Misconceptions Among Muslim Essay Example for Free

Misconceptions Among Muslim Essay This is the biggest misconception about Islam, no doubt resulting from the constant stereotyping and bashing the media gives Islam. When a gunman attacks a mosque in the name of Judaism, a Catholic IRA guerrilla sets off a bomb in an urban area, or Serbian Orthodox militiamen rape and kill innocent Muslim civilians, these acts are not used to stereotype an entire faith. Never are these acts attributed to the religion of the perpetrators. Yet how many times have we heard the words Islamic, Muslim fundamentalist, etc. linked with violence. Many people use the name of religions for their own purposes. One should consult the source of Islam and separate what the true religion of Islam says from what is portrayed in the media. Islam literally means submission to Allah and is derived from a root word meaning peace. Islam may seem exotic or even extreme in the modern world. Perhaps this is because religion doesnt dominate everyday life in the West, whereas Islam is considered a way of life for Muslims and they make no division between secular and sacred in their lives. Like Christianity, Islam permits fighting in self-defence, in defence of religion, or on the part of those who have been expelled forcibly from their homes. It lays down strict rules of combat, which include prohibitions against harming civilians and against destroying crops, trees and livestock. Nowhere does Islam enjoin the killing of innocents. The Quran says: {Fight in the cause of Allah against those who fight you, but do not transgress limits. Allah does not love transgressors} (Quran 2:190), {If they seek peace, then seek you peace. And trust in Allah for He is the One that heareth and knoweth all things} (Quran 8:61) War, therefore, is the last resort, and is subject to the rigorous conditions laid down by the sacred law. The term jihad literally means struggle. Muslims believe that there are two kinds of jihad. The other jihad is the inner struggle of the soul, which everyone wages against egotistic desires for the sake of attaining inner peace.

The Others :: essays research papers

The Other   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Gananath Obeyesekere argues that â€Å"one cannot escape the politics, ethics, and quandaries of representation even as we try to describe the Other.† This argument has lead to a great debate between him and another anthropologist, Marshal Sahlins. Obeyesekere believes that even though we try to give an objective portrayal of another, we cannot help judging them by our own standards. Sahlins on the other hand, says that it is possible to describe other people in an objective way, as long as you have evidence. These anthropologist’s arguments were focused around the apotheosis of Captain Cook. The major debate between the two resides in the idea of representation, and an outsider’s ability to understand another culture. This debate on the concept of representation can be applied to the movie, My Son the Fanatic, in which two cultures are represented- Western and Muslim.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the movie My Son the Fanatic, we see two cultures being represented. The first is that of a Western Capitalist, racist- acted out by the character, Schitz, who was a German businessman. The other culture was that of violent, Muslim fundamentalists- acted out by Farid, the son of Parvez. This movie was written by Hanif Kureishi who was the son of a Pakistani father and an English mother. Because Hanif was a Pakistani, it is expected that he would be able to objectively portray the Muslims in the movie. I think that he did a good job at doing so. He showed that some of the Muslims were violent fundamentalists such as Farid, and he also showed examples of Muslims that were not so extreme such as Parvez. Farid led violent riots to destroy the prostitutes, burned down their house and attacked Bettina, a prostitute that was also Parvez’ friend. If this was the only type of Muslim portrayed throughout the movie, it would have been a stereotypical film; however, Hanif also showed that there were Muslims such as Parvez that were not violent fundamentalists- Parvez even befriended a prostitute.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Unlike his un-bias representation of Muslims, Hanif lacked objectivity in the representation of the Western culture within the film. This culture had only one character that was portrayed as being evil; it seemed very stereotypical on this behalf. The character of Schitz was portrayed as a Western Capitalistic, racist. Schitz was personified as being very selfish, only thinking about his on pleasures and money. The idea of Westerners being all about money is a major stereotype.

