A Visit to a Fair Essay

A fair means a periodical gathering in some open place. I had got the rare opportunity of visiting the Baliyatra Fair in Cuttack. The fair was held on the full moon day in the month of Kartika. The fair is conducted every year on the bank of the Mahanadi. Thereby we commemorate our sea-trade with other countries in past. I had been to the fair with four of my friends. On our way to Cuttack, we discussed many things about our racial past. The Sadhavas of the then Kalinga were known for their richness and caliber in trade. They set sails for Java, Sumatra, China, Ceylon (Srilanka), Borneo, Indonesia, Rangoon for trade. They exchanged their goods for jewels and gold. The sea-trade does not exist now. So we float toy-boats down the stream to remember our past-glory. We reached the fair-in the evening. The place of fair was overcrowded with children, men and women. Men of different occupations had assembled there. Goods of various kinds had been brought to the Baliyatra for show and sale. People amused themselves in a great variety of ways. Some people had come to dispose of their articles. Some had come to buy and some for sightseeing. Mostly the people were from the neighboring villages. The fair continued for about a week. The place was full of stalls made of straw and bamboo. The place was spacious and there was proper sanitary arrangement. The stalls were full of fancy goods. They were giving a gorgeous look. Many people were coming to those stalls. They were in festive dress too. The dealers in shops dealt in various goods. It was a rare occasion for me to see those beautiful stalls. It relieved of my monotony. The vendors sold toys and ballons for children. There were horse-wheels and merry-go-rounds for children too. The volunteers and scouts from the high schools of the town took prominent part in controlling the crowd. There was enough enthusiasm amongst the villagers in holding the fair. We had some snacks and tea in the fair. In the fair there was display of skill in craftsmanship. We had an opportunity to visit a circus there that evening. We also purchased a few filigree works and horn works of Cuttack. Of course the prices of those articles were high. Still the people were purchasing those-things because they loved their rich tradition. A note worthy feature of the fair was that children were arguing with their guarding ns to purchase balloons and dolls in the fair. They pulled the sarees of their mothers and emended the balloons and sweets. It was an opportunity for the businessmen to reap profits. However, in book-stalls, books were being sold on rebate. I purchased a few books on Oriya literature. The police were alert in the fair to provide security to the visitors. There was fear of pick-pockets, theft and loss of goods, money and ornaments. Loudspeakers had been arranged at different places in the fair to warn the people of antisocial elements and black-marketers who sold stale sweets. The Baliyatra is a grand fair in Orissa. The visit to this fair is still afresh in my mind.

Boeing Changes the Nature of Its Business with Global Collaboration Essay

Boeing, the $55 billion Chicago-based aerospace company, has been a major player in the global economy for almost a century. But now the company is undertaking a far-reaching transformation as it uses cutting-edge materials and electronics and high-level technology for the design and assembly process of its new passenger plane –the Boeing 787. The new plane, nicknamed the â€Å"Dreamliner,† is Boeing’s bid for market leadership in competition with Airbus. The new midsize passenger jet will have an outer shell and about half of its parts made of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic, which will make it lighter and give it better fuel economy. In January 2006, the company had 291 firm orders and 88 commitments from 27 airlines for the new 787, which will seat from 250 to 330 passengers in varying configurations. The list price is about $150 million per plane. The previous state of the art in aviation manufacturing was to have global partners work from a common blueprint to produce parts-actually, whole sections of the airplane-that were then physically shipped to a Boeing assembly plant near Seattle to see if they fit together. Prior to the 787, wood mock-ups of planes would be constructed to see if parts built by partners around the world would really fit together. When the process failed, the cost in time and production was extreme. Boeing’s shift goes beyond making planes faster and cheaper. The new business model takes Boeing from manufacturing to a high-end technology systems integrator. In 2004, Boeing’s IT systems people were consolidated into the Boeing Technology Group. Now parts are designed from concept to production concurrently by partners (including companies in Japan, Russia, and Italy) and â€Å"assembled† in a computer model maintained by Boeing outside its corporate firewall. Boeing’s role is integrator and interface to the airlines, while the partners take responsibility for the major pieces, including their design. Boeing still takes the hit if the plane fail and deliveries are late, but the actual cost of development and manufacturing is spread across its network of collaborators. At the same time, building such global relationships may help the company sell its planes overseas. The biggest savings are the time saved through the online collaboration process (from 33 to 50 percent), creating a huge competitive advantages. Collaboration is a necessity for Boeing for several reason. Airplanes are huge and enormously complex. Politically, sales of a â€Å"global product† are enhanced when people in other countries are building parts of the airplane. Companies in these countries may then buy from Boeing. Basic collaboration is done through information-flow tools such as Microsoft Office and SharePoint. Boeing and partners are using Dassault Systemes 3D and Product Lifecycle Management solutions. Other IT tools used are a product suite from Exostar LLC, with which Boeing can share two-dimensional drawings, conduct forward and reverse auctions, and respond to RFPs, and an application called Catia. The plane is designed at Global Collaboration Environment, a special online site maintained by Boeing. There levels of collaboration are facilitated between teams and companies. In the first level-design collaboration- all parties involved log in and make their changes electronically in the blueprints, and the team works together. Quality is improves because the computer finds the mistakes. The next level involves suppliers working with their supply chains. The third level is real-time collaboration involves a considerable amount of product lifecycle management across multiple countries enabled by technology that differentiates Boeing’s new model from the previous kinds of global relationships. Boeing also uses the new partnership to solicit ideas of how to improve designs, integration, and so on. This results in cost-cutting. Boeing maintains 10 multimedia rooms at its Everett, Washington, complex for the use of collaboration teams. These are open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. A visualization application developed by Boeing allows the teams to do real-time design reviews of complex geometry without any Lag time as the models load. Meetings are conducted in English, with sidebar conversations, as needed, in a team member’s native language. Collaborative design also speeds the design process, helping Boeing to avoid expensive penalties from its customers if the plane is not delivered on time, and it gives the company more flexibility in simultaneously designing multiple versions of the 787 that are part of its wide-ranging appeal in the marketplace. Finished designs are stored in another Dassult product, Enovia, which is also maintained by Boeing. This has become an enormous data-management task. The issue of security has also been a concern; however, security technology has developed to the point that the security of the information is assured. Collaboration across cultures and time zones can raise a host of issues about the way people work together. The adjustment of management practice to the networked, team-oriented approach is important to consider when redesigning human resources practices to meet virtual resource needs and when developing a custom-tailored collaboration platform.

Characterization in “Charles”

Laurie’s lies In the story â€Å"Charles† , Shirley Jackson vividly creates an entertaining main character, Laurie, through a description of his own looks, clothing, his own words, and actions. Shirley Jackson shows Laurie as having three main personality traits. Laurie can be best described as rude, impish, and disruptive. Early on in this story Laurie shows us his rude behavior when he starts kindergarten. Laurie is rude to everyone. He is rude to his teacher, his dad, and his mom.He says to his dad â€Å"hey pop you old dust mop†. That’s rude most dads would have slapped him. Laurie shows another trait later on in the story â€Å"impish†. He got in trouble and the whole class stayed to watch what would happen. He also makes up this character Charles he tells his mom that â€Å"Charles does whatever he really does at school. † That is just some really impish attitude. Laurie also has a third trait disruptive. Laurie disrupts the whole class a lot in this story. He tells a little girl in his class to say a bad word. † The little girl did and got in trouble. Then Laurie goes ahead and says the word himself and gets in trouble. That shows disruptive behavior. In our world today kids are the same. They all do stuff to get attention. This story will bring to parents attention how their kids act when they are not around. All kids today can have the same characteristics as Laurie does rude, impish, and disruptive.

Legal aspect of the gas and oil industry Coursework

Legal aspect of the gas and oil industry - Coursework Example A country with natural resource (usually oil and gas) allows companies to explore areas for oil and gas. When the enterprise generates revenue through oil exploration it first covers the expenses such as materials, machinery, and operational costs. The rest is the profit that is usually split in 20/80 ratio. The 20% share goes to the company, and the government takes the remaining 80% share. This is still highly profitable for companies. Contractual arrangements are divided into two main categories; service contracts and production sharing contracts. The difference between the two depends on whether or not the contract receives compensation in cash or in-kind (crude) (Johnston, 1994). Generally speaking, both contracts are referred to as production sharing contracts (PSC) or production sharing agreement (PSA) because of the commonalities. The Philippine government alternatively refers to their contractual arrangements as either a service contract (Johnston, 1994). The oil community does a similar thing but ordinarily calls it a PSC. The PSC is a risk service contract because the contractor pays a fee for conducting exploration and production operations. The contract of the century is a term used for a PSA between 11 major oil companies and Azerbaijan for exploration of oil in this region (Ciarreta & Nasirov, 2012). This form of contract is highly feasible for developing countries. The petroleum fiscal systems in the majority of developing countries are opting for PSCs (Pongsiri, 2004). Settings of PSC are not unique or a recent invention. Upon analysing the spirit of the contract, it would seem quite similar to the agreements already in existence in places like Indonesia. For this reason, it was much easier to implement the terms of the PSC for oil exploration in Indonesia. The country already had the concept of â€Å"crop sharing† between the farmers and the landlords that

Business questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Business questions - Essay Example As Jones & George say, consumption and investment rates are highly dependent on the economic aspects and the political scenario respectively (128). The political force, in my opinion, is the major determinant of successful business transactions. Political forces determine whether a society will be peaceful and stable enough to allow for investment. As Lynch indicates, the Chinese would benefit from venturing into the U.S markets as there are fewer trade barriers, alternative energy sources are in plenty, as well as the Chinese are better placed to learn new technologies that could benefit their home markets (1). With the Chinese shifting a lot of focus in the U.S markets, Lynch is of the opinion that U.S.A. will gain from job creations by the Chinese. The Chinese companies have sustained investors with loans, which is shifted to U.S economy (Lynch, 1). With the IMF expecting the Chinese outward investment to augment, the U.S assets are slowly gaining prominence among the Chinese buyers. The U.S markets and economy will automatically grow, while back at home, the Chinese manpower is grabbed by the world’s superpower (Lynch,

Art History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 6

Art History - Essay Example Roy Lichtenstein is a pop artists and contemporary of Andy Warhol. He used parody using old-fashioned comic strip. He was a teacher before venturing to Pop art based on commercial images such as advertisement painting focused on bard-edged figures. His 1961 Look Mickey used Be-Day dots or a technique comparable to Pointillism (Lobel, 33). Since then, he has produced more art works combining oil or Magana paint exemplified in Drowning Girl and the pop art diptych Whaam! He has influenced other DC comics artists (Lobel, 60). Liechtenstein is an iconography in pop art that until today amaze collectors and contemporary comic book fans. While he may be regarded by some as quite commercial for his techniques and use comic-style graphics, he is one artist to reckon with. Charles Atlas is a filmmaker and video artist. In his online biography, Charles Atlas came from St. Louis, Missouri and born in 1958. Video art uses the video tape as a statement of exploration on the medium or against commercial, entertainment video and may not have any logical presentation or narrative plot except for juxtaposition of images and scenes (Knight, 49). Atlas worked both on stage, screen, museum, and television and also had video installation works. He is considered to have pioneered the â€Å"media-dance, a genre in which original performance work is created directly for the camera† (PBS, P 2) and worked with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company for ten years. He collaborated with choreographers, dancers, and performers such as Yvonne Rainer, Michael Clark, Douglas Dunn, Marina Abramovic, Diamanda Galas, John Kelly, and Leigh Bowery. His four-hour montage â€Å"Television Dance Atlas† on Dutch television used dance styles of ballet, burlesque, and figure skating (PBS P 3). His video installation â€Å"The Hanged One† used rotoscopes, motorized mannequins, and theatrical lighting and may be considered evolving in its various presentations. He

Code of the Street Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Code of the Street - Essay Example As a result, mainstream institutions such as the law, are experienced and interpreted through a different lens. This essay will critically analyse and reflect upon Anderson's code for the purposes of determining both its validity and viability. The code of the street is defined as "a set of prescriptions and proscriptions, or informal rules of behavior organized around a desperate search for respect that governs public social relations, especially violence" (Anderson, 1999: 9). Within the code people operate under a "threat of vengeance" which acts as a shield to violent encounters (Anderson, 1999: 10). The code is "a set of informal rules governing interpersonal public behavior, particularly violence" in inner-city neighborhoods (Anderson, 1999: 33). It is residents' form of "law" or their "street justice" (Anderson, 1999: 10). The code thus is an alternative system to the middle-class norm. While it may be difficult for outsiders to evaluate the validity of the state due to lack of lived experience with street life, one can safely assert that Anderson's analysis rings true insofar as it appears to stem from the very nature of social systems' rules and regulations. Any social setting is governed by a set of rules which mu st be strictly followed should one wish to negotiate his/her way through the system in question and interact with members therein. The street, according to Anderson, is no different. Proceeding from the above stated, it is necessary to point out that in any social setting, self-esteem is important, as is its preservation. The street is no different. In inner-city communities, respect is key to one's self-concept and as such, the code prescribes "the proper way to respond if challenged" (Anderson, 1999: 33). On the street, one's reputation is highly valued and important to his self-identity. To maintain reputation, there is a constant "threat of violence" against those who may attempt to trample another's standing in the community (Anderson, 1999: 15). Anderson argues that the code regulates violence on the street as it offers approved justifications for those desiring to aggress against another. Whether or not you engage in violence, you are aware of the penalty if there is a rule violation (Anderson, 1999). The code thus is one's defense on the street. The code "provides a framework for negotiating respect" and is a "practical" mechanism for surviving on the str eet (Anderson, 1999: 134). Respect is a powerful commodity on the streets of inner-city America and is "a form of social capital " Anderson (1999: 66) Respect is premised on "being treated right" and given deference (Anderson, 1999: 33). Respect is external and must be demonstrated and seen. On the street, young Black males must constantly prove themselves often using physical violence. Once you have established yourself, respect acts like shield of protection. To maintain respect, one must have a hardened image and appear unbreakable. While life off the street emphasises respect and self-esteem, it does not prescribe violence as a means of attaining and later preserving it. In other words, societal culture and street culture have different perceptions of the meaning of respect and its determinants, despite their both outlining and highlighting its importance. Just as is the case with society in general, street society is not homogenous but comprised of different groups, cultures and

