to form aldonic acid The second step in Kiliani-Fischer synthesis involves the hydrolysis of the cyanohydrin to form aldonic acid (McMurry, 2008). H2O is used as the reagent, with heat applied. Figure 3 below shows the mechanism of the reaction. The lone pair on the O of OH, formed by the auto-ionization of water, attacks the nucleophilic C of the cyanohydrin forming a trigonal planar structure. The lone pair on the N then attacks an H of a H2O molecule, followed by the double bond of C=N attacking the H atom bonded to the OH group. The resultant molecule is an amide. An OH ion then attacks the nucleophilic carbon at the carbonyl group, forming a tetrahedral intermediate that collapses with NH2 leaving as a leaving group. An aldonic acid molecule is formed. Figure 3 – Hydrolysis of cyanohydrin to form aldonic acid. Esterification of aldonic acid to form lactone intermediate and subsequent reduction to form resultant sugar With the same reagent of H2O and conditions of heat, the aldonic acid produced from the hydrolysis of cyanohydrin undergoes esterification to form lactone intermediates (McMurry, 2008). Figure 4 below shows the mechanism of the reaction. A lone pair on the O at the carbonyl group of COOH attacks a proton produced by the auto-ionization of water. The tautomer of the resulting intermediate has a nucleophilic carbon, C1, which is attacked by a lone pair present on the OH group on the other end of the aldonic acid chain. The electrons from the O-H bond of the attacking OH group is withdrawn by the O+, and the resulting proton is attacked by a lone pair on the OH group attached to C1. The lone pair from the O of the other OH group attached to C1 forms a second bond between C and O, and a H2O molecule leaves as a leaving group. The electrons from the O-H bond then forms a second bond between C and O, and a proton leaves. A lactone intermediate is formed. Finally, the lactone intermediate is reduced using a sodium amalgam, Na(Hg), to form the resultant aldohexose monosaccharide (McMurry, 2008). Reagents used are sodium amalgam and sulphuric acid, in cold solution (Fischer, 1890). Figure 5 below shows the reaction equation. The exact mechanism of reduction by sodium amalgam is unknown at this point in time (Keck et al., 1994). Figure 4 – Esterification of aldonic acid to form lactone intermediate. Figure 5 – Reduction of aldonic acid to resultant sugar. History and development The Kiliani-Fischer synthesis is named after German chemists Heinrich Kiliani and Hermann Emil Fischer. Its original purpose was to elucidate all 16 stereoisomers of aldohexoses, as achieved by Fischer. Key discoveries that to the development of this technique included: (1) Louis Pasteur’s insight that the â€Å"molecule of tartaric acid came in two forms that were mirror images†, or isomers, of one another, and that each of these isomers rotated polarized light in different directions (Wagner, 2004, p.240), (2) Jacobus H. van’t Hoff’s and J. A. Le Bel’s insight of the â€Å"concept of an asymmetric carbon atom†, that isomers of compounds exist despite identical chemical formulae because of asymmetric carbon atoms, and the relationship between stereochemistry and optical activity (Wagner, 2004, p.240), and (3) Fischer’s creation of phenylhydrazine, a reagent that reacts with sugar molecules to form osazones. Prior to the discovery of this technique, relatively little was known about the structural properties of monosaccharides. It was difficult to study monosaccharides because of their â€Å"tendency to form syrups rather than solids that could be dissolved and crystallized easily† (Wagner, 2004). However, Fischer discovered phenylhydrazine which when reacted with aldonic acids (formed by oxidation of sugars) forms osazones (Kunz, 2002). These carbohydrate derivatives could be isolated easily through crystallization, and had physical forms that could be distinguished from one another (Kunz, 2002). Their subsequent analysis allowed Fischer to identify and segregate isomers of the monosaccharides (Wagner, 2004). The aldonic acid can be regenerated by addition of baryta water, or aqueous solution of barium hydroxide, to the segregated osazone (Fischer, 1890). The then purified aldonic acid can be evaporated to transform into welling-crystallizing lactone for further study (Fischer, 1 890). Using this technique, Fischer discovered that two distinct monosaccharides, D-glucose and D-mannose, yield the same osazone because osazone formation destroys the asymmetry about C2 without affecting the rest of the molecule (Wagner, 2004). Furthermore, the lactones of D-glucose and D-mannose turned polarized light in different directions. As such, he concluded that D-glucose and D-mannose have identical structures but were mirror images of one another (Wagner, 2004). However, their exact structures were still unknown. In 1886, Kiliani discovered a method to lengthen the carbon chain of an organic molecule, using cyanide as a reagent to form cyanohydrin (McMurry, 2012). Fischer realized the potential of this discovery in advancing the study of carbohydrates, adding on an additional step to convert the cyanohydrin nitrile group into an aldehyde (McMurry, 2012). Thus, the Kiliani-Fischer synthesis was created. This new technique allowed Fischer to research further into the stereoisomerism of monosaccharides and continue off where he last stopped – that D-glucose and D-mannose were stereoisomers but of unknown structures. Applications Elucidation of aldohexose stereoisomers Figure 5 on the right shows the general structure of a aldohexose. In order to apply the Kiliani-Fischer synthesis in the elucidation of aldohexose stereoisomers, Fischer had to first make a starting assumption that the –OH group of D-glucose at C5 was on the right side (Wagner, 2004). L-arabinose is an aldopentose having five carbon atoms. Its exact structure had been deciphered by Fischer, and is asymmetric at C2, C3 and C ­4 as shown in Figure 6 on the right. Fischer discovered that the Kiliani-Fischer synthesis converted L-arabinose into both D-glucose and D-mannose (Wagner, 2004). This therefore implied that D-glucose and D-mannose shared the same configuration about C3, C4 and C5 as the analogous carbons in L-arabinose (C2, C3 and C4 respectively) (Wagner, 2004). This insight led Fischer to use L-arabinose in conjunction with D-glucose and D-mannose as materials for further research. Fischer discovered that oxidizing L-arabinose created a product that was optically active (Wagner, 2004). If the starting assumption made by Fischer was true, then this implied that the –OH group at C2 in L-arabinose (and thus C3 in D-glucose and D-mannose) must be on the left side or the product would be optically inactive (Wagner, 2004). Next, Fischer determined that oxidizing D-glucose and D-mannose resulted in dicarboxylic acids that were optically active (Wagner, 2004). This implied that the –OH group at C4 in D-glucose and D-mannose (and thus C3 in L-arabinose) must be on the right side or the product would be optically inactive (Wagner, 2004). Finally, Fischer found that oxidizing D-gulose resulted in the same dicarboxylic acid as that of D-glucose (Wagner, 2004). Through logic, Fischer realized this implied that the –OH group at C2 in D-glucose must be on the right side. Piecing together all the information, Fischer finally determined the exact structure of D-glucose and D-mannose, as shown in Figure 7 below. Problems and improvements The Kiliani-Fischer synthesis is a commonly used technique in preparing aldoses. However, the last step in the reaction process, reduction, produces â€Å"mixtures containing product aldoses, unreacted lactone, aldonic acid salts, and alditols† (Serianni et al., 1979; p.71). Reduction by sodium amalgam allows the production of acylated aldoses in high yields but the subsequent removal of the acyl groups often degrades the product aldose (Serianni et al., 1979). An improvement to this method would be to reduce the nitrile over a palladium catalyst (Serianni et al., 1979; McMurry, 2012). This would yield an imine intermediate instead, that can be hydrolysed to an aldehyde. References Fischer, E. (1890). Synthesis in the sugar group. Journal of the American Chemical Society, 12(8), 400-409. Fischer, E. (1902). Syntheses in the purine and sugar group. Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901, 1921, 21-35. Keck, G. E., Savin, K. A. Weglarz, M. A. (1995). Use of samarium diiodide as an alternative to sodium/mercury amalgam in the Julia-Lythgoe Olefination. Journal of Organic Chemistry, 60(10), 3194–3204. Kiliani-Fischer synthesis (2014). Wikipedia. Retrieved April 2, 2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiliani%E2%80%93Fischer_synthesis. Kunz, H. (2002). Emil Fischer – unequalled classicist, master of organic chemistry, and inspired trailblazer of biological chemistry. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 41(23), 4439-4451. Magner, J. A. (2004). Emil Fischer (1852-1919): The stereochemical nature of sugars. The Endocrinologist, 14(5), 239-244. McMurry, J. (2008). Organic Chemistry (7th edition). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole. McMurry, J. (2012). Organic Chemistry (8th edition). Belmont, CA: Thomson Brooks/Cole Serianni, A. S., Nunez, H. A. Barker, R. (1979). Carbon-13 enriched carbohydrates: Preparation of aldonitrile and their reduction with a palladium catalyst. Carbohydrate Research, 72, 71-78. Solomon, E. P., Berg, L. R., Martin, D. W. (2011). Biology (9th edition). Singapore, CA: Cengage Learning Asia Pte Ltd.

