Fortune In Troilus And Cressida Essay Research free essay sample

Fortune In Troilus And Cressida Essay, Research Paper Lady Fortune: Friend or Foe? The face of Fortune in Chaucer # 8217 ; s Troilus and Criseyde. Lady Fortune and her wheel are two of the most abiding symbols in world # 8217 ; s history. Witness the popular game show, Wheel of Fortune. While it may look silly, it proves that something of this construct has stayed with in our mind, even today. The inquiry of luck is paramount is Chaucer # 8217 ; s Troilus and Criseyde. Chaucer gives the reader characters with wholly conflicting thoughts of Lady Fortune and her affect on their lives. By analyzing Boethius # 8217 ; s Consolation of Philosophy, the reader can trust to happen an reply for these differing positions on luck. First, Boethius # 8217 ; s influence on Chaucer and the character of Fortune that he presents must be examined. Once this is established as a benchmark, the reader can to the full understand the misconceptions Troilus has sing lucks. Troilus clings, as Boethius does in his Consolation of Philosophy, to the memory of his faithful service to Fortune. Finally, the character of Pandarus must be addressed. He, of all Chaucer # 8217 ; s characters, has a steadfast clasp on the world of the Lady Fortune and her ever-changing nature. In fact, a close scrutiny of the text of Troilus and Criseyde will demo that Chaucer gives Pandarus a really similar function to that of Lady Philosophy in The Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius # 8217 ; s Consolation of Philosophy Boethius # 8217 ; s work trades with the cosmopolitan experience of agony. He finds himself imprisoned and under menace of executing. As Boethius begins to elaborate his sorrows and fault # 8220 ; fickle Fortune # 8221 ; ( p. 35 ) , he finds himself comforted by none other than Lady Philosophy. Their treatment is presented at length for the reader to go through judgement on. The subdivision peculiarly facing Boethius # 8217 ; s misconceptions of Fortune and is of involvement to this statement is found chiefly in Book II. Lady Philosophy points out to Boethius precisely what the root of his job is at the beginning of this subdivision. # 8220 ; You are blowing off in aching and hankering for your former good luck, # 8221 ; she tells him ( p.54 ) . This is because he has forgotten the true nature of Fortune. Once he comes to an apprehension of Fortune and how she works as an instrument of God, he will be healed of his illness of depression. Boethius so moves the conversation to a face to confront treatment with Fortune. B.L. Jefferson, in his book Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius, claims that # 8220 ; Boethius was the first to visualise Fortune in this most personal manner # 8221 ; ( p. 49 ) . Boethius # 8217 ; s treatment about luck makes three different points. First, that alteration is the really nature of Fortune. This mutableness is pointed out by Lady Philosophy, # 8220 ; Change is her normal behaviour, her true nature # 8230 ; You have discovered the altering faces of the random goddess, # 8221 ; she tells Boethius ( Consolation, p. 55 ) . No adult male can halt her wheel from turning ; it goes against Fortune # 8217 ; s really nature to make so. She can turn her face off from a adult male every bit rapidly as she turns it to him. Jefferson characterizes the statement in this manner, # 8220 ; Absolutely without understanding, [ Fortune ] cares no more for one adult male than another # 8221 ; ( 50 ) . Following comes the defence of Fortune by herself. Her statement is simple: I have merely taken back what was mine in the first topographic point. # 8220 ; Inconstancy is my very kernel, # 8221 ; she says, # 8220 ; it is the game I neer cease to play as I turn my wheel in its of all time altering circle, filled with joy as I bring the top to the underside and the underside to the top. Yes, lift up on my wheel if you like, but don # 8217 ; t number it an hurt when by the same item you begin to fall, as the regulations of the game will necessitate # 8221 ; ( Consolation, p. 57 ) . Boethius has no evidences for his ailments because everything he has of all time had was given to him by Fortune. If she decides to take it back, it is her prerogative. This should non direct him to the cavities of desperation. # 8220 ; Indeed, my really mutability gives you merely do to trust for better things, # 8221 ; Fortune tells Boethius ( 58 ) . Merely as the wheel has borne him down, so can it bear him back up to better things. Last, Lady Philosophy instructs Boethius in Fortune # 8217 ; s deeper significance, as a retainer of God. Jefferson once more, # 8220 ; Of a connexion with Providence, Fortune herself does non look to be cognizant, for she works blindly and wantonly. But behind her and regulating her, is the all-wise Capital of rhode island. Through the hardships of Fortune, Providence creates in work forces what we now call character # 8230 ; . In Fortune [ Boethius ] saw the instrument of God # 8221 ; ( 50 ) . This made what Boethius was making a really serious affair. It was all really nice to speak about the caprices of luck, but to bind it logically and straight to the Providence of God was a wholly different affair. Boethius # 8217 ; s Influence on Chaucer It is from these points of statement with Fortune that we can see how Boethius influenced Chaucer, particularly in Troilus and Criseyde. Most of the literature on Troilus seems to back up this claim every bit good. # 8220 ; The Boethian subject of Fortune dominates Troilus and Criseyde, and Chaucer even incorporates direct adoptions from the Consolation of Philosophy, # 8221 ; says Martin Camargo ( 214 ) . Jefferson says that the Consolation had more influence on Troilus than on any other long verse form of Chaucer # 8217 ; s ( 120 ) . It seems, nevertheless, that Chaucer did non merely utilize Boethius indiscriminately in this text. He really carefully cover with the same cardinal issues of Fortune and God # 8217 ; s Providence that Boethius did in his Consolation. That is why Pandarus sounds merely like Lady Philosophy when he speaks to Troilus in Book 1: # 8220 ; Than blaestow Fortune For thow art wroth ; ye now at erst I see. Woost thow nat wel that Fortune is comune To everi manere wight in som grade? And yet thow hast this comfort, lo, parde, That, as hire joies moten overgon, So mote hir sorwes passen everecho. For if hire whiel stynte