Censorship, Free Thought, Free Speech :: Argumentative Persuasive Essays

"Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself." The basic rights guaranteed to Americans in the Bill of Rights is what holds the United States together. When Salman Rushdie wrote Guardian, he knew this. Unfortunately, the majority of congress and the President himself have forgotten the basic rights of Americans. When President William J. Clinton signed the Communications Decency Act that was proposed but the 104th Congress, he severely limited the rights of Americans on the Internet. The internet, just like books, magazines, artwork, and newspapers, should not be censored. "We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship." Even thought E. M. Forster lived over one hundred years before the Communications Decency Act was even proposed, he knew of the reason for its acceptance - fear. The Congress was afraid of the potential problems that could be caused by allowing Americans a new medium where animosity could be freely given. Rather than allowing this, lawmakers introduced a law that would handicap the freedom of speech. An internet provider could be punished for, in the words of the Communications Decency Act of 1996: any comment, request suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that, in context, depicts or describes, in terms patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards, sexual or excretory activities or organs, regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call or initiated the communication; or knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under such person's control to be used for an activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity, shall be fined under title 18, United States Code, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both. There are several flaws in this section of the Communications Decency Act that are due to the wording of the section itself. The entire section "patently offensive as measured by contemporary community standards" is not defined enough to give a basis for people to be fined or imprisoned. What is offensive to the "contemporary community?

How can the role of leadership be best understood in organizational cha

The role of leadership can best be understood in organizational change as a multi-dimensional phenomenon. Depending on the conceptualisation of organizational change you adopt, the leader’s role could be perceived to be a variety of things, from that of an initiator/visionary, the influencer of culture, a trigger for follower organizational identification, someone who redefines resistance, or a sense maker who introduces new discourses. The most useful approach can be to consider an issue from a number of different theoretical points of view before determining the most effective intervention. Leadership has been conceived of in a multitude of different ways varying from Great man theory (Borgatta, Bales and Couch, 1954; Cawthon, 1996), trait theories (), and style theories (). More recent conceptualisations of leadership include contingency theory (), and transformational leadership (). Each of these theoretical models has a contribution to make in forming a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between leadership and organizational change and we shall explore how adopting a definition for leadership or organizational change infers the role of the other. However we define leadership, the concepts of organizational change and leadership can be argued to be inextricably linked. If a leader was not able to effect any change within an organization then it is hard to imagine a way in which such a leader could be effective in their role. Thus organizational change is at the very heart of a leader’s role. This paper will argue that a pluralist approach to understanding leadership’s role in organizational change possesses the greatest utility in informing practice. In doing so, it will present a number of different concepts ... ...ind of universal sense as in doing so, one ‘mistakes the map for the terrain’. The role of leadership in organizational change is a multi-dimensional phenomenon which, it has been argued in this paper, can be most usefully understood by employing a pluralist perspective. That is to say, ‘a pluralist approach of comparing multiple plausible models of reality is essential for developing objective scientific knowledge’ (Campbell, 1988: 389, in Van de Ven & Poole, 2005). While there are a plethora of lens through which to understand both leadership and change it is more useful to consider a range of perspectives and only then assess the utility of each perspective and it’s appropriateness for informing a real world intervention. In the words of Pettigrew (2001) â€Å"In the absence of unambiguous foundational truth †¦ the only sensible way forward can be conscious pluralism."

