Assess the impact by 1939 of Nazi Essay Example for Free

Assess the impact by 1939 of Nazi Essay The National Socialist Party came to power through a series of swift, ruthless and devastating actions which firmly established Germany as a fascist state. The centralisation of power in Germany, known as co-ordination (Gleichschaltung), was initiated on the day of the election and was carried out with such clinical efficiency, that the German state was completely transformed within a matter of months. Hitlers Gleichschaltung was extremely successful in altering the cultural and economic landscape of Germany in the years between 1933 and the commencement of the Second World War in 1939. National Socialism touched every aspect of life; youth culture, the role of women, education, the economy and the effect it had on employment, the working class, as well as religion in the domination of the Christian Church. As this essay will explain, each of these individual developments in German society, which were initiated by the Nazi regime, came together to precipitate a complete cultural transformation for the lives of German people by 1939. Nazi Seduction of the German People The attraction of the Third Reich was compelling for the German people and strong feelings of national pride were instilled in the mass population. Germans were moved by wave after wave of brilliantly staged nationalistic promptings in the form of spectacular public rallies and stirring speeches. The totalitarian state model, which was so important to the Nazi Partys grip on its people, was achieved through a mix of persuasion, motivation and discrimination. Individualism was quickly replaced by a way of life steeped in collective gestures and symbols; mass rallies, uniforms, public commemorations and in particular, the gesture synonymous with the Nazi era the Heil Hitler salute. Although these public messages became tiresome to many Germans, they were a constant theme throughout the Nazi era, and were therefore inescapable. They were successful in convincing the German masses of the power of the Third Reich as an all conquering, superior phenomenon. Youth The mobilisation of German youth was a vital cog in the National Socialist propaganda machine. The drive towards creating a fiercely dependent and loyal German youth was formed on the basis of a rejection of the old bourgeois world in favour idealistic notions of a new and more egalitarian society.The lengths to which the Nazis went, in order to harness the loyalty of the German youth were great and centred on the creation of a rival organisation to the formal education system called the Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugend). When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Hitler Youth organisation had only 107,956 members. By the end of 1933 however, under the leadership of Baldur von Schirach, most youth movements were under the influence of the Nazis and the few remaining nonconformists such as Catholic organisations were feeling the Nazi influence. Two laws, which came into effect in December 1936 and March 1939 made participation in the Hitler Youth (HJ) mandatory, driving up membership of the organisation to 8,870,000 at the beginning of 1939. The Hitler Youth indoctrinated young Germans with Nazi concepts of race, discipline and obedience. Summer camps were set up, in which political ideological teachings, physical fitness, rifle practice, endurance and team-building games were core activities. The aim was to breed a new type of German, one which was loyal to National Socialism and would thus ensure the future existence and expansion of Germany as a Nazi state. The Family The family was an institution of supreme importance to the Nazis, being regarded as crucial to the future success of The Third Reich. Much was done to raise the popularity of marriage and increase birth-rate, as mothers who stayed at home to bring up large families were put on a pedestal and treated with utmost respect. On 12 August the birthday of Hitlers mother every mother who had given birth to a large number of children was awarded a Mothers Cross. Rewards for raising large families were also financial, as special welfare benefits were awarded to encourage marriage and motherhood.  Newly married couples were offered a 1,000 mark loan, repayable at three per cent interest, which was reduced by 25 per cent after the birth of each child. This loan effectively turned into a free gift from the state following the birth of four healthy children. Women The role of women in Nazi Germany was clearly defined, encouraging them to embrace their natural role as mothers. As already mentioned, women were the focus of the Nazi drive to boost birth rate, and were ushered away from the idea of a full-time career in favour of starting or extending a family. Furthermore, within education, girls would be directed away from developing their academic ability and independence, in favour of training for future maternal roles through compulsory courses in domestic science and biology. Upon reaching adulthood, the indoctrination of Nazi ideals continued through membership of three womens organisations, all created by the Nazi party the German Womans Enterprise, the National Socialist Womanhood and the Reich Mothers Service. By March 1939, over 1.7 million German women had attended one of these Nazi organised courses. The Working Class In its crusade to win over the working class, the Nazis offered a vast array of publicly funded leisure activities. The Nazi Kraft durch Freude (KdF) (Strength through Joy) organisation was officially founded to promote the physical prowess of the individual, although in reality its essential purpose was to educate and socialise the German population into National Socialism. The Nazi leisure policy was initiated with the hidden intention of rallying the German people towards active voluntary participation in National Socialist Germany. An active, thriving leisure movement it was believed would contribute to the thrust of National Socialism as a whole, enhancing the vitality and all round commitment to the German cause. The Economy The economic success of the Nazi regime is remembered most for its remarkable success in reducing unemployment. The cornerstone of this recovery was the implementation of the many work programmes, which created jobs for the phenomenal number of unemployed Germans at the beginning of Hitlers reign. German economists had recognised that the abandonment of narrow fiscalism in favour of counter-cyclical strategies based upon investment in the infrastructure and public housing was essential in order to reduce levels of unemployment. Job creation schemes, such as the construction of the Autobahn the major motorway network and house building schemes resulted in a fall in unemployment from 34% in January 1933 to 13.5% in July 1934. Religion Upon coming to power, Hitler embarked on a crusade to eradicate Christianity, as he believed it to be a product of Jewish culture a religion he perceived as a corrosive influence on the German population. The process of gradually reducing the influence and presence of the church in Nazi Germany was achieved in a number of ways. The establishment of the Reich Church, the German Christians organisation and the German Faith movement introduced a new Christian religion based on the core ideals and beliefs of National Socialism. This was yet another example of the iron grip with which the Nazis sought to control the German population. Conclusion Nazi economic and social policy had a phenomenal effect on the German mass population by 1939. The levels of propaganda used to capture the loyalty of the German people were deeply influential, effectively brainwashing the population. The focus on the future strength and solidarity of The Third Reich as a totalitarian state saw key aspects of the German lifestyle subjected to significant changes between 1933 and 1939. The effect that Nazi social and economic policies had were seen most significantly in their effect on women, youth, education, the economy with regards to employment, the motivation of the working class, and religion. Nazi propaganda went further than this in its influence on the German way of life, as the press,  industry, art and culture, and all forms of entertainment were transformed into mere puppets of the Nazi regime. The gradual erosion of individualism and devotion to The Third Reich amongst German people could not have been achieved without the changes imple mented in these fundamental aspects of daily life.

The Psychology Of Personality Psychology Essay

The Psychology Of Personality Psychology Essay Oprah Winfrey is one of the most influential black American women. She was born on January 29, 1954 in Kosciusko, Mississippi of USA. When she was young, she lived in a very poor surrounding with her grandparents despite her parents were separated. At the age of six, she moved to stay with her mother. Consequently, she was being sexually abuse and molested by male relatives and she endured the hardship. Right until she was fourteen, she moved again to stay with her father in Nashville Tennessee. Living with her father was not the hope she was looking for because that her father was loving and yet a real strict towards Oprah. She created conflict with her fathers high standards by dealing with drugs, rebellious behaviour and even lost a premature baby. She eventually settled down after being awarded with a University Scholarship. Although, her early years in life were filled with hardship, she still graduated as an honours student. Oprah graduated as a BA in Speech and Performing Arts from Tennessee State University. She was highly inspired by her fathers high standard to aim and achieve more from life. She began her career in the media industry and worked as a news anchor and reporter for television station in Nashville on the WTVF-TV station at the age of nineteen. She started to enjoy her work where she was able to be herself and express her own opinions and share her true feelings when she shifted to morning talk show AM Chicago at WLS-TV in Chicago. The show had become the number one ranked right after she started and it was renamed as The Oprah Winfrey Show after a year. Her show went on to become one of the highest ranked television talk show programs in history with twenty million American viewers every week. She had become famous by hosting her own show, which she really enjoyed that as her career (Fry). Section B A theory of human behaviour emphasizing the drive to overcome feelings of inferiority by compensation and the need to achieve personal goals that have value for society. Individual Psychology by Alfred Adler (Mifflin, 2007). Adlers theory talked about birth order and parenting style impact on personality in his assumptions of human nature. Oprah Winfrey was the only child in her family. According to Adlers theory, only child will tend not to lose primacy and power, besides, he or she will mature at early stage of life and may have certain issues in places where they are not the centre of attention. I believe that Oprah never loses her power based on Adlers theory in birth order, thats why she is able to build up herself again after all the hardships she has been through. But what about her parents parenting style? Basically, her parents were separated from each other and she had been put to a very poor environment with her grandparents when she was six. Thus, she was being neglected instead of pampering, in result, she received too little of attention from parents, and being sexually abuse and molested right until she was fourteen. She was able to endure all the hardships because she believed in her power, which I think the power comes from the nature of birth order that she had it. Upon staying with her father, she started to receive parental love for her father, although it was just single