foolear Essay on Shakespeares King Lear - The Fool In Us :: King Lear essays

King Lear: The Fool In Us      Ã‚  Ã‚   King Lear is without doubt Shakespeare's most nihilistic play.   It is a storm without clearing.   In this version of reality, faith is absurd.   The play is set in the pagan era, where King Lear loses all his faith in the gods.   However, we see the need for Christian revelation in the hopelessness of the play.   We also see in the character of the Fool a character who resembles the wisdom and words of the Apostle Paul "Let no man deceive himself.   If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool that he may be wise."1   These words are very similar to the function and meaning of the word fool in the play.   While fool in Shakespeare's plays can represent a "dupe", a "madman", a "beloved one", a "court jester", or a "victim", it means all of these in King Lear.   For the Fool is the court jester, Cordelia is Lear's beloved one, and Lear, himself, is at various times duped, a madman, and a victim.   Yet, when we look at th e words of Paul, we see the Fool tell Lear virtually the same thing in this play.   For Lear believes himself to be wise, when, in reality, he is a duped fool:    Fool.   If thou wert my Fool, Nuncle, I'd have thee beaten for being old before they time. Lear.   How's that? Fool.   Thou should'st not have been old till thou hadst been wise.2    The Fool loves Lear as much as anyone in the play, save for his youngest daughter Cordelia.   The Fool knows Lear's only mistake is not accepting Cordelia's expression of love.   Once he has divided his kingdom between Goneril and Regan it is too late for any advice to Lear to resolve the matter.   The Fool tries to get Lear to understand what a dupe and bungler he has been, but Lear cannot see himself as the portrait the Fool paints.   Lear needs nothing more than himself; he has everything in himself.   However, he goes from everything in himself to nothing because he has been unwise:    Lear.   Does any here know me?   This is not Lear: Does Lear walk thus?   Speak thus?   Where are his eyes? Either his notion weakens, his discernings Are lethargied-Ha! waking? 'tis not so. Who is it that can tell me who I am?

Assembly :: Essays Papers

Assembly When programming in assembly language, we have to specify operations in a much greater level of detail than we would have to do in a high level language. Furthermore, we get relatively little help from the assembler in finding errors. Assemblers can only check the syntax of each line, and check that every symbol or label used is defined somewhere. We are much less constrained by the structure of the assembly language than we are by the structure of a high level language. This lack of constraint makes the job much harder, not easier. It is much easier to write an incorrect program in assembly language that in C++ or Pascal. It is much more likely that mistakes, will not be found by the assembler, so that we get runtime errors, which are harder to find, rather than compile time errors which are easier to find. For these reasons, we need to be even more careful when programming in assembly language than we are when programming in a high level language. We need to apply all of t he skills we have learned in relation to high level language programming to assembly language programming. Planning our work carefully is equally important, building a design package, by following appropriate style conventions when writing the program, and by providing good documentation with appropriate commenting of the program text. After building the design, it is wise to write a high level language program, to help check out the program logic and to serve as a model for the assembly language program. The high level language program can then be translated little by little into assembly language, perhaps a procedure at a time, and can be used to document the logic of the assembly language program. Clearly, we should use a compiler to translate a high level language program into machine code if we have a compiler at hand. There are circumstances, however; when it is necessary to do the translation on our own. It is nevertheless wise to write out the high level language program, even if you cannot compile it for the machine in question. It is not necessary or desirable for the programming of embedded microprocessors to be done in assembly language. Indeed, assembly language should be regarded as a last resort, to be used when compilers are not available, or in very special circumstances. Assembly :: Essays Papers Assembly When programming in assembly language, we have to specify operations in a much greater level of detail than we would have to do in a high level language. Furthermore, we get relatively little help from the assembler in finding errors. Assemblers can only check the syntax of each line, and check that every symbol or label used is defined somewhere. We are much less constrained by the structure of the assembly language than we are by the structure of a high level language. This lack of constraint makes the job much harder, not easier. It is much easier to write an incorrect program in assembly language that in C++ or Pascal. It is much more likely that mistakes, will not be found by the assembler, so that we get runtime errors, which are harder to find, rather than compile time errors which are easier to find. For these reasons, we need to be even more careful when programming in assembly language than we are when programming in a high level language. We need to apply all of t he skills we have learned in relation to high level language programming to assembly language programming. Planning our work carefully is equally important, building a design package, by following appropriate style conventions when writing the program, and by providing good documentation with appropriate commenting of the program text. After building the design, it is wise to write a high level language program, to help check out the program logic and to serve as a model for the assembly language program. The high level language program can then be translated little by little into assembly language, perhaps a procedure at a time, and can be used to document the logic of the assembly language program. Clearly, we should use a compiler to translate a high level language program into machine code if we have a compiler at hand. There are circumstances, however; when it is necessary to do the translation on our own. It is nevertheless wise to write out the high level language program, even if you cannot compile it for the machine in question. It is not necessary or desirable for the programming of embedded microprocessors to be done in assembly language. Indeed, assembly language should be regarded as a last resort, to be used when compilers are not available, or in very special circumstances.

Analysis of Countee Cullens Yet Do I Marvel Essay -- Countee Cullen Ye

Analysis of Countee Cullens Yet Do I Marvel Poetry is often meant to be smooth, flowing, pleasing to the ear and the mind. To achieve this effect, many poets use different poetic techniques to help convey the meanings of their poetry. In the sonnet, 'Yet Do I Marvel' written by Countee Cullen, many different features of poetry is used. In this essay, I will discuss the relationship between the meanings and the theme Cullen tries to convey in his sonnet and the techniques of metaphors, both religious and non-religious, allusions to Greek mythology, different rhyme schemes and repetition that he uses. In his sonnet, Cullen uses strong themes of religious metaphors while adding many non-religious metaphors at the same time. The continuing theme throughout the sonnet is the mysteriousness of God, and how He is unwilling to share the secrets of the universe by answering the speaker's questions. Cullen begins with stating that his belief in God is that God is good natured, 'I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind,' (Line 1). The first line briefly makes your mind question the sentence while you experience the starting of the theme. Using different metaphors, Cullen vividly expresses his confusion of what the purpose of his existence is and why God does what he does. 'And did He stoop to quibble could tell why / The little buried mole continues blind, / Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,' (Lines 2 - 4). In these lines, Cullen clarifies his position with God in stating that his questions are but 'quibble' to God, thus putting himself far below God. Cullen uses the me taphor of the mole to represent how he is blind to the reasoning of God's actions, while at the same time questioning God of why a little mole continues to live blind. In the next line, Cullen uses a biblical metaphor when mentioning 'flesh that mirrors Him' as it is in the bible that it states 'God created Adam in His image.' Cullen refers this flesh to be humans and questions God for the purpose of death. Using these metaphors, Cullen creates a more vivid image in the imagination than he would if he were to question God outright. ?Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die,? carries many more metaphorical images than ?Why do we die?? does, and that is one of the efforts and understanding Cullen is most likely trying to convey in his sonnet. Cullen?s brilliant... ...t a view of life, that is "black," and at the same time God made him a poet?someone who is supposed to study the world around him and express what he or she sees in words and verses. Cullen marvels at God's decision to have someone tell the world of the "blackness? which he sees. In this case, the person God has decided to tell the world is the speaker himself and Cullen contemplates what possible motivation would God have for doing this. In using constant repetition of the theme, Cullen allows the theme to clearly stand out and show itself without having to hide behind words with deeper meanings. This is effective for emphasizing the theme and ensuring that it is easily understandable. Metaphors, allusions, rhyme scheme and repetition are all techniques that Cullen used in his sonnet to improve the understanding and assist the interpretations of the poetry. His use of metaphors painted pictures in the mind while his allusions told stories with merely a few words. Rhyme scheme and repetition both assisted in the emphasis of the theme and worked exceptionally well. It is in works such as Cullen?s ?Yet Do I Marvel? that poetry and philosophy come together in a warm embrace.