Principle Underpinning the Role of the Practitioner Working

The benefits of developing reflective practice within a childcare setting is the key to quality improvement as it helps practitioners to identify the strengths and weaknesses of different aspects of skills and progress within the settings provision. It involves thinking about how you currently work to reflect to see if it can be done in a different way in order to improve your practise. Practitioners will be taking various observations of children to see if they’re meeting their norms, then practitioners will look to see where their weaknesses are in their developments, and how they are learning.They will reflect how they are planning to see if they can change it to increase the children’s development to make the child meet their norms in their weaknesses. Some children might need to be involved with multi-agency teams, practitioners then need to associate and create a meeting about the child to asses there needs to make an arrangement to meet there need by co-operating with the multi-agency teams. Practitioner could use the children strengths for example, numeracy (counting) so therefore they could put number shapes on the dough table to attract the child to increase their fine-motor skills.Practitioners then can adjust the planning to meet the child’s needs, by implementing and linking it to the national curriculum which is Early Years Foundation Stage. Reflective practice benefits the adults by communicating, thinking of new ideas, building positive relationships, being able to see how children are progressing, improving knowledge and improving skills when working with children. Reflective practice benefits the setting by building relationships between staff, it will make the setting a happier place, creates a positive atmosphere, safe environment and it will make you enjoy your work and make you want to be there.

The Street By Ann Petry Essay - 1576 Words

Ann Petry’s novel The Street (1946) is a commentary on the social injustices that confronted the protagonist Lutie Johnson. Lutie is a single African American mother who lives in segregated America during the 1940’s. Throughout the novel, we see that during this time period Lutie is confronted by racism, sexism, and classism on a daily basis while in her pursuit of the American Dream for herself and her son Bub. Lutie is convinced that if she follows the example of Benjamin Franklin, by working hard and saving wisely, she will be able to achieve the dream of being financially independent and therefore be able to move out from the Street in which she is confined to. Benjamin Franklin is embodied in the text through the character Junto. It is Junto that is supposed to get Lutie closer towards her dream. However, Junto, through his secret manipulations tries to possess Lutie sexually, ultimately leading Lutie towards her path of destruction and she ends up committing the m urder of Junto’s henchman, Boots. Junto represents the writer Petry’s deep disillusionment with this cultural myth of the so-called American dream. In Richard Wright’s novel Native Son (1940), The protagonist Bigger Thomas, is a 20-year-old African American youth who grew up in segregated America during the 1930s. Throughout this novel, we see Bigger also striving towards the pursuit of the American Dream. Bigger risks everything to not compromise his pursuit towards success. Unfortunately, he ends up fallingShow MoreRelatedFeminist Feminism : The Street By Ann Petry Essay2332 Words   |  10 PagesLooking at this from a feminist theoretical lens, liberal feminism plays a major role throughout the novel The Street by Ann Petry. Women are being seen as sexually objectified throughout the novel. In other words, â€Å"women are being viewed primarily as an object of male sexual desire.† (Wiki, 2016) Martha Nussbaum (1995, 257) has provided several ideas pertaining to the act of treating a person as an object, which includes; the idea of giving the person no self-worth, stripping them of their freedomRead MoreThe Theme Of Anger And Violence In The Street By Ann Petry1016 Words   |  5 Pagesto disenfranchised members of the urban community. Day to day life is pervaded by these two things, making them seem almost inescapable to those trapped in their vicious cycle and this is explored by author Ann Petry in her novel, The Street. Petry tells the story of residents of 116th street in Harlem during in 1940’s America and how the constant whirlwind of generational poverty and violence and the pent up anger that comes from living in a stifling and unfulfilling environment combined with theRead MoreThe Street By Ann Petry And