parents love, but I guess she would have been very grateful and appreciate the love. But her father was very strict as well, he had a very high standard for Oprah to aim and achieve more from life. Due to high standard, her behaviour had caused conflict with her fathers strict rules. But she eventually settled down everything after being awarded with a University Scholarship. She changed her wild behaviour because she knew she had a goal to accomplish from this university. As Adler said in his theory, behaviour may change throughout a persons life span in accordance with goals. According to Individual Psychology theory, life is a dynamic towards completion, perfection, superiority and mastery, which Adler is referring to human motivation as striving for superiority. Oprah acquired this human motivation from her own power and will, her fathers love and standard, and the scholarship. Striving for superiority is when one overcompensates for the feeling of inferiority and motivates the individual to seek for perfection and drive him or her to the goal for a total future (Mitchell). I believe that Oprahs striving for superiority is what makes her to be a very successful and talented television talk show host. But according to Adler, he said sometimes inferiority complex might happens as well, inferiority complex is defined as people couldnt overcome it and running away from the challenges, I bet this complex happened to Oprah when she was staying with the mother, which she was sexually abuse and molested. Due to unable to against, she developed inferiority compl ex and endured through all this suffer. Adler also described four different styles of life, which can be created by ourselves because we, human beings are non-deterministic and the life style is developed from the creative power of self (Luttrell, 2009). The four styles of life according to Adler are ruling, getting, avoiding and socially useful. Each of the styles is conceptualized in terms of degree of social interest and activity. I think that different people at different stages and environments in life might eventually shape their personalities based on Adlers styles of life. For instance, Oprah was given a very poor environment at the age of six, thus, she would be the getting type at that moment. She wanted to expect to be given everything she needed as a child, such as parents love, hugs, kisses or even being pampered. Unfortunate, she couldnt get it. In spite of that, she compensated her inferiority and developed superiority complex, thus, she has been shaped from getting type to socially useful type. Adler explained that socially useful type exhibits activity in the service of other and they always confront the life problems and endeavour to resolve them in a manner consistent with the needs of other individuals. Up until now, Oprah still belongs to this style of life; she has touched millions of lives in American and other countries. There are few of her achievements and deeds that really opened my eyes. She was the first black person that was being listed in Business Week as one of Americas top 50 most generous philanthropists (Manohar, 2010). She also invested $40 million in the making of Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for girls near Johannesburg in South Africa, which the project was started in January 2007. Even Nelson Mandela congratulated and applauded for her effort of overcoming her own disadvantaged youth to become a benefactor for the people. In my opinion, Alfred Adlers Individual Psychology theory has explained much for me to understand more about Oprah Winfreys background, development, accomplishments and so on. Besides, I would say Oprah Winfrey is a very resilient woman, believing in her own power and healthy striving for superiority to compensate all of her past. As Alder believed that healthy striving is for self-realization, in contributing to humanity, dealing with lifes problems, and in making the world a better place to live. Section C Alfred Adler talked about birth order and parenting style is impactful to the new born babys personality. According to Adler, the only child never loses primacy and power, mature in early stage of life and may have issue in places where they are not the centre of attention. I am the youngest in my family and I have two brothers and one sister, but I would consider myself as the only child. This is because; I had been staying just with my parents since I was 12 years old. My eldest brother pursued his career as a singer, my elder brother is a married man with wife and children and lastly my sister got married to faraway place from our hometown. I believe that Adlers explanation about birth order is reasonable, because Ive been holding up to these primacy and power in my life and I eventually getting mature than other people around my age. For example, I already started to question myself what and how should I end up in my later life, how can I contribute to my parents and Who Am I? Gu ess I found my answer when I was sixteen years old and these primacy and power eventually shaped who I am today. Next, I would classify my parents parenting style as pampering but somehow they are very strict, just like Oprah Winfreys father. So, they are not spoiling or over-protect me as a child. Adler proposed superiority complex and inferiority complex, which I think it happens to everyone at different stages of life. I had developed inferiority complex before when I was a pre-school student. I was discouraged by my teacher due to that I am a very playful child. In result, I tried to seek for acceptance by doing a lot of silly things, but my effort was never come to fruition. I dont have any friends at that time, not even one would be willing to come next to me, unless they want to borrow something. I was running away from any challenges at that time and I gradually withdrew from the community. Fortunately, I came to develop superiority complex when I was seven years old, which Adler mentioned it as striving for superiority. When we ought to have inferiority feelings, we tend to seek and compensate the awful feeling and we motivate ourselves to move away from inferiority and thus strive for superiority. I attended English primary school with multiracial students and teachers. This was the moment; I started to build up myself because I was highly encouraged by my new Indian and Malay friends and school teachers through well-organized co-curriculum in my school instead of being continuously discourage. As I continually to strive for superiority, my life style is developed from the creative power of the self, which Adler explained it as personality types. There are four types of personality, which are ruling, getting, avoiding and socially useful. I believe Adlers style of life will change from time to time and much dependable to the surrounding changes. During my childhood, I belonged to getting type personality because of my parents pampering parenting style. I always expect to be given everything that I need. After that, especially being put into a bad per-school, I guess I am slightly moving into avoiding type as I tried to avoid challenges, problems and withdrew from social interest and activity until I attended my primary school. As I grew older and moving into teen stage, I came to know myself better and I joined many church activities that helped me to find my identity and role. I eventually developed the socially useful personality type. Most of the church activities that I had participated were mostly charity and volunteer works, guess all these had shaped me to exhibit activity in the service of others. Thus, I am able to confront life tasks and attempt to resolve problems in a proper manner with the needs of other individuals. Although, I am a socially useful type right now, part of my getting type and avoiding type are still reside in me, ju st not that influential anymore. Here I am today, a leader for Famine 30 2010 camp in my own college with full of passion to help the poverty children all around the world.

The Importance Of The Friendship Literature Essay

The Importance Of The Friendship Literature Essay What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies Aristotle, Lives of eminent Philosophers, (2010) Wikipedia dictionary online. Available from: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Aristotle. Accessed 17 July 2010 Nowadays, People live in a new society where often nobody stops what they are doing in order to be worry about the others. People live in a selfish world where the peoples feelings have gone into the background, giving more importance to economic and social stability rather than emotional stability. Although, we believe that for these reasons the friendly relations have been missing; however, this is a serious mistake because people must communicate with others, and they must establish many types of human relationships, but one of the most important is friendship. Friendship is a value that is found in friendships is often the result of a friend demonstrating the following on a consistent basis: the tendency to desire what is best for the other , sympathy and empathy, honesty, perhaps in situations where it may be difficult for others to speak the truth, especially in terms of pointing out the perceived faults of ones counterpart, mutual understanding and compassion, trust in one another; and, able to go to each other for emotional support Friendship definition.(2010).Wikipedia dictionary online. Available from: hHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendshipttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship. Accessed 17 July 2010 In this opportunity, I want to focus on the importance of friendship which is reflected in two interesting books of the twenty century: The Great Gatsby and Motorcycle Diaries. However, both books were written at different times, places and facts, but in both the characters created strong bonds of friendship in the book plots. It is very interesting to know how is developed the friendship between the main characters: Gatsby and Nick, and Ernesto and Alberto friendship. This is an interesting plot because without a loyal friend, they would not able to give the sense to their lives and the sense of the plots of the books. First of all, the Great Gatsby was written in the 1920s by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. During this period, people tried to forget the shock lived because of the World War I, so the people wasted their money in trivial things such as going to parties and drinking in a crazy way. In this book, there is an omniscient narrator, who was Nick Carraway. For that reason, The Great Gatsby is narrated from Nicks point of view. The novel started when Nick came from Minnesota and moved to New York to work in the bond business. After that, he rented a house in a popular and fascinating place called West Egg, where new rich people lived. They were a group of people who made their wealth too quickly to interact with the truly rich. In that place, Nick befriended his neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby, who was famous for its populous parties. Gatsby was born on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire, he made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. The first time that the fr iends, Nick and Gatsby, met was in a party, but they did not interchange any word. After that, Gatsby sent an invitation to Nick to his home because he wanted to talk with him, so they met and talked. Besides in that occasion, they discovered that they participated in the World War I. Gatsby and Nick had a friendship that grew slowly over the course of the story, where Nick was discovering the mysteries of his friend Gatsby. As the novel progressed, Gatsby and Nick started a real friendship because inside the novel there were many trivial situations such as the populous Gatsbys