Leaders, Managers, Entrepreneurs on and Off the Organizational Stage*

Leaders, Managers, Entrepreneurs On and Off the Organizational Stage* Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff My purpose is to tell of bodies which have been transformed into shapes of different kinds. You heavenly powers, sinee you were responsible for those changes, as for all else, look favourably on my attempts, and spin an unbroken thread of verse, from the earliest beginnings of the world, down to my own times.Ovid: Metamorphoses Abstract Barbara CzarniawsicaJoerges Department of Business Administration, Lund University, Lund, Sweden Roif Woiff Gothenburg Research Institute at the School of Economics and Legal Science, Gothenburg, Sweden This paper explores three crucial roles of the organizational theatre: managers, leaders and entrepreneurs. Changing fashion in the organizational theory debate as well as in organizational practice puts different roles in focus at different times.Organization theory should, accordingly, shift its attention toward studying the contexts in which a given role acquires dominance, in place of an unreflective discussion of the relative functional advantages of each of them. This paper argues that none of the three will ever go out of fashion, as they can be seen as enactments of archetypes, embodying the different fears and hopes of those who create organizations by their daily performance.Leadership is seen as symbolic performance, expressing the hope of control over destiny; management as the activity of introducing order by coordinating flows of things and people towards collective action, and entrepreneurship as the making of entire new worlds. The sociohistorical context needs to be considered as the stage-set wherein these roles gain prominence. Introduction Organization Studies 1991, 12/4: 529-546  © 1991 EGOS 0170-8406/91 0012-0022 $2. 00 Leaders are in, managers are out, entrepreneurs are waiting in the corridor.What orders their appearances and disappearances? In an attempt to answer this question, we propose to an alyze all three roles, not in terms of organizational effectiveness, but as symbolic expressions of collective hopes and fears, played out (‘performed') on the organizational stage. Leaders, managers and entrepreneurs are supposed to serve certain functions in organizations — functions which are ascribed to so-called executive positions. The term ‘executive' comes from the times when managers were supposed to execute the owners' will.The separation of ownership and control (Chandler 1977) complicated this simple relationship, opening the way for discussions on the desired form of the executive role. This debate does not take place in a vacuum; it accompanies, reflects and influences changes in organizational practices and theories. Just which functions and in what configuration changes, both with theories and with time, because the definition of what executive functions should entail changes in line with master-ideas, whose time comes and goes (Czarniawska-Joerges and Joerges 1990).These, in turn, are related to 530 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff broader changes in the cultural context of organizing (Czarniawska 1986). An ambition to tackle the issues of context leads researchers to obviously relevant aspects such as changes in business cycles or changes in political climate. A study of these can of course, if treated with devotion, completely fill more than one research career, and yet there always remains something unanswered, a phenomenon unexplained, of a kind that conventional organization studies are poorly equipped to grasp.Perhaps the theatre metaphor (Mangham and Overington 1986; Czarniawska-Joerges 1992) would help in describing those ephemeral phenomena. What leads to a change in repertoire of a theatre, a replacement of comedy by tragedy, Shakespeare by Pinter? It is the decision of the management, the wishes of the primadonnas, the current cultural fashion, the economic exigencies — and much more. In the organiza tional theatre, the plays performed vary from one season to another, from one director to another, but the general repertoire seems to be quite traditional, even if it contains both tragedy, comedy and drama.It might be that the actual playwright is our ‘collective unconscious', to use Jung's term (1934); that in our attitudes toward the central organizational roles, i. e. leaders, managers and entrepreneurs we act out archetypes. This phenomenon escapes the analysts' attention because we are used to looking for articulation of archetypes in different spheres — in myths and legends (Hogenson 1987). In this discussion, we are dealing with ‘archetypes of personalities' rather than ‘archetypes of transformation' (Jung 1934/1959: 322).The latter are ‘typical situations, places, ways and means' according to Jung (p. 322), or what some would call ‘scripts' (Mandler 1984). The archetypes of personalities are ‘universal, idealized, larger-than-life symbols that contain the essence of human experience and that help individuals develop an emotionally satisfying picture of the world' (Krefting and Frost 1986: 164). In other words, we argue that the central organizational roles represent wishes and fears shared by organizational collectives; they are symbols which help to ascribe meaning to organizational events. It always seems to us as if meaning — compared with life — were the younger event, because we assume, with some justification, that we assign it of ourselves, and because we believe, equally rightly no doubt, that the great world can get along without being interpreted. But how do we assign meaning? From what source, in the last analysis, do we derive meaning? The forms we use for assigning meaning are historical categories that reach back into the mist of time — a fact we do not take sufficiently into account. (Jung 1934/1959: 317) In what follows we shall try to show that the continuing debate on t hose roles reaches indeed ‘back into the mists of time', and although we limit ourselves to a relatively short span of time there are plenty of traces pointing further back. Next, we shall attempt to demonstrate that the three roles are complementary in the sense that they answer different needs or fears of the collective unconscious. In this sense, no role is ever Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 53I out'; they all have their place in our collective consciousness, even if we at times tire of one and become fascinated with another. To bring out the core of these archetypes we shall look for their equivalents in literature and theatre, the traditional fields of symbolic expression. In doing so, we continue and extend the tradition of symbolic interpretation of executive roles (see e. g. Frost and Egri, forthcoming; Gustafsson 1984, 1985; Kets de Vries 1989, 1990a, 1990b; Westley and Mintzberg 1989). LeadersIn 1948, Robert Stodgill attempted to make a list of traits r esponsible for leaders' success, starting with a review by Charles Bird from 1940, which listed 79 traits important for successful leadership, as mentioned in 20 works reviewed. Stodgill updated the list to about 100 traits while observing that different authors did not agree on their importance. When he returned to the topic 26 years later in his book Handbook of Leadership, the number of leadership studies reviewed exceeded 3000 (Stogdill 1974).During the 1960s, the concept of organizational leadership began to shift from persons to behavioural styles and then toward the situational factors. Ghiseili (1963), Fiedler (1964), Bass (1960), and Umanski (1967) were among the best known authors who studied leadership and recommended that the leaders should begin by diagnosing the context of their action and should then act accordingly. By the 1970s, the interest in leaders diminished. There were at least two reasons.One was that, after three decades, researchersfinallyarrived at a conti ngency theory which proclaimed that leaders' success depends on the fit between their personalities (thus incorporating the trait theory), the type of action they choose (the style theory, with its origins in the seminal study by Lewin et al. 1939), and the situation (e. g. Fiedler 1964). This achievement, impressive at the time, was met with some derision twenty years later, when the waves of fashion came and went several times.Wildavsky's comments summarize it very well: ‘Unfortunately, multiplying traits of leaders, times types of followers, times samples of situations, times group interactions has led to more variety than anyone can manage. ‘ (Wildavsky 1984: 18) Another, and probably more important reason for abandoning the role of leadership was political frustration at the end of the 1960s. The young Americans saw their favourite leaders killed; the young French decided to remove their old, unpopular leaders themselves. McClelland's article on ‘Two faces of power' (1970) is a vivid example of anxieties suffered by the older generation in the U.S. when the youth rejected the traditional authority and the conventional career paths. According to this study, the graduates of Harvard and other schools did not want to be leaders anymore, seeing a dark face of power even behind the innocent organizational titles. 