Degeneration of Kurtz, Colonialism, and Imperialism in Heart of Darknes

Degeneration of Kurtz and Colonialism in Heart of Darkness       Kurtz was a personal embodiment, a dramatization, of all that Conrad felt of futility, degradation, and horror in what the Europeans in the Congo called 'progress,' which meant the exploitation of the natives by every variety of cruelty and treachery known to greedy man. Kurtz was to Marlow, penetrating this country, a name, constantly recurring in people's talk, for cleverness and enterprise. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a portrait of the degeneration of the ideal of Kurtz symbolizing the degeneration of the ideal of colonialism as 'civilizing work'.    The fading of the idealist mirage of 'civilizing work' in Africa has to be one of the central themes of Heart of Darkness. This theme forms the background of the whole story, from beginning to end, before the character of Kurtz is even introduced.    The focus of Heart of Darkness is not on the direct effect of the colonial presence on the native population, but on the reflected effect on the colonial occupiers. Centrally, the whole story being told directly is the effect on Marlow of his colonial adventure. Marlow here reflects or represents his Western ideological origins coming to terms with the reality of the Congo. It was not merely the economic relations of commodity exchange which so often in the colonies, it was the respectability of society; it was the very identity of the occupying force and it was the emptiness of the western colonial myth of individualism. The degeneration of Kurtz is thus inseparable from the 'other' degeneration.    Marlow, on his return to civilization, learns from Kurtz's cousin that he was a "universal genius" (Conrad 71). What ... ...ause the heart of humanity does not lie in the individual, it lies outside, in society, in language, in active engagement with a human world. Kurtz was more capable than anyone else of conquering the world, but the world, and the savagery, conquered him.    Works Cited Adelman, Gary. Heart of Darkness: Search for the Unconscious. Boston: Little & Brown, 1987. Bradley, Candice. "Africa and Africans in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." (24 Jan. 1996). Online Internet. 3 October 1998. Available: http://www.lawrence.edu/~johnson/heart. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. 17th ed. New York: Norton, 1988. Rosmarin, Adena. "Darkening the Reader: Reader Response Criticism and Heart of Darkness." Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's, 1989.       Degeneration of Kurtz, Colonialism, and Imperialism in Heart of Darknes Degeneration of Kurtz and Colonialism in Heart of Darkness       Kurtz was a personal embodiment, a dramatization, of all that Conrad felt of futility, degradation, and horror in what the Europeans in the Congo called 'progress,' which meant the exploitation of the natives by every variety of cruelty and treachery known to greedy man. Kurtz was to Marlow, penetrating this country, a name, constantly recurring in people's talk, for cleverness and enterprise. Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a portrait of the degeneration of the ideal of Kurtz symbolizing the degeneration of the ideal of colonialism as 'civilizing work'.    The fading of the idealist mirage of 'civilizing work' in Africa has to be one of the central themes of Heart of Darkness. This theme forms the background of the whole story, from beginning to end, before the character of Kurtz is even introduced.    The focus of Heart of Darkness is not on the direct effect of the colonial presence on the native population, but on the reflected effect on the colonial occupiers. Centrally, the whole story being told directly is the effect on Marlow of his colonial adventure. Marlow here reflects or represents his Western ideological origins coming to terms with the reality of the Congo. It was not merely the economic relations of commodity exchange which so often in the colonies, it was the respectability of society; it was the very identity of the occupying force and it was the emptiness of the western colonial myth of individualism. The degeneration of Kurtz is thus inseparable from the 'other' degeneration.    Marlow, on his return to civilization, learns from Kurtz's cousin that he was a "universal genius" (Conrad 71). What ... ...ause the heart of humanity does not lie in the individual, it lies outside, in society, in language, in active engagement with a human world. Kurtz was more capable than anyone else of conquering the world, but the world, and the savagery, conquered him.    Works Cited Adelman, Gary. Heart of Darkness: Search for the Unconscious. Boston: Little & Brown, 1987. Bradley, Candice. "Africa and Africans in Conrad's Heart of Darkness." (24 Jan. 1996). Online Internet. 3 October 1998. Available: http://www.lawrence.edu/~johnson/heart. Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. Ed. Robert Kimbrough. 17th ed. New York: Norton, 1988. Rosmarin, Adena. "Darkening the Reader: Reader Response Criticism and Heart of Darkness." Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness: A Case Study in Contemporary Criticism. Ed. Ross C. Murfin. New York: St. Martin's, 1989.      