parties. Also, the people lived a life with lies, and they want to show off their wealth. Nick never showed off other thing, he always said the truth and tried to help to his friend Gatsby while Gatsby hide the truth in the being of the novel. In the Gatsby youth, he knew Daisy, who was Nicks cousin, while he was training to be an army officer. They fall in love, and started a relationship, which they never f orgot. Following that, Nick met with Daisy Buchanan and her husband, who attached to the real group of wealthy and lived in the swanky neighborhood of East Egg. Nick facilitated the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby because he invited at his home in some occasions to Daisy, and Gatsby gave the first opportunity to meet with Daisy. In this part of the novel, Gatsby needed Nicks help, and Nick gave his support. In the novel, Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to get Daisy, thus achieving upward social mobility and settle in a wealthy place. However, Nick knew the truth, he always went with Gatsby because Nick was tolerant, and honest, a person who kept secrets. After many events that took place, Daisy and Jay could not have a relationship because Daisy never loved him really, and also she was married with Tom Buchanan. When she had to decide between Ga tsby and Tom, she preferred to continue her life with Tom. Gatsby was very sad because she was his real love, so Nick was there for him when Gatsby needed. Finally Gatsby was killed by Myrtles husband, and Nick was very worried about his friend, so he decided to go at Gatsby home, and he knew that his friend was died. In the Gatsbys funeral, the only person who attended was his father, a man who lived in his house, and Nick, who was his real friend because Nick was with Gatsby ever in his death day as a good friend. Secondly, we have Motorcycle diaries which was written by Ernesto Che Guevara as a result of his daily trips through Latin America. In 1952, one semester before Ernesto Guevara finished his medical studies, he and his old friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist, left Buenos Aires to travel the continent looking for fun and adventure. However, they have different ages they are close friends. They decided to travel because they wanted to intend to work in a leper colony in Peru, but the main purpose was tourism. They have same dreams such as, for example, they wanted to see Latin America for that reason they traveled many months. Initially, transport was the old and scruffy Albertos Norton 500 motorcycle nicknamed La Poderosa II. First, we headed north where they crossed the Andes, and then traveled over that of Chile, through the Atacama Desert and the Peruvian Amazon. In that part of the trip, they suffer many dearths such as they did not have food, water and a warm bed, but they always enjoyed that venture trip because they knew many people. Also, all friends have disagreements, but they passed them because they respect them such as when they had some problems, so they were forced to travel at a slower pace because his transport La Poderosa II could not fixed. For that reason, they arrived in Caracas on July. Ernesto Guevara had health problems, so during this trip Guevara suffered asthmatic problems, and Granado never let him alone because a real friend helps other in problematic situations. When they were traveling to San Pablo leper colony, Ernesto suffered asthmatic attack where Ernesto almost passed away, but he escaped certain death, and because his loyal friend. Alberto was there and applied the medical treatment, so Ernesto survived. Also, the friends encountered the poverty of indigenous people, and knew about the disparity between rich and poor people in Latin America. Both friends could live inside the poverty and they protected themselves as friends m ust do it. In Peru, they worked as volunteers for three weeks in a leper colony in San Pablo. Guevara knew there, the division of society between the working masses and the governing masses. Finally, the friends said good bye, Alberto revealed that his birthday had been on August 8th. Ernesto said that he had always known it. Also, Ernesto never judged his friend. People think that who establish a positive connection in a relationship of friendship, or other positive bonding, they fell emotions that affect positively their immune systems. In both books there are clearly strong connections of friendship between the characters. On the one hand, The Great Gatsby has a relationship of friendship that grew slowly over the course of the story, where Nick was discovering the mysteries of his friend Gatsby. On the other hand, in the book Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto and Alberto were already old friends but there were more precise in execution by living each of the experiences presented in their journey. Even though, today people live in a selfish society where nobody is worried about what happens with the others, or peoples feeling. There are people who think emotional stability is more important than social stability. People must communicate with others, and they must establish many types of human relationships, but one of the most important is friend ship. There are a number of theories that attempt to explain the link, including that: 1) Good friends encourage their friends to lead more healthy lifestyles; 2) Good friends encourage their friends to seek help and access services, when needed; 3) Good friend enhance their friends coping skills in dealing with illness and other health problems; and/or 4) Good friends actually affect physiological pathways that are protective of health Friendship definition. (2010).Wikipedia online dictionary. Available from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship. Accessed 17 July 2010

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Essay -- To Kill a Mockingbird Essa

To Kill A Mockingbird Courage, the mental or morale strength to venture, persevere, and withstand danger, fear, or difficulty, is displayed in many different ways throughout Harper Lee ¹s only published novel, To Kill A Mockingbird. To some, the courage manifested by the characters in this book is either offensive, or frivolous, but to those who realize the true meaning of this word, the fortitude and bravery exhibited by certain individuals is considered uncustomary. In fact, To Kill A Mockingbird revolves around courage, as the author of this book describes Jem and Scout ¹s (the two main character ¹s in the story) childhoods living in Maycomb County, and how, as they grow older , they learn to realistically define heroism. To distinct courage in this book however, is not an easy task to accomplish, for typically, courage is displayed in the smallest or most unnoticeable fashions.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus, a man who provides the morale guidelines in the story, and also Scout and Jem ¹s father, demonstrates courage in a variation of different ways, but the biggest of all the tasks that he had to overcome was when he was given the opportunity to defend Tom Robinson in court. Atticus did not treat this litigation such as any other case that he had ever dealt with before, for he new that this one would most likely change his life. The reason: Tom Robinson was a Negro. At the time, segregation was very common among the citizens of his town, and therefore he knew that he stood no chance in winning this indictment, especially based upon the fact that Robinson was charged with a transgression such as rape. Atticus was courageous in this situation for many different reasons, but mainly because he stood up for what he believed in; in this case it was that blacks should have equal rights as whites in a court of law. A quote that fascinated me while reading this book was:  ³Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win. ²(p76) Atticus was the one to have said this, showing his acknowledgment of the fact that he was going to be on the losing end of the lawsuit. Still, he prepared for this case, willingly putting his heart into it, disregarding the insults and attacks thrown in his direction by white supremacists. Although he lost, he came out victorious in the end, as he receiv... ...asing the amount of time that she was spending without taking the drug. Eventually, by the time that Jem was no longer obligated to read, she had accomplished her goal; she was going to be free when she died, as she did kick her habit. A suffering and feeble woman going a month without consuming a drug that she has been addicted to for over five years is undeniably courageous. Mrs. Dubose could easily have died taking morphine to soothe her pain, but instead she did what in her mind was right, suffering for a month on earth, permitting her to be untroubled for eternity in heaven.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Defending a Negro, resisting the temptation of fighting, and kicking a morphine addiction. All three of these acts of courage can somehow relate to the quote:  ³Real courage is when you know you ¹re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. ²(p112) This quotes continues, implying that you rarely win, but sometimes you do, such as in Mrs. Dubose ¹s case. In both Atticus and Scout ¹s cases though, they lost, but neither winning nor losing is important, as long as inside you know you have done the right thing.

Wing Luke Asian Museum Web Site :: essays research papers

Wing Luke Asian Museum Website The Wing Luke Asian Museum is a multicultural museum housing art, film, and other records of the Northwest Asian Pacific culture. The Museum states that it is dedicated to "the collection, preservation, and display of Asian Pacific American culture, history and art.". The Museum was founded 1967, in honor of the first Asian pacific American to be elected to the Seattle council (in 1962). Wing Luke was killed in a plane crash just 3 years later, and the community rallied together to establish the Wing Luke Museum. The museum is run mainly on community support and independent donation, which it has done since its establishment. The exhibits and programs The Wing Luke puts on are made by a collaboration of museum professionals and dedicated community members. This community support is really what drives the Wing Luke museum and makes it special. The website of the Wing Luke Asian Museum [ http://www.wingluke.org ] uses a very simple and straightforward layout to help it's visitors find the information they need. The website also comes through with a lots of information about the museum, and it's community. Adding to all this is an online version of the Wing Luke Asian Museum's monthly newsletter, which is packed with tons of news and information about upcoming exhibits and projects being put on by the Wing Luke. The Online newsletter is archived regularly, and even though it is a newsletter for members, they let anyone download and read up on current happenings. The Wing Luke website also contains many external links to a wide array of Topics, including information on local art and history resources, and resources for Asian Pacific Americans, Japanese Americans, Korean Americans, Chinese Americans, and Filipino Americans as well. The web page also links to many other Seattle area museums, which is a nice addition. Other Museums dealing with Asian Pacific American issues are also linked to, rounding out the resource set. The Wing Luke web page uses a simple text on background layout, providing quick download times, and fast refresh rates. However, though serving to give the web page accessibility to a vast majority of web surfers, the web page has a very dated look to it, which really takes away from the overall professionalism of the website. The color scheme is generally black on white, with red hyperlinks. This clean look provides maximum text legibility, while not distracting the reader.