any thyng to torne, Than cessed she Fortune anon to be. Now, sith hire whiel by no may sojourne, What woostow if hire mutabilite Right as thyselven list wol Don by the, Or that she be naught fer fro thyn helpynge? Paraunter thow hast cause for to synge # 8221 ; ( I.841-54 ) . The same points of statement are reiterated here in Chaucer # 8217 ; s ain words. Pandarus is stating the exact same things as Lady Philosophy # 8217 ; s statement. Fortune is the same to every adult male. The joys she brings may go through away, but so will the sorrows. Her wheel can non halt. She would discontinue to be fortune. The reader can see the direct correlativity between Boethius # 8217 ; s work and Pandarus # 8217 ; s words. Fortune in Troilus and Criseyde Chaucer gives Pandarus a clear apprehension of Lady Fortune. It is his character who leads Troilus and instructs him, as Lady Fortune did Boethius. Camargo insists that it was of import for Chaucer that his readers see the correlativity between the gap of the Consolation and the gap of Troilus and Criseyde. # 8220 ; Because it was of import to Chaucer that his readers recognize the analogies between Troilus and Boethius and Pandarus and Philosophy from the beginning, he took particular strivings in Book I to remember the Consolation # 8217 ; s vivid opening scene # 8221 ; ( Camargo, p. 215 ) . Merely as Lady Philosophy found Boethius under the sway of the Muses, so Chaucer begins this scene with Troilus singing entirely in his room. He besides comes to him and upbraids him for his confusion approximately Fortune as noted in the transition from Book I cited above. However, Pandarus is genuinely an self-seeker when it comes to Fortune. He tells Troilus and Criseyde to take the chanc e presented to them b Y this love. â€Å"By turning Lady Philosophy’s lesson into a veiled carpe diem, Pandarus demonstrates his enthusiastic credence of the ephemeral gifts of Fortune, † Joseph Salemi writes. Pandarus encourages Troilus by stating that Fortune must be smiling on him, and Tells Criseyde that this is an â€Å"good aventure† ( II.288 ) . In Book IV, Pandarus once more advocates Troilus on Fortune. However, now Fortune has turned her face off from Troilus. He says: # 8220 ; Who woulde have wende that in so litel a throwe Fortune oure joie wold Han overthrowe? For in this universe ther is no animal, As to my dom, that of all time saugh ruyne Straunger than this, thorough Ca or aventure. But who may al eschue, or al devyne? Swich is this universe! Forthi I therefore diffyne: Ne trust no wight to fynden in Fortune Ay propertee ; engage yiftes ben comune # 8221 ; ( IV.384-92 ) . He grasps that the really nature of Fortune is to take what she has given. No 1 can understand her volatile nature, except to cognize that she changes. Pandarus goes on to state Troilus that he should seek a new love. Surely Fortune will smile on him in the signifier of a new dulcinea! This is genuinely a Boethian doctrine. As Fortune spins her wheel, finally the wheel will convey prosperity once more ( Consolation, II. Pr 1 ) . Troilus has a wholly different position sing Fortune. He is much more like Boethius. # 8220 ; He [ Troilus ] and Pandarus represent two every bit deformed positions of Fortune: that of the self-seeker and the determinist, # 8221 ; says Joseph Salemi ( 219 ) . Jefferson besides agrees that Troilus is # 8220 ; the sort of determinist that Boethius was in the Consolation # 8230 ; in the function which he assumes for himself in contrast to his consoler, Dame Philosophy, the adult male who cries out against Fortune, who can non accommodate to his bad lucks # 8221 ; ( 123 ) . So Chaucer has cast his Troilus in the function of Boethius. Troilus # 8217 ; s inquiry at the beginning of his vocal in Book I does so repeat that of Boethius: # 8220 ; If no love is, O good, what fele I so? And if love is, what thing and which is he? If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo? If it be wikke, a admiration thynketh me, When every torture and adversite That cometh of hym may to me savoury thinke, For ay thurst I, the more that ich it drink # 8221 ; ( I, 400-06 ) . He is oppugning the very nature of Fortune and the events environing him. Boethius, while telling his ruin to Lady Philosophy, asks her # 8220 ; where evil comes from if there is a God, and where good comes from if there isn # 8217 ; t # 8221 ; ( Consolation, I, Pr. 4 ) . The job is that merely as Boethius is incorrect sing Fortune, so is Troilus. Take Troilus # 8217 ; s plaint in Book IV as a clear illustration of this misconception sing Fortune and as a premier illustration of his fatalism: # 8220 ; Fortune, allas the piece! What have I wear? What have I therefore agylt? How myghtestow for routh me bygile? Is ther no grace, and shal I therefore be spilt? Shal therefore Criseyde awy, for that thow wilt? Allas, how maistow in thyn herte fynde To ben to me therefore cruwel and unkynde? # 8221 ; ( IV, 260-266 ) . When he continues, the true nature of his hurt is revealed. # 8220 ; Have I the zero honoured al my lyve, /As thow wel woost, above the goddes alle? # 8221 ; ( 267-68 ) . Troilus has devoted himself to the service of Fortune, but like Boethius, can non yet hold on her true nature. Chaucer uses this misconception to do even clearer that the true nature of Fortune is changeless alteration. Troilus # 8217 ; s fatalism and misunderstanding of the favours of Fortune show up in crisp contrast to the self-interest and apprehension of Pandarus. Troilus reacts with even greater ardor in Book IV when he thinks Criseyde has died. # 8220 ; O cruel Jove and thow, Fortune adverse, # 8221 ; he cries ( IV, 1192 ) . Salemi says that # 8220 ; Troilus # 8217 ; s frenetic desperation is a text book illustration, harmonizing to Boethian rules, of how non to respond to adverse Fortune # 8221 ; ( 218 ) . Troilus has merely told the reader he had served Fortune all his life. How can he inquire Fortune to be something she is non? By naming her # 8220 ; inauspicious # 8221 ; Troilus clearly shows one time once more his misinterpretation. Fortune is neither inauspicious or good. She simply spins her wheel. As Pandarus points out, joy will certainly come once more if you merely wait for her wheel to turn once more. Where does Criseyde fall in all of this? Is she representative of Fortune in Chaucer # 8217 ; s work? Salemi seems to believe there are evidences for such an association, although he admits it would