The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald1854 Words   |  8 PagesThe class system is a prevalent form of oppression in both The Street by Ann Petry and T he Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald as the characters aspire to change their lives. Lutie Johnson is a black woman trapped in the cycle of poverty with her son living in Harlem during the 1940s and Gatsby is a man of new money who attempts to woo his past lover, Daisy in the 1920s. Prejudice against people from a different class leads to classicism being one of the main themes of these texts. Classism isRead MoreAngelas Ashes Poverty Analysis1007 Words   |  5 Pages Every minute, eleven children under the age of 5 die from poverty, in Angelas Ashes, Frank McCourt must make sacrifices to make sure he gets enough food to survive. In the memoirs Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Street by Ann Petry show that poverty provokes actions, not usually committed. In Angelas Ashes Frank McCourt show how poverty affects peoples actions by showing actions Frank McCourt committed in the past due to poverty, such as stealing food. He states We dont laugh longRead MoreAngelas Ashes Th eme Analysis817 Words   |  4 Pages Theme. A lesson in a novel or story that is not directly stated in the book. Between the excerpts Angelas Ashes by Frank McCourt and The Street by Ann Petry is a common theme. The theme that desperate times call for desperate measures. For instance, both the excerpts have evidence that proves these themes through the characters. I might as well take the whole box. My mother would say you might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, (McCourt 9). Angela was desisive whether or not to take theRead MoreThe Street Brought The Story Of A Young Woman900 Words   |  4 PagesIn 1946, Ann Petry’s novel The Street brought the story of a young woman’s spirited struggle to break the cycle of poverty, violence and racism. Racism has long been a major force in the lives of black men and women; Lutie Johnson’s journey conveys just how powerful of a force racism is. Lutie Johnson is characterized by the prevalence of racial and gender discriminations; Ann Petry contrasts Lutie’s with the reality behind Miss Rinner’s hatred for blacks. Lutie Johnson is a young black woman livingRead MoreThe New Mirror, By Ann Petry1635 Words   |  7 Pagescommunity are manifested within the works of Ann Petry, an African American writer whose short stories reflect her own perspective on the results of discrimination. The short stories, The New Mirror and In Darkness and Confusion conjunctively display the negative psychological consequences linked to racism, such as loss of personal identity, social reflectiveness, insecurity, anxiety/paranoia, weakened family bonds, and violent outbreaks. As a writer, Ann Petry is known to use her own experiences, racialRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of Angelas Ashes And The Street1170 Words   |  5 PagesThere are many books, written by numerous authors, containing similar themes and elements. Two such stories fitting that description are Angela’s Ashes and The Street. The former takes place in Ireland and is written by Frank McCourt; the latter is set in New York and is written by Ann Petry. The characters seem like they would not have much, if anything, in common. Frank McCourt’s main character is a child, born into a large, impoverished family; Petry’s is a single mother trying to get by. AdditionallyRead MoreThe Street Is So Much More Than A Story Of Ethnicity961 Words   |  4 Pages Ann Petry’s The Street is so much more than a story of ethnicity; it s equally a tale about the struggles of women, and more so the sad plight of anyone who lives in poverty. What we see is that despite heroic determin ation, the system is structured to wear down and push against Lutie, the protagonist’s very best efforts. The Street takes us on a journey that helps us experience the dynamics of poverty and understand the thought processes of people trapped in it. The Street is a truly hauntingRead MoreComparison Of Chapter One Of Ann Petrys The Street846 Words   |  4 PagesThis reading response will be covering chapter one of Ann Petry’s 1946 novel The Street. The first chapter introduces us to the character Lutie Johnson who is trying to create a stable life for her and her son. Using Lutie Johnson story as a medium, Ann Petry paints a picture of the struggles of being a woman in the inner city. The story opens with a few paragraphs talking about the wind. The wind is perceived under the view of naturalism. This means it’s denoted with a negative connotation. Lutie’s