532 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff Managers Thus in the 1970s, charismatic leaders were distinctly out of fashion, and yet there was still a need for some sort of authority expression in organizations. The unpretentious ‘managers' took the place of leaders.However, ‘Fayol's fifty year old description of managerial work was no longer of use', observed Mintzberg (1971) in an early report from his famous study of the tasks of managers. A new approach was needed and the most typical model for a manager of the 1970s was perhaps Drucker's (1970) ‘effective executive'. The effective executives had no charisma what soever. The organizational reality pushed them towards ineffectiveness. Their time belonged to everybody else. They were forced to focus on operational exigencies to the detriment of reflection and strategic thinking.They were blinded by the walls of organizations, cutting off the worid outside. They were dependent on what other people did or did not do. To all these harassed people, Drucker formulated a message — a list of practices allowing for an increase in effectiveness, a set of pragmatic prescriptions on how to manage one's time, how to use accessible resources and how to make decisions (Drucker 1970). Problem-solving capacities were more important than social skills and decision-making ability conquered charisma, at least for a while.But power was again noticed, lurking behind this depersonalized, institutional facade. It has been said that the management-oriented researchers, like the early rationalist organization theorists, ‘. . . believed mankind had to shif t from the government of men to the administration of things, as their precursor Saint-Simon had claimed; and they felt they were achieving their aims by emphasizing financial stimuli and technical controls instead of human leadership. The delusion that they had suppressed power relationships prevented them from understanding the true nature of their own actions. ‘ (Crozier 1964: 146)In a sense, this is the same accusation as the one formulated eariier against the leaders, but with a different rationale behind it. While leaders did not understand the true nature of their actions, blinded by power, the managers were blinded by an illusion that they were free from power. This issue appears in the debate on both sides, pro-leaders and promanagers. The advocates of leadership say that there is so much power in organizations that it must be officially recognized, whereas the defenders of management tend to say that there are enough power games in organizations without giving them a n official status.To leave this circle, let us introduce a third voice. Entrepreneurs The story goes that long before there were any leaders or managers in the companies, there were entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs created, in fact, the world of business organizations as we know them today, employ- Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 533 ing not so much charisma or intellectual capacities as something else: willpower. Let us thus make an excursion ‘into the mists of time'. In 1921, Josef Schumpeter published an article on the Unternehmer — the entrepreneur.In this not very well known article, he explored the character of the business company from a historical point of view, the function of the entrepreneur and finally the ‘modern' entrepreneur. Schumpeter saw the origins and functioning of companies as being based on two correlated facts: on the one hand, the property rights over the means and results of production; and, on the other, what he called a â €˜business mentality'. The latter led to the development of production techniques, a capitalist economic calculation and market communication structures.The combination of this capitalist mentality and capitalist property rights produced business companies, which became crucial elements of the contemporary cultures, but even more — they were, without doubt, ‘the basis for and the condition of such cultures' (Schumpeter 1921: 47). Thus, a given type of motivational force creates a given type of organization, which results in a given type of culture that, in turn, encourages such motivational forces and permits such organizations. When analyzing the 18th century, one can see entrepreneurs functioning both as employers and owners of capital.Schumpeter, however, had already noticed that these functions can be and are different, and that in modern companies one encounters two different types of people: managers and entrepreneurs. Management, according to Schumpeter, is a function consisting of control, of guaranteeing discipline and introducing order; a function requiring considerable daily, bureaucratic work. This function, necessary as it is, does not embody what is really characteristic of the capitalist economy. The importance of the entrepreneur is not the management of an existing company but the creation of such a company.Schumpeter perceived entrepreneurship as a specific case of social leadership. Such ‘social leaders' are not outstanding in their task abilities, but in their willpower. This willpower can be translated into contemporary language as ‘initiative', but, in this case, not an initiative of thought (for example, conception of new ideas), but an initiative of action. The core of entrepreneurial motivation is similar to that of leaders, but entrepreneurship mainly fits contexts which are new and cannot be dealt with by means of experience or routine.Entrepreneurship is leadership in exceptional situations and, we might add, is most likely to entail the creation of such situations. Schumpeter stressed repeatedly that entrepreneurship is never a matter of individuals only. It is a phenomenon which has to be analyzed and identified within a complex conglomerate of factors. In saying this, interestingly enough, Schumpeter seemed to anticipate the growing interest in what Mintzberg (1983) calls ‘configurations': complex, dynamic contexts where simple contingencies are not of much use. 34 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff This does not mean that one should neglect other functions. Any economy, at any time, is performing on the basis of existing experiences and routines. Therefore, there will always be a function which has to do with the supervision of these processes (and which we call ‘management'). Management, or the routine behaviour in production and business, enables economies to deliver promptly and act in accordance with the requirements of systems which are highly rational and therefore predictable.On the macro-level, though, many processes constantly change their situational equilibrium. There is a continuous growth of population and the means of production. There are also non-economic developments which are changing the economy: social developments, political influences, and so on. On the micro-level, the equilibrium ceases to exist when individuals see new possibilities, and strive to implement the innovations they have in mind. The concurrence of macro- and microchanges creates room for entrepreneurs.Paraphrasing Schumpeter's ideas in social constructionist terms, one can say that entrepreneurs are people who are the first to see a crack or aflawin a social construction of economic reality, and to interpret it as an opportunity to actualize their ideas of what the world should look like. As long as this vision is not shared by others, they have to live with an individually constructed reality, which is a heavy burden to bear. What seem to be anecdotal stories of mad inventors and innovators might be actually quite true, in the sense that the unsuccessful inventors are people whose reality did not become socially confirmed.Those who succeeded, though, are the makers of our worlds. Leadership Revisited The neo-conservatism of the 1980s brought to Europe, from beyond the ocean, various nostalgic notions such as ‘free market' and ‘leadership' (as opposed to ‘negotiated economies' and ‘codetermination', the keywords of the 1970s). As far as leadership was concerned, organization theory did not go far beyond Stogdill: offering many definitions, many brands of leadership and varying recipes for success (see e. g. Maccoby 1981; Bass 1985; Bennis and Nanus 1985).But it is ‘charisma' and ‘visions' that count most. Bernard Bass asks dramatically: ‘What does Lee Iacocca have that many other executives lack? Charisma. What would have happened to Chrysler without him? It probably would have gone bankr upt. ‘ (Bass 1984: 26) To which Robert B. Reich answers: ‘Many Americans would prefer to think that Lee Iacocca single-handedly saved Chrysler from bankruptcy than to accept the real story: a large team of people with diverse backgrounds and interests joined together to rescue the ailing company. ‘ (Reich 1987: 82)Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 535 Reich points out that public opinion would like to see lacocca as an entrepreneur, a solitary world-maker, rather than a leader who represents a team of people joined in a common effort. His critique aims at the public veneration of world-makers, based on nothing more than their own claim to fame. What is interesting to us, however, is the fact that Reich stresses the difference between the entrepreneurs as solitary worldmakers and leaders who actually lead other people toward a common vision.It has been repeatedly stressed, especially in analyses