Argument Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Argument - Essay Example The incident happened between the months of January to October 2006. As early as January 2006, my cousin told me that she is getting married in October 25 of the same year. For this reason, my best friend and I planned to visit my cousin for her wedding celebration. I was really looking forward to meet my cousin for the first time aside from the fact that it will be the first time I will be able to go to Florida. For this reason, I ended up spending at least 12-hour shift at work to save money for my accommodation, food, and travel expenses. Just like me, my best friend was also eager to join me in this occasion. My best friend and I were supposed to leave town a week before my cousin’s wedding day. I was terribly disappointed when my best friend told me that she suddenly changed her mind about going to Florida because her dog was sick. Because of my disappointment, I ended up accusing her for being unreasonable for not going with me because of a dog. I was really angry at her for breaking our plans. I personally believe that it is rude to break something that you have committed yourself into. I feel that my best friend’s dog is more important than I am. I am her best friend. I simply couldn’t believe that she is prioritizing her dog over me. Isn’t she supposed to prioritize me over a highly domesticated animal? Because of my anger, I did not bother to speak to her for more than a week. Some of our common friends noticed the distance between me and my best friend. For this reason, our common friends decided to patch things up between me and my best friend. A week after the wedding celebration, my best friend and I ended up talking over a cup of coffee. She told me that she really felt bad for breaking our plan to go to Florida. She explained that the real reason why she could not go is because she was very shy to tell me that she was not able to come up with enough

Discipline Investigation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Discipline Investigation - Essay Example This discipline investigation helped me to understand the role of the project manager in an organization as a well as the requirements of the position. The paper will expand on the interviewee’s background, career path as well as his responsibilities and roles as a project manager in an organization. Interview Summary Background and Career Path The subject of the interview is called Dr Sridar, a senior project manager at Cisco Company. Dr Sridar has also taught at San Jose State University for over twelve years and worked for over six years at the Cisco Company. Initially, before joining the Cisco Company as project manager, Dr Sridar has served in various institutions. Sridar started as an ordinary employee in the company before working hard to attain an administrative position. Dr Sridar later became the assistant project manager in the company before becoming a full project manager. His past experiences gave him the required experience in dealing with issues that affect the project management department. ... Needed The 6 years experience in management position has proved to be effective in advancing Dr, Sridar’s experiences and competencies in his management roles. In his management responsibility, Dr. Sridar makes maximum use of past work experiences, skills, and competencies on information technology network management, Information technology project management and Information technology business intelligence. Dr. Sridar was motivated to work as a project manager in the Cisco Company by different conflicting reasons. To begin with, Dr. Sridar had over the years acquired adequate knowledge in business management. The management position in the Cisco Company gave Dr. Sridar an opportunity to do more research and learn more on business operations and management. Dr. Sridar is highly motivated by his desire to acquire more knowledge on information technology invention, and innovation. In his career path, Dr. Sridar’s interest to join Cisco Company as a project manager was mot ivated by his endless desire to work in a competitive and popular company in the country. However, despite being invited to work in big companies, Dr Sridar had a strong desire to work in the company. The interviewee’s current job was motivated by his personal initiative as well as his past knowledge and experience. Before joining the management position in the Cisco Company, one is expected to have certain essential skills, competencies, and experiences. A project manager in the Cisco Company is expected to have a post graduate degree in business management. The manager should also have the ability to conduct relevant and valuable research relevant in the company’s operations and goals. The Cisco Company’s project manager should have the interest and capability of arguing and thinking in a

The Good and Bad of Audi Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Good and Bad of Audi - Case Study Example The founders then moved to Ingolstadt in Bavaria and formed the Auto Union in 1949, with loans from the Bavarian state government and Marshall Plan aid. In 1969 Audi Union merged with the world's largest motorcycle producer, NSU - the company was now known as Audi NSU Auto Union AG. Audi emerged as a separate brand. Then Volkswagen introduced Audi 1970 models to the United States. Nowadays Audi is a global developer and producer of high quality cars with production sites in Germany, Hungary, China, Belgium and India. In 2008, Audi sold a total of 1,003,000 cars, setting up a record for the thirteenth consecutive year. Audi is a premium member of the Volkswagen Group and it is interesting to note that technologies are first introduced into the mass market in Audi vehicles. Thereafter they conveyed to the more value oriented brands such as Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda. Audi is aware of the fact that consumers do not buy cars for rational reasons. Therefore, Audi moved ahead as a serious competitor in the global luxury segment in the early 1990s and now offers a wide variety of premium vehicles, the most famous of which is the Audi TT, launched in 1999. This car was designed for people with passion. There were other Audi models that appealed to the emotions, like the Audi A8, which was launched in 2003. In 2004 Audi launched the S4 convertible with a soft top and a 4.2 litre V8 engine for outstanding performance. The Audi A6 was also launched in 2004 and was extremely competitive in the executive segment. A more recent technology introduced by Audi is that of the Fuel Stratified Injection (FSI) engines and the quick shifting dual-clutch gearbox (DSG). Currently, Audi is launching the most efficient standard sized sedan, the A4 2.0 TDT e with fuel consumption of 4.6 litres per 100 km and a carbon dioxide exhaust emission of 119 grams per hundred kilometers. This sedan features stop/start technology and a brake recovery energy system and comes with low resistance tires. QUALITY PROBLEMS In 2003 and 2004 the Volkswagen group ordered massive recalls involving various brands. One of these cases was a recall of 850,000 vehicles of VW, Audi, Skoda and Seat with 1.8 litre turbo engines, V5, V6 and V8

Database Administration -2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Database Administration -2 - Essay Example The database administrator would have the above given skills in order to perfectly perform his/her roles and responsibilities to manage the information system database in an organization. It is pertinent to mention here that these are the basic and fundamental skills of a database administrator; therefore, the database administrator must have these skills in addition to the specific skill set requirement of the organization (CWJOBS, n.d). The database is considered accurate if the values stored in the fields of the database are correct. As the organizations rely and presume that the information that is input into a database is faultless as well as accurate. Therefore, the design of the database should be accurate and reliable that will not only help to achieve new business ideas, but also play vital role in promoting the organizational goals. It is sure, if the data gathering and storing process is malfunctioning, the established data will be incorrect as well; this process is known to be as Garbage in Garbage Out (GIGO) (Rushinek & Rushinek, 1985). Updated and current data have been always important for any organization; therefore, the stored data has to be updated and current with respect to the requirements of the organization. The end users of the database have to be aware of any variation of a standard update schedule of the database. Real-time information is one of a key component of timeliness. A DBMS system contains metadata i-e data about data, in other words the data and a full explanation of the data. The explanation of the data includes: how data would be accessed, what are the data formats and record structures. On the other hand, the file processing approach is contrasted to this approach, whereas, the structure and format of data and records are required to be known to the application programs. The changes in the database i-e change in data format, change in index structure or entering a new field etc. are reflected in the catalogue; therefore,

Different Massage Modalities Essay Example for Free

Different Massage Modalities Essay Massage modalities have been around since ancient times and have evolved with the recognition that touch combined with the natural defense and healing processes of the body is a restorative, maintenance and preventative treatment that counters the wear and tear effects of strenuous physical activity involved in day to day life. Most of the modalities discussed in this paper are of Western origins. The basic difference between Western and Eastern techniques lies in how they view the body and its functioning. Western massage therapies treat the body as a physical structure, like a machine, which over time and along with human activity wears down. The â€Å"parts† suffering from damage and malfunction are â€Å"repaired† through massage therapy. Eastern therapists view the body as the interaction of the energies in the universe and a pattern of energy channels or meridians. Injury and illness are seen as obstructions or discrepancies in these channels. Thus the goal of massage therapy is to restore the normal, balanced and unimpeded flow of energy within the energy meridians. Eastern massage therapies include TuiNa, shiatsu and Thai massage. Whatever paradigm one clings to, it is a fact that all types of massage therapy brings unparalleled benefits to the human body and mind and effective alternatives to existing medical treatments for pain and other body ailments. List of references http://www. acupressureschool. com/east_or_west. html Swedish Massage Swedish massage is the classic or traditional form of massage in the United States developed in Europe in the early 19th century by Pehr Henrik Ling, a Swedish gymnastics instructor. Ling’s system was based on his classification of the massage forms used by ancient Greeks and Romans. Swedish massage is characterized by 5 fundamental strokes: effleurage – gliding, petrissage – kneading, friction – rubbing, tapotement – pounding and vibration – shaking, where each stroke contributes particular benefits. The use of French terminology for these strokes was popularized by Johann Mezger, a Dutch physician who advocated the use of Swedish massage as a medical treatment. Massage therapists have developed their own versions of Swedish massage based on these basic strokes. The principal aim of Swedish massage is to increase the circulation of blood and oxygen without giving the heart an additional work load. Strokes are made following the movement of blood as it flows towards the heart resulting in smoother circulation which purges the body tissues from accumulated toxins such as lactic or uric acid, natural by-products of metabolism. The secondary purpose is to induce the relaxation of superficial muscles by rubbing them against deeper muscles and bones. Stretching the tendons and ligaments make them supple and pliant. In the process, the skin and nerves are equally stimulated. Swedish massage promotes complete relaxation and reinvigoration from the general stresses of daily life through its positive effects on the nervous, circulatory, endocrine and the musculoskeletal systems. A typical full-body massage takes an hour or more to complete and is accompanied with the use of oils and lotions. List of references http://www. findamasseur. com/swedish-massage. html http://www. mamashealth. com/massage/sweed. asp Deep Tissue Massage Deep tissue massage is used as a rehabilitative treatment to muscle pain in constantly tense and compressed areas of the body such as the neck, back and shoulders. It is recommended for those recovering from injuries such as whiplash or falls as well as postural problems, repetitive strain injury (e. g. the carpal tunnel syndrome), fibromyalgia, ostheoarthritis pain and muscle tension or spasm. Chronic muscle tension occurs when there are adhesions or bands of painful, stiff and contracted muscles resulting in the inability of smooth blood circulation in the area, inflammation and constrained physical movement. Deep tissue massage serves to break down adhesions and bring the muscles back to their normal state easing the pain and restoring unhampered movement. A combination of Swedish and Thai massage strokes are used but performed slower and with more intense finger pressure localized on the areas of pain in order to align the deeper muscles, tendons and myofascia (connective tissues), layer by layer. Penetrating movements involve compression along the length of the muscle fiber and cross fiber friction as well. The knuckles, elbow, fist and forearm are also used by massage therapists in the process. It is expected that there may be pain during and after the massage and it is helpful for the therapist if the client voices out when the strokes are beyond their comfort zone. Pain normally subsides in a few days and applying ice on the area is recommended for relief. List of references http://altmedicine. about. com/od/massage/a/massage. htm http://drdavedc. com/deep-tissue. html http://www. amtamassage. org/about/terms. html http://www. tealcenter. com/modalities. shtml#Anchor-NEUROMUSCULAR-24500 Trigger Point Therapy Trigger point therapy is also known as myotherapy or neuromuscular therapy. This massage modality was introduced by Janet Travell and David Simons and developed around the theory that pain is caused by myofascial trigger points which are tiny contraction knots that form in a muscle once it is injured or subjected to too much stress. Muscles are made up of sacromeres, tiny units that alternately contract and relax in a synchronized fashion during body movement enabling blood circulation. Trigger points develop when sacromeres overlap and become entwined. Blood flow is impeded in the immediate area and the oxygen shortage results in the accumulation of metabolic wastes which irritate the knotted sacromeres. These trigger points send out pain signals, not from its actual site but from another part of the muscle or body, hence the concept of referred pain. Trigger point therapists say that it is ineffective to treat muscle pain where it hurts. One has to look for the site of the trigger point and apply therapy there to guarantee successful treatment. Travel and Simons reveal that headaches, neck and jaw pain, low back pain, tennis elbow, and carpal tunnel syndrome can be attributed to trigger points and that they are also the causes of pain in the shoulder, wrist, hip, knee, and ankle joints that is so often mistakenly diagnosed for arthritis, tendinitis, bursitis, or ligament injury. Trigger points also display other seemingly unrelated symptoms such as dizziness, earaches, sinusitis, nausea, heartburn, false heart pain, heart arrhythmia, genital pain, and numbness in the hands and feet. Even fibromyalgia is said to have its beginnings with myofascial trigger points. Using mainly finger pressure, trigger point therapy releases the interlocked sacromeres into a state where they are neither contracted nor stretched. Typical therapy lasts between 3-10 days in order to achieve marked results. In treating chronic conditions that have also persisted over long periods of time, results can be achieved in a span of 3 weeks. List of references http://www. amtamassage. org/about/terms. html http://www. triggerpointbook. com/triggerp. htm Therapeutic Bodywork Therapeutic bodywork is a modality that combines Western and Eastern massage practices with emphasis on establishing harmony between mind and body. Stress, injury, traumatic experiences and anxiety affects not only the mind but also the body. This form of massage aims to bring about complete relaxation of both spheres by reinstating the natural flow of energy, with particular consideration of the breathing pattern. Massage strokes using the palms and forearm in long, rhythmic flowing movements alternating light and deep pressure, holding and stretching relieves the body and mind of deep seated tensions giving a sense of completeness, wellness, reinvigoration and freedom. Touch facilitates the innate body processes involved in self healing and should be treated as a maintenance therapy for the prevention of dysfunction in both body and mind brought about by daily stresses in life. List of references http://www. bodywork-Londonvienna. co. uk/phdi/p1. nsf/supppages/1702? opendocumentpart=2 http://www. therapeuticbodywork. co. uk/therapies_holistic. html Sports Massage Sports massage is utilized both for treatment of muscle stress after intense physical activity (post-event) or for muscle conditioning before engaging in it (pre-event). Thus, it decreases the chances for injury while increasing performance levels and mobility. It also promotes a positive mindset with the release of body endorphins and a relaxed state after activity. Strokes intended for athletes include vigorous manipulation, assisted stretching for muscle warm-up prior to strenuous movement and soothing manipulation to ease muscle contractions and promote blood circulation after physical exertion. If injury occurs, focused massage movements are applied to lessen muscle inflammation, facilitate recovery and prevent scar tissue formation. There are massage techniques aimed for particular body areas and also particular injuries. Specifically, sports massage can render the following physiological benefits: 1. Improved tissue permeability deep pressure massage strokes enable constricted tissue membranes to open up and allow vital body fluids to enter and for metabolic waste products such as lactic and uric acid to be flushed out. The entry of much needed nutrients and oxygen through the blood enable muscles to heal faster. 2. Thorough stretching of muscles massage stretches muscles, ligaments and tendons in a way that can not be achieved using traditional methods. Muscles are stretched lengthwise and crosswise. Massage also stretches the myofascia, or the thin membrane that holds muscles together, thereby releasing tension there. 3. Restores tissue elasticity grueling training can cause tissues to become rigid and inflexible. Massage can make overworked tissues pliant and elastic. 4. Promotes micro-circulation massage facilitates smooth blood flow to tissues by expanding blood vessels in order for oxygen and nutrients to pass through unhampered. The development of classic or Swedish massage techniques into a modality that was appropriate for athletes’ conditions and needs began in the early 1900’s in Finland, specifically in the Finnish School of Massage.