be hard to keep. He says that Pandarus # 8217 ; s function # 8220 ; as an adviser who tells Troilus about how to cover with a certain adult female reinforces the suggested affinity of Criseyde with Fortune # 8221 ; ( 214 ) . The storyteller besides makes the association of Criseyde with Fortune in the Prologue to Book IV. The storyteller tells the reader that Fortune # 8220 ; From Troilus she gan hire brighte face # 8230 ; And on hire whiel she sette up Diomede # 8221 ; ( IV, 8, 10 ) . What Fortune has done is precisely what Criseyde will make. While this is a plausible statement on the surface, Criseyde does non look so much to function as Fortune but to understand her better than most. She has a steadfast appreciation on the faithlessness of Fortune. Indeed, when Chaucer introduc es her, the reader is struck by the fact that she does non fault Fortune for her sorrows. She is widowed, abandoned by her male parent and has had to throw herself at the pess of another in order to salvage herself. Even in the terminal, she simply bewails # 8220 ; the resentment of worldly joys # 8221 ; ( Jefferson, 126 ) . She knows they can non convey felicity. And what is billed as her falseness to Troilus in Book V simply shows the credence of the manus she has been dealt by Fortune. The storyteller says in Book V, # 8220 ; Retornying in hire soule ay up and down The wordes of this sodeyn Diomede, His grete estat, and perel of the town, And that she was allone and hadde nede Of frendes help ; and therefore bygan to brede The cause whi, the sothe for to state, That she took to the full purpos for to dwelle # 8221 ; ( V, 1023-29 ) While it may hold been Fortune # 8217 ; s making that Criseyde is apart from Troilus, she understands at one time the gravitation of the state of affairs she is in and takes stairss to rectify it. This shows that she understand that the universe is inconstant. The subject of Fortune in Troilus and Criseyde springs right from the pages of Boethius # 8217 ; s Consolation of Philosophy. This text evidently influenced Chaucer greatly. He drew from it often, about projecting his characters in Troilus and Criseyde into the functions in the Consolation of Philosophy. The consequence is powerful and traveling for the reader. Chaucer # 8217 ; s audience could work through the same issues presented in the Consolation and see how the are dealt with in a authoritative narrative. And even today, modern readers can pull the same decisions from this dateless narrative of love and luck. Bibliography Boethius. The Consolation of Philosophy. Trans. V.E. Watts. Penguin Classics. New York: Penguin Books. 1969. Camargo, Martin. # 8220 ; The Consolation of Pandarus. # 8221 ; Chaucer Review Vol. 25 No. 3 ( 1991 ) P. 214-28. Chaucer, Geoffrey. Troilus and Criseyde. Ed. Larry Benson The Riverside Chaucer.. Boston: The Houghton Mifflin Company. 1987. P. 471-585. Jefferson, B.J. Chaucer and the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. New York: Haskell House. 1965. Salemi, Joseph S. # 8220 ; Playful Fortune and Chaucer # 8217 ; s Criseyde. # 8221 ; Chaucer Review Vol. 13 No. 3 ( 1979 ) . P. 285-307 Bibliography attached

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The P.C Essay kobi fankulo i/6Its began more than 20 years ago, Apple 2 , the computer of Jobs Wazniac appeared the innovations were surprising . Friendly computer with keyboard and surface that you can put a monitor above , 4K memory and dos that constant from the boot , that fixed in the memory Rom . The most great innovation was channel Bus that every one can built for himself stuck cards , thats how began the I . B . M suitable industry . In 1981 an I . B . M p.c appear P.C XT c.p.u 8088 and well based dos , disk called p.c dos that acquired from Microsoft , with possibility to setup 2 drives , green professional monitor , superlative keyboard , possibility of enlargment the memory up to 64K , hard disk and the computer speed 4.77MH ( mega hertz ) . We will write a custom essay on The P.C specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now In 1982 came the P.C AT with 286 cpu , 512KB memory and hard disk of 20MB in the price of 6,000 $ and 16BIT channel that have been opened to suitable copy from I . B . M p.c to Apple 2 the prices went down . In 1986 Compaq company completed her 386 computer development of Intel company and anticipate I . B . M in the new c.p.u adoption . In the presence of the manufacturers stood 2 possibilities to continue after I . B . M in the way of PS / 2 or to continue the independend way that Compac company showed . I . B . M demended for the use rights systems , the licence payment are recoiling . Her politics conected the new meterial to OS / 2 dos . These who didnt understood continued with I . B . M , all the rest continue with I . S . A architecture , until today I. B . M hasnt recover from the astartegy mistakes series that brought her to be the only one p.c manufacture that not manufacated I . B . M suitable . In the begining of the 90 Intel company started to supply the fourth generation with 486 c.p.u and memory of 64MB . In 1993 began the age of the 586 pentum the fifth generation of the Intel c.p.u p.c . In our days the p.c including c.p.u 486 or 586 , hard disk up to 540MB , modem and super vga monitor . P.C ( Personal Computer )Rom ( Read Only Memory )Ram ( Read Acess Memory )Boot Dos ( Disk Operation System )KB MB Hard disk Channel C.P.U 586 , 486 , 386 , 286 , 8088XTPS / 2 ( Personal System ) OS / 2 ( Operator System )Architecture Keyboard Intel Appear I.B.M suitable .. Manufacturer Sound blaster Modem Bibliographythe great entziclopade of u.s.a