Implementing Core Tested Programs For Schools - 1396 Words

In order to revamp Core tested programs, schools have been shifting focus to those areas and changing instructional times for various classes, which prevents students from achieving their full potential in the affected classes. Instructional time is important, especially in the fine arts. In order to have an arts program with the tangible results and benefits previously explained, elementary students require to have at least 50 hours of instructional time in order to give them a solid base in art disciplines (Good, 374). The schools who would prefer to focus their resources on the Core tested programs will see improvement in the Core areas, but there are other subjects that leave a footprint along the beach of test scores that help improve†¦show more content†¦Those 20 minutes could be saved and utilized to work towards a plethora of options ranging from improving test scores to regular class work to more in depth lectures. Rearranging instructional times in favor of Core te sted programs prevents the affected classes from succeeding in teaching their students the best they can. They aren’t able to give the students what they need to succeed in a weakened instructional period, which prevents them from achieving to the best of their abilities and thus denies them from an equal education where all students have the same opportunities. Establishing new national fine arts standards and programs from previously attempted standards will give students equal opportunities to succeed and develop themselves to their full potential. These standards would be a refined and reshaped version of the 1992 and 1994 attempted national standards for fine arts, but would be integrated with Common Core values and lessons (National Association for Music Education). Refining the following standards to meet today’s technological standards would be beneficial for fine arts students because they would have applications to what they are learning and would be able to use Common Core’s goals to positively impact each student; three sections by grade level: K-4, 5-8, and 9-12 all with different but similar standards (6 in total) and benchmarks (44 in total) for each different fine arts

