Case Study on Cultural Differences Essay Example for Free

Case Study on Cultural Differences Essay Cultural differences can pose problems for health care workers. In the case of Linda Gorman, she is faced with the decision to report a woman for child abuse, or chalk it up to cultural differences. The question shouldn’t be whether or not she should report Mrs. Saeto, but rather, are Mrs. Saeto’s actions really considered child abuse? The answer to this can get muddled in cultural beliefs. For Americans, her actions qualify as abusive because Mrs. Saeto is unnecessarily causing harm to baby Marie by burning her. To the Mien culture, this is merely an act of protecting the child and curing her from an ailment. It really depends on what viewpoint one looks at it from. In the Mien culture, practices like this burning ritual are commonplace. The Mien culture believes in spirits and rituals that can cure ailments. To some outside of the culture, these practices may seem barbaric, but to them, some of American practices may seem barbaric as well. For example, Linda mentions the differences between burning a child and causing a child pain by giving them a shot. Both cause the baby to cry, and to both cultures, both are considered to be helping the baby stay healthy. To anyone outside of the American culture, American medical practices can potentially seem just as barbaric as burning a baby. This is directly related to cultural relativity, or â€Å"the view that practices and behaviors can be judged only by the cultural standards of the culture in which those practices occur,† (Hachen, n. d. ). According to David Hachen, â€Å"rejecting cultural relativity implies that there are universal standards by which the practices in all cultures can be evaluated,† (Hachen, n. . ). If Linda assumes that Mrs. Saeto’s beliefs are barbaric and should be reported, she is practicing ethnocentrism, or â€Å"the view that one’s own culture is the superior culture and therefore its standards are the ‘universal’ ones that should be used to judge behaviors in all cultures,† (Hachen, n. d. ). Linda needs to decide whether her practices and beliefs are superior to Mrs. Saeto’s, and therefore the standard by which to compare Mrs. Saeto’s actions. Should Linda find Mrs. Saeto’s actions unacceptable in the American culture, how should she proceed? Should she report Mrs. Saeto for child abuse, or should she confront her in the hopes to change Mrs. Saeto’s opinions concerning Mien cultural cures and medical practices? If Linda decides to confront Mrs. Saeto, she should probably explain to her that in America, most people would consider her actions abusive to baby Marie and that she should probably not continue to â€Å"cure† her in this manner. This poses another ethical dilemma. By imparting this knowledge to Mrs. Saeto, Linda is, in a sense, assimilating Mrs.  Saeto to American culture. How far is too far? If Mrs. Saeto gives up this practice, and similar ones, in order to not seem abusive to her American peers, what else will she have to give up from her culture? Linda’s best options for handling the situation are to talk to Mrs. Saeto and try to explain the dilemma to her. She should convey that she understands the cultural differences, but that if another doctor who does not understand sees the burns, it may be misconstrued as child abuse. She shouldn’t threaten Mrs.  Saeto with reporting her, but should rather allow Mrs. Saeto to see both sides of the story, as Linda is seeing them. Hopefully, this will allow Mrs. Saeto to make an educated decision in her own time, regarding the practices. Neither side is right, nor wrong, in this case, however, Mrs. Saeto must be made aware of the potential danger she could face by continuing her Mien practices in America, where the wrong person may see and not understand and make a rash decision that could harm Mrs. Saeto’s family in the long run.