Sustainable Production Practices and Determinant Factors of Green Supply Chain Management of Chinese Companies

Business Strategy and the Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) Published online 16 February 2011 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary. com) DOI: 10. 1002/bse. 705 Sustainable Production: Practices and Determinant Factors of Green Supply Chain Management of Chinese Companies Xianbing Liu,1* Jie Yang,2 Sixiao Qu,2 Leina Wang,2 Tomohiro Shishime1 and Cunkuan Bao2 1 Kansai Research Centre, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan 2 College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Tongji University, ChinaABSTRACT This paper explores the green supply chain management (GSCM) of companies based in the Yangtze River Delta, China. The companies’ overall GSCM practice level (LGSCM) is measured by using the data from 165 valid respondents in a questionnaire survey conducted during April and May 2009. The relationships between LGSCM and the classi? ed determinant factors are analyzed. It is indicated that Chinese companies are still at a preliminar y stage of GSCM practices. Their environmental management in cooperation with external members of the supply chain is very marginal.A company’s LGSCM is signi? cantly and positively associated with the external pressures from regulatory, domestic clients and business competitors. As an internal factor, a company’s learning capacity greatly determines LGSCM. We also con? rm that the internal factors function as intermediate variables of external pressures in in? uencing a company’s GSCM. A company’s environmental management capacities will be strongly enhanced by frequent internal training of employees to increase its involvement in GSCM practices.Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. Received 5 July 2010; revised 14 December 2010; accepted 16 December 2010 Keywords: sustainable production; green supply chain management; practices; determinant factors; China Introduction environment, in the forms of pollutant generation, ecosystem disruption and depletion of resources (Fiksel, 1996). The pressures and drivers from abroad accompanying globalization have pushed manufacturers in developing economies like China to improve their environmental performance (Zhu and Sarkis, 2006).Environmental concerns gradually become part of the overall business culture and, in turn, help re? engineer the development strategies of corporations (Madu et al. , 2002). Corporate environmental management (CEM) has been moving from traditional pollution control and risk management towards product life? cycle * Correspondence to: Xianbing Liu, Kansai Research Centre, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Hitomirai Building 4F, 1? 5? 2, Wakinohama Kaigan Dori, Chuo? ku, Hyogo, 651? 0073, Japan. E? mail: [email  protected] or. jp Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment OUT OF ALL BUSINESS OPERATIONS, MANUFACTURING PROCESSES ARE VIEWED TO HAVE THE HIGHEST IMPACTS ON THE 2 Xianbing Liu et al. manageme nt and industrial ecology. Recently, CEM has extended to certain boundary? spanning activities like green procurement, product stewardship, reverse logistics and so on (Zsidisin and Siferd, 2001; Snir, 2001; Prahinski and Kocabasoglu, 2006). These practices are related to supply chain management, which requires various interactions between the core manufacturer and the other entities along the supply chain, either the upstream suppliers or downstream distributors and customers.The concept of supply chain management for environmental protection was ? rst put forward by Drumwright (1994), which identi? ed the characteristics of those companies introducing new manufacturing ideas. Later, green supply chain management (GSCM) was de? ned as a new term by the Manufacturing Research Association at Michigan State University, USA (Hand? eld, 1996). The fast economic growth of China has greatly relied on the extensive expansion of manufacturing industries which produce resource? intensive but cheap goods for foreign markets.The regulatory requirements in developed economies, such as the familiar European Union (EU) Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive and the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, have forced electronics manufacturers in China to actively practice certain GSCM activities. The relatively high position of Chinese manufacturers in the global supply chain offers the possibility, and an ideal setting, to explore their actual GSCM involvements. Zhu et al. (2008) studied the emerging GSCM practices at company level in a Chinese context, and con? med that GSCM is still a new concept for most Chinese companies as they change their environmental management from internal efforts to the whole supply chain. In terms of determinant factors for GSCM practices, this previous study mainly focused on a company’s internal issues, such as the importance of the company’s learning? oriented programs and support of top manage rs. The pressures from externally related stakeholders bear further study due to their importance to a company’s environmental behavior (Zhu et al. , 2008).Subsequent studies employing both external pressures and internal factors would provide a more comprehensive understanding of the relationships between GSCM practices and the determinant factors. In addition, Zhu et al. (2008) conducted their survey in the northern cities of China. Surveys of companies based in the other geographical areas of China would be necessary and meaningful. In order to close the research gap described above, this paper identi? es the external pressures which determine the level of a company’s GSCM practices while using internal factors as the intermediate variables.The Yangtze River Delta, including Shanghai and surrounding regions, is selected as the study area mainly due to its relatively developed economy compared with other regions of China. The improved background of CEM provides us wi th the possibility of monitoring a company’s GSCM practices there. Considering the complexity of GSCM practices, which may be attributed to the wide scope of environmental activities at different phases of the supply chain, this paper classi? es four categories of typical GSCM activities by referring to the existing literatures (e. g.Sarkis, 2005). Two topics are mainly discussed in this paper: (1) the current status of GSCM practices of the companies in the study area; and (b) determinant factors, external and internal, predicting the level of a company’s involvement in GSCM practices. Literature Review Although there is no uniform de? nition for GSCM so far, basic and common understandings have been formed theoretically and in practice. GSCM emphasizes the concerns for the environment along the whole supply chain and requires long? term and strategic collaborations between the supply chain members.GSCM covers the management of the life cycle of a product, from its ma nufacture and consumption until the end? of? life (Nagel, 2000). GSCM practices may be separated according to the stages of production, distribution and utilization, and thus can be categorized into internally green manufacturing activities, green procurement, eco? design, green retailing and green consumption by individuals (Walton et al. , 1998; Zsidisin and Hendrick, 1998; Carter et al. , 2000). Research on GSCM has been building gradually, but still remains sparse (Vachon and Klassen, 2008).GSCM studies were previously conducted by addressing the following aspects: general and basic issues like designing the framework for GSCM (Geoffrey et al. , 2002); implementation of GSCM strategies (Sarkis, 2003); environmental assessment of GSCM practices (Vijay et al. , 2003); relationship between a company’s performance and GSCM practices (Klassen and Mclaughin, 1996); and speci? c GSCM activities like green purchasing (Min and Galle, 1997), Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, L td and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bseGreen Supply Chain Management in China 3 total quality and environmental management (Sarkis, 1999), green marketing (Karna and Heiskanen, 1998), and environmental performance evaluation of suppliers (Hines and Johns, 2001). Cooperation among the companies on the supply chain is the key to drive them to improve the environmental compatibility of their businesses (Ken et al. , 2000). Generally, the bene? ts of collaborative practices with upstream suppliers are much broader. In contrast, collaboration with downstream customers yields mixed outcomes Vachon and Klassen, 2008). By exploring the operational performances due to green partnership along the supply chain, Vachon and Klassen (2006) indicated that partnership with customers was positively related to product quality and ? exibility, whereas partnership with suppliers was associated with better delivery operations. Thun and Muller (2010) interviewed m anagers from the automotive supply industry in Germany and con? rmed the need for GSCM on the one hand but corresponding problems in terms of required resource on the other.Case studies of the British and Japanese food retail sector and the British aerospace industry showed that it would be easier to adopt GSCM if certain suppliers could play a leading role in a group of similar suppliers (Jeremy, 2000). While large companies can mandate their supplies to comply with certain environmental initiatives, cooperative approaches are likely to be more fruitful. Sharfman et al. (2009) suggested that inter rm trust, uncertainty and proactive environmental management most directly affect the extent of a company’s engagement in GSCM.Jeppesen and Hansen (2004) examined the conditions for environmental upgrading of Third World companies led by foreign companies. They argued that environmental upgrading on the value chain must be understood partly as a result of external industry and mark et forces, and partly as a result of the internal resources and competitive strategies of the companies involved. Two typical models are found for better application of GSCM strategies. One is to develop more environmentally friendly goods through cooperation like joint research.The other is to request that the suppliers satisfy higher environmental standards, for example achieving ISO14001 certi? cation, and the limitation of speci? ed materials in products. The construction of cooperative strategies and the evaluation of suppliers help improve the compatibilities of supply chain to the environment (Lamming, 1996). The extent of GSCM practices adopted by Chinese companies was examined by a survey of companies in several industrial sectors such as power generation, petrochemicals, electric and electronics and automobiles (Zhu and Geng, 2006).It was hard for the surveyed companies to integrate environmental issues into their business operations with suppliers and customers. Some lead ing companies have made efforts in internally proactive CEM practices like pursuing ISO14001 certi? cation, but most have just started to consider external GSCM activities. In China, environmental pressures are stronger for large companies than for small and medium? sized ones (Zhu and Geng, 2001). Automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) have been required by the automobile assemblers to operate in an environmental manner since Chinese entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001.Chinese electronic enterprises are found to be performing better in GSCM practices (Zhu and Sarkis, 2006). Development of an Analytical Framework and Research Hypotheses As mentioned earlier, this study tries to expand the determinant factors of GSCM practices in China from a company’s internal explanatory variables, which have been explored in previous studies (e. g. Zhu et al. , 2008), to the external pressures. Different alternative theoretical viewpoints, such as stakeholder t heory, institutional theory and the resource? based view, have been used to look at GSCM practices.As typical inter? organizational collaborations, the stakeholder theory with broad acceptance would be appropriate for discussing GSCM issues rather than intra? organizational management activities. In practice, stakeholder theory and institutional theory are rather similar in grouping a company’s external ‘others’, including the input and output environment of the company (suppliers and product consumers), its competitive environment (companies producing similar services or products) and its regulatory environment (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983; Delmas and Toffel, 2004).In this study, we identi? ed the determinant factors of GSCM practices by referring to existing literature and developed an overall analytical framework as shown in Figure 1. The relationships between the determinant factors and a company’s GSCM activities and research hypotheses are explained as follows. Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 4 Xianbing Liu et al. Figure 1. Overall analytical framework of this studyHypothesis a (Ha): External Pressures The importance of external factors lies in the complementary nature of the factors behind Chinese companies’ adoption of GSCM practices at the early stage of environmental policy transformation. Besides the requirements of governmental regulations, domestic and foreign clients, competitors and neighboring communities may exert pressures on the companies (Hall, 2000). These external pressures have jointly prompted companies to become more aware of environmental problems and to practice certain GSCM activities (Sarkis, 1998; Hervani et al. 2005). Customer expectations have become the most important external pressure (Doonan et al. , 2005). To achieve sustainable solutions and business goals, the environmental properties of products and ser vices have to satisfy customer demands (Zhu and Sarkis, 2006). ‘Communities’ refer to those who are not necessarily involved in the business partnership directly but have knowledge of local companies (Nelson et al. , 1999). The community perspectives shoul be adequately represented as they may in? uence a company’s decision? aking process (Kearney, 2004). It has been indicated that communities have the ability to in? uence the social reputation of a company (Henriques and Sadorsky, 1996). According to Zhu and Sarkis (2006), Hall (2000) and Sarkis (1998), external pressures are believed to be important factors affecting a company’s GSCM practices. This generates the ? rst integrative hypothesis of this study as: Ha: companies that face higher pressures from external stakeholders are more likely to adopt GSCM practices.Hypothesis b (Hb): Internal Factors Business strategy is not only in? uenced by external stakeholders since companies subject to the same lev el of external pressure may perform differently (Prakash, 2000; Gunningham et al. , 2003). It is argued that companies also adopt different environmental practices due to their individual interpretations of the objective pressures from the outside. The difference between ‘objective’ and ‘perceived’ pressures would lead to diverse responses from companies.Therefore, our analytical model adds two internal organizational factors, namely support by top managers and a company’s learning capacity, to jointly explain a company’s GSCM practices. Management support by top managers is critical for the introduction and implementation of innovations in a company, especially environmental management systems (EMSs) (Daily and Huang, 2001). Top management support can affect the success of new initiatives by facilitating employee involvement or by promoting a cultural shift in the company, for example. Previous research suggests that cross? unctional programs need support from senior management, and indicates that top management support is associated with the success of environmentally preferable purchasing (Carter et al. , 1998). As GSCM is a broad? based organizational endeavor, Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China 5 it has the potential to bene? t from top management support. Meanwhile, a company’s learning capacity is viewed as especially important in a resource? ased view. GSCM practices are amenable to the bene? ts derived from learning since they are human resource? intensive and greatly rely on tacit skill development by employee involvement, team work and shared expertise (Hart, 1995). The capacity for implementing innovative environmental approaches is usually enhanced by employee self? learning, professional education and on? the? job training. The education level of employees and the frequency of internal environmental training are often used as proxies of a company’s learning capacity.The above discussions suggest two sub? hypotheses on internal factors which may be expressed as Hb1 and Hb2: Hb1: a company’s level of GSCM practices is positively associated with the support of top managers. Hb2: a company’s level of GSCM practices is positively associated with the company’s learning capacity. Hypothesis c (Hc): the Linkage of External and Internal Factors As discussed above, the addition of internal factors reasonably complements the pressures from external stakeholders in explaining the practice of GSCM.A company’s internal factors may be viewed as intermediate variables to adjust the in? uences of external pressures. A company will be unlikely to implement GSCM activities if it does not have the necessary capacity, no matter what pressures it faces. This generates one more hypothesis on the relationship of external pressures and internal factors in determining a company’s GSCM practices in this study, which may be documented as: Hc: the relationships between a company’s external pressures and adoption of GSCM are mediated by internal factors. MethodsSamples and Data Collection The data for this study were collected by a questionnaire survey conducted in the region of the Yangtze River Delta during April and May 2009. Two small areas in the delta were selected for the survey implementation. One was Taichang, a county? level city in Jiangsu Province. Another was Kangqiao Industrial Park based in Shanghai. Developed from traditional environmental policies, local environmental agencies have tried some innovative measures for improving CEM by encouraging the public’s involvement against industrial pollution.With aims to reduce the compliance cost and maintain ? nancial value, the companies there have adopted some proactive environmental practices. The better background of CEM in the study area compar ed with other regions of China provides the possibility for us to monitor companies’ GSCM activities in this study. According to the literature overview and preliminary understandings about the contextual background of the study area, a questionnaire was developed to measure companies’ GSCM practices, determinant factors and organizational performance.The questionnaire format consisted of four major components: general information on the companies; GSCM activities such as environmentally preferable procurement; the degree of external pressures felt by the companies; and the evaluation of environmental and economic performances. The environmental managers were chosen as focal points in the survey to answer the questions concerning GSCM issues in their companies. Due to the large scope for GSCM activities, the environmental manager discussed matters with the purchasing manager and production manager as necessary.Over a period of approximately 2 months, the survey was con ducted in two phases. In the ? rst stage, local government of? cials and seven companies were contacted in order to test the validation and feasibility of answering the survey document. The questions are listed in a concise but accurate manner to avoid misunderstanding by the respondents. The ? nalized format was sent to 210 enterprises on a name list provided by the local environmental protection bureaus Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 6 Xianbing Liu et al. EPBs). A total of 165 respondents were con? rmed to be useful for the analysis, meaning a relatively high (78. 6%) valid response rate due to the coordination of local EPBs. The distribution of usable responses by industrial sectors is listed in Table 1. As expected, the samples from the sectors of machinery manufacturing, chemicals and textile and dyeing account for nearly half of the total, which are the representative industries in the st udy area. Operationalization of the Variables Dependent Variable The dependent variable in this study is LGSCM, a company’s overall GSCM practice level.LGSCM may be represented by a series of practical activities since it is dif? cult to directly measure the degree of GSCM involvement. Twelve items of GSCM activities were identi? ed to estimate a company’s overall level of GSCM practices in the current Chinese context, as listed in panel A of Table 2 and abbreviated as GA1 to GA12. This study addresses the GSCM practices as a company’s proactive environmental efforts in the manufacturing phase by excluding the end? of? pipe pollution control measurements and reverse logistic management of used products.Four categories of GSCM practices, represented by C1 to C4, respectively, are included: internally proactive environmental activities (C1); environmentally preferable procurement (C2); environmentally conscious design (C3); and supplier managed inventories and ser vices (C4) (Walton et al. , 1998; Carter et al. , 2000; Zsidisin and Hendrick, 1998). Achieving ISO14001 certi? cation, implementation of cleaner production auditing and reutilization of byproducts and other waste are chosen as internal proactive environmental activities of the companies.A company’s procurement strategies have strong impacts on the upstream producers in the supply chain, e. g. by buying non? toxic materials (Sarkis, 2003). In this study, four types of activities are de? ned as environmentally preferable procurement by the companies: requiring suppliers to offer cleaner products, evaluating suppliers’ environmental performances, providing education and technical assistance to suppliers, and providing education for internal procurement staff.Environmentally conscious design primarily focuses on technological improvements of products and processes to mitigate environmental impacts. Three items of activities, namely working closely with suppliers in produc t design, reducing waste in cooperation with suppliers and providing product? related environmental information for customers, are selected to assess the environmentally conscious design practices of companies. The last type of GSCM practice is supplier managed inventories and services which are found in chemical industries.Certain chemical companies commissioned their inventory management to the providers of raw materials due to the higher potential risks and the management experiences of the suppliers (PPRC, 2002). Since many chemical companies are located in the study area, two items are included to represent a company’s GSCM activities in this aspect. One is to entrust suppliers to manage company inventories. Another is to offer inventory management services for clients. Sector Paper Textile and dyeing Chemicals Plastics and rubber Metals Machinery and equipment manufacturing Electronics Automobile Printing Construction Others In totalNumber of samples 5 19 24 7 5 35 6 13 3 5 43 165 Percentage 3. 0 11. 5 14. 6 4. 3 3. 0 21. 2 3. 6 7. 9 1. 8 3. 0 26. 1 100. 