Lucozade SWOT and PEST Analysis

Lucozade SWOT and PEST Analysis Introduction: Lucozade is a recognised brand name known for its energy and sports drinks. The brand is an important product in the portfolio of GlaxoSmithKline PLCs (GSK), a global pharmaceutical company with sales of  £24 billion in 2015 (GSK, 2015, P.1). Lucozade was launched in 1927 as a medicinal syrup, until 1985 (Ward, 2009) when it was marketed as a mainstream drink, differentiating Lucozade as a perfect product to aid customers in their physical activity (Schuna, 2015). Since its launch, the Lucozade formula has been developed into many different forms from gels to edible tablets illustrating the versatility and strength of this brand and developing the brands portfolio. Lucozade has been around since the early 1920s and over the last 90 years has become one of the leading brands in the energy drinks market, however there are other strong energy drinks competitors in the market such as Gatorade by Pepsi and Powerade by Coca-Cola launched in 1965 and 2001 respectively (Zuccaro, 2015). Although these drinks came onto the market at later dates, the companies backing them are giant companies and global brands with a lot of financial strengths including large profits for re-investment, supplier bargaining power, large economies of scale and technological access, all of which allow them to pose a real threat to Lucozade. More recently, there are numerous other companies that have also taken out supplement brands including SIS and Clif that are aimed at smaller, niche markets to capture the lucrative opportunity of the energy market (Hanrahan, 2009). This report will critically examine Lucozades micro environment strengths and weaknesses and the macro envir onment which are the opportunities and threats. A PEST analysis is done as Porters five forces analysis. 1.2 SWOT Analysis: A SWOT analysis is a marketing tool that allows for managers to assess the companys strengths, weakness, opportunity and threats. Albert Humphrey claims it is a strategic planning technique that organisations can implement for their products and services when deciding on the best way to achieve future growth (Fair, 2005, pp.7-8). Strengths: One of the major strengths of Lucozade is that it is a well-known, established sports energy drink within Britain. It is also one of the leaders in the energy drinks market, and has a presence in numerous other international markets as well, including USA where it has sponsored many sports events (Wenner Jackson, 2009, pp.3-16). Another strength of Lucozade is its branding, Consumer brand knowledge can be defined in terms of the personal meaning about a brand stored in consumer memory, that is, all descriptive and evaluative brand-related information. (Keller, 2003, P.370-371) Lucozade has a very famous and strong brand with high level acceptance among energy drinks consumers acceptance since 1920s. The company is well- recognised for their innovation and consistent development and testing on their products to help consumers with their energy and performance. Lucozade has tried over the years to differentiate itself from other brands as a reliable company in the energy and sports drink market, which resulted in customers acknowledging it as a strong brand. The brand tries to reciprocate this by creating and continuing special relationships with their clients which leads to long term loyalty, making the brand much stronger. Social factors seem to be more in favour with individuals undertaking more physical exercise for health reasons (Cunningham, 2010). The ultimate goal for the brand Lucozade is to create an actionable audience which is done by developing an online community which can help Lucozade expand their business and sell more products to regain their number one position in the energy drinks market. Lucozade have collaborated with Spotify to allow them to widen their target market to promote and sell their products. According to Crimson Hexagons study in 2013, 15% of Lucozade consumers use it as a cold and hangover remedy. This is a valuable insight for Lucozade as it is trusted to help customers function with their daily lives after drinking too much and being ill. If customers are consuming Lucozade as a cold remedy, then there is a potential for marketing to target new customers through promoting this message in their advertising campaigns, maybe through using some real testimonials. Over the years Lucozade has expanded their range of flavours, currently offering 12. In 1996 they introduced the orange flavour which become the most popular and has increased revenue to  £75 million. They also innovated to create Lucozade energy, which has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of tea (Ward, 2009) targeting the customers that need a short term caffeine boost, without overriding negative effects. David Taylor (2004, p1) thinks expanding products is the cheapest and the least risky strategy compared to making a new brand (differentiating) and can increase the sales of the companys products. Lucozades effective forward planning in its product development was evident when the company introduced Lucozade Zero in 2016 after UK imposed a sugar tax on soft drinks. This product has proven popular as the sales increased by 58%, capturing the market that are looking for sugar-free energy drinks. (Lucozade Ribena Suntory, 2016) Weaknesses: Lack of awareness of a brand can cause issues that customers will not recognise the company in the future and move to their competitors.   (Nicholls, 1989, p. 31) The main weakness of Lucozade is the fact that there is not enough advertising in print media and television, especially in the USA comparing to Powerade and Gatorade, (Jarvie,2012). If Lucozade wants to continue grow internationally it needs to invest in marketing efforts to increase the awareness of the brand globally. This will prove useful if the market becomes saturated in the UK, and will help Lucozade become a globally established brand on par with its large competitors. Lucozade has 0.1% of ethyl (alcohol) which has ruined the image of Lucozade among certain groups of people who consume it as it is an energy drink not an alcoholic drink (BBC, 2004). In order to overcome this, Lucozade should look to develop an ethyl-free version to ensure that customers are not put-off the benefits of drinking Lucozade. Although this will require further capital to be invested in lab work and development of the formula, in the long term if it captures the market it can be a worthwhile investment into product development. Another weakness can be seen through the fact that the company has a relatively low number of followers for their Twitter and Facebook accounts of just over 58,000 and 600,000 respectively. Having a low presence on social media can be worrying in this day and age, as other top companies have moved to advertise themselves on social media since the number of Facebook users has reached two billion and Twitter has four hundred million users (Statista, 2016). Although expanding the product range can be advantageous, it can be a disaster for some companies as Aaker claims (2004, p211-214) products expansion can weaken the existing product which means the new items sale is increasing while the older products are outdated and have less demand for the original product. This cannibalising impact on sales of original products can end their life cycles and can reduce customer loyalty if new products are constantly added to the range. Opportunities: In USA people tend to attend sports events and there are various sports activities that people get involved in, therefore, many people consume energy drinks to gain strength, and boost their energy (Shilbury, Westerbeek, and Quick, 2014, p. 7). Lucozade has the opportunity to expand its market and can take advantage of this growing market to show the brands strength by offering its different varieties of energy drinks. Lucozade can use their established brand name as a strength to capture the opportunities available in the US market through the marketing budget offered by their parent company GSK (GlaxoSmithKline A. Report, 2010, p.6-11) which should be able to offer a large advertising budget and produce effective promotional campaigns to establish a strong presence in USA. There is an increased awareness of the economic potential of sport which results in an increase in activity levels around the world. China, an emerging country has a large portion of the younger generation which make it ideal expansion opportunity for Lucozade.   The Chinese market are apt users of social media, which if Lucozade can tap into, could prove to be a valuable opportunity. Hanrahan (2009) states that due to technological advancements being high in contemporary time, Lucozade has the opportunity to access the technologies with ease, following on from effective market research and investment into their social media platforms. If Lucozade want to pursue Ansoffs market penetration growth strategy instead of market development, UK is still presenting them with good opportunities. According to research performed by Mintel Group (2016), in the last three months of 2015 showed that one in four Britons have used sports nutrition products, which means 42% of men aged between 16 and 24 have used sports nutrition spending  £66 million. Lucozade should take this into account by increasing their products and marketing approach to target the consumers to use their drinks by introducing healthy ingredients. Their marketing message need to incorporate the idea that the drinks can be used as medicine to keep hydrated as it helps to replace electrolytes (Lucozade Ribena Suntory, 2016). Their message can focus on urging consumers to drink more energy drinks instead of alcohol, by increasing the awareness of the dangers of alcohol on their body, to avoid liver damage, hangover- free and the dangers of drinking and driving . Thus there is a potential for Lucozade to enter new markets like bars and night clubs, especially after introducing Lucozade zero which has no calorie and comes in different social flavours. Another opportunity for Lucozade is to capture the caffeine beverage market and become a substitute for drinkers of tea and coffee. As mentioned above, a 380 ml bottle of Lucozade has the same amount of caffeine, so it can be a replacement for tea and coffee, while Lucozade can advertise themselves as a better replacement because of the nutrition that the drink has in it. The price of Lucozade is too expensive based on survey made by Mintel group (2016), this is important as pricing strategies are internal decisions that Lucozade can control. Decreasing the price can help the company to attract more customers, but this has to be done in way that explains to people that the effectiveness of the drink has not changed, but the price has dropped down. This could compromise their profit margins, but can be a benefit in the long term if demand for their products increase. Threats: Lucozade faces fierce competition from three major energy drinks companies which are Powerade, Gatorade and Red bull. These energy drinks products mainly rely on young male customers, that have come to rely on these drinks. If the energy drinks market is seen as targeting just the younger male market segment, it could potentially put off the older lucrative market from purchasing these products. Lucozade can address this problem through their marketing campaigns. The fear of recession is one of the main threats that all companies are scared of as it affects all types of businesses. According to economists the UK economy is yet to recover from the 2008 financial crisis and yet the economy is further set for uncertainty following the 2016 Brexit decision. Uncertainty reduces customers purchasing confidence and inflation is set to increase over the upcoming years. This will reduce customers disposable income which could lead to the sales of energy drinks to decrease. Since Lucozade has been late on to the social media promoting platform, it may be too late for it to capture the opportunities its competitors have established through their large marketing budgets.. PEST Analysis: A PEST analysis is an analysis of the external macro-environment that affects all firms. P.E.S.T. is an acronym for the Political, Economic, Social, and Technological factors of the external macro-environment. Such external factors usually are beyond the firms control and sometimes present themselves as threats.  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   (NetMBA, 2002) Since it is an analysis of the external environment, thus it is broader forces affecting all organisations in a market (Chaffey et al., 2008, p. 49). These aspects need to be examined in order to analyse Lucozades environmental market situation. Political environment: National and international rules and regulation have an impact on how companies run. To apply that the EU has forced Lucozade to warn families that their product may contain artificial colouring and additives which are linked to behavioural issues in children which can cause hyperactivity. Lucozade has labelled this warning on their packaging to avoid the legal issues than can ruin their image. (Hickman, 2010) The UK has imposed tax on sugar in soft/energy drinks which is set to come into effect in 2018, this was the reason why Lucozade introduced Lucozade Zero in March 2016, it is a sugar-free and calorie-free version that will avoid this tax and attract a new market segment. However, the old products will still get taxed, which can cause the price to increase, reducing the demand for the products depending on its price elasticity (Matthews, 2016). The main political criticism of Lucozade is that it contains an unhealthy amount of sugar and caffeine. This has caused trouble to one of its main competitor Redbull, which led to it getting banned in Norway and Denmark. Lucozade has addressed this by introducing healthier versions in to their product portfolio. Lucozade has suffered some legal issues, one of which was the banning their 2014 TV advert. Lucozades multimillion advertisement which presented Real Madrid and Wales player Gareth Bale was banned from the EU after claiming hydrates is better than water: Lucozade Sport gives you the electrolytes and carbohydrates you need, hydrating you, fuelling you better than water, according to the advertisement. (BBC, 2014) The wording of their claim was criticised, and ruled that it was an unclear message to the audience. This financial loss was significant, making customers question the validity of their claims. There are other political factors that can affect Lucozade such as the obesity law in the UK which the government blames on the inclusion of additives, artificial colouring and sugar, all these can cause problems for some of Lucozades products. Climate protection laws and controlling the amount of water that Lucozade can use, according to environment agency (2016, p.14) Lucozades sustainable policy the company is regulating their usage of water to reduce wastage. They claim to be investing in pumps and other machinery to enhance their production process and have committed to increase their CSR activity to enhance the impact they make on the community. Although Lucozades target market is aged between 16 and 24, there are some children under 16 who have been buying energy drinks from supermarkets. Gavin Partington, director general at the British Soft Drinks Association (BSDA) says the energy drinks companies are failing to protect young people and they have been drawn into energy drinks. Thus there are many debates to set age-restriction on energy drinks too as they might affect the behaviour of children (Qvist, 2016). Economic environment: Lucozade is affected by a set of factors that are out of the companys control. Those factors include tax rates policies like imposing tax on sugar in energy drinks. Many of Lucozade energy drinks have a high amount of sugar this will, have a negative impact on the company. Another impact is the economic growth of countries where Lucozade is being sold, as the increase of the GDP can lead to the increase of employment and increase of the income and expenditure of people, this helps businesses to produce more products, services and better standards. According to Focus economics (2016) the British economy is going well although it stopped growing well in the third quarter, based on this prediction Lucozade can take the advantage by increasing its products and focusing on what people would rather have. After leaving the European Union, Britain will be more open to the worlds investment as it will be free from EUs restrictions. This is an opportunity for Lucozade to open to more to the coming investors from all around the world. (Bourne, 2016). Also exchange rate has an impact on businesses, the exchange rate means the price of one pound can buy foreign currency, therefore it has an effect on importing and exporting products.   Since the pound dropped after leaving the European Union in 2016, the prices of the imported products have gone up. However, Lucozade suppliers are mainly in the United Kingdom, this can be good for exporting, as the price of the products that get exported has decreased. Thus price of Lucozade has dropped for those who buy it from the UK, thus more products of Lucozade will be required from abroad, this can help to penetrate the market. (campaign Magazine, 2016). Sociocultural environment: Sociocultural examines the progress and improvement in a whole society, the effect of the populations structure and demographic, attitudes, life style, people tastes and demand, and the problem that the society face privately and publicly (Brassington and Pettitt, 2006, p. 850). Lucozade is influenced by the socio-cultural environment, as most of its consumers are male aged 16-24 and the life style of those men is heavily influenced by the media according to Mintel group (2016) research. This research showed that people tend to look after their body more due to the effect of media which shows healthy, toned bodies of celebrities which has made society become more conscious about the way they look and has led to nutritional and fitness trends. Lucozade did not ignore the fact that peoples life styles have changed and the new trends that have emerged. The company believes that Lucozades largest strength will be to use celebrity endorsements to exploit these opportunities mentioned above and make it an even stronger brand. Lucozades brand endorsers include sports personalities such as Gareth Bale and Ashley Young, who have participated in campaigns. The IBF Heavyweight World Champion boxer, Anthony Joshua is their most recent celebrity endorser, promoting the b rand to the keen, fitness market (Celebrity Group, 2016), showing Lucozades response to the trends. According to Ferrel et al (2016, p220) Lucozade is taking advantage of using the current trends and lifestyle which has targeted those who are enthusiastic about sports and fitness. This has helped to split the market into different groups and found more about what the different groups needs. Latest study from Mintel group (2016) shows that men are more interested in taking up sport activities than women. Also 72% of men aged between 16 24 and 54% aged 29 45 consume energy drinks, which shows that energy drinks are more popular among young men, in attempt to attract female market Lucozade launched an advert in 2014 the iconic figure of a female at a party and keeps on moving drinks Lucozade to gain more energy WHAT? Were they trying to attract the female market? (Argyle Green, 2014). Lucozade introduced Lucozade zero which is calorie free (Lucozade, 2016) aimed at people that tend to have a healthy lifestyle especially women according to Rodrick (2016). Besides that, diabetes and obesity have become common in the world, as USA has the highest level of obesity in the world, thus energy drinks companies have focused on making a strategic decision to make drinks that are suitable for overweight people (Winograd, 2014). The population of people aged between 10-25 is increasing according to the latest statistics (Statistics, 2016), which presents an opportunity for Lucozade, however, China has a large portion of young people which is ideal for Lucozade to expand in if it wants to pursue a market development growth strategy. Technological environment: Due to technological advancements being high in contemporary time, Lucozade has the opportunity to access the technologies with ease, following on from effective market research and investment into their social media platforms (Hnarhan, 2009). Technology has helped Lucozade to improve the design of the new caps. According to the social media director of Lucozade Ireland, the latest caps are designed so consumers can have an easier drinking experience, it allows them to get just the right amount of liquid from the bottle and is easier to drink without having to pause. It is designed to work better during sport (Healy, 2015). Innovations such as these will give Lucozade a USP improving their brand loyalty. Technology has an impact on advertising products, especially since the number of social media users is increasing. According to Lee Odden (2008) CEO of TopRank Marketing, social media should dictate strategy as well as tactics used for reaching the desired goals, instead of implying it as a tactic du jour. This shows that social media should be incorporated in Lucozades long term media activity and used for short term advertising purposes such as their partnership with Spotify. In 2015 Lucozade launched their biggest ever marketing drive for the Lucozade Energy product, primarily advertising on TV, radio and various digital advertising media, with limited focus on the social media outlets. This weakness is illustrated through the relatively low number of followers for their Twitter and Facebook accounts of just over 58,000 and 600,000 respectively. Although there are numerous social media applications that Lucozade use to promote their products, Spotify, seems to work in harmony with Lucozade to not only bring more awareness to the numerous products but to promote the products as well.   As previously mentioned even though most brands use Facebook to endorse their products, Lucozade have used Spotify to give them more of a stronger start to promote and sell their products. For this collaboration both companies were promoting one another, for example, Spotify offered users the opportunity to win Lucozade merchandise when they selected their favourite song from the website (Smith and Mae, 2011). Porters five forces: Competitive Strategy offered a rich framework for understanding the underlying forces of competition in industries, captured in the five forces. The framework reveals the important differences among industries, how industries evolve, and helps companies find a unique position. (Porter, 2008, p.xi). According to Porter the five forces are new entry, threat of substitution, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, and rivalry. (Porter, 2008, p.6) Lucozade has a strong distribution network since GSK has expanded their range of products to cater for consumers with specific needs. Compared to other competitors, Lucozade has a dedicated website which delivers a strong online presence with plenty of engaging content intended to their target group including videos, colourful content and social media details. However, there are other strong energy drinks competitors in the market such as Redbull, Gatorade by Pepsi and Powerade by Coca-Cola. New Entrants: New entrants are the new competitors who enter the market and have the desire to gain market share, and often significant resources. As the energy drinks market is growing there is a possibility to see new competitors trying to enter this market, however, consumers tend to choose the healthier products. To reduce the threat of increased competition from new market players that are attracted through the potential of high profits, Lucozade should try to increase barriers to entry into the market. A method of doing this is by a high production-profitability, gained through economies of scale, such as purchasing and marketing. Through achieving cheaper unit costs and highly differentiated products which Lucozade has been developing through creating a variety of flavours catering for the needs of the different market, barriers to entry can be raised. Threat of substitution: Big firms may also face a stiff competition from substitute products, this happens when the product range is targeted on different customers or services (Porter, 2008, p.137). Although Lucozade is the leading energy drink, it still has to take into account the alternatives competing for this energy drink, before Lucozade introduced-zero, however, Powerade-zero and Gatorade-Zero had been introduced, those two companies are the main competitors to Lucozade.   Lucozade should take into consideration the groups of consumers and what their needs are and try to compete and stay ahead of competition instead of following them. Bargaining power of buyers: buyers play the competitors against each other by demanding high level quality of products or services at low prices (Porter, 2008, p.24). However, the consumer of this market are not sensitive to prices, those who are targeted are those who exercise and need to be hydrated. The level of buyers power is different, as it relies on the suppliers channel such as Sainsburys and Morisons that have a huge number of consumers. A problem facing Lucozade is the brand loyalty customers have to their competition. These customers are difficult to poach no matter how aggressive Lucozades marketing campaign is. Lucozade could try and buy out the smaller competitors if they want their brand to be promoted. By doing this they would also take over their competitors market shares, thus increasing their own, leading to increased profitability (Keegan and Green, 2014). Thus, Lucozade has to get the campaign execution absolutely right to avoid disgruntled customers. Bargaining Power of suppliers: the suppliers can control the buyers purchases by raising the price, reducing the quantity and especially, those who supply unique materials. This can cause loss or decreasing in profitability. (Porter, 2008, P.27). According to environment agency (2016, p.14), Lucozade owns some land to supply them with ground water, so the supplier power is low on Lucozade in this respect. However in regards to being able to purchase raw materials and packaging materials, if Lucozade buy their supplies from one main supplier then they are vulnerable to price increases which the supplier can choose. If they are buying from several suppliers, they may be missing out on opportunities to benefit from purchasing economies of scale. Rivalry: it refers to when there is another company or group who offer the same products and compete on a similar price, quality and advertisement basis as your company. (Porter, 2008, P.138) Lucozade has strong competitors which are PowerAde by Coca-Cola and Gatorade by Pepsi. These products have well known parent companies that have large budgets and industry expertise. Lucozade is less popular, as there is a lack of awareness and knowledge about it in the USA compared to Gatorade and Powerade. However, Lucozade can use their established brand name as a strength to capture the opportunities available in the US market through the marketing budget offered by their parent company GSK (GlaxoSmithKline A. Report, 2010, p.6-11) which should be able to match their advertising budget and produce effective promotional campaigns to establish a strong presence in US. Lucozade are also facing competition from companies that are bringing out energy supplement products which have a strong positi on within specific regions and groups. However, these companies are small and are susceptible to be taken over, which Lucozade may want to consider if they begin to pose a serious threat. Conclusion: To conclude, Lucozade is a market leader in the energy and sports drinks market. It is well established in the domestic market and has a strong brand developed over the last 90 years. It has many strengths including the companys large product portfolio and its innovative use of technology to enhance its products. The weaknesses highlighted in the report suggest that Lucozade need to enhance their marketing campaigns to increase their social media campaigns and be more careful with the claims they make in their advertisements, these are also presented as their opportunities. Further opportunities include developing products to attract the female market segment as the male one may soon be saturated and to develop in to emerging economies (China and India) that have a potential large young market. Lucozade are susceptible to a lot of economic changes in the economy, which they need to monitor and respond through effective forecasting and planning as these will also be problematic for th eir competitors. Lucozade are in a good position but cannot afford to become complacent in this highly competitive environment and have a lot of strategies they can explore to maintain their strong brand image.