of political leadership, that leaders express and embody the wishes of their followers rather than impose those of their own. The romanticizing tradition, which Reich criticizes, tends to equip the heroes of the day with the capacities of leaders, entrepreneurs and managers all rolled into one, where they lead the masses to worlds of their own making, waiting for nature to cooperate. In practice, however, not only should the three roles be divided among different people, but even their performance should be brought much closer to reality.If one talks to people employed by organizations led by charismatic leaders, one discovers that they learn about their leaders' visions from the mass media (sometimes from internal videotapes) and that leaders themselves, busy in the TV studio, only have a vague idea of what is happening in their organizations (Schwartz 1989). Organizations are run with the help of Standard Operating Procedures — of which culture is perhaps the most powerful — and impersonal control processes, the latter initiat ed and fed by many different actors, none of whom accepts responsibility for the actual course of events.The remaining pockets of autonomy are filled with individual creativity and self-control which rarely comes from the leaders (on leaders' necessary distance from organizational action, see Brunsson 1989). So, what is leadership all about? In 1978, at the dawn of the new leadership era, a curious book was published, entitled Leadership: Where else can we go? (edited by McCall and Lombardo), which included contributions from the greatest authorities in the field (Jeffrey Pfeffer, Karl Weick, Louis Pondy). The articles challenged all the conventional visions of leadership and came up with new images.The most famous of these was perhaps Pfeffer's article ‘The ambiguity of leadership'. Pfeffer stated that there was not enough evidence to indicate ‘either the effect of leadership or, more significantly, the conditions under which leadership might be expected to have more or less impact on organizational outcomes' (Pfeffer 1977/1978: 23). Leaders serve as symbols representing the personal causation of social events. Such personal attribution of causality is a confirmation of the feasibility to control events, one of the most important stakes in human beings' fight against destiny. Occupants of leadership positions come to assume symbolic value, and the attribution of causality to those positions serves to reinforce the organizational construction of meaning that provides the appearance of simplicity and controllability. ‘ (Pfeffer 1977/1978: 29) 536 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff Creating this ‘illusion of control' over fate (Brunsson 1989; Czarniawska 1985) lies at the core of leaders' symbolic performance. Leadership should be seen as a political, symbolic process and understood and evaluated in this perspective.While accepting this postulate, we propose to extend the symbolic perspective to the two other roles: entrepreneurs and managers. Entrepreneurship Reconsidered The late 1980s saw a revival of a long forgotten role: that of the entrepreneur, which, for a while, seemed to be petrified in one epoch: that of early capitalism. The contemporary version of this role, embedded into monetary supply-side capitalism, is well described by Kaplan: ‘To get things done through individuals striking out on their own' (1987: 86). The role is ven better understood when contrasted with that of ‘drones' (Reich 1987), that is, those who keep the empires and the big conglomerates going. Entrepreneurs, in the 1990s as in the 1880s, create new social and organizational realities. They work against the existing social structure, not by opposing it by e. g. political means, but by behaving as if the existing structure did not exist. By ignoring the established ways of thinking and action, they make dreams come true. Drones are then the carriers of entrepreneurial ideas. ‘Entrepreneurs' and ‘drones' ali ke represent two extreme personalities, born by two extreme social realities.Today's societal and economic structures tend to moderate both. On the one hand, revolutionary innovation became complex and inordinately costly; on the other, the everyday running of empires requires innovation and social change. Also, the individualism of entrepreneurship contrasts with the realities of everyday life and family structures, at least in the western industrialized part of the globe where we live and work. The freedom for acting out male dreams is curbed by women's emancipation, followed by changing division of work at home, and women's attempts to acquire managerial positions.The dual career problems and ‘glass ceilings' discovered by women in the corporate context leads to more and more women opening small companies of their own. A growing proportion of entrepreneurial businesses in Europe and Africa have been established by women. History will show whether these new entrepreneurs wil l also fall into the luring trap of empire building supported by traditional economic success criteria, or whether they will redefine entrepreneurship by tying it to different archetypes. IVIanagement Defended ‘. . . he executive leader is not a leader of men only but of something we are learning to call the total situation. This includes facts, present and potential aims Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 537 and purposes of men. Out of a welter of fact, experience, desires, aims, the leader must find the unifying thread. He must see a whole, not a mere kaleidoscope of pieces. He must sec the relation between all the different factors in a situation. ‘ (Follet 1949: 51) It was with these words that, as early as the 1940s, Mary Parker Follet tried to defend the need for management — rather than just for leadership.In the 1970s, Zaleznik launched the insightful thesis that while leaders are needed in times of crisis and change, managers represent the every day rationality of welfare and affluence (Zaleznik 1977; see also Czarniawska-Joerges 1989). Machiavelli, it seems, wrote for managers and not for leaders. Leaders ‘sometimes react to mundane work as to an affliction' (Zaleznik 1977: 201). ‘They may work in organizations, but they never belong to them' (1977: 205). The 1980s brought in a heavier assault: managers lacked not only leadership but entrepreneurship as well.Always a gallant knight of management, Peter Drucker asserts that they are all the same: ‘Management is the new technology (rather than any specific new science or invention) that is making the American economy into an entrepreneurial economy (. . . ) Entrepreneurship requires above all application of the basic concepts, the basic techne, of management to new problems and new opportunities. ‘ (Drucker 1985: 17) The concept of ‘intrapreneurship' (Pinchot 1985) is, in fact, the most extreme attempt to join management and entrepreneurship in the service of large organizations.Roger Kaplan comments drily: ‘For society to work, you need more than robust little capitalists' (Kaplan 1987: 89). Managers stand for rationality, as Zaleznik rightly pointed out, and they have not disappeared. As late as 1986, Hales asked again ‘what do they do? ‘ on his way to ‘clarification and synthesis between managers' behaviour and the management function' (Hales 1986: 112). We shall now look at all three from a symbolic perspective only. In this endeavour, we shall look for help in archetypical personages known from belles lettres. This is, however, an illustratory device, and is arbitrary in character.The readers are encouraged to look for other images or metaphors which render explicit that which the archetypes project into perceptions of executive roles as designed by both the actors and their audience. Why Are Leaders So Attractive? As we see it, the most appropriate figure representing the leader's role is that of Moses. It embraces, for example, the three leadership archetypes distinguished by Frost and Egri (forthcoming): The Warrior, the Healer and the Magician. A perceptive analysis of Moses' political leadership, rendered by Wildavsky (1984), provides a good example of what is expected of a leader.It took Moses 40 years to take the Jews to their land, although 40 days would have been enough, but he had everything 538 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff that a leader should have: a visioti, a will to lead, atid a cotitact with God. We do not intend to follow Wildavsky's intricate reasoning. For present purposes, it suffices to notice that Moses represents the epitome of male and paternalistic leadership (a nursing father, Wildavsky calls him, although his nursing methods were rather cruel). His fate also indicates the primarily symbolic role of the leader: he never reached the Promised Land, he was not needed there.The problem with Moseses is, that they have a tendency to sacrific e people in the name of obscure external sources of legitimacy. Additionally, common sense and good organization is not their speciality. Moseses are good in crises, but otherwise they are not the most efficient. In everyday life one contacts a manager of a travel agency to go to Israel. Does it mean that leaders are not responsible for what happens, because they do not actually cause it? Edelman answers this question in the following way: ‘They do identify