0 Table 1. Distribution of the usable respondents by industrial sectors Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China Variable Description of the proxy 0 A: GSCM activities Internal proactive Achieving ISO14001 certification (GA1) environmental Cleaner production uditing (GA2) management (C1) Reutilization of byproducts and other wastes (GA3) Require suppliers to offer cleaner products (GA4) Environmentally Evaluate environmental performances of suppliers (GA5) preferable procurement (C2) Provide education and technical assistance for suppliers (GA6) Environmental education for internal purchasing staff (GA7) Work closely with suppliers in product design (GA8) Environmentally Work with suppliers on waste minimization (GA9) conscious Provide environmental information for products (GA10) design (C3) Supplier managed Entrust suppliers to manage some of the inventories (GA11) inventories (C4) Offer inventory management services for clients (GA12) 1 Valuation 2 3 4 5 7 LGSCMB: Determinant factors REGULATORY DCLIENT COMPETITOR COMMUNITY FCLIENT TSUPPORT EDUCATION TRAINING Pressure of environmental regulations Importance of domestic client’s environmental expectation Importance of competitors’ green strategies Pressure of complaints from neighboring communities Pressure of foreign customer’s environmental expectation Degree of support from company’s top managers Education level of the employees Frequency of internal environmental training External pressures Internal factors C: Control variables Characteristics of the companies Company’s size (LSIZ) Industrial sector belongings (SECTOR) Natural log of turnover Table 2. Definition and valuation of GSCM activities, the determinant factors and the controls The companies were requested to p resent a ? ve? oint Likert scale for each item of the 12 activities. The scales are de? ned as: 1 = not considering the activity at all; 2 = planning to consider; 3 = considering currently; 4 = partially implementing; and 5 = implementing successfully. The average score for all 12 items was used to represent the company’s LGSCM. In a similar way, the average score for the items of each GSCM category was used as the level of practice of that category. Independent Variables Recalling the section on ‘Development of Analytical Framework and Research Hypotheses’, the determinant factors behind companies’ adoption of GSCM activities include external pressures and internal factors. As listed in panel B of Table 2, ? e external pressures and three internal factors are classi? ed. In a similar way, a ? ve? point Likert scale was used to measure the importance, strength or degree of each factor: 1 = not at all; 2 = to some degree; 3 = moderate; 4 = relatively high; 5 = very high. The score for each factor was used to estimate its relationship with LGSCM. The only exception is for FCLIENT (pressure from foreign customers). The company’s export ratios were used as the proxy for this variable. It is assumed that the higher a company’s export ratio was, the higher the Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 8 Xianbing Liu et al. ressure from foreign markets that would be felt by the company. The export ratios were classi? ed into four levels in the questionnaire format with consideration of easier responses from the surveyed companies. Control Variables Two more variables are introduced into the analytical framework as the controls. One is company size and another is the industrial sector to which it belongs. The existing literature suggests that larger companies are more likely to be under public scrutiny and are expected to have a higher propensity to be involved in innovative environmental practices (Hettige et al. , 1996). Larger companies are also likely to have superior resources for environmental activities.Companies with higher environmental sensitivity are more willing to improve their environmental performances. Panel C of Table 2 lists the methods for evaluating control variables. A natural log of the turnover in 2008 was used to represent a company’s size. A company’s industrial sector af? liation is classi? ed into two types, with ‘1’ referring to environmentally sensitive industries (ESI) and ‘0’ being non? ESIs. ESIs in China include mining, thermal power, construction materials, pulp and paper products, metallurgy, petroleum, brewing, fermentation, textiles, pharmacy, tanning and chemical industries (SEPA, 2003). The others are classi? ed as non? ESI.Results and Discussions Result for GSCM Practices of the Companies SPSS was used for the statistical analysis in this study. Cro nbach’s ? was calculated in order to test the consistency reliability of the values given to the items of GSCM activities. The estimated ? for all 12 items is 0. 912, which is higher than the 0. 9 that would imply a high validity of the dataset constructed. An exploratory factor analysis was performed on the 12 GSCM items to ? nd if there are different dimensions of these activities. Two factors were extracted. However, the ? rst factor accounts for 49. 9% of the variance in total and the second only accounts for 11. 6%.The rotated component matrix of the factor analysis is listed in Table 3. All the items relating to external GSCM practices (GA4 to GA12) are highly associated with factor 1. The results for internally proactive environmental activities (GA1, GA2 and GA3) are not clear since they have nearly equal loadings on both factors. The factor analysis result proves the rationality of using the average score of all the classi? ed GSCM items (LGSCM) as the dependent vari able for the regression analysis in this study. Table 4 gives a statistical summary of the scores of the de? ned GSCM activities. LGSCM of the respondents achieved an average score of 3. 9, indicating that Chinese companies are still at a very preliminary stage in their GSCM items 1 GA11 GA12 GA10 GA5 GA9 GA6 GA7 GA8 GA4 GA1 GA2 GA3 0. 814 0. 803 0. 779 0. 767 0. 749 0. 747 0. 730 0. 725 0. 691 0. 578 0. 490 0. 500 Component 2 ? 0. 119 ? 0. 107 – 0. 273 ? 0. 271 – 0. 321 ? 0. 303 0. 207 0. 492 0. 622 0. 583 Table 3. Rotated component matrix of factor analysis of GSCM items Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China 9 GSCM practices. The surveyed companies have started to implement internally proactive CEM activities to some degree (averaged at 3. 41–3. 93).Most of them plan to think about or are considering the environmental activities which would be jointly practiced with external actors in the supply chain. As examples, GA6 (provide education and technical assistance for suppliers) and GA8 (work closely with suppliers in product design) only obtained average scores of less than 3. 00. Nevertheless, slight improvement was observed in this study compared with the previous survey conducted in north China by Zhu and Sarkis (2006). This change may be attributed to the different location of the study areas. As described earlier, the region for this study has a relatively developed economy, and the companies there may be performing better on the environment than those in other areas. The surveyed companies react differently to the classi? d GSCM activities. Figure 2 provides details of the score distribution of GCSM activities practiced by the respondents. Many companies are implementing certain proactive Categories and items of GSCM activities Internal proactive environmental activities (C1) GA1 GA2 GA3 Environmentally preferabl e procurement (C2) GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7 Environmentally conscious design (C3) GA8 GA9 GA10 Supplier? managed inventories and services (C4) GA11 GA12 Overall level of GSCM practices (LGSCM) Obs. 158 159 160 160 159 160 159 160 162 153 159 159 156 157 158 158 148 Mean 3. 60 3. 41 3. 51 3. 93 3. 38 3. 84 3. 47 2. 76 3. 48 3. 32 2. 93 3. 45 3. 54 3. 11 3. 10 3. 2 3. 39 SD 1. 07 1. 49 1. 35 1. 14 1. 01 1. 16 1. 19 1. 27 1. 27 1. 04 1. 30 1. 22 1. 27 1. 23 1. 24 1. 33 0. 91 Min. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Max. 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 Table 4. Statistical summary of GSCM activities of the surveyed companies One 100% 90% 80% Two Three Four Five Ratio of the score 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% GA1 GA2 GA3 GA4 GA5 GA6 GA7 GA8 GA9 GA10 GA11 GA12 Items of GSCM activities Figure 2. Distribution of the scores of company’s GSCM activities Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 10 Xianbing Liu et a l. internal CEM practices.Nearly 70% of the surveyed companies are reusing byproducts and other generated waste to some degree. Around half of them are making efforts to achieve ISO14001 certi? cation and are pursuing a cleaner production audit. The companies are selective about those GSCM activities requiring cooperation with external actors on the supply chain. About 70% of the respondents are asking their upstream suppliers to provide cleaner materials or products to avoid possible environmental risks. The number of companies which arrange internally environmental education for their procurement staff and work closely with their suppliers for waste minimization is also around 50%.Another item of GSCM activity practiced relatively better by the companies is to provide product? related environmental information for their clients. However, most of the companies do not supply technical assistance to their suppliers. About 65% of the companies have not taken any action concerning envi ronmentally conscious design with their suppliers. In summary, the surveyed companies’ GSCM activities are obviously due to individual business needs and bene? ts from their own perspectives. GSCM is still a new concept for most Chinese companies. More time is needed for them to recognize the importance of strategic cooperation with other members of the supply chain. In? epth GSCM practices within a wider scope would be adopted if companies could unite as a group with a shared strategy on business and environmental issues. Descriptive Statistics of the Other Variables Table 5 summarizes the variables describing the determinant factors of GSCM activities. Companies gave higher scores to the pressures from external stakeholders. Among the external pressures, the regulative requirements and domestic client’s environmental expectations are viewed as highly important, achieving an average score of 4. 41 and 4. 29, respectively. Keeping up with competitors in the same sector is also regarded as an important factor (averaging 4. 08). The sampled companies usually carry out internal environmental training two or three times a year.The education level of employees is relatively low, probably because most of the companies are from traditionally labor? intensive industries. An average score of 2. 87 is presented for top managers’ support, which implies that company managers do not care much about GSCM efforts. This ? nding shows for a fact that the managers of Chinese companies do not seriously considering environmental activities other than basic compliance. Regarding the control variables indicating company characteristics, most of the samples are small and medium? sized. Large companies, with an annual turnover of more than 300 million Chinese yuan (CNY), only account for 7. 4% of the total.Small enterprises, which have fewer than 300 employees or yearly sales of less than CNY 30 million, account for 64. 2%. The remaining 28. 4% are medium? sized companies. According to the classi? cation criteria of the Chinese national environmental authority, half of the samples are categorized as ESI (49. 1%). The other half is non? ESI. Most of the respondents (71. 4%) process raw materials or produce components for downstream manufacturers. Result of the Relationship Between LGSCM and the Determinant Factors Pearson rank correlation was used to give a preliminary observation of the relationships between the overall level of GSCM practices and the determinant factors identi? ed earlier. The correlation matrix is shown in Table 6. ThisVariables and abbreviations REGULATORY DCLIENT COMPETITOR COMMUNITY FCLIENT TSUPPORT EDUCATION TRAINING Obs. 156 156 152 162 150 159 160 159 Mean 4. 41 4. 29 4. 08 3. 88 2. 46 2. 87 3. 30 4. 15 SD 0. 75 0. 86 0. 85 1. 73 1. 27 1. 35 1. 03 0. 75 Min. 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 Max. 5 5 5 5 4 5 5 5 External pressures Internal factors Table 5. Statistical summary of the determinant factors Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China LGSCM LGSCM REGULATORY DCLIENT COMPETITOR COMMUNITY FCLIENT TSUPPORT EDUCATION TRAINING 1 b 0. 195 a 0. 361 a 0. 391 ? 0. 083 0. 022 0. 113 a 0. 441 a 0. 559 REG.DCLIENT COMP. COMM. FCLIENT TSUP. EDU. 11 TRAINING 1 a 0. 395 a 0. 506 0. 035 0. 041 b ? 0. 176 b 0. 197 a 0. 477 1 a 0. 538 0. 008 0. 064 ? 0. 105 b 0. 354 a 0. 447 1 a 0. 038 0. 055 ? 0. 085 a 0. 238 a 0. 395 1 ? 0. 015 a ? 0. 471 0. 037 0. 150 1 ? 0. 086 0. 073 0. 139 1 ? 0. 041 ? 0. 073 1 a 0. 421 1 Table 6. Correlation coefficients of LGSCM and the determinant factors a Correlation is signi? cant at the 0. 01 level, two? tailed. b Correlation is signi? cant at the 0. 