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To what extent was the United States responsible for the collapse of the Grand Alliance at the end of the Second World War Essay Example To what extent was the United States responsible for the collapse of the Grand Alliance at the end of the Second World War Paper To what extent was the United States responsible for the collapse of the Grand Alliance at the end of the Second World War Paper to complete the formation of a bloc of several European countries hostile to the interests of the democratic countries of Eastern Europe and most particularly to the interests of the Soviet Union. 8 (italics original). Some historians since have been sympathetic to this view; W. A. Williams argues that the postwar atmosphere degenerated into hostility in large part because of American insistence on an open-door policy of total free trade between nations, rather than, offer[ing] the Soviet Union a settlement based on other, less grandiose, terms. 9 However, this argument is predicated on the assumption that eastern Europe was already in economic isolation from the west, whereas in fact this was a state of affairs forcibly created by the USSR. Therefore, if the Marshall Plan did increase postwar tensions this was only because of the actions already taken by the Soviet Union; without communist domination of east Europe, a plan to revive shattered economies in former warzones would not have had the degenerative effect on international relations which it evidently did have. In this sense, the Marshall Plan was a response to the Soviet aggression which had caused Cold War tensions to increase, rather than an ipso facto cause of antipathy itself. There are other examples given of where the west was responsible for an increase in superpower hostility following 1945 however. One episode deserves special mention: US interference in the Italian general election of 1948. American and British officials were concerned that in the war-ravaged countries of France and Italy, economic hardship might result in communist parties coming to power through free elections; by 1946 such organisations already seemed poised to become the largest single political forces within those countries. 0 These worries quickly disappeared in the case of France, but when an election was scheduled for April 18th 1948 in Italy, the Italian communist party, at two million members the largest outside of the Soviet bloc, was poised certainly to win a large enough share of the vote to make it impossible to keep them out of a governing coalition, and possibly an outright majority. The United States decided to intervene. A massive letter-writing campaign was organised, resulting in some ten million letters being sent by Italian-Americans to relatives in Italy arguing against a vote for the communists, and the CIA in conjunction with the Catholic Church ran a huge anti-Marxist propaganda campaign. In addition, some $2-3 million was distributed by the CIA to various anti-communist political parties in Italy. When election day came the communists were humiliated, their share of the vote halved from what they had achieved in the 1946 local elections. 1 This is not the place to discuss whether American actions were justified, but undoubtedly the precedent set by the Italian effort, and its resounding success, resulted afterwards in the United States being far more willing to engage in anti-Soviet activities elsewhere, and this case is therefore cited as an instance where the actions of America contributed to the breakup of the Grand Alliance. Another reason sometimes given is the American monopoly on nucl ear weapons in the aftermath of World War Two. On July 16th 1945, the largest man-made explosion in history took place at the Alamogordo test site in New Mexico,12 and the United States was immediately catapulted into a position of total military superiority. Though the Soviet Union had ended the war with colossal conventional armed forces, the atomic bombings of Japan in August of that year left the Russians in no doubt that their on-paper ally had become indisputably the most powerful military force in the history of the world. It has therefore been argued that this obvious fact caused Stalin and his government to feel threatened and bullied by the United States, and that this was the reason for the antagonistic nature of postwar negotiations. Williams again writes: Particularly after the atom bomb was created and used, the attitude of the United States left the Soviets with but one real option: either acquiesce in American proposals or be confronted with American power and hostility. 13 Undoubtedly the US was sometimes guilty of flaunting its nuclear dominance: American officials evidently thought that the Paris Peace Conference of July 1946 would be far more productive were it to be immediately preceded by two nuclear weapons tests. 14 On the other hand, it is quite possible that considerations of American nuclear power did not factor significantly into Soviet thinking. At the Potsdam conference (July-August 1945), more than one western official observed Stalins surprising calmness, even nonchalance, when told by President Truman that the US was in possession of a new weapon of unusual destructive force. Only later did it transpire that not only did the USSR have an atomic weapons programme dating back to 1942 but that, due to the laxness of the Manhattan Projects managers respecting its wartime ally,15 the Soviets had spies passing nuclear secrets to Moscows scientists. 6 Stalin was therefore fully aware that the United States monopoly on atomic weapons would be only temporary, and therefore that this need not be factored into long-term Soviet strategic thinking. Furthermore, the aggressive actions taken by the USSR in the postwar period (see below) show no signs of restraint by Russian leaders on account of the destructive capability of the Americans nuclear arsenal. The Berlin Blockade (June 1948-May 1949) took place and concluded before the Soviets successfully tested a nuclear bomb of their own on August 29th 1949. 7 The USSRs leaders seem to have calculated, probably correctly, that the United States wanted to avoid war with the Soviet Union at almost any cost; after August 1949 this only became more true as MAD thinking began to gain widespread acceptance. The more orthodox interpretation of the postwar period is that the alliance collapsed primarily because of the actions taken by the Soviet Union after the defeat of Germany, especially concerning the areas of Europe occupied by soldiers of the Red Army. At the Yalta conference in February 1945, only months away from the defeat of Germany, major disputes arose over the fate of European nations such as Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia which had been liberated from German control by the troops of the Soviet Union. The western leaders, President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, wanted Stalin to conduct free and fair elections with the aim of establishing self-governing sovereign entities, but were under no illusions that the Soviet leader intended to turn them into friendly buffer states, and probably totalitarian one-party regimes at that. With respect to Poland especially, Stalin had already shown his contempt for national democracy movements by allowing the Wehrmacht to crush the Warsaw uprising in August-October 1944, and had a pro-Soviet puppet government ready and waiting to take over from the German authorities. 