One Is Not Born A Woman

One Is Not Born A Woman A single, short expression that poses the central feminist question about sex difference is the following: Mamas baby, papas maybe. Biology has granted women a right to genetic parenthood that no man is privileged to share. However, this expression is subject to inversion in the text, The Color Purple, which I have chosen to discuss in the light of womanism rather than feminism because the former is more inclusive than the latter. Moreover, the traditional concept of man- woman relationship/ dependency physically and ideologically is put to severe blow by Monique Wittigs concept of lesbianism in her controversial yet most famous essay, One is not born a woman. This paper aims to show the bonding between Celie and Shug through the theories put forward by Wittig. The meaning of love, companionship and sexual pleasure finds an altered form in the chosen text and proves that woman does not need a man to complete her. Keywords: intertextuality, womanism, black identity PAPER Monique Wittig is a well-known French feminist writer. In 1992, The Straight Mind and Other Essays, a compilation of essays on a variety of feminist and lesbian issues, stormed the world with its declaration of lesbians as opposed to the category of woman. The result was a book of nine essays in which she outlines her position on such issues as the category of sex, the heterosexism inherent in language and the social contract. It cajoles one to think about ones natural assumptions about gender and sexuality. According to Wittigs preface, the first half of the collection is concerned with materialist lesbianism in which she describes heterosexuality not as an institution but as a political regime which rests on the submission and the appropriation of women (p. xiii). In One Is Not Born a Woman, one of the essays in the book that I have chosen to read, is an attempt to establish a link between women fighting for women as a class, against the idea of woman as an essentialist concept. Wittig being a contemporary proponent of feminist and gay/lesbian rights, takes constructionist viewpoints of the likes of Simone de Beauvoir, that One is not born a woman, but becomes a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society: it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine. (p.1) The advantage of womanism as a theory is that it, unlike the feminist movement, brings to bear upon the woman question more than a white womans perspective in its effort at ridding the society of sexual inequality (Aldridge 127). Womanism also acknowledges the existence of the male counterpart, seeing him as an equal victim with the woman. However, it is pertinent to mention here that black women were victimized thrice in terms of racism, sexism, and economic exploitation though the womanists combat the question of racism first before the gender issue. The emphasis varies from female- empowerment to race-empowerment and Womens Liberation Movement to Black Freedom Movement (Aldridge 133, 135). Toni Cade in her 1970 anthology The Black Woman elaborates: [à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦] Over the years, things have sort of been cooled out. But I have yet to hear a coolheaded analysis of just what any particular groups stand is on the question. Invariably, I hear from some dude that Black women must be supportive and patient so that Black men can regain their manhood. The notion of womanhood they argue and only if pressed to address themselves to the notion do they think of it or argue- is dependent on his defining his manhood (Cade). The categories of sex (woman and man) essentially appropriates that one having capacity to give birth (biologically) is a woman and that it is the only creative act that determines her existence and her identity proclaiming her naturalized slavery to man as master/ oppressor. Wittig defines woman in terms of her relationship with man which takes the form of a forced residence, domestic corvee, conjugal duties, unlimited production of children etc. This applies to Celie, the protagonist of Walkers The Color Purple who contents herself with a purposeless life and is oblivious of the orgasmic pleasure until she meets Shug Avery. Essentially the patriarchal society, as Wittig asserts, strengthens the form of oppression through imaginary formation of physical features. A black is perceived as a black, therefore, s/he is a black; similarly, a woman is perceived or seen as a woman, therefore she is a woman. However, it is not because she is born that way, but because she is made to be so. Walker swept the world with her crude yet realistic portrayal of strong women characters and equally repulsive men characters in her Pulitzer winning novel, The Color Purple. Her clarion call for Black Womanism had just begun. She could not accept the idea of the White feminism speaking for women of color because she correctly witnessed the alienation of the black experience and further marginalization of texts by black feminists in the mainstream academic tradition. Her ideology of womanism first appeared in her book In Search of Our Mothers Gardens: Womanist Prose (1983), in which she attributes the words origin to the black folk expression of mothers to female children, You acting womanish, i.e. like a woman à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous, or willful behavior à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ [A womanist is also] a woman who loves other women sexually and/or nonsexually appreciates and prefers womens culture, womens emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and womens strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or non-sexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally universalistà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless. And Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender. (p. xi-xii) Feminism as a movement is exclusively for women and has as its agenda the repudiation of male hegemony. The meaning of female denotes the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) that can be fertilized by male gametes. Thus, biology can use the term female rather than girl and woman. Femininity, on the other hand, is a group of traits that have culturally become associated with women, but they do not make a woman. The patriarchy views woman as an incomplete man, the second sex, the other. But in refusing to become a woman does not imply that one adorns the role of a man since as Wittig puts it- For becoming a man would demand from a woman not only a mans external appearance but his consciousness as wellà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ one feature of lesbian oppression consists precisely of making women out of reach for us, since women belong to men. Thus a lesbian has to be something else, a not-woman, a not-man, a product of society, not a product of nature, for there is no nature in society. (p.4) She elaborates her argument further asserting that- The refusal to become (or to remain) heterosexual always meant to refuse to become a man or a woman, consciously or not. For a lesbian this goes further than the refusal of the role woman. It is the refusal of the economic, ideological, and political power of man. (p.4 ) The term gender was coined by Greek philosopher, Protagoras. Greek nouns were divided into three different classes which attributed its existence to a word meaning class or kind- masculine, feminine, and neuter (Cameron, p.89). The masculine, Jakob Grimm, a German philologist explained, means the earlier, larger, firmer, more inflexible, swift, active, mobile, productive; the feminine the later, smaller, smoother, the more still, suffering, receptive (Cameron, p.92). However, the category of woman is neither biological nor grammatical. It is a cultural construct. Womanism, on the other hand, considers the society as a collective whole and acknowledges the inter-linked fate of the black women with their men in the community. Rather than supporting separatism, Womanism promotes universalism. Womanism, like Black Feminism, provides a space for Black women and women of color to create dialogue in a non-dominative and a non-threatening environment. Womanism is not a new idea by any means; in fact there is evidence of its origins in the sacred texts of ancient Africa, especially the Husia of Egypt and the Odu Ifa of ancient Yorubaland. Concepts from the Husia such as the Divine inclusiveness of male and female principles, woman and man as the image of God and the concept of human customarily written with male and female characters in hieroglyphs indicate the belief that woman and man were equal by nature and divinely and must operate as such (Karenga 324). Wittig thus, busts the myth of woman (created by men) by questioning and agreeing to Beauvoir, that the concept of woman is wonderful, underlining women having the best of features is a judgment men have compartmentalized according to their own perception. To save one self being entrapped in such a purview is the aim of the lesbian- feminists who strive for a sexless society. In this light then the concerns of feminism too is subjected to scrutiny. Feminism contains the word femme meaning woman, fighting for women as a class or, the removal of this class. If it is so, then the movement took precedence from the acceptance of the notion that women shared common features as a result of oppression; But for them these features were natural and biological rather than social. Wittig takes upon her the daunting task of establishing the idea of lesbians as opposed to the class of woman/man in materialist terms. It does not imply that men as species should be led to extinction but to suppress men as a class through political struggle. Once this category of class disappears, says Wittig, the natural and historical division between man and woman too will vanish, for there are no slaves without masters. The political formation of class can be traced back to the ideology of Marxism which states individuals to be product of society, and that only their consciousness can be alienated not the individual herself/ himself until the class that dominates ceases to produce the ideas itself that alienates them from the class that they oppress. For instance in order to achieve a sexless society, the visible division between the bourgeois and the proletariat has to be removed first and then only can there be no-man and no-woman, but all humans society. As Wittig puts- This real necessity for everyone to exist as an individual, as well as a member of a class, is perhaps the first condition for the accomplishment of a revolution, without which there can be no real fight or transformation. But the opposite is also true; without class and class consciousness there are no real subjects, only alienated individuals.(p.10) Thus, lesbianism is the only concept that provides for a chance to create such a social form where humankind can live freely. Celies realization of herself as a woman capable of living independently without the necessity of a man in her life, springs from the unconditional love she receives from Shug Avery, another woman for The Color Purple establishes itself as a story of women by a woman. It moves away from the categories of woman and man because a lesbian is neither a man nor a woman, either economically, or politically, or ideologically. Here, Wittigs text offers some positive contributions to feminist and queer theory, in particular her deconstruction of the term woman and her focus on the power of language. As she clarifies- There is no possible fight for someone deprived of an identity, no internal motivation for fighting, since, although I can fight only with others, first I fight for myself. (p.7) In the The Color Purple the women are doubly marginalized, first as a black, seen as the other by the white, and, secondly, as a subordinate group by the men. Celie is so used to the oppression by the men around her that when her step- son Harpo complains of his wifes disobedience to him, she advises him to beat her: an alternative for her does not exist. Nettie, on the other hand, refuses to give in to the whims and fancies of the male order. She fights and carves an identity and life for her with her marriage to Samuel, a missionary. It is Shug Avery, a Blues singer, who reveals to Celie the value of independence and the assertion of a womans identity. Through the conversations and the relationship thus enforced between Shug and Celie, one can find clinching evidence of subversive textuality wherein the traditional text is undermined and hetereosexuality is challenged. The realization brings about a metamorphosis in Celie. She forgives the men in her life who viewed her as nothing more than a mule of the world. She emerges like the autobiographical Walker as a butterfly whose fiercely strong willpower makes the society and world at large celebrate her identity and individuality. As Toni Morrison maintains in Beloved, Definitions belong to the definers not the defined. Self naming and self defining is crucial. (Morrison 1987). So too, womanists like Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Patricia Hills Collins, Clenora Hudson- Weems assert authoritatively their political identity to the world, amidst the frequent conflation with the Black Feminists.