05 level, one? tailed. indicates that LGSCM is signi? cantly correlated with the external pressure variables DCLIENT and COMPETITOR, and internal factors like EDUCATION and TRAINING.Standard multiple regressions were performed wi th LGSCM as the dependent variable and each of the determinant factors and controls as independent variables. The results are listed in Table 7. The level of multi? collinearity between the variables was tested by an inspection of the condition index and variance proportions in the SPSS collinearity diagnostics table. According to the criteria given by Tabachnick and Fidell (2001), multi? collinearity is not a problem in this analysis since each condition index is less than 30 and the variance proportions are much less than 50. The regression result in Table 7 indicates that Ha is supported in general.Among the external pressures, DCLIENT and COMPETITOR are signi? cantly and positively associated with LGSCM at P = 0. 000. This implies that domestic clients’ environmental preferences and competitors’ green strategies for differentiation are major external drivers for companies to adopt GSCM activities. One more external factor which has a slightly positive correlation w ith LGSCM, signi? cant at P < 0. 01, is REGULATORY. Government regulations were believed to be dominant forces for CEM in the past since a company’s environmental strategies are imposed coercively via environmental sanctions (Delmas, 2002). However, this study classi? ed GSCM practices as those beyond basic environmental compliances.The governmental requirements may become a relatively minor factor for the adoption of GSCM practices. No signi? cant associations are found between the other two external pressures, COMMUNITY and FCLIENT, and LGSCM. The surveyed companies greatly valued the pressure from their neighboring communities. However, community pressure cannot account for a company’s GSCM efforts, probably because the communities mainly complain about the environmentally illegal activities of companies rather than lobby for proactive efforts such as GSCM practices. The pressure from foreign clients is not strongly felt by manufacturers in the current phase. Regard ing the internal factors, Hb1 is not supported. The support of top managers is not found to be signi? antly associated with a company’s LGSCM in this survey, which is in contrast to the result of Carter et al. (1998). Nevertheless, Hb2 is fully con? rmed. The two variables representing a company’s learning capacity, education level of employees (EDUCATION) and frequency of internal environmental training (TRAINING), are signi? cantly and positively associated with LGSCM at P = 0. 000. This result is identical to that of Zhu et al. (2008), which con? rms the hypothesis that the extent of GSCM practice engaged in by Chinese companies is positively related to the level of organizational learning capacity. Result of the Mediating Function of Internal Factors The egression result of LGSCM and the determinant factors in the previous section con? rm the causal chains existing between each of the three external pressures (REGULATORY, DCLIENT and COMPETITOR) and two internal fa ctors (EDUCATION and TRAINING) with LGSCM. Signi? cant relationships are found between each of the three external pressures and each of the two internal factors, as shown in Table 8. The t? statistic of all the regressions is greater than 2. 00. Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 12 Variables entered (a) REGULATORY ? 0 REGULATORY LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (c) COMPETITOR ? COMPETITOR LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (e) FCLIENT ? 0 FCLIENT LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (g) EDUCATION ? 0 EDUCATION LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 708 0. 374 0. 151 0. 178 1. 846 5. 721 4. 592 1. 299 18. 884 0. 294 0. 067 0. 000 0. 000 0. 196 1. 804 0. 033 0. 156 0. 253 4. 026 0. 544 3. 959 1. 573 5. 281 0. 097 0. 000 0. 588 0. 000 0. 118 0. 409 0. 356 0. 155 0. 258 0. 859 4. 224 4. 457 1. 772 13. 382 0. 226 0. 392 0. 000 0. 000 0. 079 0. 497 0. 266 0. 176 0. 293 0. 851 2. 760 4. 856 1. 960 9. 673 0. 169 0. 397 0. 007 0. 000 0. 052 Coef? cient t? statistic P? value Variables entered (b) DCLIENT ? 0 DCLIENT LSIZ SECTOR F? alue R2 (adjusted) (d) COMMUNITY ? 0 COMMUNITY LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (f) TSUPPORT ? 0 TSUPPORT LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) (h) TRAINING ? 0 TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) ? 0. 310 0. 597 0. 128 0. 126 1. 803 ? 0. 021 0. 167 0. 278 1. 507 0. 041 0. 177 0. 260 0. 439 0. 342 0. 147 0. 322 Coef? cient Xianbing Liu et al. t? statistic P? value 0. 896 3. 890 4. 172 2. 210 12. 583 0. 214 0. 372 0. 000 0. 000 0. 029 3. 117 0. 840 4. 452 1. 680 7. 112 0. 123 0. 002 0. 402 0. 000 0. 095 4. 695 ? 0. 341 4. 018 1. 765 6. 188 0. 109 0. 000 0. 734 0. 000 0. 080 ?0. 726 7. 001 4. 031 0. 955 26. 249 0. 370 0. 469 0. 000 0. 000 0. 342 Table 7.Regression results for LGSCM and each of the determinant factors According to Baron and Kenny (1986), a third condition has to be met in order to con? rm the mediating function of internal factors as hypo thesized in this study. The signi? cant relations between the external pressures and LGSCM shall be strongly reduced if the internal factors are controlled. We tested Hc by repeating the OLS regressions in three steps. In step 1, LGSCM is individually regressed against each of the three external pressures which have signi? cant relations with LGSCM. In step 2, each of the three pressures and EDUCATION, as an internal factor, jointly enter into the regressions as independent variables.In a similar way, step 3 is carried out by substituting the variable of EDUCATION by TRAINING. The regression results are listed in Table 9. The robustness of the result was checked by doing the regressions with the control variables added for each case. The corresponding regression results are described in Table 10. There are no obvious changes in the signi? cances of the regression results listed in Tables 9 and 10. The mediation function of internal factors does occur and Hc is supported. In the case of introducing the internal factors into regressions, the signi? cances of external pressures to LGSCM are all reduced signi? cantly or even removed completely.This implies that the low level of GSCM involvement of Chinese companies could be fundamentally attributed to a lack of the necessary internal capacities for GSCM practices. The strong pressures Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China Variables entered Coef? cient t? statistic P? value Coef? cient t? statistic 13 P? value (a) EDUCATION as dependent variable ? 0 REGULATORY F? value R2 (adjusted) ? 0 DCLIENT F? value R2 (adjusted) ? 0 COMPETITOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 2. 131 0. 268 4. 409 2. 479 6. 145 0. 033 3. 806 4. 671 21. 819 . 0120 5. 280 2. 982 8. 894 0. 050 0. 000 0. 014 (b) TRAINING as dependent variable 2. 014 0. 83 6. 196 6. 667 44. 445 0. 222 8. 689 6. 144 37. 748 0. 195 9. 751 5. 216 27. 211 0. 1 50 0. 000 0. 000 1. 503 0. 421 0. 000 0. 000 2. 451 0. 396 0. 000 0. 000 2. 125 0. 288 0. 000 0. 003 2. 727 0. 350 0. 000 0. 000 Table 8. Regression results of internal factors and external pressures with significances to LGSCM Variable entered Coef? cient Step 1 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Step 2 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Step 3 t? statistic P? value (a) REGULATORY as the independent variable ? 0 REGULATORY EDUCATION TRAINING F? value R2 (adjusted) 2. 331 0. 241 5. 126 2. 367 0. 000 0. 019 1. 502 0. 146 0. 375 3. 358 1. 540 5. 338 17. 416 0. 89 0. 001 0. 126 0. 000 0. 747 –8. 783E? 02 0. 728 5. 601 0. 031 1. 699 ? 0. 895 7. 580 32. 931 0. 312 0. 092 0. 372 0. 000 (b) DCLIENT as the independent variable ? 0 DCLIENT EDUCATION TRAINING F? value R2 (adjusted) 1. 637 0. 407 4. 237 4. 619 0. 000 0. 000 1. 077 0. 286 0325 2. 813 3. 319 4. 634 22. 731 0. 236 0. 006 0. 001 0. 000 9. 139E? 02 0. 174 0. 612 21. 331 0. 124 0. 220 2. 206 6. 622 35. 351 0. 328 0. 826 0. 045 0. 000 (c) COMPETITOR as the independent variable ? 0 COMPETITOR EDUCATION TRAINING F? value R2 (adjusted) 1. 675 0. 423 4. 776 5. 031 0. 000 0. 000 0. 978 0. 319 0. 338 2. 787 4. 010 5. 101 27. 949 0. 279 0. 006 0. 000 0. 00 0. 100 0. 226 0. 570 25. 314 0. 147 0. 251 2. 811 6. 342 36. 265 0. 337 0. 802 0. 006 0. 000 Table 9. Regression results of LGSCM for mediating function test Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse 14 Variable entered Coef? cient Step 1 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Step 2 t? statistic P? value Coef? cient Xianbing Liu et al. Step 3 t? statistic P? value (a) REGULATORY as the independent variable ? 0 REGULATORY EDUCATION TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 497 0. 266 0. 851 2. 760 0. 397 0. 007 ? 0. 197 0. 194 0. 357 0. 162 0. 190 ? 0. 355 2. 177 5. 270 4. 99 1. 375 15. 139 0. 310 0. 723 0. 031 0. 000 0. 000 0. 172 ? 0. 220 ? 0. 029 0. 611 0. 125 0. 128 ? 0. 419 ? 0. 294 6. 159 3. 811 0. 944 19. 319 0. 368 0. 676 0. 769 0. 000 0. 000 0. 347 0. 176 0. 293 4. 856 1. 960 9. 673 0. 169 0. 000 0. 052 (b) DCLIENT as the independent variable ? 0 DCLIENT EDUCATION TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 439 0. 342 0. 896 3. 890 0. 372 0. 000 0. 008 0. 212 0. 322 0. 144 0. 214 0. 018 2. 453 4. 573 4. 373 1. 552 15. 598 0. 317 0. 986 0. 016 0. 000 0. 000 0. 123 ? 0. 638 0. 137 0. 540 0. 124 0. 153 ? 1. 343 1. 592 5. 842 3. 883 1. 139 20. 317 0. 380 0. 182 0. 114 0. 000 0. 000 0. 257 0. 147 0. 322 4. 72 2. 210 12. 583 0. 214 0. 000 0. 029 (c) COMPETITOR as the independent variable ? 0 COMPETITOR EDUCATION TRAINING LSIZ SECTOR F? value R2 (adjusted) 0. 409 0. 356 0. 859 4. 224 0. 392 0. 000 ? 0. 237 0. 275 0. 329 0. 148 0. 168 ? 0. 511 3. 472 4. 911 4. 592 1. 236 17. 453 0. 345 0. 610 0. 001 0. 000 0. 000 0. 219 ? 0. 742 0. 183 0. 524 0. 127 0. 124 ? 1. 589 2. 268 5. 753 3. 994 0. 928 21. 233 0. 393 0. 115 0. 025 0. 000 0. 000 0. 355 0. 155 0. 258 4 . 457 1. 772 13. 382 0. 226 0. 000 0. 079 Table 10. Regression results for robustness test of the mediating function from external stakeholders do not necessarily lead to GSCM in reality. More speci? ally, REGULATORY is completely mediated by the two internal factors, while DCLIENT and COMPETITOR are only partially mediated. This indicates that the adoption of GSCM practices of Chinese companies is probably more responsive to non? coercive and competitive factors such as pressures from the domestic clients and leading companies in the same sector. This interesting ? nding also con? rms that governmental regulations in China do not play an active role in encouraging industrial practices in GSCM. In addition, the greater reduction of signi? cances in step 3 than in step 2 demonstrates that the variable of TRAINING is indeed potent as an intermediate variable.The internal environmental training of related employees may strongly enhance a company’s capacity to deal with external pressures by being proactive in environmental management such as GSCM practices. Conclusions This paper explores the current status and determinant factors of GSCM practices adopted by companies located in the Yangtze River Delta of China. The surveyed companies perform slightly better than the companies sampled in a Copyright  © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment Bus. Strat. Env. 21, 1–16 (2012) DOI: 10. 1002/bse Green Supply Chain Management in China 15 previous survey in North China (Zhu et al. , 2008). However, the overall level of GSCM practices does not differ dramatically. This con? ms that Chinese companies are still at a preliminary stage of GSCM practices. In particular, the companies’ environmental management in cooperation with external members of the supply chain is very marginal. Among a larger range of determinant factors classi? ed in this study, external pressures from domestic clients and competitors are signi? cantly and positively ass ociated with LGSCM while the regulatory pressure shows slightly positive in? uence. Learning capacity of the company signi? cantly determines LGSCM as an internal factor. Differing from the result of Zhu et al. (2008), the support of top managers has less in? uence on GSCM activities.These results are consistent with those of Jeppesen and Hansen (2004), which attributed the environmental improvement of Third World companies on the value chain to external market forces and the internal resources of the companies. Another meaningful ? nding of our analysis is that the internal factors are greatly mediating the in? uences of external pressures. Our analysis may provide essential policy implications for promoting the GSCM practices of companies in China. Many more concerns about a company’s environmental performance from its external stakeholders will be facilitated, which may generate pressures for the company’s efforts in GSCM practices. It is very necessary to educate c ompanies to better understand the advantages and approaches of GSCM as an innovative strategy for sustainable production.The diffusion of successful cases would be an effective method, as it helps increase a company’s capacity to actually adopt GSCM practices. As an empirical study of GSCM in China, this paper develops a comprehensive analytical framework and conducts an integrative analysis. Nevertheless, a few questions remain for subsequent studies. As examples, the working mechanism of determinant factors identi? ed for GSCM practices needs to be observed in more detail. 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History of Carphone Warehouse plc Essay