18 Previous Soviet treatment of Finland and the Baltic states gave every indication needed of how Stalin would react to attempts made at installing democracy in other countries. Section V pledged all of the allied powers, including the Soviet Union, to the earliest possible establishment through free elections of Governments responsive to the will of the people, and asserted the right of all people to choose the form of government under which they will live. 19 It does not need to be repeated that Stalin never had any intentions of carrying out the requirements of this passage. Immediately after the war the leaders of national communist parties, many of whom had spent the pre-war and wartime years in exile in Moscow and had long been subdued under Stalins whip, began their gradual accumulation of power. Invariably, the communists would contest a free-ish election under the auspices of the Red Army, win a minority of the vote (as little as 17% in Hungary and never more than 38%, in Czechoslovakia), and then agree to take part in a coalition government. Under pressure from Stalin, their rivals would agree to give communists control of ministries of justice and of the interior, which would then be used to disappear political opponents. In Poland the Soviet puppets methods were less subtle: a massive campaign of violence and intimidation preceded the first postwar elections in 1947, and the communists claimed 80% of the vote. 20 Despite assertions by some historians that western leaders handed over Eastern Europe to the Soviets at Yalta, short of a full-scale war with the USSR there was little if anything Roosevelt and Churchill could have done to prevent Stalin from turning eastern European countries into satellite states. Nevertheless, the dictators flagrant violations of the USSRs promises at Yalta created a chasm between the former Allies even before V-E Day, and is therefore frequently cited as the primary reason for the collapse of the Grand Alliance. As Roosevelts biographer Conrad Black has written, The issue of whether the British and Americans (and Frances) foremost ally would be Germany or Russia would be determined by whether Stalin could resist the temptation of enslaving Eastern Europe. 21

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Examine a global supply chain of clothing industries emphasizing relations of power among main actors - Essay Example The first one was the Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) a regulatory framework that created preferential tariffs and quotas on the apparel industry on the commodities that imported by the developed nations such as U.S., EU states and Canada (Gereffi, & Frederick, 2010). However, in the period 1995-2005, the MFA quotas and tariffs were replaced by the World Trade Organisation’ (WTO) agreement on clothing and textile (Brambilla, Khandelwal, & Schott, 2010). The second crisis was the financial crisis of 2008, which hit the apparel industry resulting in the unemployment, increased social unrests and factory shutdowns due to decreased demand in the developed economies. Zara is one of the giant global retailers in the fast fashion industry incepted in 1975. The company is an entity of the Spanish group Inditex. By 1990, Zara had expanded globally into a number of states including New York, U.S., Paris, France and Oporto in Portugal. Currently, the company operates over 1830 outlets in 82 nations globally, located in Africa, America, Europe and Asia (Inditex, 2011). Zara considers itself as fast fashion retail chain rather than a high fashion brand, which has enabled it to expand and achieve high growth levels. Zara unlike other brands in the apparel industry uses a vertical integration model that encompasses just-in-time, design, sales and marketing (The Economist, 2001). For this reason, the company can respond to consumers demands in a prompt way, and this has been the key driving force for the accelerated growth of the company in the industry. Labour Intensive-This is because it requires a large number of labour forces to produce its goods or services. The degree of labour intensity is measured in proportion to the amount of capital required to produce goods or services; the higher the proportion of labour costs required, the more labour intensive the business (Bartley, 2005). The clothing

IKEA’s Global Sourcing Challenge Essay Example for Free

IKEA’s Global Sourcing Challenge Essay Indian Rugs and Child Labor (A) In May 1995, Marianne Barner faced a tough decision. After just two years with IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, and less than a year into her job as business area manager for carpets, she was faced with the decision of cutting off one of the company’s major suppliers of Indian rugs. While such a move would disrupt supply and affect sales, she found the reasons to do so quite compelling. A German TV station had just broadcast an investigative report naming the supplier as one that used child labor in the production of rugs made for IKEA. What frustrated Barner was that, like all other IKEA suppliers, this large, well-regarded company had recently signed an addendum to its supply contract explicitly forbidding the use of child labor on pain of termination. Even more difficult than this short-term decision was the long-term action Barner knew IKEA must take on this issue. On one hand, she was being urged to sign up to an industry-wide response to growing concerns about the use of child labor in the Indian carpet industry. A recently formed partnership of manufacturers, importers, retailers, and Indian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) was proposing to issue and monitor the use of â€Å"Rugmark,† a label to be put on carpets certifying that they were made without child labor. Simultaneously, Barner had been conversing with people at the Swedish Save the Children organization who were urging IKEA to ensure that its response to the situation was â€Å"in the best interest of the child†Ã¢â‚¬â€whatever that might imply. Finally, there were some who wondered if IKEA should not just leave this hornet’s nest. Indian rugs accounted for a tiny part of IKEA’s turnover, and to these observers, the time, cost, and reputation risk posed by continuing this product line seemed not worth the profit potential. The Birth and Maturing of a Global Company1   Certain details have been disguised. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management. Copyright  © 2006 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685, write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Harvard Business School. Working out of the family kitchen, he sold goods such as fountain pens, cigarette lighters, and binders he purchased from low-priced sources and then advertised in a newsletter to local shopkeepers. When Kamprad matched his competitors by adding furniture to his newsletter in 1948, the immediate success of the new line led him to give up the small items. In 1951, to reduce product returns, he opened a display store in  nearby Älmhult village to allow customers to inspect products before buying. It was an immediate success, with customers traveling seven hours from the capital Stockholm by train to visit. Based on the store’s success, IKEA stopped accepting mail orders. Later Kamprad reflected, â€Å"The basis of the modern IKEA concept was created [at this time] and in principle it still applies. First and foremost, we use a catalog to tempt people to visit an exhibition, which today is our store. . . . Then, catalog in hand, customers can see simple interiors for themselves, touch the furniture they want to buy and then write out an order.†2 As Kamprad developed and refined his furniture retailing business model he became increasingly frustrated with the way a tightly knit cartel of furniture manufacturers controlled the Swedish industry to keep prices high. He began to view the situation not just as a business opportunity but also as an unacceptable social problem that he wanted to correct. Foreshadowing a vision for IKEA that would later be articulated as â€Å"creating a better life for the many people,† he wrote: â€Å"A disproportionately large part of all resources is used to satisfy a small part of the population. . . . IKEA’s aim is to change this situation. We shall offer a wide range of home furnishing items of good design and function at prices so low that the majority of people can afford to buy them. . . . We have great ambitions.†3 The small newsletter soon expanded into a full catalog. The 1953 issue introduced what would become another key IKEA feature: self-assembled furniture. Instead of buying complete pieces of furniture, customers bought them in flat packages and put them together themselves at home. Soon, the â€Å"knockdown† concept was fully systemized, saving transport and storage costs. In typical fashion, Kamprad turned the savings into still lower prices for his customers, gaining an even larger following among young postwar householders looking for well-designed but inexpensive furniture. Between 1953 and 1955, the company’s sales doubled from SEK 3 million to SEK 6 million.4 Managing Suppliers: Developing Sourcing Principles As its sales took off in the late 1950s, IKEA’s radically new concepts began to encounter stiff opposition from Sweden’s large furniture retailers. So  threatened were they that when IKEA began exhibiting at trade fairs, they colluded to stop the company from taking orders at the fairs and eventually even from showing its prices. The cartel also pressured manufacturers not to sell to IKEA, and the few that continued to do so often made their deliveries at night in unmarked vans. Unable to meet demand with such constrained local supply, Kamprad was forced to look abroad for new sources. In 1961, he contracted with several furniture factories in Poland, a country still in the Communist eastern bloc. To assure quality output and reliable delivery, IKEA brought its knowhow, taught its processes, and even provided machinery to the new suppliers, revitalizing Poland’s furniture industry as it did so. Poland soon became IKEA’s largest source and, to Kamprad’s delight, at much lower costs—once again allowing him to reduce his prices. Following its success in Poland, IKEA adopted a general procurement principle that it should not own its means of production but should seek to develop close ties by supporting its suppliers in a long-term relationship.a Beyond supply contracts and technology transfer, the relationship led IKEA to make loans to its suppliers at reasonable rates, repayable through future shipments. â€Å"Our objective is to develop long-term business partners,† explained a senior purchasing manager. â€Å"We commit to doing a ll we can to keep them competitive—as long as they remain equally committed to us. We are in this for the long run.† Although the relationship between IKEA and its suppliers was often described as one of mutual dependency, suppliers also knew that they had to remain competitive to keep their contract. From the outset they understood that if a more cost-effective alternative appeared, IKEA would try to help them respond, but if they could not do so, it would move production. In its constant quest to lower prices, the company developed an unusual way of  identifying new sources. As a veteran IKEA manager explained: â€Å"We do not buy products from our suppliers. We buy unused production capacity.† It was a philosophy that often led its purchasing managers to seek out seasonal manufacturers with spare off-season capacity. There were many classic examples of how IKEA matched products to supplier capabilities: they had sail makers make seat cushions, window factories produce table frames, and ski manufacturers build chairs in their off-season. The manager added, â€Å"We’ve always worr ied more about finding the right management at our suppliers than finding high-tech facilities. We will always help good management to develop their capacity.† Growing Retail: Expanding Abroad Building on the success of his first store, Kamprad self-financed a store in Stockholm in 1965. Recognizing a growing use of automobiles in Sweden, he bucked the practice of having a downtown showroom and opted for a suburban location with ample parking space. When customers drove home with their furniture in flat packed boxes, they assumed two of the costliest parts of traditional furniture retailing—home delivery and assembly. In 1963, even before the Stockholm store had opened, IKEA had expanded into Oslo, Norway. A decade later, Switzerland became its first non-Scandinavian market, and in 1974 IKEA entered Germany, which soon became its largest market. (See Exhibit 1 for IKEA’s worldwide expansion.) At each new store the same simple Scandinavian-design products were backed up with a catalog and offbeat advertising, presenting the company as â€Å"those impossible Swedes with strange ideas.