Billie Holiday Biography

Billie Holiday (born Eleanora Harris (1915–1959) was an African American jazz singer and songwriter. Her singing style, strongly inspired by jazz musicians, lead to a new way of using word choice and rhythm. A critic named John Bush once wrote that Holiday â€Å"changed the art of American pop vocals forever. † She only co-wrote a few songs, but a number of them have become jazz standards that many musicians strive to live up to.Some of these standards were set by songs of hers such as â€Å"God Bless the Child†, â€Å"Don't Explain†, â€Å"Fine and Mellow†, and â€Å"Lady Sings the Blues†. She also became famous for singing â€Å"Easy Living†, â€Å"Good Morning Heartache†, and â€Å"Strange Fruit†, a protest song  which became one of her standards and was made famous with her 1939 recording. In Harlem she started singing in various night clubs. Holiday took her professional pen name from  Billie Dove, an actress she admired, and the musician Clarence Holiday, thus was born â€Å"Billie Holiday†.The producer  John Hammond arranged for Holiday to make her recording debut, at age 18, in November 1933 with Benny Goodman, singing two songs: â€Å"Your Mother's Son-In-Law† and â€Å"Riffin' the Scotch. † The latter being her first big hit. â€Å"Son-in-Law† sold 300 records,  but â€Å"Riffin' the Scotch,† sold 5,000 records. Hammond was very impressed by Holiday's vocalization style. He said of Holiday that, â€Å"Her singing almost changed my music tastes and my musical life; because she was the first girl singer I'd come across who actually sang like an improvising jazz genius. Hammond compared Holiday positively to Armstrong and said she had a good sense of lyrics at her young age. In early 1959 Holiday found out that she had  cirrhosis of the liver. The doctor told her to stop drinking, which she did for a short time, but soon returned to heavy drinking . Some of her friends tried to get her to check into a hospital, but she did not go. On May 31, 1959, Holiday was forcibly taken to Metropolitan Hospital in New York suffering from  liver  and  heart disease.She was arrested for having drugs with her as she lay dying, and her hospital room was invaded by the police. Police officers were stationed at the door to her room because of her drugs. Holiday remained under police guard at the hospital until she died from  pulmonary edema  and  heart failure caused by cirrhosis of the liver on July 17, 1959. In the final years of her life, she had been gradually tricked out of her earnings because of her drug and alcohol addictions. She died with seventy cents in the bank and seven-hundred fifty dollar tabloid fee.