The Carphone Warehouse Group plc; also known as The Carphone Warehouse (or ‘The Phone House’ in the rest of Europe), is Europe’s largest independent mobile phone retailer, with 2144 retail stores across Europe. They sell both contract mobile phones and pay as you go mobile phones and now tablets, such as the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab and also E-Readers. The head office of The Carphone Warehouse Group plc is based in London, United Kingdom. At the current moment in time, The Carphone Warehouse is doing an upgrade in most of the retail stores. They are changing the products they sell, to include Laptops and Game Consoles; however these products are still available at other stores but only with contract phones and not to pay outright. These new stores are called ‘Wireless’ stores as they are meant to represent the future of the home with wireless technology such as the Sonos music system. There are currently only 20 of these stores in the UK and Milton Keynes is one of the 20 stores. In each ‘Wireless’ store there is a 3rd party company called Geek Squad, which in the UK is half owned by CPW plc, which is technical support and insurance used by The Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy UK. Ethos, House Style and Existing Publications The Philosophy of Carphone Warehouse is: As a new generation retailer, we aim to exceed our customer’s expectations by providing an innovative approach to service. To stay at the front of this dynamic and rapidly moving industry, we constantly develop new ideas and services for our customers. These do not always come from the top and we rely on people throughout the business to maintain our high standards. By incorporating new ideas in retailing and new technologies, we have created a stimulating and rewarding environment for all of our employees. The ethos of The Carphone Warehouse is to provide a friendly customer service while meeting the technical needs of the customer in regards to mobile phones, tablets and laptops. This is done through the employees of the company who are all friendly and have been on an extensive customer service training course for two days either in London, UK or Preston, UK. The Carphone Warehouse uses many different ways to communicate to the general public and their staff. The main way in regards with its customers is in the monthly magazines. The company also sends out a report to the shareholders every 6 months and an end of year financial report every year. Also everyone who works in the company has a business card which is personalized to them while meeting the company’s house style. The monthly magazines are A4 size and consist of 36 pages. In the magazines the logo is always at the top left corner of the page; with the date in the opposite side. On the bottom of most of the pages have the phone number and website, so the customer can find it easily and quickly; and also the page number in the same size and text font. Most of the other documents, like letters and business cards have the Carphone Warehouse logo in the top right corner of the page. On the top left corner of the page is the Queen’s Coat of Arms. The background of the logo is a Dark Blue which the colour code: red 11, green 40 and blue 80. The light blue underline is made from: red 121, green 209 and blue 206. The white text is made from: red, green and blue at 255. The sizes of the business cards are the same size as a credit/debit card so that they fit into a person wallet easily. On the back of the business cards is writing saying the â€Å"5 fundamental rules† of Carphone Warehouse Group plc. This is how things should be done at Carphone Warehouse and every employee MUST stick to the rules. However in the current database, the house is nonexistent as the house style used in the database doesn’t match the rest of the company’s house style. User Requirements Background The current problem with Carphone Warehouse’s database is that the functions the database can do has been changed so much that old functions are still on the database but do nothing. Another problem with the current database is that the system is often slow due to the fact that the computer has to load function that does not work anymore. Because the database was built over several years, not all parts of the system works together, so the user of the database has to copy data from one database to another which can take time. Expected Outcomes/ Aims and Objectives The expected outcomes from the new database is to be able to keep a record of all the customers at Carphone Warehouse with the handsets bought and the member of staff who sold the product. This will enable managers to see which member of staff has been selling the most amount of phones on which network. The data can be entered manually with a keyboard or a barcode scanner which will save time on entering the IMEI and ESN numbers as these numbers tend to be 16 and 19 digits long. The keyboard will also need to be used to enter other key information such as the customer’s details and the customer consultant’s name. This data input is necessary to be able to capture the information needed by The Carphone Warehouse, which is needed for manufacture’s warranty. Security is a big part for any database especially in retail and with dealing with such high personal information. To be able to access any part of the database the employee would need to log onto the system with their username and password. Every member of retail staff would be able view, add and amend each customer record to ensure that the company complies with the Data Protection Act (DPA). Managers would have a higher level of access as they would be able to add or remove lost/ stolen products from each stores stock list. To help improve the company’s performance, the data base will need to be able to print out internal reports about each store and each customer consultant. This will enable managers to see what phones they have been selling and which sales assistant has been selling the most phones. Also the database will need to make invoices for the customers to keep as their record of their purchase. User Interface Requirements The user interface of the current database has a dark blue background with a light blue for popup menus. All text shown on the database is shown in ‘Calibri’ with key information in yellow and other text shown in the light blue. This user interface of the new database needs to be updated and kept with the house style of the company, as the current database (shown in the image to the right0 does not comply with this style. From just looking at the current datbase, it is not clear that the database is for The Carphone Warehouse as there is no logos shown anywhere. The new database would contain the company logo and colours in keeping with the house style of the company. Currently the way to move around the database is to use the function keys on a special keyboard produced for the company where instead of the standard 12 funcations where is 24 function keys. Each function key will do a different task within the database, and as the name of the keys are rubbed away it become sdifficult to remember which key does what, therefore the new database will not have to use of the function keys but instead use buttogoogns on screen where the user will click the button which the mouse or for future developments, the buttons could also be clicked via a touch screen monitor. Hardware For the database to run on the computers used by The Carphone Warehouse, the computers will need to have the minimum specification of the following: †¢Processor needs to run at 500 MHz or higher †¢RAM 256MB or higher, †¢Hard Disk Drive ((HDD) Storage) 2GBs or higher. As the database is used more and more, the HDD will need to be increased to be able to store the growing in size database. †¢Monitor display resolution of 1024 Ãâ€" 768 †¢Operating System (OS) Windows XP or higher Also the computer monitor could be a touch screen; this will increase the speed of which the user moves around the database. Also needed is a plotter printer, to print out customer’s invoices. The reason for this printer and not a laser printer is because a cheap black and white printer is used just for printing out invoices and nothing more. In the back office a colour printer could be used to print out reports for the managers of the store. Employees will also need a handheld scanner to scan product barcodes such as IMEI’s from the phones. Entity Relationship Diagram This is the most basic form of an Entity Relationship Diagram showing that many customers can buy many phones and the same phone model can be bought by many customers. This Entity Relationship Diagram shows that each customer can have many transactions and each phone model can be in many transactions. However this does not allow a transaction to have many phones. After some time of thing of changing tables, I believe this would be the best system to record all transactional data including the employee who has sold the product. This Entity Relationship Diagram shows what I want the new database to hold data about. This shows that many customers, employees, phone models and sim cards can be in many transactions. This Entity Relationship Diagram is in its simple form. The actual database will also include a temporary Customers table where customers details are enter in the temporary table first before being moved to the customers table. Phones will also be broken into two different tables; the first table will be for the IMEI’s of the phones and the second will be for the Phone Model. This also applies to the Sim Card table, where there will be a table for the ESN and one for the Networks. Design Design of Inputs Data Dictionary and Normalisations Database Key is Primary Key is Foreign Key Field NameData TypeFormatDescription of the FieldField LengthValidation CheckField Required Table Name: tbl_Transaction / tbl_Transactiontemp Transaction Number Auto NumberIntegerNumber if the transactionN/APresence CheckY Lead Number NumberIntegerCustomer numberN/AYes against in Customer table, Presence CheckY Staff Username TextN/AEmployee who sold item8Yes against in Employee table, Presence CheckY Phone ID TextN/AMake and model of phone15Yes against in Phone table, Presence CheckY IMEI NumberIntegerSerial number of the phone16Yes against in Phone table, Presence CheckY ESN NumberIntegerSerial number of the sim card16Yes against in SimCard TableY Payment ReceivedCurrencyCurrencyAmount paidN/AFormat check, Presence CheckY Payment TypeText‘LLLL’Payment type – ‘Cash’ or ‘Card’4Format check, Presence CheckY DateDate/ TimeXX/XX/XXDate of purchase8Presence CheckY TimeDate/TimeXX:XXTime of purchaseN/AY Field NameData TypeFormat / Input maskDescription of the FieldField LengthValidation CheckField Required Table Name: tbl_Customer / tbl_Customertemp (†¦ means continue until reach length of field) Lead Number Auto Number (Number tbl_Customer)IntegerCustomer numberN/APresence Check, Y TitleText>L