Nikes Plan for China Essay -- Nike Sales Retail Business Marketing Es

Nike's Plan for China Nike is already a global power house, however the potential to increase sales in China was the topic of the most recent annual investor meeting. One may question Nike’s preoccupation with China. After all, Nike China is dominant. They are currently the number one brand with the number one market share while competitors Reebok and Adidas are in 4th and 5th places respectively. They have tripled revenue in the last two years. With 2000 points of sale, 400 stores in the top three cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou) and 50 cities with 3 or more stores, Nike is primed to begin pushing into the second tier cities. Let’s examine â€Å"why China? â€Å" Socially, China presents a portrait of change. The attitudes and preferences of today's generation of "twenty-something" consumers diverges markedly from those of their parents' generation. In fact, in the economically churning coastal cities, this gap is as wide as ever and growing, leading to comparisons between China toda y and the 1960s in Europe and the United States. Nike sees a large and growing market for its products in China. China has: †¢ 20% of the world’s population. †¢ 50 million middle class households. †¢ 430 million youth under the age of 20 (5X the number of youth in the US). †¢ 50 million middle class households –- which will grow to 150 million in next 10 years. †¢ 65% of its youth involved in sports. †¢ A consumer market that embraces brands -- particularly Western brands. †¢ 300 million people expected to move from rural areas to the cities in the next 10 years. With this information in mind, Nike has created a strategic marketing plan to strengthen their position in the China market. The Global supply chain is in place, now they just need a strategy. But, before Nike can execute their well laid plans, they must first do a little damage control. In 2004, Nike advertisements featuring basketball star LeBron James slaying a Chinese dragon and a kung fu master were banned in China and met with a flurry of criticism. The TV commercial offended government regulators because it showed an American sports icon defeating the dragon, a symbol of Chinese culture, and the martial arts master, a symbol of national pride. Nike clearly disrespected the Chinese culture, and was forced to pull the ads and apologize. Nike spokeswoman Shelley Peng said th... ...arket. However, Nike's estimates suggest it will maintain its lead in China after the merger. Nike said it has 30 percent of the Chinese athletic market, trailed by Adidas's 19 percent. The inclusion of Reebok will catapult Adidas's share to 27 percent. How is Nike’s strategy working? A survey asked Chinese which brands were the coolest. The results came in: Nike 52%; Adidas 38%; Reebok 15%; Li-Ning 13%; and New Balance 10%. Bibliography Nike China (NKE) growing fast (4Q05 conf call) The China Stock Blog Brands in Transition: Making it Work in China 2005/04/12 by Christopher Millward, Beijing This Month Nike China (NKE) growing fast (4Q05 conf call) The China Stock Blog 2005 Business Report & Independent Online, www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2337753 2005 Business Report & Independent Online, www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=2337753 Nike China (NKE) growing fast (4Q05 conf call) The China Stock Blog CSRwire, http://www.csrwire.com/article.cgi/2411.html Beijing This Month, featured in Business Beijing, July 2005 China Daily Online. Adidas, Reebok vie against Nike for China market(Bloomberg) 2005-08-09 10:31 JUNE 29, 2005 -- Nike Investor Day Recap

Criminal Recidivism Essay

Prisons today are overcrowded and are a growing problem in today’s society. â€Å"In 2008, the Pew Center on the States reported that incarceration levels had risen to a point where one in 100 American adults was behind bars. A second Pew study, the following year, added another disturbing dimension to the picture, revealing that one in 31 adults in the United States was either incarcerated or on probation or parole† (Pew Center on the States, 2011). It is very costly for the states to maintain the prisoners behind bars. It has been estimated that the cost of state spending on corrections is 52 billion dollars. Recidivism is a term used by law enforcement agencies that describes the tendency to relapse into criminal behavior. It involves a person being re-incarcerated or re-offending. â€Å"Inmates returning to state prisons within three years of release has remained steady for more than a decade; this is a strong indicator that prison systems are failing to deter criminals from re-offending. Using data from 41 states for prisoners released, â€Å"a study done by the Pew Center on the States found that slightly more than 4 in 10 offenders return to prison within three years† (Johnson, 2011). What has caused this rise in recidivism can be due to more studies being done, tracking recidivism more closely, and failure of prison systems/probation programs to rehabilitate inmates. â€Å"Prisons serve multiple purposes, including exacting retribution for breaking the law, separating offenders from society so they cannot commit more crimes, deterring the general population from committing crimes and discouraging incarcerated offenders from committing new crimes once they are released† (Pew Center on the States, 2011). One priority of prisons is to deter criminal activity through incarceration and rehabilitation of its criminals. One way to track rehabilitation of the criminals is by tracking the recidivism rates. This study includes data of prisoners released in 1999 and prisoners released in 2004. Thirty-one states offered data for 1999 and 41 states offered data for 2004. â€Å"The Pew/ASCA survey found the three-year return-to-prison rate for inmates released in 1999 to be 45. 4 percent, and 43. percent for those released in 2004† (2011). This study began its study by sending out surveys to all 50 states. â€Å"A self-selected survey or voluntary response survey is one in which people decide for themselves whether to be included in the survey† (Bennett, Briggs, & Triola, 2009, p. 37). Each prison facility decided whether they would be included in the study and they submitted information to the Pew Center of the States. Qualitative data was used to put values on the measurements. The process of binning was used to categorize the prisoners into three groups, which consisted of first release, all releases, return for new convictions, and return for violation of probation. â€Å"The relative frequency of any category is the proportion or percentage of the data values that fall in that category† (Bennett, et. al. , 2009, p. 94). They set up relative frequency tables to determine how many times the prisoners fell under the categories or bins. They used mean, median, and mode to get averages of prisoners released and re-offending. There were some outliers in the studies. Outliers are defined as â€Å"a value that is much higher or much lower than almost all other values† (Bennett, et. al. , 2009, p. 149). â€Å"State departments of correction reported on people who returned to one of their facilities, which would not count a former offender who was incarcerated in another state or depending on proximity to high-crime areas in neighboring states or major interstate drug corridors† (Johnson, 2011). The Pew Center of the States analyzed the data and concluded that by 2002, more than 45% in the first wave of releases returned to prison and in 2007, about 43% of the second group returned† (Johnson, 2011). They came up with these percentiles by looking at the total number of inmates released from each prison for each state and how many were re-incarcerated for new crimes or violation of probation. â€Å"One can approximate the percentile of any data value with the following formula: percentile of data value =number of values less than this data value/total number of values in data set† (Bennet, t. al. , 2009, p. 170). â€Å"At least 95 percent of inmates in America ultimately will be released and returned to the community. Keeping them crime and drug-free is no easy assignment. Many offenders lacked education, work experience, family support and a stable living situation before they were incarcerated, and many suffer from mental illness or a history of addiction† (The Pews Center of the states, 2011). Many also have the stigma that comes with having a criminal record and are unable to find work, so they resort back to robbery or stealing. Many times the released prisoners go back to hanging out with their old friends and then it is not long before they fall back into their old habits. In addition, the probation/parole divisions that are supposed to supervise the former inmates are overworked, have large caseloads, and limited technology to keep up with the former inmates.