themselves with particular courses of action and inaction and so deserve responsibility for them.But the assumption that leaders have caused the events for which they take responsibility is reductionist because it ignores the consequences of historical developments, material conditions, and interpretations of those conditions. Except as minor elements of a complex transaction, leaders cannot provide security or bring about change. ‘ (1988: 65) An opposite type of leadership failure is the refusal to perform according to a script expected in given conditions. Maybe it is actually the other side of the same coin, that is, an erroneous belief on the part of the leader that he or she is truly a causative factor.What is then perceived as successful leadership, if it is not the act of bringing about a change? It is a dramatic performance which fulfils the expectations of both audience and co-actors, while retaining contradictions in the service of dramatic effect, but limiting negative and threatening aspects to a necessary minimum; and, above all, a skilful use of stage set and a talented improvization, tuned to prevailing moods (see also Westley and Mintzberg 1989). These are very demanding skills; additionally, high visibility and high costs connected to failure contribute to the market value of this role.Last but not least, high salary and high perks prove, in themselves, that the leader is who he is supposed to be: the person who controls fate. The successful performance confirms the accuracy of the attribution. Why Are Managers Least Liked? Like the leader, the manager has also a symbolic function to fulfil: that of introducing and keeping order, opposing entropy. But unlike the leader, he is not given the splendour of a Moses-like performance. He is a Miser, or worse still, a Scrooge, without imagination, with his ridiculous common sense and care for money and things.Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 539 There are probably many mythical biographies representing the archetype of a manager. We took the Miser for his obvious similarity to an accountant. Misers are clearly comic characters, and we gladly laugh at them, as much as we need them. In the course of organizational life, however, this laughter becomes often bitter. Misers have a strong tendency to treat people as things. ‘Could anything be more cruel than this rigorous economy he inflicts on us, this unnatural parsimony under which we perforce languish? {The Miser, Act One) This is Cleante speaking t o Elise, but wouldn't we like to join him and La Fleche (‘A plague on all misers and their miserly ways! ‘) whenever we have spoken to our money-controllers? If the great leaders sometimes do a great deal of good by being othewise occupied (speaking to some god or other on some faraway mountain), managers sit at home, and manage: ‘Let us have you all in here. I want to give you instructions for this evening see that everybody has his job. Come here. Dame Claude, we'll start with you (. . . ) Your job is to clean up all round, and do be careful not to rub furniture too hard.I'm afraid of your wearing it out. Then, I'm putting you in charge of the bottles during the supper. If there's a single one missing or if anything is broken I shall hold you responsible and take it out of your wages. ‘ (Harpagon, The Miser, Act Three) A manager would, of course, find out the shortest way between Egypt and Israel and the cheapest means of transportation, and where would we be with our legend? Boland and O'Leary's (1988) amusing and insightful analysis of images of accounting in advertising illustrates this point very well.The advertisement artists attempted to project an image of a creative controller supported by clever machines but the laughable picture of a man with sleevelets and glasses always crept in. The enemy of creativity and change, the Miser nevertheless symbolizes order, the value which is just as indispensable to organization as control over the fate which Moses promised to his people. At any rate, manager is the one with the truly economic mind, ridiculous as it might seem to all who care about higher things. Why Are Entrepreneurs Admired and Feared? Who are entrepreneurs in terms of their dramatic performance?It is difficult to say as, unlike leaders and managers, who are limited to the political and/or organizational stage, entrepreneurs represent an everyman's dream of the successful life. They are Columbuses, treasure-hunters and Ho ratio Alger's heroes all in one. Their task is to create new worlds, often with a mainly pecuniary interest in the background. In a sense, their play is most often a tragedy, while leaders come from a drama and managers from a comedy. They might become Macbeths if things go wrong, but also inventors like Faust, who wanted to be immortal and succeeded — indeed, it depends on very individual moral judgement as to 40 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff whether we see Faust as a failure or as a total success. When successful, entrepreneurs acquire God-like (or Satan-like) properties in eyes of the rest of the people: those who can create worlds are to be both worshipped and feared. In the beginning was meaning — In the beginning was power — In the beginning was action — (Faust) How can one translate Faust's dreams into modern economic terms? One possibility is some version of the American Dream, joining the archetype of the adventurer and the entrepreneur . Take, for example, the story of Uncle Jake.In 1929, Uncle Jake left his family home and the horse-breeding farm inherited from his father in Connecticut for Alaska. His mother and friends stayed behind — that is, those friends who did not commit suicide after the Great Depression. The crash did not, however, influence Uncle Jake, neither economically nor psychologically: his optimism seemed enhanced by the dramas around him. This is how John Hawkes' epos Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade (1942) starts. It builds up a character similar to Ragged Dick and other Horatio Alger stories, but makes it clear that the economic success is only a means and not the end in itself, as in Faust.Ragged Dick, for example, was a self-made man, the intrepid capitalist, a person who became rich and made others happier by gambling on a new product or innovation. But Uncle Jake never got really rich. He stands for freedom, creativity and dream-building. The materialistic character of the drea m has to do with another aspect of the American Dream — success as measured by money (which in old Europe was usually measured by pohtical influence). The social costs Jake created by going to Alaska were enormous.He barely noticed his wife's death; his daughter became a prostitute (there were not many ways for symbolizing women's failure in life in those days) until the day when she managed to free herself from his influence and could reflect on her father: ‘He was an artist of adventurous life. The exclusivity of the adventure was more important to him than the treasures he constantly promised to me and my mother'. In the eyes of the daughter Jake was not an entrepreneur at all. He was only speaking as such. We are reminded of Iacocca again: has he created a world or did he only speak as if?In a radical thought of Goodman (1978), this difference is immaterial. Until somebody comes with a better story, Iacocca will remain the author of Chrysler's success in the eyes of the public. In his incisive analysis of the case of El-Sayed (the former chairman of a Swedish company who, after a dazzling success, ended up in prison), Kets de Vries observes: ‘All entrepreneurs need dreams, but in dreaming they are not always effective in distinguishing fact from fancy' (1990a: 683). When they succeed, this very trait is seen as a source of their success. Leaders On and Off the Organizationai Stage 541When they fail, they fail for the same reason. The line between a ‘dream' and a ‘distortion of reality' is a tentative one. But all of them, Fausts and Jakes and Dicks, have one thing in common; they leave behind a trail of broken hearts, crushed realities and, in general, extremely heavy costs (they are no Misers! ) In order to better contrast entrepreneurs with managers we can take another real-life but mythologized example, that of Columbus. As 1992 comes close and both Seville and Genoa are preparing for great celebrations, it becomes clear t hat Columbus ‘discovered' America due to his ignorance and mythomaniac tendencies.An Italian physician with a passion for geography told him, on the basis of several wrong estimations, that it is feasible to reach India by going there on an Eastern route. It has been said, by Columbus apologets, that he discovered America whereas other, better educated entrepreneurs did not. Actually, they did not because they were managers — in the positive sense of the word. Apparently, the Portuguese navigators knew very well that such a continent existed, had all the estimations correct, and planned the discovery of America as a next project after having reached India via the Western route.Whereas most of the Columbus biographers ridicule mental rigidity and lack of intuition on the part of the ‘managers' from the Portuguese School of Navigation, the more mundane interpretation would have it that they did not go to India via America because they knew