One Big Happy Family :: essays research papers

The story that I chose to write about was "One Big Happy Family," by Anndee Hochman. The story is about a young woman whose family life seemed to be the American dream, for those of us looking in from the outside. Her family owned a house in the city like most of us and a house on the beach. The house on the beach was unique with its architecture anomalies, which made the house more a mix and match of parts than like her normal home in the city. The whole family, including relatives from afar, would gather there during the summer to spend time with each other. When in actuality behind her family’s unity, was a demand for conformity to her family’s way of life and thinking. The author finally realized that in order for her to find happiness she had to look within herself and learn to listen to her feelings. Once she learns this lesson, she will be able to break the bounds of her family’s conformity and find the peace of mind that she has always longed fo r. Several of the stories throughout this chapter discuss different myths of "One Big Happy Family," however it all seems to come back to the individual, and what they believe in. Anndee’s house is unique with its red picket fence, a bathroom with two doors, bedrooms surrounded by paper thin walls, and no bedroom doors. Also a glass panel window that was built into a wall that separated the living room from the kitchen. An added feature left behind from years of construction and now disregarded but adding to the overall character of the house. These unique fixtures and anomalies were what made the trip to the house worth the voyage each year from the city. They were thrust into an alien environment completely different from what they were used to. The whole house was set up with unspoken rules that they all abided by without question. The rooms were assigned to a particular family member, group, or couples. The topics of conversation were predictable and planned to the point that they all knew what would be acceptable answers and replies to each topic they discussed. After reaching adulthood Anndee began to develop her own opinions and thoughts that did not necessarily coincide with her family’s view. Anddee began to explore her own sexuality and discovered that she preferred the company of women to that of men.

Wicca Essays -- essays research papers

Wicca/Witchcraft   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Wicca is an Old English word that means 'The Wise Ones'; or 'Keepers of Knowledge';. Wicca is one of the most ancient followings. Wicca is a Neo-Pagan following with many traditions that date to pre-Christian times. It is based on a deep respect for nature and the knowledge that we should not exploit it for our own gain. Wicca is not recognized as a religion by anyone other than its followers. Wicca is not a cult. Many Wiccans are independent and worship on their own or with a group of Wiccans, but they do not follow any one person. There are many types of Wicca, as many as 13 different traditions have been founded. One of the oldest unchanged traditions is the Strega Witchcraft. A witch named Aradia founded this tradition about 1353 CE. Two other large traditions include Gardnerian and Celtic forms. The Gardnerian tradition is based on the works of Dr. Gerald Brosseau Gardner. He researched much of the history of witchcraft and wrote The Book of Shadows with that knowledge. The Book of Shadows is used as the basis for ritual practice in the Gardnerian tradition. The Celtic Wicca is also a very old form. It is based on Celtic/Druidic practices and uses many of the Celtic deities, elements, and nature. Wiccans believe that both animate and inanimate objects possess a spirit, which forms part of the Whole, or 'The Cosmic Web';. The term spirit does not mean ghost, it means that which links something to nature so that it is rec...