Business and Management

Blyton, P. , Noon, M. (2007), The Realities of Work. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. This Chapter explores the key concepts of survival in the workforce. The aim is to explore how employees survive the alienating tendencies at work by developing different coping strategies in different circumstances. According to Karl Marx employees develop four types of estrangement; self-estrangement, estrangement from the product of their labour, their species being and from others which leads to alienation. Under capitalism)all the means for developing production are transformed into means of power over and exploitation of the producer; that they mutilate the worker into a fragment of a human being, degrade him to become a mere appurtenance, make his work such a torment that its essential meaning is destroyed(Marx, 1930: 713, quoted in Fox, 1974: 224) Blauner suggests that greater automation will free workers hard work of assembly lines and machine minding, it will result in decreasing alienatio n for employees (Blauner, 1964:182-3) We have acknowledged the authors and the investigators opinions to alienation.According to the writers there are five main strategies that help to survive alienation tendencies such as fiddling, making out, joking, sabotage and escaping. Michael Burawoy (1979) suggests employees should use the term making out. Making out in Burawoy’s theory suggests employees are allowed to miss behave and control their working day if they are still working within the rules, management’s instructions and tasks are completed. (Burawoy, 1985: 126) Management Today (2000) state fiddling is a rule breaker but managers turn a blind eye.It can be seen in any job from supermarkets to call centres. In call centres employees manipulate the call monitoring system in order to gain extra rest breaks. (Townsend,2005:56) Radcliffe-Brown (1952) is an anthropologist who acknowledged the survival strategy joking. Joking maintains social order, releases tension, cha llenges authority and forges group identities. However occasional joking can challenge the power of hierarchy. Identified by Linstead (1985a) sabotage can be a result of rational behaviour.It can purposely be a spiteful attempt to ruin or disturb the process or the product. This is where whistle blowing comes in to determine the result of behaviour. Escaping is expressed in two different ways. Physical escape is to temporarily take time off or to permanently quit the job to escape alienation. Mental escape is taking their mind somewhere else so that they can express their own thoughts in their own head. Overall employees should interoperate the five survival strategies’ which will help them to survive the alienation.However employees should interoperate them as a form of consent and not a form of resistance. McHugh, D. , Thompson, P. (2002) Work Organisations: A Critical Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. In This Chapter the author explores how scientific manageme nt and bureaucratisation helped transform the workplace. Fredrick Taylor is known for inventing the term scientific management. Some management and work organisations were already in place ‘the less skilled worker’.It was down to Taylor who acknowledged the influences of other systematic management inventions such as inspection systems, and employment departments. (Urwick and Breech, 1949:33) Nyland, (1988:56) believed that â€Å"The Systematisers† were a diverse group of engineers , accountants, and work managers who argued that US firms had grown to a size where the internal functioning of the enterprise was becoming increasingly chaotic and waist full. This suggests not all work was available to everyone so therefore used his system which he believed was the best to manage the workforce.Bringing a new approach to managerial skills needed a new set of rules to help the labour process that Taylor was most concerned about. New rules meant stricter working environ ments. Taylor used idea’s to help shape the work place conflicting beaurocratic management. Braverman (1974:120) objects that it sanctions the mistaken view that such work arrangements belongs to large scale organisations rather than a product of capitalist social relations. This suggests not everyone agreed with the theory, some writers said the idea of bureaucrasation and systematic management was problematic.To understand the beucratic rules it needs to be clear through different modes of production and business systems. Clawson (1980; 248) believed Taylorism is in contrast with Weber Stress on the remote and impersonal qualities of beuocrasy. This suggests Taylor and Weber worked in contrast with each other because weber believed in Taylor theory of systematic management. Therefore Webers theory of rationalisation worked with Taylor’s theory. To summarise beaurocratic management has risen in the ervice industry. Recent studies state that evidence is showed in Ritzl er’s (1993) ‘The Mcdonaldisation of society’. The authors state the key point of this chapter is that Taylorism and other management theories are distinct elements not packages. People are diverse and uneven when it comes to the legacy of Taylorism. Traditions have in fact shaped the industry aiding managers to use different approaches.Word Count: 796 References Deakins, D & Freel, M. (2009) ‘Entrepreneurship and Small Firms’. 5th ed. Midenhead: McGraw Hill. O’Doherty, D. (2007) ‘Introducing Organisational Behaviour and Management’. London: Thompson. Weardon, G. (2012) ‘Eurozone crisis live: Monti to lobby Merkel over bond-buying plan’ The Guardian. 29th August, 2012. Cramer, R. M. (2006) ‘The Great Intimidators’ Havard Business Review. V84 pp. 88-96. ‘ Most companies struggling to be paperless’ Institute of Leadership and Management. 14th August, 2012. http://www. i-l-m. com/ [accessed 29th August 2012].