it was impossible. As an a dministrator of the new land, Columbus and his two brothers gave an incredible show of incompetence and cruelty, to the extent that Ferdinand and Isabella were forced to call them back and appoint a new administrator.Such is then the story of Columbus — a real entrepreneur, as opposed to Columbus as a mythical personage (Mendelssohn 1976), but in both versions one thing is clear: entrepreneurs tend to trample over old worlds in their attempts to create new. Why should they be so hailed and respected, then? Because they also bring change, building new realities on the ruins of the old. Personages and Processes As we have attempted to show, it is an illusion that one role ‘conquers' the remaining two.We could go further and further back and, most likely, find the same (as Crozier's example of Saint-Simon already indicates): theoreticians quarrelling about which role is the best, and practitioners playing all three. The fashion of the day elevates one role above the other and then abandons it again. Now we need order, next we need change, and then we need to control our fate. What shapes the fashion, then? Reading the organization theory debate as it has evolved over the last 70 years, one acquires an impression that a demand for leaders, managers or 542 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Woiff ntrepreneurs is dictated by organizations themselves — straight to the researchers' ears. Then, in an intellectual discourse about the functioning of organizations, the researchers establish which properties the executives should have. They inform the practitioners about what is desired and the practitioners try to follow norms as well as they can. The next wave of research results and theories brings new developments to light, the theory is perfected and the practice follows suit. Such an egocentric representation can be sustained only as a result of firm isolation from the political, social and economic context of organizing.Indeed, with few and unsyst ematic exceptions, organizational literature neglects what is happening in the world around organizations. Sometimes a simple agent called ‘market' comes into the picture, but even then just as a part of ‘environment' which is, indeed, more and more what organizations managed to enact around themselves. Organizations, the open systems, are for ever immortalized in a closed system of an artificially created frame of reference. We would like to point out that organizations act in historically shaped economic and political circumstances.If we bring these into the picture, the leadership debate can be portrayed, for example, as follows: Figure 1 1920s 1929 1930s 1939-1945 1940s 1950s An Historical Speculation Entrepreneurs Depression (economic crisis) Leaders WAR (poiiticai crisis) Managers Entrepreneurs (economic hope) 1960s 1968 1970s 1973-1975 1980s 1990s Leaders (poiiticai crisis) Managers (economic crisis? ) Leaders Entrepreneurs? The 1920s seemed to herald a recovery f rom the economic disaster of the 1st World War and the entrepreneurs were called for to create prosperity with their innovative thinking. The Great Depression brought an abrupt end to this dream.Frightened and in despair, people called for leaders. And leaders they got: Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Churchill, Roosevelt. We shall not plunge into what many historians, on many occasions, have analyzed with delight; was it chance, a historically determined development, or all of those. We assume that people try to attribute meaning both to random events and to planned action. It is this factor that stands for the continuity in the process, and not mechanically connected chains of causes and effects. The war made people wary of leaders and gave rise to operational research in the U. S. A.Managers were also welcome in Europe where a big job of restructuring the post-war economies was started. It became possible to think in terms of economic challenge, not only in terms of economic necessity . Entrepreneurs acquired room to play. Slowly, the Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage 543 prosperity became feasible and leaders were needed again, to push forward and expand their successes. The imperialist ambitions and the failure of new, democratic leaders brought the political unrest of the Sixties. Throughout the rational 1970s, managers were in vogue, to introduce some order and rationality into the world.The oil crisis, however, left in its wake the realization of a possible world-wide economic crisis. People turned to leaders again. As the crisisfeeling dissolved, however, the leaders were somewhat diminished in importance. It was Gorbachov, at least so long as he behaved as a political entrepreneur, who collected the popularity laurels. This is, of course, only one of several possible stories. We do not claim the monopoly on the one and only true story — rather, we would like to see more historical organizational research that traces down social, and not qu asi-biological (as in population ecology) developments.Additionally, such stories would have to pay increased attention to the rhetorics that are used in telling them (McCloskey 1986). In this paper, for example, we have used what is considered to be a chauvinist language: we have spoken of executives as if they were men. This was done on purpose: the dramatical metaphors gave us an additional insight into a matter that is becoming fashionable now, namely, why are there so few women leaders? Simply, the roles are not the female roles.There are, of course, some convincing performances, especially by female Moseses, such as Ghandi or Thatcher, but nevertheless their performance is reminiscent of Shakespearean times when men performed all female roles: brilliant but artificial. Archetypical female roles are hard to fit into modern organizations: neither Dame aux Camellias nor Mother Svea have good chances, at least not in executive roles. In this respect, the organizational theatre has a very traditional repertoire. Researchers As Theatre Critics The question that concludes our paper and, hopefully, starts a discussion is: What should — or can — researchers do?Shall we contribute to the debate as participants? Shall we attempt to unmask and deconstruct it? Shall we write new scripts or ironize the old ones? Holding to our theatre metaphor, we see our choice as analogous to that facing the theatre critics. We can opt for what we ourselves like best, or prompt the directors to keep the public content, or to keep the public on its toes. Over time, however, we should be able to arrive at a more systematic reflection on the organizational theatre. It would be illuminating to be able to follow the process of ppointing and dismantling the ‘favourites' in the social consciousness; to see when and how people reach to the repertoire of archetypes to exchange the last one for another. This means following not only historical developments, but also the sh aping of fashions, the development of organizational and occupational cultures, the ups and downs of professionalization, and other social pro- 544 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Roif Wolff cesses of sense-making. The leadership debate can thus be seen as a transformation of symbols which both follows and announces other kinds of transformation.Organization research can then evaluate contemporary performances and try to build a theory of organizational theatre in a historical perspective. Note * The first version of this paper was presented at the 4th International SCOS Conferenee on Organizational Symbolism and Corporate Culture, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, June 28-30, 1989. We would like to acknowledge helpful comments from Peter J. Frost, Gareth Morgan and Susan Schneider in preparing the present version. References Bass, Bernard M. 1960 Leadership, psychology and organizational behavior. New York: Harper. Bass, Bernard M. 984 ‘Leadership: Good, better, best'. Organization al Dynamics: 26-40. Bass, Bernard M. 1985 Leadership and performance beyond expectations. New York: Free Press. Bennis, Warren, and Burt Nanus 1985 Leaders, The strategies for taking charge. New York: Harper and Row. Boland, Richard J. Jr. , and Ted O'Leary 1988 ‘Behind the accountant. Images of accounting and information machines in advertising 1910-1970'. Paper presented at the Second Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Accounting Conferenee held at the University of Manchester, 11-13 July. Brunsson, Nils 1989 The organization of Chichester: Wiley. hypocrisy.Crozier, Michel 1964 The bureaucratic phenomenon, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Czarniawska, Barbara 1985 Controlling top management in large organizations, Aldershot: Gower. Czarniawska, Barbara 1986 ‘The management of meaning in the Polish crisis'. Journal of Management Studies 23/3: 313-331. Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara 1989 Economic decline and organizational control. New York: Praeger. Czarniawska-Jo erges, Barbara 1992 Exploring complex organizations: Toward an anthropological perspective, Beverly Hills: Sage. Czarniawska-Joerges, Barbara, and Bernard Joerges 1990 Organizational change as materialization of ideas.The Study of Power and Democraey in Sweden, Report no. 37, January. Drucker, Peter F. 1967/1970 The effective London: Pan Books. executive. Chandler, Alfred D. Jr. 1977 The visible hand. The managerial revolution in American business, Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press. Drucker, Peter F. 1985 Innovation and entrepreneurship: Practice and principles. New York: Harper and Row. Leaders On and Off the Organizational Stage Edelman, Murray 1988 The construction of the political spectacle, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Fiedler, Fred E. 964 ‘A contingency model of leadership effectiveness' in Advances in experimental social psychology, L. Berkowitz (ed. ). New York: Academic Press. Follet, Mary Parker 1949 Freedom and coordination, London: Management Publications Trust. Frost, Peter J. , and Carolyn P. Egri (forthcoming) ‘Appreciating executive aetion' in Executive appreciation, Suresh Srivastva et al. (eds. ). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ghiselli, Edwin E. 1963 ‘Managerial talent'. American Psychologist 18: 34-56. Goodman, Nelson 1978 Ways of worldmaking. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester. Gustafsson, Claes 1984 Hero-myths and managersdescriptions, Abo: Abo Akademi.Gustafsson, Claes 1985 ‘Some notes regarding management theory, managers and economic crime' in Economic crime-programs for future research. The National Council for Crime Prevention, D. Magnusson (ed. ), 83-97. Stockholm: Liber. Hales, Colin P. 1986 ‘What do managers do? A critical review of the evidence'. Journal of Management Studies 23/1: 88-115. Hawkes, John 1942 Adventures in the Alaskan Trade, 545 Kets de Vries, Manfred 1989 ‘The leader as a mirror: Clinieal reflections'. Human Relations 42/7: 607-623. Kets de Vries, Manfred 1990a â₠¬ËœThe impostor syndrome: Developmental and societal issues'.Human Relations 43/7: 667-686. Kets de Vries, Manfred 1990b ‘The organizational fool: Balancing a leader's hubris'. Human Relations 43/8: 751-770. Kidder, Tracy 1981/1983 The soul of a new machine, Harmondsworth: Penguin. Krefting, Linda, and Peter J. Frost 1986 ‘Untangling webs, surfing waves and wildcatting' in Organizational culture, P. J. Frost, L. F. Moore, M. R. Louis, C. C. Lundberg and J. Martin (eds. ), 155-168. Beverly Hills: Sage. Lewin, Kurt, Ronald Lippit, and Ralph W White 1939 ‘Patterns of aggressive behaviour in experimentally created â€Å"soeial climates†Ã¢â‚¬Ëœ. Journal of Social Psychology 10: 271-299.Maccoby, Michael 1981 The Leader, New York: Simon and Schuster. Mandler, Jean Matter 1984 Stories, scripts and scenes: Aspects of schema theory, London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Mangham, Ian L. , and Michael A. Overington 1986 Organizations as theatre: A social psychology of dramatic appe arances, Chichester: Wiley. McCloskey, Donald N. 1986 The rhetorics of Brighton: Harvester. economics, Skin Hogenson, George B. 1987 ‘Elements of an ethological theory of political myth and ritual'. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 17: 301-320. Kaplan, Robert 1987 ‘The antimanagement bias'.Harvard Business Review 3: 84-89. McClelland, Donald N. 1970 ‘The two faces of power'. Journal of International Affairs XXlV/1: 141-154. Mendelssohn, Kurt 1976 Science and Western domination, London: Thames and Hudson. 546 Barbara Czarniawska-Joerges, Rolf Wolff Stogdill, Ralph M. 1974 Handbook of leadership, New York: Free Press. Umanski, Leonid I. 1967 ‘Organizatorskije sposobnosti i ieh rozwitije' in Uczonyje Zapiski, Kurskij Gosudarstwiennyj Piedagogiczeskij Institut, Kursk. Westley, Francis, and Henry Mintzberg 1989 ‘Visionary leadership and strategic management'.Strategic Management Journal 10: 17-32. Wiidavsky, Aaron B. 1984 The nursing father: Moses as a political leader, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press. Zaieznik, Abraham 1982 ‘Managers and leaders: Are they different? ‘ in Readings in organizations, J. L. Gibson, J. M. Ivancevleh and J. H. Donnelly, Jr. (eds. ), 195210. Piano, Texas: Business Publications. Mintzberg, Henry 1971 ‘Managerial work: Analysis from observation'. Management Science 18/2: 97-110. Vlintzberg, Henry 1983 Structure in Prentice-Hall. five, London: Nelson, D. , H.Winter 1985 Towards an evolutionary theory of economic change, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Pinchot, J. Ill 1985 Imrapreneuring, New York: Harper and Row. Reich, Robert B. 1987 ‘The team as hero'. Harvard Business Review 3: 77-83. Sehumpeter, Joseph 1921 ‘Der Unternehmer'. Zeitschrift fur die gesamte Staatswissenschaft. vol: 14-71. Sehwartz, Birgitta 1989 Foretag som medborgare. Samhallskontakter och reklam som legitimeringsinstrument, Stockholm: EFI. Stodgill, Ralph M. 1948 ‘Personal faetor s associated with leadership: A survey of literature'. Journal of Psychology (January): 35-71

Macroeconomics Of Japan Essay

Japan is the greatest economy in Asia, in terms of GDP, as well as human resources and technology. The nation was once predicted to be the next superpower nation exceeding the United Sates and countries of the European Union. Today, it is the world’s third-largest economy after the United States and People’s Republic of China. It is also the second-largest economy by real GDP and market exchange rates. The economy is highly efficient and competitive especially in the services industry, which is originated from a good cooperation between the government and the industry, a strong work ethic and the mastery of high technology. Recent analysis however, revealed that the economy is currently under serious problems. Observers and even Japan’s own officials have admitted that the economy is no longer ‘first class’. There are even worries that Japan has no longer sustain the capacity to be one of the world’s greatest economies anymore, and the economy will slowly degrade into one of the typical Asian economies. Analysts stated that such an occurrence has happened before, when Argentina which were once considered one of the strongest economies in the world degraded into typical third world economies today. Is this the case with Japan? In this paper I am discussing the problems that stayed within Japan’s economy and elaborating their probable causes. Afterwards, I will elaborate the macroeconomic policies which have been performed by the Japanese government in response to these issues and how these policies have affected the economy. The period of discussion is 1997 -2007, which are the years after the ‘Japan economic bubble’ bursts, to the present day. II. Japan Economic Issues 1997-2007 II. 1. Background of the Issues – Japan Economic Bubble Japanese growth rates have been nothing less than spectacular for decades. In the 60’s the average real economic growth rate was 10%, in the 70’s it was 5% and in the 80’s it was 4%. Japanese financial system however, was based on a bureaucratic fiat. The government believes that by injecting sufficient amount of capital into the market, the economy will experience a rapid rate of growth. Thus, the financial system was set to inject cheap capital into the business sector (Hamada, 2004). In support of this policy, banks even reluctant to report –in bad loans. In short, companies were encouraged to borrow and expand continuously. Companies would then borrow using assets like land and then invest the money into the stock market. After the market rises, the company would have latent profits which will be used to buy more land and therefore, the cycle continues. These cycles were the origins of the huge real estate and stock market bubbles. These bubbles however, cannot be sustained forever, and when the Bank of Japan (BOJ) raised interests rates, the bubble bursts in 1989 and leaving commercial banks in Japan with a mountain of bad loans. II. 2. Stagnant Economic Growth Afterwards, assets prices began to decline rapidly. Japan’s economy was going through a long period of deflation since then, partly caused by the appreciation of yen. Because of this appreciation, the CPI increase rate dropped into negative in 1995. The expanding deflation caused Japan’s economy to remain in a static condition. Moreover, the deepening deflation was accompanied with weakening state of real economy like growth rates declines and increased unemployment rates. Between 1992 and 1994, real growth rates are below 1%. It even dropped toward a negative range in 1998. Jobless rate have also suffered a rise of 3. 4 % from 2 % in 1990 to 5. 4% in 2003. The economic downsizing in 1997 put Japanese economy into a new state of deflation (Oliver, 2002). II. 3. Deflationary Trap It was not considered serious until the inflation rate slipped to below zero in 1997. In this phase, observers believed that Japan was in a ‘deflationary trap’. However, because of various long-term considerations, the government has implemented policies to maintain inflation stable near the zero mark. In this situation however, the central bank cannot use its traditional instruments to deal with the issue. As a result, deflation deepens even further and the market intensified expectations toward further and longer period of deflation. Due to the increase in real rate of interest, consumer spending and corporate investments were discouraged. Unfortunately, the shrinking total demand in the macro economy further worsen the deflation. If not dealt with accordingly, this could lead into self-sustaining deflationary process (Campbell, 1992).