Budgeting Practices and Performance in Small Healthcare Businesses

Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Management Accounting Research journal homepage: www. elsevier. com/locate/mar Budgeting practices and performance in small healthcare businesses Robyn King a , Peter M. Clarkson a,b,? , Sandra Wallace c a b c UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia Faculty of Business Administration, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada V5A 1S6 Department of Accounting and BIS, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c tWe present evidence linking primary healthcare business characteristics, budgeting practices, and business performance. Based on a sample of 144 responses from a survey of members of the Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM), we ? nd that factors identi? ed by contingency-based research are useful for predicting a business’s budgeting practices. Speci? cally, we ? nd the adoption of w ritten budgets to be related to size and structure, and for businesses using written budgets, the extent of use is related to business structure, strategy and perceived environmental uncertainty.Finally, we ? nd evidence of a relationship between budgeting practice and performance. Here, we initially ? nd a business’s performance to be positively associated with the use of written budgets. More re? ned tests of the â€Å"? t† between business contingency factors and extent of operating budget use then provide evidence of a positive association between the extent of â€Å"? t† and performance. Crown Copyright  © 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Budgeting SME Healthcare businesses . Introduction This study investigates the relationship between contextual factors identi? ed from contingency-based research, the adoption and extent of use of budgets, and business performance within the Australian primary healthcare setting. 1 We focus on budgets because they are considered to be one of the main management control systems This study is based largely on Robyn King’s Honours thesis completed in the UQ Business School at the University of Queensland.The authors would like to thank the editor and the two anonymous referees, as well as workshop participants at Monash and Swinburne Universities, the 2007 AFAANZ Annual Conference, and especially Aldonio Ferreira, Axel Schultz, Shannon Anderson and Julie Walker for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. ? Corresponding author at: UQ Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane 4072, Australia. Tel. : +61 7 3346 8015; fax: +61 7 3365 6788. E-mail address: P. [email  protected] uq. edu. au (P. M. Clarkson). Primary healthcare is the initial care of a patient as an outpatient excluding diagnostic testing; tertiary healthcare is that provided in a hospital setting. (MCS) in organisations, have been found to be the earliest MCS that a business ad opts, and continue to receive signi? cant attention in the research literature and in teaching material (e. g. , Davila and Foster, 2005, 2007; Sandino, 2007). We select the Australian primary healthcare sector as our experimental setting both because of its importance socially and economically, and because it is likely to be comprised of businesses that vary broadly in their budgeting practices.Contingency-based research proposes that there is no single MCS suitable for all businesses. Instead, the suitability of a particular MCS is argued to be contingent upon characteristics of a business including its size, strategy, structure, and also management’s perceptions of the uncertainty of the environment within which the business operates. We begin by examining the relationship between a business’s budgeting practices and these four contextual factors. In so doing, we view the development of a budgeting practice as consisting of two stages, the initial decision regarding adoption and the subsequent decision regarding extent of use.Here, the term ‘adoption’ re? ects the decision by a business to use a formal process to project its future 1044-5005/$ – see front matter. Crown Copyright  © 2009 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10. 1016/j. mar. 2009. 11. 002 R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 41 ?nancial performance (Davila and Foster, 2005). Alternatively, the term ‘extent of use’ refers to both the number of different types of budgets the business uses and the frequency of their use. In our analysis, we develop arguments for, and investigate, these two stages separately.We then turn to consider the relationship between a business’s budgeting practice and its performance. The relative â€Å"? t† of the business’s MCS with its contingency factors is argued to impact on performance, with performance increasing with the degree of â€Å"? t† (Chenhall, 2003). Thus, ceterus paribus, businesses using a practice which does not â€Å"? t†, whether by â€Å"over-budgeting† or â€Å"under-budgeting†, are expected to experience weaker performance. We argue that not all of our sample businesses are likely to exhibit â€Å"best budgeting practice† because of the dif? ulties associated with identifying and implementing best practice, and the discontinuous nature of upgrades (Luft, 1997). We examine the relation between â€Å"? t† and performance using the method proposed by Ittner and Larcker (2001) and classi? ed as a Cartesian/Contingency approach (Gerdin and Greve, 2004). Degree of â€Å"? t† is measured as the difference between the extent of budget use and that predicted by the business’s contingency factors. This approach assumes that at any point, not all businesses will in fact have implemented their optimal practice.To conduct our investigation, a written survey of 988 members of the Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM) was undertaken. In brief, we ? nd that larger, more decentralised healthcare businesses are more likely to adopt written budgets. Further, for the subset of businesses that use written budgets, we ? nd that the extent of budget use is positively associated with structure (decentralisation) and strategy (cost leadership), and negatively associated with perceived environmental uncertainty (dynamism). Finally, we document a relationship between choice of budgeting practice and performance.Here, we initially ? nd performance to be positively associated with the use of written budgets. More re? ned tests then provide evidence of a positive association between the degree of â€Å"? t† and performance. Our study makes several contributions. First, we present evidence that contingency factors do indeed provide insights into both the adoption of budgets and the extent of their use for our sample of small Australian prim ary healthcare businesses. Interestingly, the results suggest that size and structure capture the business’s initial decision to adopt a formal budgeting practice.However, once a business has adopted a formal practice, strategy, structure, and perceived environmental uncertainty appear to be the primary determinants underlying the subsequent decision regarding the extent of budget use. We also present evidence that the â€Å"? t† of our sample business’s budgeting practices is associated with performance. To our knowledge, there has been relatively little empirical evidence on this relationship documented in the literature to date. Second, contingency-based research has predominantly been conducted in the large business sector.We extend this work by examining a small business setting. We argue that our setting has the advantage of allowing for an examination not only of the extent of budget use but also of the initial decision to adopt a budgeting practice. In c on- junction, it also provides an opportunity to examine more closely the different underlying theoretical constructs of size that the two most commonly used proxies, gross fees and full-time equivalent employees, may be capturing. Finally, from a practical perspective the healthcare sector is under continuing pressure to increase its ef? iency. This study contributes by examining the contexts in which the use of budgets is associated with enhanced performance in primary healthcare. The results should be of bene? t to both practitioners and those who advise practitioners on MCS design. The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section 2 presents background material; Section 3 describes our experimental setting; Section 4 presents the hypotheses, Section 5 the method and Section 6 the results; and Section 7 provides a summary and conclusions. 2. Background MCS have been de? ed as all devices and systems that businesses use â€Å"to ensure that the behaviours and decision s of their employees are consistent with the organisation’s objectives and strategies† (Malmi and Brown, 2008). We focus on a business’s decision regarding its budgeting practices. Budgets are considered an MCS because they can in? uence the behaviours and decisions of employees by translating a business’s objectives into plans for action, communicating the objectives, and providing a benchmark against which to assess performance.We view budgets as both an important and appropriate focus given that they are considered to be one of the main MCS in organisations, have been found to be the earliest system adopted in startup businesses, and continue to receive signi? cant attention in the research literature and in teaching material (Davila and Foster, 2005, 2007; Sandino, 2007). Within the MCS literature, the term ‘budgeting’ is used to refer to a broad range of topics (see Chapman et al. (2007) for a review). In this study, we de? e a budget as a forward looking set of numbers which projects the future ? nancial performance of a business, and which is useful for evaluating the ? nancial viability of the business’s chosen strategy or deciding whether changes to the overall plan are required (Davila and Foster, 2005). Budgets have been identi? ed as playing a number of roles which include making goals explicit, coding learning, facilitating co-ordination, promoting accountability, facilitating control, and contracting with external parties (Davila et al. 2009). Bene? ts of budgeting include increasing ef? ciency through planning and co-ordination, supporting both control and learning through the comparison of actual results with plans, and more globally â€Å"the ability to weave together all the disparate threads of an organisation into a comprehensive plan that serves many purposes† (Hansen and Otley, 2003). Given these various roles and potential bene? ts, one might expect all businesses to adopt a formal bu dgeting practice.In fact, this view appears to underlie much of the empirical MCS research predominantly conducted in a large business setting, as it is often assumed that large businesses will already have formal MCS that can be readily examined (Chenhall, 2003). Here, the focus has typically 42 R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 been on the adoption and performance implications of speci? c MCS â€Å"innovations† like activity based costing (ABC) (Ittner et al. , 2002). However, it is argued in the MCS literature that a rational adoption decision should require an evaluation of the associated costs as well as the bene? s (Davila and Foster, 2005). Costs of a formal MCS include the easily measured out of pocket costs associated with implementing and operating the system (Hansen and Otley, 2003; Hansen and Van der Stede, 2004). Other costs that are not so easily measured are the possibility that budgets create rigidity thereby limiting co-op eration and creative response, over-emphasise short-term cost control and top down authority, encourage gaming, and de-motivate employees (Hansen and Otley, 2003; Hansen and Van der Stede, 2004). Further, arguably the bene? s and costs associated with adopting a formal budgeting practice will not be the same for every business but will depend on business-speci? c contextual factors. Thus, ex ante, it is not clear that adoption of a formal budgeting practice is necessarily a rational outcome for all businesses. Our study distinguishes itself from the majority of the MCS literature by focusing on the small business setting, speci? cally the primary healthcare business sector. Within this sector, we argue that it is likely that for some businesses, the costs of budgeting will outweigh the perceived bene? s whereas the converse will likely be true for others. Thus, we argue that this setting provides the opportunity to gain insights into both the decision regarding the adoption of budge ts as well as the subsequent decision regarding the extent of their use. We investigate the contextual factors that delineate the costs and bene? ts associated with budgeting from a contingency framework perspective. Our initial focus is on the contextual factors that differentiate adopters from non-adopters.We then consider those factors that drive the decision regarding the extent of budget use and conclude with an investigation into the relationship between the ? t of a business’s budgeting practice with its contextual factors and its performance. In adopting a contingency framework perspective, we acknowledge that research referring to contingency theory has been subject to the criticism that contingency is a general idea rather than a theory as â€Å"there is no a priori intuition of its own as to what the pertinent factors are and as to their likely consequences† (Spekle, 2001).In this study, we do not consider contingency as a theory but rather as a framework fo r investigating identi? ed factors for which we have a priori intuition based on other organisational, economic and sociological theories. A further criticism of the contingency-based literature is its simplistic nature of investigating one contextual factor or MCS at a time (Fisher, 1995). In the face of this criticism, some studies have begun investigating multiple contextual variables simultaneously (Hansen and Van der Stede, 2004; Cadez and Guilding, 2008). We also consider multiple contextual factors, speci? cally those identi? ed in Chenhall’s (2003) review of the MCS literature since 1980. This review con? rms environment, technology,3 structure and size as â€Å"the descriptors of the fundamental generic elements of context†. Strategy is also included as it emerged in the 1980s as an important factor that in? uences the design of MCS (Lang? eld-Smith, 1997). Finally, contingency-based research has its roots in sociology. The underlying premise of sociology is t hat humans are boundedly rational and satis? cing (March and Simon, 1958).Bounded rationality can impede decision-making as not all possible alternatives are known with certainty at a given point in time. One identi? ed role of MCS is to assist managers in decision-making (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). However, the decision on the optimal MCS is itself restricted by bounded rationality, as well as the personal incentives of the manager. Thus, while conceptually organisations may be expected to use the optimal MCS, this is not always possible. Businesses facing the same contextual factors may therefore choose different MCS, with the differences re? cted in their performance. In our study, we investigate the effect of a mismatch between the contextual variables and the extent of use of budgets on performance. 3. Experimental setting We adopt the Australian primary healthcare sector as our experimental setting for two reasons. First, we view it as an inherently interesting research setti ng in its own right, given its importance both socially and economically. Second, we believe it to be an ideal setting within which to conduct an investigation into budgeting because as argued below, it is a sector within which there are likely both signi? ant incentives and disincentives to budget. Thus, this setting provides the advantages of the controls that arise from working within a single industry while at the same time, one within which variation in budget use can reasonably be expected. 4 In detail, the Australian primary healthcare sector plays a uniquely important role in terms of both the services it provides and its place in the economy. In terms of services, it represents the gateway through which patients most typically enter the health system. Initial contact with For a sample of 57 organisational units, all with budgeting practices in place, Hansen and Van der Stede (2004) undertook an exploratory study focusing on four contextual factors (strategy, structure, envi ronment, and size) as possible antecedents to identi? ed reasons to budget. Alternatively, for a sample of large businesses, mostly manufacturing from Slovenia, Cadez and Guilding (2008) ? nd that superior performance results from an appropriate match between the contingent factors strategy, size, and market orientation, and strategic management accounting applications. We initially considered technology as an additional contextual variable but decided against its inclusion given our choice of experimental setting. Recent advances in medical technology have impacted on diagnostic specialties such as pathology and radiology (specialties not included in our study) to a much greater degree than primary healthcare. With the exception of three opthalmologists, the only specialists included in the survey were those that provide outpatient services from private rooms and like GP’s, still largely rely on their skill and basic instruments such as the stethoscope.From an administrative and medical records perspective, the use of technology is widespread, with computers being used in 89. 8% of all GP practices and 94. 5% of all specialist practices in 2002 (ABS, 2002). 4 In this regard, Merchant (1981) suggested that a desirable extension of budgeting studies guided by contingency frameworks would be to collect data from samples chosen to magnify the variation on the dimensions of interest while controlling for the many possible interacting factors which obscure or distort the ? ndings. R. King et al. Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 43 the health system is through a general medical practitioner (GP). For specialised care, patients are then referred to specialist medical practitioners. GPs and specialists provide this primary care from private consulting rooms and refer on to other providers for diagnostic tests. 5 Economically, the sector contributed 1. 71% of GDP in 2007 (AIHW, 2008). 6 Faced with rising costs, doctor shortages and increasin g waiting times, primary healthcare businesses are increasingly under pressure to become more ef? ient (Department of Health and Ageing, 2005). Here, budgeting has been identi? ed as a management accounting tool that enhances ? nancial performance and improves ef? ciency (Davila and Foster, 2007). Further, the majority of the existing management accounting research has been focussed on in-hospital care so little is known about MCS in the outpatient setting (Abernethy et al. , 2007), with the exception of a recent U. S. -based study of the relation between performance-based compensation and ownership of primary healthcare businesses (Ittner et al. 2007). Taken together, these facts reinforce our view that the primary healthcare sector within Australia is an important and potentially fruitful setting for the conduct of MCS research generally, and research into budgeting practices more narrowly. More directly to the current investigation, we seek an experimental setting with variation in budget use, including the presence of both adopters and non-adopters. We believe that a number of factors conspire to make the primary healthcare sector a reasonable choice, ex ante.First, the small business sector has been argued to have lower levels of formal planning and control (Chenhall and Lang? eld-Smith, 1998). As such, it might also be expected to include non-adopters. 7 In Australia, primary healthcare is largely provided by private businesses owned by the doctors working in the business as sole traders, in partnership, or through a company. Management of these businesses has traditionally been by the owner, although there now appears to be a trend towards the delegation of management to practice managers. 8These primary healthcare businesses typically have fewer than 50 employees and would thereby most often be classi? ed as small businesses according to the OECD de? nition (Holmes and Kelly, 1989). 9 Second, prior research also ? nds that rapid growth small-to-medium enterprises (SME) provide more extensive future-oriented ? nancial reporting than matched non-growth concerns (McMahon, 2001). Arguably, small primary healthcare businesses are less likely to be rapidly growing as there is currently an undersupply of primary healthcare workers due to an ageing workforce and restrictions on training places. 