Wireless and Fundamental Changes

Exhibit 1. 4 highlights the marketing implications of Internet technologies in the following categories: Bits not atoms, Mediating technology, Global reach, Network externality, Time moderator, Information equalizer, Scalable capacity, Open Standard, Market deconstruct, and Task Automation. What fundamental changes has the Internet brought to marketing? The balance of power is shifting to buyers—one of the most fundamental changes to marketing. Marketers have practically lost control of brand images due to blogs, online bulletin boards, and other online communication, and must consistently underpromise and overdeliver. Other changes: Market fragmentation. The Internet put finality to this trend by extending to its ultimate—a market size of one customer—and prompted marketers to create products and communication to small target groups. Death of distance. Geographic location is no longer a factor when collaborating with business partners, supply chain firms, or customers, or just chatting with friends. Time compression. Time is not a factor with Internet communication between firms and their stakeholders. Online stores can be open 24/7; people can communicate as their schedules permit; times zones disappear for managers collaborating with partners on other continents. Critical knowledge management. In the digital world, customer information is easy and inexpensive to gather, store, and analyze. Managers can track marketing results as plans are implemented, receiving play-by-play reports. However, turning huge databases into meaningful knowledge to guide strategic decisions is a major challenge. Interdisciplinary focus. Marketers must understand technology to harness its power. They do not have to personally develop the technologies, but they need to know enough to select appropriate suppliers and direct technology professionals. Intellectual capital rules. Imagination, creativity, and entrepreneurship are more important resources than financial capital. The internet properties that affect marketing are the web itself. The web allows information to travel faster throughout the whole world. Secondly, the existence of email contributes to a more efficient way of communication. Email also has sparked the ideas for another internet revolution, the social networks. A social network is based on Web 2. 0 where the web allows interactivity within the internet users community. The existence of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter keeps people online more often than before. Another example of internet properties that affect marketing is through blogs. There was a saying; â€Å"pen is sharper than sword†. With blogs, internet users are allowed to express their opinions and discussions worldwide. The wiki pages such as Wikipedia are places where people share knowledge about everything, including brands and other marketing related topics. With these internet properties, there are a few fundamental changes the internet has brought to marketing. Firstly, it changes the power shift from sellers to buyers. Consumers have the ability to share and review the products online where good products will be praised and inferior products will be critiqued everywhere through word of mouth or some would call it word of â€Å"mouse† (WOM). It is also through this process that consumers trust each other more than they trust the companies. This issue can be measured by the success of EBay in the online market where second-hand and unexpected products will be marketed in the website. One could get an item from EBay where no other can find such as unique products. The other big change to marketing approach due to internet is the market and media fragmentation. Before the existence of internet marketing, the brands will go through a series of supply chain before reaching to the†¦ What concerns about consumer privacy are raised by the increased use of wireless computing and handheld devices outside the home or workplace? here wireless devices can contain their financial and private information and those signals can be intercepted and other people can obtain information. 12. What concerns about consumer privacy are raised by the increased use of   wireless computing and handheld devices outside the home or workplace? The rapid proliferation of wireless networks outside the home and work place has resulted in increase d concern over privacy. In the digital context, privacy refers to two things: the â€Å"right to be left alone,† and the right to keep one’s personal information private (see chapter 5). With regard to wireless computing, one big concern is text message Spamming. As marketers gain access to cell phone numbers and even cell phone directories, many fear that unscrupulous marketers will overwhelm consumers with voice and text messages. Another concern is that people can intercept wireless transmissions, thus gaining access to personal information sent from PCs and other devices over wireless networks. Security issues with hard-line Internet connections with â€Å"always-on† services like DSL and cable were concern enough already. Now with services that broadcast data throughout the air freely available to everyone, consumers have reason to be even more concerned. The same issues with privacy, credit cards numbers, personal information, etc. apply, except now people can listen in and even jump onto your network with a Pringle’s can for an antennae and a little know how. Encryption standards are still widely debated, but it is likely the added convenience will win out in the end. In a future with mobile commerce and automated account transfers over wireless networks, security will become paramount.