Ethics As A Code Of Conduct - 880 Words

Ethics, in politics, can be used as a ‘code of conduct’ – a set of rules or norms for diplomatic behaviour. When considering ethics as a constraint on states and political institutions, it can be argued to be powerful and influential. However, the question of whether politics can be improved by ethics is debatable. The aim of this essay is to highlight evidence for and against the notion of whether ethics can constrain and improve politics through the use of realism and cosmopolitanism, their arguments, and real world cases as examples. Cosmopolitans, such as Charles Beitz, view international politics not just as a society of states, but also a society of individuals (Nye Welch 2011). They argue that politics, especially at an international level, requires the use of ethics as a form of critique (questioning whether the existing code is ‘good’ or ‘right’) and reconstruction (where a new code is advocated following analytical deliberations) in order for politics to be improved. Improvement in politics can be achieved by taking into account more what ‘should’ be done as opposed to merely what ‘can’ be done in certain situations. Clear examples of how politics has been improved by ethical principles are the establishment of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which have been integrated into the national constitutions of numerous sates to protect the rights of their citizens; and the International Convention Against Genocide (ICAG), established to prevent theShow MoreRelatedEthics And Code Of Conduct900 Words   |  4 Pagesindividuals develop a code of ethics based on their personal values and beliefs it is important that we always act in a manner that is appropriate to our code of ethics. This paper will talk about what a code of conduct is, my personal code of conduct, Entergy’s code of con duct, and why ethics statement is so important. Code of conduct â€Å"A code of conduct explains an organizationsRead MoreCodes Of Conduct And Code Of Ethics925 Words   |  4 Pagesexpertise which meet registration standards. There are distinctive competency standards, code of conduct and code of ethics for enrolled nurses, registered nurses and nurse practitioners. In addition, notations on the nurses registration limit their practice to a specific specialty such as those solely qualified to mental health nursing or paediatric nursing. As specified in the National Board standards and codes, registration requirements, relevant legislation, educational preparation, and contextRead MoreCode Of Ethics And Conduct1261 Words   |  6 PagesSummary The code of ethics and conduct is a written set of rules and regulations that provides guidance to employees of an organization on how to conduct themselves and carry out their duties in line with the organization’s principles. The code of ethics and conduct is also be backed up by suitable disciplinary actions. A code of ethics and conducts helps employees deal with ethical issues and other gray areas that they face as they execute their daily activities. An effective code of ethics and conductRead MoreEthics Of A Code Of Conduct903 Words   |  4 Pageshas been working with a code of conduct. As we all know the Code of Conduct reflects upon the ethical culture of an organization, which is taken from the company mission statement. This meeting is in part to address this concern and to deliver the importance of having a Code of Conduct in place, which will be beneficial for both UWEAR and PALEDEMIN. This is not to imply that unethical conduct has been taking place in either company, by having code of conduct in place will help to ensureRead MoreCode Of Ethics And Conduct1564 Words   |  7 PagesEthics is defined in multiple ways. These are considered as rules or regulations which sense the right or wrong doing related to any individual. Ethics in professional life can be defined as the sense of a person with which is responsible for controlling that routine practice of a particular person with which he can distinguish between right and wrong (Resnik, 2011). In professional fields, the importance of ethics can’t be denied. Every profession makes use of certain guidelines on the basis ofRead MoreCode Of Ethics And Conduct1896 Words   |  8 PagesHEALTH OF A BUSINESS The Code of Ethics and Conduct of CheckPoint Software Technologies by Justice-Anyai June 2015 â€Æ' ABSTRACT The code of ethics and conduct is a written set of rules and regulations that provides guidance to employees of an organization on how to conduct themselves and carry out their duties in line with the organization’s principles. The code of ethics and conduct is also be backed up by suitable disciplinary actions. A code of ethics and conducts helps employees deal withRead MoreCode Of Ethics And Professional Conduct1274 Words   |  6 PagesReview of the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct of BIP The Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (CEPC) has been formulated on the basis of article 44, 45, 46, 47 of BIP constitution, to secure the rights and benefits of the Planners community in Bangladesh. CEPC not only provide guidance and support to the members of BIP on their lead in the professional field but also offers assurance to the client who avails the services of Planners. Members have the opportunity to express their opinionRead MoreEthics And Code Of Professional Conduct1598 Words   |  7 Pages(NMBA) Code of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct. Failure to provide care within these parameters could lead to serious consequences for the patient and nurse themselves. Enrolled Nurses must work within certain legal and ethical parameters to ensure appropriate care is provided to patients and also so the nursing profession itself is upheld in a respectful and trusting manner. In order to work ethically, nurses are required to adhere to the code of ethics and code of professional conduct setRead MoreCode Of Ethics And Professional Conduct Essay1919 Words   |  8 PagesCode of Ethics and Professional Conduct Introduction Ethics and professionalism are the centerpieces of any organization that wants to conduct business in today’s global environment. The Project Management Institute (PMI) is an organization that believes in the principles that governs professional behavior and ethics. By a consensus decree of many countries worldwide; the PMI formed the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct (CEPC) for project management. The CEPC became the standard that all projectRead MoreCode Of Ethics And Moral Conduct2316 Words   |  10 PagesCode of Ethics and Moral Conduct By Tim Bowles OMM660 Business Ethics and Social Responsibility Instructor Prof. Andree Swanson June 27, 2015 Introduction Since morals and morality require conscious choices, man is the only animal who can be moral or immoral. Thus, man is the only animal who can consciously, or purposely make moral choices: to think or not to think, to produce or usurp, to benefit or hurt oneself or others. The meaning of moral is simple and direct (e.g., the productive