0 These limited organic growth prospects further our expectations of ? nding non-adopters. Third, ? rms within the service sector typically do not need to account for stock, thereby eliminating one driving force behind the use of sophisticated MCS. Finally, research on small and family business supports the view that necessary management skills are required before planning can be initiated (Gibb and Scott, 1985). Since there is a lower likelihood that primary healthcare owners, the majority of whom are doctors, have formal training in MCS, non-adoption is even more likely relative to other service sectors.Conversely, there are also economic incent ives to adopt budgets. As noted, primary healthcare businesses are under increasing pressure to become more ef? cient. The National Health Performance Committee has adopted a framework speci? cally designed for measuring healthcare system performance, with one of the identi? ed components being ef? ciency. In response, a number of institutions and private management consultants now offer education on managing primary healthcare practices that includes training on budgeting. 1 In conjunction, there is the added incentive to undertake these education programs in that continuing education is a requirement of the accreditation process for GP practices. Further, only accredited practices can access Practice Incentive Payments (PIP) from the Federal Government which can represent signi? cant additional revenue. 12 5 There is currently no Medicare funding for diagnostic services provided within the primary healthcare setting and so, these businesses do not invest in the associated technolo gy. The specialist practices included in the study were the private rooms of orthopaedic surgeons, opthalmologists, ermatologists, gynaecologists, and gastroenterologists. These specialists conduct initial consultation and post operative follow up from their private rooms but perform procedures in hospitals or day surgeries for which they have visitation rights, using equipment supplied by the hospital/day surgery where a fee is charged directly to the patient for its use. 6 Overall, the healthcare industry contributed 8. 98% of GDP in 2006–2007, with 19% of recurrent health expenditure on medical services provided by GP’s and specialists. In 2006–2007, Medicare paid $4029. million for GP services, representing an average 4. 93 items per capita (AIHW, 2008). 7 In contrast, international studies of formal budget use have focused on large businesses, ? nding the vast majority use annual ? xed budgets (Horngren et al. , 2006). Australian evidence is consistent, wit h 97% of large businesses found to use budgets (Chenhall and Lang? eld-Smith, 1998). 8 The exact extent to which management is being delegated to practice managers is uncertain given a lack of studies into the prevalence or role of practice managers (Department of Health and Ageing, 2005). There were 9600 private GP practices operating in Australia at the end of June 2002. Of these, 68. 5% were single practitioner practices employing 2. 9 persons on average, and only 100 employed more than 10 practitioners. At the same time, there were 9864 private specialist practices, 89. 7% of which were solo specialist practices employing an average 3. 2 persons and only 19. 2% had greater than 10 practitioners (ABS, 2002). 10 There has been a recognised unfavourable long-term trend since 1999 towards an increasing percentage of primary care practitioners aged 55 years or over.In conjunction, the World Health Organisation (WHO) predicts a global workforce shortage of 4. 25 million health workers over the next decade (Cresswell, 2007). 11 The 2008–2009 Federal Government Budget proposal includes administered Program 5. 3—‘Primary Care Policy, Innovation and Research’ which among other things, â€Å"funds initiatives to improve service delivery and help GPs access current best business practice. † As a part of their response, the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the AAPM have made available speci? cally tailored business education programs for healthcare managers. 2 The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners (RACGP) standards for general practice include: â€Å"Our administrative staff can describe (and there is evidence of) training undertaken in the past 3 years that is relevant to their role in our practice. † The practice manager is speci? cally mentioned in the standard, as is the term practice management training. In order to access Practice Incentive Payments, GP practices must have complied with the RACGP st andards. In 2007, 80% of GP practices were accredited (AIHW, 2008).By way of context, an accredited practice with 44 R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 However, notwithstanding, for some businesses, given their lack of size and sophistication, these incentives are unlikely to outweigh the costs of budgeting which include the initial investment in software, skills, and the added labour hours. 4. Hypothesis development 4. 1. Overview This study investigates the relationship between factors identi? ed from contingency-based research, the adoption and extent of use of budgets, and business performance. The speci? contextual factors we consider are size, structure, strategy, and perceived environmental uncertainty (Chenhall, 2003). We argue, based on how each identi? ed factor is expected to impact both a business’s needs for and thereby the bene? ts it derives from budgeting, and also its ability to meet the costs of a budgeting practice, that the four contingency factors play different roles relative to the two stages of the budgeting decision. Speci? cally, we predict that a business’s adoption decision primarily related to its size and to a lesser extent, its structure (decentralisation).For businesses that make the threshold adoption decision, we predict that those that are more decentralised, employ a cost leadership strategy, and for which management perceives a lower level of environmental uncertainty will use budgets to a greater extent. Quite clearly, however, the roles played by the various factors ultimately remain an empirical question and as such, we give consideration to each when we empirically model the two stages of the budgeting decision. Finally, we predict that the match between the contextual factors and extent of budget use will be re? ected in business performance. These predictions are formalised below. . 2. Determinants of budgeting practice 4. 2. 1. Size The construct of size has frequentl y been viewed as re? ecting two dimensions, complexity and availability of resources, with both argued to be increasing with size (Fredrickson and Mitchell, 1984; Mintzberg, 1994). While small, single-business organisations can often be controlled with largely informal mechanisms such as direct supervision and oral communications, larger organisations require more formal controls as the increased complexity associated with a larger number of employees creates problems in social control, communication, and co-ordination (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967).Here, Davila (2005) argues, following Levitt and March (1988), that to regain ef? ciency in managing the organisation, co-ordination and control mechanisms are formalised with the objective of coding and documenting organisational learning and reducing the demand that routine activities impose on the management team’s time. Further, in terms of a business’s ability to invest in a formal budgeting practice, it is widely accepte d that larger businesses are better positioned given their greater resources, ? nancial and otherwise.Larger businesses not only have the resources required to acquire software and skills but they can also more ef? ciently achieve these administrative tasks through economies of scale and the greater technical specialisation of their employees (Merchant, 1981). Chenhall (2003) ? nds that size has been considered as a contextual variable in only a few MCS studies as most examine relatively large businesses. Such a ? nding ? ts well with Banbury and Nahapiet’s (1979) argument that there should only be a relationship between resource availability and the introduction of formal systems in organisations of relatively small size.Consistent with these types of arguments, small business studies reveal size as in? uencing the acquisition and preparation of accounting information including budgets (Holmes and Nicholls, 1989; McMahon, 2001). Further, evidence from longitudinal studies of startup businesses suggests that size in? uences the decision to adopt operating budgets, with larger ? rms adopting the budgets sooner (Davila and Foster, 2005, 2007). They ? nd that when the business is small, control and co-ordination happens through frequent informal interactions but that the ef? iency of an informal system requiring direct contact with employees rapidly decreases with increasing size, thereby making it more ef? cient to use a formal control system. In the primary healthcare setting, we view the ? xed costs associated with the adoption of a budgeting practice to be signi? cant and thus, following the arguments of Davila and Foster (2005), propose size as a determining contingency factor underlying the adoption decision. In this sector, businesses are required to comply with substantive â€Å"red tape† that places onerous demands on their resources (Productivity Commission, 2003).As such, it is likely that only larger businesses have both the need for and the resources to devote to budgeting. Smaller practices are unlikely to be able divert resources away from their primary revenue generating clinical activities. Thus, we predict a positive relationship between business size and use of budgets. However, we also argue consistent with Banbury and Nahapiet (1979) that once a business has reached a critical size and uses a budget, size is unlikely to play a signi? cant further role in the determination of budgeting practice. Thus, our ? st hypothesis, expressed in the alternative, is: H1 . The adoption of written budgets by primary healthcare businesses is positively associated with business size. 4. 2. 2. Structure The structure of a business relates to â€Å"the formal speci? cation of roles for organisational members or tasks for groups to ensure that the activities of the organisation are carried out† (Chenhall, 2003). While two components, differentiation and integration, have been identi? ed in the literature, we focus only on differentiation because of the small size of our sample businesses. Differentiation is de? ed as the extent to which managers act as quasi-owners and is achieved through decentralisation of authority (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). A centralised busi- 4 FTE urban GPs would receive $60,000 per annum from PIP (Medicare, 2009). R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 45 ness structure is characterised by decision-making that is restricted to owners and upper management whereas a decentralised business delegates decision-making to lower levels of management and operational staff. Given the closer links between the ownership and control of the business, ecision-making in centralised businesses should require relatively fewer MCS. Herein, existing evidence reveals centralised businesses as having relatively few administrative controls and less sophisticated budgets while decentralised businesses have more formal controls (Bruns and Waterhouse, 1975; Merchan t, 1981). We thus argue that structure has the potential to play a role in a business’s initial decision to adopt a budgeting practice, although we view its role as secondary to size since it is unlikely that the business’s ability to meet the ? ed costs associated with a budget practice will be directly related to its structure. Further, we argue that for small healthcare businesses that have reached the threshold size and use budgets, structure also has the potential to play a role in its subsequent decision as to the extent of use. As the business becomes more differentiated, decentralisation increases and thereby so does the need for formal MCS (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Merchant, 1981). Our second hypothesis, expressed in two parts and in the alternative, is then:13 H2a .The adoption of written budget by primary healthcare businesses is positively associated with business structure (decentralisation). H2b . The extent of written budget use by primary healthcare b usinesses which opt to use written budgets is positively associated with business structure (decentralisation). 4. 2. 3. Strategy Business strategy, de? ned as how a business chooses to compete within its particular industry (Lang? eld-Smith, 1997), has been the focus of much of the research on MCS as opposed to corporate or operational strategy (Chenhall, 2003).While there are a number of different typologies of business strategy, we use Porter’s typology which focuses on cost leadership and product differentiation strategies. Porter’s cost leaders are characterised by competitive prices, consistent quality, ease of purchase, and a relatively restricted product selection. In contrast, differentiators offer the market something perceived as unique. Different types of MCS will be suited to different strategies due to their differing information and feedback requirements. Cost leadership strategies are argued to require speci? operating goals and budgets to facilitate co st containment at an operational level (Chenhall and Morris, 1995). Alternatively, product differentiator strategies would require more outward focussed, broadscope, MCS to collect infor- mation on competitors for planning purposes (Simons, 1987). Since primary healthcare businesses have constraints on the total number of services they can provide such as opening hours and the number of medical practitioners, a cost leadership strategy should require that tighter cost controls be in place in order to maintain overall pro? ability. In contrast, a product differentiator strategy operating with higher margins under the same constraints should require fewer controls. While we do not expect strategy to be determinative of the threshold decision to use budgets as it is unlikely to either affect the business’s ability to meet the initial ? xed costs or contribute suf? ciently to the business’s primary need for a budgeting practice, based on the arguments above we do expect it to impact on the desire to invest in marginal costs associated with a greater extent of budget use.Thus, formally, our third hypothesis, expressed in the alternative, is: H3 . For small healthcare businesses, which opt to use written budgets, those following a cost leadership strategy will use budgets to a greater extent than those following a product differentiation strategy. 4. 2. 4. Perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) PEU is de? ned as a situation where managers perceive elements of the environment to be uncertain, with uncertainty distinguished from risk â€Å"as uncertainty de? nes situations in which probabilities are not attached† (Chenhall, 2003).In a general sense, PEU is seen to be an important contextual factor in the design of MCS because increased PEU makes managerial planning and control more dif? cult (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). PEU is, however, a general term and a number of researchers have provided more speci? c classi? cations of the environment (Wa terhouse and Tiessen, 1978; Ouchi, 1979). In this study, we focus on the two most commonly researched elements of PEU, the dynamic nature of the environment (dynamism) and the level of competition (hostility).Contingency-based research in large business has found that greater dynamism is associated with a need for more externally focussed, broad scope and timely information (Chenhall and Morris, 1995). Planning becomes more dif? cult in more dynamic conditions as probabilities cannot as easily be attached to future events and controls such as static budgets may quickly become outdated. Thus, greater informal communication is required for effective decision-making and formal controls are less bene? cial or desirable (Chapman, 1997). Alternatively, large business research focussed n hostility has found that businesses facing greater competition rely on more formal controls and emphasise budgets (Khandwalla, 1972). Thus, in addition to con? rming PEU as an important contextual factor, these ? ndings also reveal the importance of specifying the dimension of interest (Chenhall, 2003). Consistent with the research on dynamism in large business but in contrast with that on hostility, Matthews and Scott (1995) ? nd for small businesses, the sophistication of planning decreases with both increased dynamism and increased hostility.They argue from an economic perspective that for small businesses, the more uncertain 13 While it could be argued that it would be impractical for a small business consisting of a single medical practitioner and few administrative staff to have a decentralised structure, given the heavy demands of clinical work on the medical practitioner’s time, decentralisation is possible to the extent that operational and ? nancial decision-making is delegated to employees. This was con? rmed in discussions in the pilot study. 46 R. King et al. Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 the environment the less likely the manager is to ex pend scarce resources on budgets with an unproven effect on performance. The rational manager trying to meet the fundamental goal of making a pro? t will weigh up the bene? ts against the costs associated with budgeting. Based on these arguments and ? ndings, we propose that as with strategy, neither dimension of PEU is likely to impact the manager’s threshold decision to adopt a budget as it does not directly impact on the ability to meet the costs.However, for businesses that have already identi? ed the need and ability to budget, both dynamism and hostility will impact on the decision to incur the added marginal costs of increased budget use. Consistent with Matthews and Scott (1995) and the large organisation literature, given the relatively small nature of our sample businesses and the likely resource constraints that they face, we predict a negative association between the PEU dimension of dynamism and the extent of use. 14 However, contrary to the large rganisation lit erature but consistent with Matthews and Scott (1995), we also predict a negative association between the PEU dimension of hostility and the extent of use. Our fourth hypothesis, expressed in the alternative, is then: H4 . The extent of written budget use by primary healthcare businesses which opt to use written budgets is negatively associated with the PEU elements of dynamism and hostility. 4. 