Amazon.com and Porter’s Five Forces Essay

Introduction In the early 1990s, the Venture Capitalists and Banks reviewed business models of books, CDs, electrical appliance retailers which were majorly confined to brick and mortar stores and simple operations. But they would be surprised to view the business model of Amazon.com Inc, which has used the internet to gain competitive strategic advantage and personify most of innovation metaphors. This analysis of Amazon.com Inc has Porter’s five forces model, which consist of Supplier’s Power, Customer’s Power, Threat of New Entrants, Threat of Substitutes and Degree of Rivalry, respectively, being conscientiously used in respect to our chosen company, to determine whether Amazon has benefitted in terms of competitive advantage by its different-than-others business model, or has it not. The rest of this research answer is organized as follows: first we shall look at why we chose Amazon, and then we shall study the five forces given in the same progressive order as above. Th is is finalized by our conclusion, where the research answer is stated clearly. Why Amazon Being one of the largest online retail companies in the world (Forbes), Amazon.com has clearly stated its position in the dominant market analogies. Emerging in the early 1990s (the era of .com boom) the firm was one of its own kinds of innovation. The firm sells everything from books, DVDs to kitchen appliances and jewellery. The firm’s other operations are: providing content production and computing services to various firms. So, all this was basic data about the company which looks great on paper, but the quality in Amazon which led us to choose it as our company was persistence towards transforming. To survive and grow in today’s complex business world where words like stability don’t matter anymore, you need to change and transform constantly according to situation and time, which Amazon has done very nicely. First of all, it survived through the dot com bust due to it having an innovative business model with less cost formula. Then to expand, they went further than books to bring in most of easily shippable goods. Amazon came through once again to satisfy a new customer – IT community, which required new resources, and a new business model. This was in 2002. In 2007, it further innovated to launch the kindle eBook reader (which currently is a  tablet computer). This product required Amazon to be a hardware producer as well as digital media software. And the success of Kindle showed that Amazon had the ability to respond to market needs, and to transform, not just once, but time and time again, to deliver the demanded product for both customer satisfaction and growth of its business. These support our choice of choosing this company. Supplier’s power There are two major supplying fields for Amazon’s (according to the sales structure of the firm), namely; electronics and book sectors. With those suppliers related to supplying books in terms of their bargaining power have proved to be at a minimum (or limited) level ’cause of low concentration that directly adds to the firm’s value overtime. The out-coming factor to such relativity is large number of book sellers present in the market. In such manner, Amazon is readily open to select its own suppliers for books once there is a distortion of material nature of things. Other sector that the firm’s sale figures are heavily dependent upon is electronics. In such case the bargaining power for electronics suppliers is relatively high. The only reason present for this explanation is the low costing structure that Amazon presents for its electronic goods to sell. In such manner they are not collecting their deliveries straights from the parent companies rather they opt for its second dealers, which have more bargaining power (price mechanism that outcry’s the related market dependences). The nature for such power is the presence of fewer dealers for the supply or if the firm wants to switch to other suppliers then their pricing could be different (generally higher than market price). On an overall we can say the bargaining power of suppliers fluctuates from low to mid-high (taking overtime factor into account that directly proportions the book sector) Customer’s Power Such power is generally related in the manner how a customer selects, carry forward and considers his / hers buying options. In terms of online retailing, customers are having high bargaining power. If they see other  sites selling at different costing they’ll shift the choice of not selecting Amazon.com. Sometimes customers are over possessive in terms of product selection. So they want hand touch to their selections. In accordance to that online retailers are at a diminishing level as there are markets to look for (such could also be a case of buyer’s customisation). Another way to look for such scenario is the manner in which the industry provides product quality. Amazon.com being regarded as a superior firm in terms of product quality, so its costumers purchase more on it rather going to the markets. This also adds value to the firm by creating more customers over the years. Considering the fact that Amazon.com do not operate any of its retail outlets, there are saving, accordingly. It’s in the