† And reflecting the company’s conservative values, each new entry was financed by previous successes.b During this expansion, the IKEA concept evolved and became increasingly formalized. (Exhibit 2 summarizes important events in IKEA’s corporate history.) It still built large, suburban stores with knockdown furniture in flat packages the customers brought home to assemble themselves. But as the concept was refined, the company required that each store follow a predetermined design, set up to maximize customers’ exposure to the product range. The concept mandated, for instance, that the living room interiors should follow immediately after the entrance. IKEA also serviced customers with features  such as a playroom for children, a low-priced restaurant, and a â€Å"Sweden Shop† for groceries that had made IKEA Sweden’s leading food exporter. At the same time, the range gradually aThis policy was modified after a number of East European suppliers broke their contracts with IKEA after the fall of the Berlin Wall opened new markets for them. IKEA’s subsequent supply chain problems and loss of substantial investments led management to develop an internal production company, Swedwood, to ensure delivery stability. However, it was decided that only a limited amount of IKEA’s purchases (perhaps 10%) should be sourced from Swedwood. b By 2005, company lore had it that IKEA had only taken one bank loan in its corporate history—which it had paid back as soon as the cash flow allowed. The Emerging Culture and Values5 As Kamprad’s evolving business philosophy was formalized into the IKEA vision statement, â€Å"To create a better everyday life for the many people,† it became the foundation of the company’s strategy of selling affordable, good-quality furniture to mass-market consumers around the world. The cultural norms and values that developed to support the strategy’s implementation were also, in many ways, an extension of Kamprad’s personal beliefs and style. â€Å"The true IKEA spirit,† he remarked, â€Å"is founded on our enthusiasm, our constant will to renew, on our cost-consciousness, on our willingness to assume responsibility and to help, on our humbleness before the task, and on the simplicity of our behavior.† As well as a summary of his aspiration for the  company’s behavioral norms, it was also a good statement of Kamprad’s own personal management style. Over the years a very distinct organizational culture and management style emerged in IKEA reflecting these values. For example, the company operated very informally as evidenced by the open-plan office landscape, where even the CEO did not have a separate office, and the familiar and personal way all employees addressed one another. But that informality often masked an intensity that derived from the organization’s high self-imposed standards. As one senior executive explained, â€Å"Because there is no security available behind status or closed doors, this environment actually puts pressure on people to perform.† The IKEA management process also stressed simplicity and attention to detail. â€Å"Complicated rules paralyze!† said Kamprad. The company organized â€Å"anti-bureaucrat week† every year, requiring all managers to spend time working in a store to reestablish contact with the front line and the consumer. The workpace was such that executives joked that IKEA believed in â€Å"management by running around.† Cost consciousness was another strong part of the management culture. â€Å"Waste of resources,† said Kamprad, â€Å"is a mortal sin at IKEA. Expensive solutions are often signs of mediocrity, and an idea without a price tag is never acceptable.† Although cost consciousness extended into all aspects of the operation, travel and entertainment expenses were particularly sensitive. â€Å"We do not set any price on time,† remarked an executive, recalling that he had once phoned Kamprad to get approval to fly first class. He explained that economy class was full and that he had an urgent appointment to keep. â€Å"There is no first class in IKEA,† Kamprad had replied. â€Å"Perhaps you should go by car.† The executive completed the 350-mile trip by taxi. The search for creative solutions was also highly prized with IKEA. Kamprad had written, â€Å"Only while sleeping one makes no mistakes. The fear of making mistakes is the root of bureaucracy and the enemy of all evolution.† Though planning for the future was encouraged, overanalysis was not. â€Å"Exaggerated planning can be fatal,† Kamprad advised his executives. â€Å"Let simplicity and common sense characterize your planning.† In 1976, Kamprad felt the need to commit to paper the values that had developed in IKEA during the previous decades. His thesis, Testament of a Furniture Dealer, became an important means for spreading the IKEA philosophy, particularly during its period of rapid international expansion. (Extracts of the Testament are given in Exhibit 3.) Specially trained â€Å"IKEA ambassadors† were assigned to key positions in all units to spread the company’s philosophy and values by educating their subordinates and by acting as role models. In 1986, when Kamprad stepped down, Anders Moberg, a company veteran who had once been Kamprad’s personal assistant, took over as president and CEO. But Kamprad remained intimately involved as chairman, and his influence extended well beyond the ongoing daily operations: he was the self-appointed guardian of IKEA’s deeply embedded culture and values. Waking up to Environmental and Social Issues By the mid-1990s, IKEA was the worlds largest specialized furniture retailer. Sales for the IKEA Group for the financial year ending August 1994 totaled SEK 35 billion (about $4.5 billion). In the previous year, more than 116 million people had visited one of the 98 IKEA stores in 17 countries, most of them drawn there by the company’s product catalog, which was printed yearly in 72 million copies in 34 languages. The privately held company did not report profit levels, but one estimate put its net margin at 8.4% in 1994, yielding a net profit of SEK 2.9 billion (about $375 million). 