3. Performance and budgets Budgets have been recommended for planning, monitoring, and controlling business activities, with each thought to assist businesses to achieve pro? ability (Horngren et al. , 2006). However, the effect of budgets on pro? tability has not as yet been clearly demonstrated in the literature (McMahon, 2001). There is evidence of a positive association between the use of budgets and performance as proxied by growth in small and medium enterprises (Gorton, 1999). Even without extensive empirical evidence, planning and the use of appropriate budgets are promoted by academ ics, educators and accounting practitioners as a means of enhancing ? ancial performance (Hansen and Otley, 2003; Gorton, 1999). Thus, we might expect that primary healthcare businesses using budgets experience better performance than those that do not. More carefully, according to ‘contingency-based’ research, a state of equilibrium in the relationship between the contingency factors and the type of MCS is best described by â€Å"? t† (Covaleski et al. , 2003). â€Å"Fit† occurs when the organisation designs its practices in such a way that it has a positive impact on performance relative to alternative practices.Thus, there will be no universally effective ‘extent of budget use’, as each combination of contingency factors will â€Å"? t† with different practices. The positive impact on performance of attaining â€Å"? t† is due to the ef? ciencies that result from using the most suitable MCS. When there is a lesser â€Å"? tâ €  between the extent of budget use and the contingency factors, performance will be â€Å"impaired†. Further, mis? t will be associated with lower performance irrespective of whether it arises from â€Å"over-budgeting† or â€Å"under-budgeting†. Thus, our ? th hypothesis, stated in the alternate form, is: H5 . A business’s performance is positively associated with the degree of ? t between the extent of budget use and its contingency factors. The inef? ciencies arise because the need for a budgeting practice is incongruent with the adopted practice. If the business over-commits to budgeting, it is likely to have expended scarce human and ? nancial resources without enjoying commensurate bene? ts. Conversely, if it under-commits, its performance will likely suffer because of control and/or co-ordination problems.To illustrate, consider the various contextual factors identi? ed above. First, regarding size, a relatively small business that uses an exte nsive budgeting practice will have unnecessarily expended resources implementing and operating the practice when in fact informal communication is practical and likely preferred. Conversely, a relatively large business without a formal budgeting practice will likely ? nd both communication and co-ordination problematic given the complexity associated with a larger number of employees.In a similar fashion, a relatively centralised business with an extensive budgeting practice has likely expended resources on a level of control that is greater than required to encourage employees to make decisions that are in keeping with the organisational objectives. In terms of strategy, a cost leadership strategy requires more speci? c controls than a differentiation strategy. Thus, the adopted business strategy will likely be less effective if an incompatible budgeting practice is implemented to support the strategy. Finally, high levels of PEU make it much more dif? ult to plan with certainty, t hereby reducing the need for and advantages of budgeting. Finally, notwithstanding equilibrium-type arguments, we believe that there will be variation in the degree of â€Å"? t† in our setting given the dif? culties that primary healthcare businesses likely face in identifying and implementing their best budgeting practices. Given their size and medical focus, it is likely that many of our sample businesses approach budgeting from a relatively unsophisticated perspective and/or view it as a lower priority. This makes the process of identifying a practice that â€Å"? s† relatively slow and involves ‘trial and error’ type of learning. Here, Luft (1997) argues that while static equilibrium theories â€Å"can predict the techniques the ? rm should end up with† they cannot predict â€Å"how long it will take to complete the process or what the path to the solution will be. † Thus, it is likely that there will be a lag between the need for and th e use of a particular budgeting practice. Milgrom and Roberts (1992) also argue that organisations are dynamically learning and moving towards an optimal level of management accounting practice. The problem of implementing a budget practice that â€Å"? s† is further complicated by the fact that implementation of new budget practices is likely to 14 The variation in PEU of managers from different industries has typically been the focus of previous research. In this study, industry is a constant but arguably PEU is still of interest, as it has also been found to vary among the managers of businesses within the same industry (Boyd et al. , 1993). R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 47 occur in a â€Å"lumpy† fashion because when increasing the extent to which they use budgets, businesses are forced to do so in larger rather than smaller increments.As Luft (1997) argues, â€Å"changes in information systems are often sharply discontinuo us†. 5. Method 5. 1. Sample frame and description For this study, a cross-sectional research design is used and the quantitative measurement tool is a mail questionnaire. Recognised problems associated with the implementation of survey-based studies include the initial dif? culty of identifying and accessing appropriate respondents, and then of achieving acceptable response rates (Dillman, 2000). In light of this, since budgets are considered to be a traditional management tool and there is an identi? d trend towards delegating management responsibilities to practice managers, practice managers were chosen as the target subjects for the survey (Department of Health and Ageing, 2005). The further problems of contacting practice managers via a cost effective means and encouraging participation were addressed by approaching the Australian Association of Practice Managers (AAPM) for support. The AAPM is the only recognised professional body for practice managers in Australia and c onsists of managers of dental, medical, and allied health businesses.Currently, there are 1200 members of the AAPM from medical practices, representing approximately 6% of the small private medical businesses operating in Australia. Membership in the AAPM is voluntary subject to an annual subscription fee. There are a number of bene? ts associated with membership including discounts for management education courses and national conferences. Thus, it is likely that members of the AAPM are interested in staying informed about current management trends, wish to become part of a professional network, and have the means to pay the membership fee.While no demographic data currently exist for practice managers who join the AAPM and those who do not, member businesses appear slightly skewed towards larger practices relative to the population of GP businesses. For 2005–2006, 83% of GP businesses had between one and ? ve GPs, with the remaining 17% having six or more (PHCRIS, 2008). In comparison, for our sample practices, 66. 4% had between one and ? ve GP’s and the remaining 33. 6%, six or more. However, notwithstanding this potential bias, the advantages of accessing the AAPM practice manager mailing list and having the AAPM recommend participation are considered to dominate.The questionnaire was initially developed from the existing literature and then pilot tested on a sample of 20 members of the AAPM and ? ve academic researchers. Based on this testing, a number of changes were made to wording and layout to enhance understandability in this setting. The ? nal questionnaire consisted of 35 questions presented in 10 sections and was estimated to require between 20 and 30 min to complete. Questions relating to each of the relevant constructs discussed in Section 4 were presented in dedicated and clearly labelled sections.The ? nal questionnaire was sent to a random sample of 1000 of the medical practice members of the AAPM. Of the 1000 surveys distribut ed, 12 were returned unopened. From the remaining 988 questionnaires, 144 complete and usable responses were received, representing a 14. 6% response rate which is comparable with those achieved in other studies of small businesses (Dennis, 2003). 15 Requested demographic data reveal 112 of the practices to be GP practices and 32 to be specialist practices, and that they employed between 2 and 42 full-time equivalents (FTE).Further, 98. 6% indicate that they use computers in some capacity. The average age of the practices is 23. 94 years, and for the 114 organisations that responded to the question, their average gross fees were $1,553,919, ranging from $206,816 to $11,000,000. 5. 2. Budgeting practice 5. 2. 1. Empirical model The ? rst stage of this study seeks insights both into the factors underlying a business’s decision to adopt a budgeting practice and into its subsequent decision as to the extent of budget use.To do so, it appeals to contingencybased research to identi fy four contextual factors (size (SIZE), structure (STRUC), strategy (STRAT), and perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU)) argued to drive the decisions, although in different combinations. Given this framework, we employ the following common empirical model to formally examine each of these two decisions: BUDGi = + 1 lnSIZEi 0 + 2 STRUCi + 3 STRATi + 4 PEUi + 5 TYPEi +? (1) where the various measures are described below. For the decision to adopt, based on H1 and H2a , 1 and 2 are predicted to be positive.For the decision as to the extent of use, based on H2b , H3 , and H4 , 2 and 3 are predicted to be positive and 4 negative. Practice type (TYPE) has been included in the model to control for potential structural differences (Hair et al. , 2006). Speci? cally, identi? ed differences in the pricing (higher) and supply (lower) of services by specialist versus general practices suggest that the market for specialist services may be relatively more heterogeneous (Department of Health and Ageing, 2005). We measure TYPE as a dichotomous variable, set equal to 1 for general practices and 0 for specialist practices. . 2. 2. Dependent variable measurement To examine the decision to adopt, we measure BUDG as a dichotomous variable set equal to 1 if the business indicates, in response to an explicit ‘yes/no’ question, that it 15 The mailing was restricted to 1000 questionnaires due to ? nancial constraints. Standard techniques to discourage non-response were employed including a personalised cover letter from the AAPM, promised con? dentiality, brevity of questions, the inclusion of a reply-paid envelope, a follow-up e-mail reminder, and a promise to make results available to participants (Dillman, 2000).Testing for non-response bias, undertaken by comparing 15 responses received in the ? rst month to the ? nal 15 responses received, revealed no statistically signi? cant differences. 48 R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–5 5 uses a written budget and 0 otherwise. We base this analysis on all 144 respondents and run Eq. (1) as a logistic regression. For this and all subsequent analysis, reported p-values are one-tailed since we have predictions relating to each of the contingency factors. To examine the extent of budget use, we restrict our tests to the 65 respondents using written budgets.Here, the survey questionnaire asked respondents to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale how systematically their business used operating budgets of various durations (annual, halfyearly, quarterly, monthly, and/or weekly), as well as cash ? ow, ? exible, rolling, long-term, or other budgets. These questions capture both the types of budgets used and the extent of their use, and are an adaptation of the alternative measurement approaches used in Chenhall and Lang? eldSmith (1998) and Jankala (2005). 16 The Cronbach’s alpha is 93. 8%. Panel A of Table 1 presents descriptive statistics for the responses relating t o the usage of each type f budget. To construct the ‘extent of budget use’ measure, we apply exploratory common factor analysis with orthogonal rotation to the responses. Two uncorrelated factors with eigenvalues of 3. 845 and 1. 234 are extracted, explaining 64. 14% of the total variance. The factor loadings are presented in the ? nal two columns of Panel A of Table 1. The ? rst factor aligns with operating budgets and the second with other types of budgets. As such, we consider two sub-categories (‘operating budgets’ and ‘other budgets’) and measure BUDG for each as the average summated budget usage score across the relevant budgets in the subcategory. 7 Here, Eq. (1) is run using OLS. Given a consistent lack of signi? cance, we do not report or discuss results based on our analyses of the ‘other budgets’ measure. 5. 2. 3. Contingency factor measurement Following the majority of contingency-based MCS studies, we measure size (SIZ E) as the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) employees (Chenhall, 2003). Respondents were asked to identify the number of FTE employees as administrative/reception staff, practice manager, nursing/allied health, medical, and other. Table 2 reveals that the mean (median) number of FTE employees for our sample businesses is 11. 31 (10. 500). For sensitivity purposes, we alternatively consider gross fees as a measure of size. Data on gross fees were provided by 114 of the businesses, with a mean (median) value of $1,553,919 ($1,322,359). For the remaining three contingency factors, the measures are based on responses across 7-point Likert scales to dedicated questions in the questionnaire survey. Panel B of Table 1 presents the questions and descriptive statistics for the responses. For STRUC and PEU which involve multiple questions, exploratory common factor analysis is then applied o develop the empirical measures. The factor loadings are presented in the ? nal two columns of Panel B. 18 In detail, the measure of structure (STRUC) is based on responses to six questionnaire items asking the extent to which decision-making authority has been delegated within the business and at which level operating decisions are made. The six items, originally developed by Gordon and Narayanan (1984), have been subjected to considerable scrutiny and empirical testing for reliability and validity in previous research (Chenhall, 2003). The Cronbach alpha is 82. 7%.Application of exploratory common factor analysis to the response scores leads to the extraction of only one factor with an eigenvalue of 3. 261, explaining 53. 81% of the variance. Thus, STRUC is measured as the average summated scores across the six items. Organisational strategy (STRAT) is based on Porter’s classi? cation scheme (Porter, 1980) and measured by the response to a single question drawn from Govindarajan (1988). This question asks the respondents to indicate their belief as to the best description of the business’s strategic emphasis, ranging from product differentiation to cost leadership.This was found in the pilot testing to be the only question from previous research applicable to our setting, Finally, we initially measure perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) based on the responses to nine questions developed by Gordon and Narayanan (1984) to capture the intensity of competition, the dynamic and unpredictable nature of the external environment, and the potential elements of change in the environment. Based on the correlations among the responses, only ? ve items were eventually used with a Cronbach alpha of 64. %, as the responses to four items had correlations of less than the 30% level recommended for inclusion in factor analysis (Hair et al. , 2006). 19 Consistent with previous research (Gordon and Narayanan, 1984), application of exploratory common factor analysis with orthogonal rotation led to the extraction of two factors with eigenvalues of 2. 327 and 1. 122 explaining 67. 70% of the total variance. Following the literature, we label these factors as ‘PEU hostility’ (PEUhost ) and ‘PEU dynamism’ (PEUdyn ).PEUhost loads on the two questions relating to the competitiveness of the business environment whereas PEUdyn loads on the three questions relating to the predictability of the external environment. We include both in our empirical model, measuring each as the average summated response scores across the relevant questions. 16 Jankala (2005) prefers this measure of systematic use as a more reliable and precise measure of a business’s commitment to the use of budgets, rather than the more subjective scales used by, for example, Chenhall and Lang? eld-Smith (1998) that measure bene? t derived. 7 The yearly operating budgets did not load on either factor as a large majority of the businesses indicated that they used yearly operating budgets on a systematic basis. 18 The reported factor loadings, eig envalues, and percentage variation explained are based on the full sample of 144 respondents. When the exploratory common factor analysis is repeated based only on the 65 respondent businesses using budgets, all measures are qualitatively identical. 19 The four items removed were competition for manpower, new services marketed, ability to predict preferences for customers, and change in legal, political, and economic environment.Their removal is perhaps not surprising that as there was little variation in the responses received with the sample small businesses drawn from the same industry. R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 Table 1 Descriptive statistics and factor loadings for survey questionnaire responses. Question Descriptive statistics Mean Panel A: Budgeting BUDG 1 Which of the following budgets are prepared and how consistently? (5-point scale: 1 = not used, 2 = seldom, 3 = at times, 4 = often, 5 = systematically) a. Operating budget, yearl y b. Operating budget, half-yearly c.Operating budget, quarterly d. Operating budget, monthly e. Operating budget, weekly f. Cash ? ow budget g. Flexible budget h. Rolling budget i. Long-term budget Med SD Factor loadings #1 #2 49 2. 690 2. 064 2. 064 2. 092 1. 578 2. 079 1. 701 1. 704 1. 795 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1. 899 1. 663 1. 659 1. 662 1. 315 1. 626 1. 317 1. 400 1. 473 0. 746 0. 614 0. 533 0. 668 0. 472 0. 149 0. 317 0. 168 0. 255 0. 322 0. 034 0. 346 0. 508 0. 823 0. 606 0. 715 Panel B: Contingency factors Structure (STRUC) STRUC 1 To what extent has authority been delegated to the manager or employee for each of the following decisions? Please indicate actual rather than stated authority) (7-point scale: 1 = no delegation, 7 = total delegation) a. Initiate ideas for new services b. Hiring and ? ring of personnel c. Selection of large investments d. Budget allocations e. Pricing decisions STRUC 2 Most operation decisions are made at what level? (7-point scale: 1 = owner level, 7 = manager level) 4. 999 5. 250 3. 173 3. 980 4. 311 4. 349 5 6 3 5 5 4 1. 517 1. 923 1. 963 2. 123 1. 900 1. 870 0. 531 0. 610 0. 732 0. 803 0. 761 0. 581 – – – – – – How would you best describe your practice’s strategic emphasis? 7-point scale: 1 = product differentiation; 7 = cost leadership) Perceived environmental uncertainty (PEU) PEU 1 How stable/dynamic is the external environment (economic and technological) facing your practice? (7-point scale: 1 = very stable, 7 = very dynamic) a. Economic environment b. Technological environment PEU 2 How would you classify the market activities of your competitors (i. e. , other healthcare practices) in the past 3 years? (7-point scale: 1 = becoming more predictable, 7 = becoming less predictable) How intense is each of the following in your industry, the healthcare profession? 7-point scale: 1 = negligible, 7 = intense) a. Bidding for purchases b. Price competition Strategy (STRAT) STRAT 1 2. 983 3 1. 127 n/a n/a 4. 134 4. 761 3. 691 4 5 4 1. 603 1. 596 1. 122 0. 968 0. 755 0. 369 0. 176 0. 185 0. 118 PEU 3 2. 446 3. 553 2 4 1. 352 1. 502 0. 147 0. 168 0. 676 0. 625 Panel C: Performance (PERF) PERF 1 Which best describes your response to the following statements over the past 3-year period? Compared to key competitors, my practice: (7-point scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 7 = strongly agree) a. Is more competitive b. Has more patients c. Is growing faster d. Is more pro? table e.Is more innovative f. Has more doctors 5. 082 5. 353 5. 105 5. 210 5. 320 4. 094 5 6 5 5 6 4 1. 607 1. 619 1. 644 1. 593 1. 643 2. 204 0. 660 0. 711 0. 849 0. 667 0. 592 0. 502 – – – – – For Panel A, the exploratory factor analysis was conducted based on the 65 businesses that produce written budgets. For Panels B and C, the exploratory common factor analysis was based on the full sample of 144 respondents. Items deemed to load on the identi? ed factor appea r in bold. 50 R. King et al. / Management Accounting Research 21 (2010) 40–55 Table 2 Descriptive statistics for ‘contingency-based’ model variables.Measure ‘Operating budgets’ Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max Size (SIZE) Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max Structure (STRUCT) Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max Strategy (STRAT) Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max PEUhost Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max PEUdyn Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max Performance (PERF) Mean Median Standard deviation Min > max Full sample (n = 144) 1. 948 1. 000 1. 376 1>5 11. 531 10. 500 6. 583 2 > 42 4. 344 4. 333 1. 381 1>7 1. 990 2. 000 1. 122 1>7 2. 987 3. 000 1. 199 1>6 4. 201 4. 333 1. 179 1 > 6. 6 4. 027 4. 083 1. 248 1>7 Written budget (n = 65) 3. 085 3. 000 1. 50 1>5 12. 893 12. 000 6. 367 3. 5 > 31 4. 862 5. 000 1. 212 1. 67 > 6. 83 1. 860 2. 000 1. 014 1>6 3. 231 3. 000 1. 183 1>6 4. 241 4. 333 1. 129 1 > 6. 67 4. 228 4. 333 1. 302 1>7 No written budget (n = 79) n/a p-Value – 10. 410 9. 250 6. 586 2 > 42 3. 918 3. 833 1. 372 1>7 2. 090 2. 000 1. 200 1>7 2. 785 2. 500 1. 181 1 > 5. 5 4. 169 4. 333 1. 224 1 > 6. 67 3. 861 3. 833 1. 184 1 > 6. 5 0. 024 0) or â€Å"under-budgets† (? < 0), the impact of ‘lack of ? t’ on ? nancial performance should be the same. Formally, the model we employ, illustrated using |? |, has the following form: PERFi = 0 we also requested objective measures of pro? ability from our sample businesses (Govindarajan and Gupta, 1985). Unfortunately, less than one-third of our sample provided the data. Thus, the use of objective measures for robustness purposes is also impractical. 6. Results and analysis 6. 1. Preliminaries Descriptive statistics for measures used in tests of our hypotheses are presented in Table 2, both for the overall sample of 144 respondents and for the sample partitioned on the basis of whether a written budget is adopted, along with te sts for differences in mean values between partitions. As revealed, there is considerable cross-sectional variation in each measure.Further, there appear to be several signi? cant differences between respondents adopting written budgets and those not. Speci? cally, businesses using budgets have more FTE employees (SIZE, p = 0. 024), are more decentralised (STRUC, p < 0. 001), face a more hostile enviro