Performance of Pakistan Banking Sector - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 3 Words: 792 Downloads: 5 Date added: 2017/09/15 Category Advertising Essay Did you like this example? Banking industry begins to show signs of slowdown After witnessing a strong growth during last few years, the banking industry has now started showing signs of slowdown, as deposits, assets, investment and profitability of banking sector is on decline while credit risk, market risk, interest risk, NPLs and advances are widening. According to the assessment of the State Bank of Pakistan’s Quarterly Performance Review of the Banking System (July-September 2008), released on Thursday, due to deteriorating macroeconomic factors the performance of the banking system on asset quality and earnings has slightly declined. Banking industry deposit component witnessed a significant decline of Rs 124 billion or 3 percent during the third quarter of 2008. Therefore, the share of deposits in overall funding structure declined to 73. 8 percent from 76 percent in last quarter, the report said. The SBP revealed that profitability of the banking system remained steady during the quarter though return indicators that slightly declined due to higher provisioning and operating expenses. The banking system posted a before tax profit of Rs 20. 7 billion during the third quarter, translating into year to-date profit of Rs 82. billion whereas after tax profit stood at Rs 54. 9 billion in September 2008. The credit risk has somewhat increased since the previous quarter. The Non Performing Loans (NPLs) of the system increased by Rs 36 billion over the quarter. The increase in NPLs has been across all the banking groups except for foreign banks, the report said, adding that â€Å"the market risk profile of the banking system is also predominantly affected by the interest rate risk. † During the quarter under review total assets of the banking system slightly declined as the deposits base contracted. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Performance of Pakistan Banking Sector" essay for you Create order The Sept-08 quarter witnessed a significant increase in advances that grew by Rs 167 billion and their share in total assets inched up to 56. 1 percent, exceeding Dec-06 levels. Over the quarter assets declined by Rs 4. 2 billion to Rs 5,509 billion while assets observed strong increase of Rs 292 billion in Jun-08 and Rs 67 billion. March-08 quarter also reflects some slowdown in the banking sector, which has witnessed strong growth for the last few years. However, interestingly, the decline in assets in the September quarter is less than decline observed in the corresponding quarters of the previous two years, the report added. On the back of high inflation rates, which pushed the real lending rates into negative, the demand for bank credit continued to increase and the banks’ asset profile further shifted from investments to loans and advances, thus constraining the banks’ liquidity profile. However, key financial soundness indicators and results of the stress testing exercise suggest that the system by and large maintained its satisfactory performance as well as the resilience towards the major risk factors. The report said that withdrawal of deposits was largely made up by increase in interbank borrowings. However, on the asset side, loans of the banking system posted a strong increase of Rs 167 billion (5. 7 percent) while investment portfolio further shrank by Rs 94 billion. Resultantly, the liquidity profile of the banking system came under further pressure as the ADR (advances to deposit ratio) and liquid asset ratio further deteriorated and posed serious challenge of asset-liability management especially for banks operating with high ADR, it added. This situation was further compounded by a tight monetary policy that was in vogue, though later on relaxed during post quarter liquidity stress. Net infection ratio and NPL coverage ratio slightly deteriorated to 1. 9 percent and 79 percent, respectively, which though still remain within acceptable and ameliorated level compared with the situation that was prevailing in corresponding quarter of last years. The pre-tax return on assets declined to 2. 0 percent (2. 3 percent in June-08 and 2. 2 percent in CY07). Incidentally, this slight fall in overall earning of the banking system has also to do with the exceptional losses posted by a couple of banks. However the report said that though key financial indicators for the quarter under review indicate slight drop, by and large the banking system has maintained the momentum of satisfactory performance that it achieved during the recent years of strong economic growth. The indicators suggest that the system is well placed to maintain this momentum and is financially sound to withstand any plausible shocks in the key risk factors. The post quarter liquidity crunch, in particular, has signified the importance of prudent asset-liability management for the banks in tight monetary policy regime. The SBP said that despite slowdown latest interim post-quarter statistics on key financials indicate that unlike established trends of strong growth, the asset base of the banking system is likely to remain stable during the last quarter of the outgoing year. The SBP took a number of measures, which are expected to facilitate the sound operations of the banking system and incentivize the banks to rationalise their asset-liability profile and further improve their risk management capacities.