6 After decades of seeking new sources, in the mid-1990s IKEA worked with almost 2,300 suppliers in 70 countries, sourcing a range of around 11,200 products. Its relationship with its suppliers was dominated by commercial issues, and its 24 trading service offices in 19 countries primarily monitored  production, tested new product ideas, negotiated prices, and checked quality. (See Exhibit 4 for selected IKEA figures in 1994.) That relationship began to change during the 1980s, however, when environmental problems emerged with some of its products. And it was even more severely challenged in the mid-1990s when accusations of IKEA suppliers using child labor surfaced. The Environmental Wake-Up: Formaldehyde In the early 1980s, Danish authorities passed regulations to define limits for formaldehyde emissions permissible in building products. The chemical compound was used as binding glue in materials such as plywood and particleboard and often seeped out as gas. At concentrations above 0.1 mg/kg in air, it could cause watery eyes, headaches, a burning sensation in the throat, and difficulty breathing. With IKEA’s profile as a leading local furniture retailer using particleboard in many of its products, it became a prime target for regulators wanting to publicize the new standards. So when tests showed that some IKEA products emitted more formaldehyde than was allowed by legislation, the case was widely publicized and the company was fined. More significantly—and the real lesson for IKEA—was that due to the publicity, its sales dropped 20% in Denmark. In response to this situation, the company quickly established stringent requirements regarding formaldehyde emissions but soon found that suppliers were failing to meet its standards. The problem was that most of its suppliers bought from subsuppliers, who in turn bought the binding materials from glue manufacturers. Eventually, IKEA decided it would have to work directly with the glue-producing chemical companies and, with the collaboration of companies such as ICI and BASF, soon found ways to reduce the formaldehyde off-gassing in its products.7 A decade later, however, the formaldehyde problem returned. In 1992, an investigative team from a large German newspaper and TV company found that IKEA’s best-selling bookcase series, Billy, had emissions higher than German legislation allowed. This time, however, the source of the problem was not the glue but the lacquer on the bookshelves. In the wake of headlines describing â€Å"deadly poisoned bookshelves,† IKEA immediately stopped both the production and sales of Billy bookcases worldwide and corrected the problem before resuming  distribution. Not counting the cost of lost sales and production or the damage to goodwill, the Billy incident was estimated to have cost IKEA $6 million to $7 million.8 These events prompted IKEA to address broader environmental concerns more directly. Since wood was the principal material in about half of all IKEA products, forestry became a natural starting point. Following discussions with both Greenpeace and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF, formerly World Wildlife Fund) and using standards set by the Forest Stewardship Council, IKEA established a forestry policy stating that IKEA would not accept any timber, veneer, plywood, or layer-glued wood from intact natural forests or from forests with a high conservation value. This meant that IKEA had to be willing to take on the task of tracing all wood used in IKEA products back to its source. 9 To monitor compliance, the company appointed forest managers to carry out random checks of wood suppliers and run projects on responsible forestry around the world. In addition to forestry, IKEA identified four other areas where environmental criteria were to be applied to its business operations: adapting the product range; working with suppliers; transport and distribution; and ensuring environmentally conscious stores. For instance, in 1992, the company began using chlorine-free recycled paper in its catalogs; it redesigned the best-selling OGLA chair— originally manufactured from beech—so it could be made using waste material from yogurt cup production; and it redefined its packaging principles to eliminate any use of PVC. The company also maintained its partnership with WWF, resulting in numerous projects on global conservation, and funded a global forest watch program to map intact natural forests worldwide. In addition, it engaged in an ongoing dialogue with Gr eenpeace on forestry.10 The Social Wake-Up: Child Labor In 1994, as IKEA was still working to resolve the formaldehyde problems, a Swedish television documentary showed children in Pakistan working at weaving looms. Among the several Swedish companies mentioned in the film as importers of carpets from Pakistan, IKEA was the only highprofile name on the list. Just two months into her job as business area manager for carpets, Marianne Barner recalled the shockwaves that the TV program sent through the company: The use of child labor was not a high-profile public issue at the time. In fact, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child had only been published in December 1989. So, media attention like this TV program had an important role to play in raising awareness on a topic not well known and understood—including at IKEA. . . . We were caught completely unaware. It was not something we had been paying attention to. For example, I had spent a couple of months in India learning about trading but got no exposure to child labor. Our buyers met suppliers in their city offices and rarely got out to where production took place. . . . Our immediate response to the program was to apologize for our ignorance and acknowledge that we were not in full control of this problem. But we also committed to do something about it. As part of its response, IKEA sent a legal team to Geneva to seek input and advice from the International Labor Organization (ILO) on how to deal with the problem. They learned that Convention 138, adopted by the ILO in 1973 and ratified by 120 countries, committed ratifying countries to working for the abolition of labor by children under 15 or the age of compulsory schooling in that country. India, Pakistan, and Nepal were not signatories to the convention.11 Following these discussions with the ILO, IKEA added a clause to all supply contracts—a â€Å"black-andwhite† clause, as Barner put it—stating simply that if the supplier employed children under legal working age, the contract would be cancelled.