business nature of the firm to transfer that saving directly to buyers in terms of low pricing of its goods, and in that causative approach Amazon.com enhances its value. Being more customer centric firm, it satisfies more customers and due to that reason the firm has more offering than any other industry in such field. To conclude, the above reasoning for the customer’s power to bargain and industry’s ability to attract more, we say that it fluctuates mid to high. Threat of New Entrants Majorly this relates to barrier to entry into the current segment of the market (online retailing). In such field (at eh present financial scenario) threats of new entrants are low. Beating Amazon.com is at its performance scale is a tough job for any new .com enterprise. It may take years for a new firm to get into form working in present financial world (concerning stock market fluctuations, investment hedges etc.). For any E-commerce firm to develop requires a start-up strategy and stable working environment; that is only possible when there a suitable financial induction and better approach to day-to-day problems. Strong distribution and supply network is the basic necessity for an online retail company. The manner in which big firms such as Amazon.com, eBay, Alibaba; operates, they have evolved overtime to get their goods to the end consumers. Geographic factor is better for the firm’s competitive advantage. Amazon.com withstand a better than any other firm, by operating as product and service differentiation to attain maximum locality it can. (a view in accordance to the working nature  and size of Amazon.com) http://www.wikiwealth.com/five-forces-competitor:amazon:geographic-factors-limit-compe Pricing structure and capital requirements always pose a extradition to new retailing firms as these costs associated to them are usually high. An economy of scale is widely looked upon a changing mechanism for a firms operating level. Amazon.com has this factor in high nature as it is able to limit its cost governing operations which in case of new entrants is high. Governmental policies could sometimes hold a newly formed company not the start up or disrupts its operations in middle as it might not be in the proper nature of working (legal concerns) (Chapter 2 page 85 book – exploring corporate strategy) Threat of Substitutes Having market for goods diversified, there are number of options available to purchasers while selecting a particular choice of their own. Online stores, direct outlets, discount shops, stands; goods can now be purchased anywhere and any-time (no need for going online every-time; but yes the comparison can be made). Taking example for book purchase; such can be bought from number of book shops or news-stands at much more cheaper price (taking a margin of interest). Other could be music selection; iTunes, radio stations or recording on one’s own are close substitutes for online purchase. Only thing to argue here is the nature of physical presence or being virtual about a shopping item. By taking such notice, threat of substitutes in case of Amazon.com is high. Degree of Rivalry Market adjusts in accordance to the compelling nature of firms to attract consumers. More product diversification leads to empowering market to produce rivalry among providers of it. Amazon.com being of the key player in such market capture faces strong competition from its rivals (such as eBay, Alibaba, Barnes & Nobel, Wal-Mart etc.) Growth rate [in %] (Source: NASDAQ) INDUSTRY 2014 2015 Amazon.com 195.36 132.47 Wal-Mart 3.82 9.10 Barnes & Nobel -189.66 2.38 Ebay 8.65 14.11 Amazon.com hold a strong future forecasts in terms of growth rate. (could also be a measure to predict industry development towards market behaviour) But when we consider sales revenues into account for the year 2012-13 http://www.forbes.com/sites/walterloeb/2013/07/24/alibaba-a-threat-to-amazon-ebay-walmart-and-everyone-else/ Source: Forbes In billion $ Alibaba 170 Amazon.com 95 EBay 75 There is a clear presentation of how market can integrate companies in terms of revenue capturing in the same field of online retailing. This could either be short-term or long-term depending upon attempts to gain dominance over one another (chapter 2 page 85 book – exploring corporate strategy) In terms of entry and exit barriers, there is a moderate rivalry between firms. The explanation to that is the profit making what the investors see in retail sector. https://www.extension.iastate.edu/AGDM/wholefarm/html/c5-200.html Consequently, Amazon.com stands on a better scale of performance as when it started operating there were low exit barriers that made the company to add to its value. But these current times, investments and barriers are getting more complex that puts pressure on firms which are stepping into recent marking to perform above. The firms that hold strong grounds (as mentioned EBay, Alibaba etc.) are giving intense rivalry to Amazon.com. Conclusion Porter’s Five Forces Model Conclusion Supplier’s power Mid-High Customer’s Power Mid-High Threat of New Entrants Low Threat of Substitutes High Degree of Rivalry Mid-high Viewing the tabular conclusion gets us to further conclude that Amazon.com Inc has increased its competitive advantage, in a good degree, one might say.