Sustainable Competitive Advantage free essay sample

Resources are the assets, capabilities, processes, information, and knowledge that an organization controls. Firms use their resources to improve organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Resources are critical to organizational strategy because they can help companies create and sustain an advantage over competitors. 3 Organizations can achieve a competitive advantage by using their resources to provide greater value for customers than competitors can. For example, iTunes and iPod created competitive advantage for Apple and value for its customers by combining elements of design, price, and capability in a unique way. But the most important advantage was being the first company to make it easy to legally download music to digital devices. (Prior to the iTunes store, the only means of acquiring digital music was illegal file swapping. ) Apple negotiated agreements with virtually all of the major record labels to distribute their songs from a central online library, and iTunes quickly became the premier platform for music downloading. The easy-to-understand site came with free downloadable software customers could use to organize and manage their digital music library. 4 The goal of most organizational strategies is to create and then sustain a competitive advantage. A competitive advantage becomes a sustainable competitive advantage when other companies cannot duplicate the value a firm is providing to customers. Sustainable competitive advantage is not the same as a long-lasting competitive advantage, though companies obviously want a competitive advantage to last a long time. Instead, a competitive advantage is sustained if competitors have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate the advantage and have, for the moment, stopped trying to duplicate it. It’s the corporate equivalent of your competitors saying, â€Å"We give up. You win. We can’t do what you do, and we’re not even going to try to do it any more. † As Exhibit 5. 1 shows, four conditions must be met if a firm’s resources are to be used to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. The resources must be valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and nonsubstitutable. Valuable resources allow companies to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. Unfortunately, changes in customer demand and preferences, competitors’ actions, and technology can make once-valuable resources much less valuable. 5 For sustained competitive advantage, valuable resources must also be rare resources. Think about it: How can a company sustain a competitive advantage if all of its competitors have similar resources and capabilities? Consequently, rare resources, resources that are not controlled or possessed by many competing firms, are necessary to sustain a competitive advantage. When Apple introduced the iPod, no other portable music players on the market used existing hard-drive technology in their design. The iPod gained an immediate advantage over competitors because it was able to satisfy the desire of consumers to carry large numbers of songs in a portable device, something the newer MP3 systems and older individual CD players could not do. One of Apple’s truly rare resources is its ability to reconfigure existing technology into a package that is easy to use, elegantly designed, and therefore highly desired by customers. As the example shows, valuable and rare resources can create temporary competitive advantage. For sustained competitive advantage, however, other firms must be unable to imitate or find substitutes for those valuable, rare resources. Imperfectly imitable resources are those resources that are impossible or extremely costly or difficult to duplicate. For example, despite numerous attempts by competitors to imitate it, iTunes has retained its competitive lock on the music download business. In addition to its customer friendly software and its extensive media library, Apple has developed a closed system for its iTunes and iPod. iPod owners cannot download music from sources other than Apple’s iTunes store, but for many this is not a problem. Many devotees won’t even consider another brand. Kelly Moore, a sales representative for a Texas software company, says of her iPod mini, â€Å"Once I find something I like, I don’t switch brands. †6 She’s not alone: Since iTunes was launched, customers have downloaded over a billion songs. No other competitor comes close to those numbers. Valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable resources can produce sustainable competitive advantage only if they are also nonsubstitutable resources, meaning that no other resources can replace them and produce similar value or competitive advantage. To compete effectively against iTunes, competitors may need to change their business model. That is, competitors need to propose substitutes for iTunes that consumers will accept. For example, Napster founders Shawn Fanning and Wayne Rosso have created a subscription-based service called Mashboxx that charges $15 a month for unlimited downloads. Yahoo! Music uses a similar model but charges as little as $6 per month for complete access to its entire library of 2 million songs. 7 In addition to straight subscription models, some companies are experimenting with price. Where iTunes charges 99 cents per song, period, Amazon’s online store will allow the record companies to charge different amounts for different songs based upon popularity. At Amie Street, a newly posted track can be downloaded for free, but as the number of downloads increases, so does the song’s price, until it reaches the maximum of 98 cents. 8 In response to competitors’ experimentation, Apple has stated that its one-flat-price model has been both effective and lucrative and has no plans to change. It will take years to find out whether these new means of purchase will constitute an effective substitute to iTunes. 9 In summary, Apple has reaped the rewards of a first mover advantage from its interdependent iPod and iTunes. The company’s history of developing customer-friendly software, the innovative capabilities of the iPod, the simple 99-cent-pay-as-you-go sales model of iTunes, and the unmatched list of music and movies available for download provide customers with a service that has been valuable, rare, relatively nonsubstitutable, and, in the past, imperfectly imitable. Past success is, however, no guarantee of future success: Apple needs to continually change and develop its offerings or risk being unseated by a more nimble competitor whose products are more relevant and have higher perceived value to the consumer. Review 1 SUSTAINABLE COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE Firms can use their resources to create and sustain a competitive advantage, that is, to provide greater value for customers than competitors can. A competitive advantage becomes sustainable when other companies cannot duplicate the benefits it provides and have, for now, stopped trying. To provide a sustainable competitive advantage, the firm’s resources must be valuable (capable of improving efficiency and effectiveness), rare (not possessed by many competing firms), imperfectly imitable (extremely costly or difficult to duplicate), and nonsubstitutable (competitors cannot substitute other resources to produce similar value). 2Strategy-Making Process Companies use a strategy-making process to create strategies that produce sustainable competitive advantage. 10 Exhibit 5. 2 displays the three steps of the strategy-making process: 2. 1 assess the need for strategic change, 2. 2 conduct a situational analysis, and then 2. 3 choose strategic alternatives. Let’s examine each of these steps in more detail. Review 2 STRATEGY-MAKING PROCESS The first step in strategy making is determining whether a strategy needs to be changed to sustain a competitive advantage. Because uncertainty and competitive inertia make this difficult to determine, managers can improve the speed and accuracy of this step by looking for differences between top management’s intended strategy and the strategy actually implemented by lower-level managers (that is, looking for strategic dissonance). The second step is to conduct a situational analysis that examines internal strengths and weaknesses (distinctive competencies and core capabilities), as well as external threats and opportunities (environmental scanning, strategic groups, and shadow-strategy task forces). In the third step of strategy making, strategic reference point theory suggests that when companies are performing better than their strategic reference points, top management will typically choose a risk-averse strategy. When performance is below strategic reference points, risk-seeking strategies are more likely to be chosen. Importantly, however, managers can influence the choice of strategic alternatives by actively changing and adjusting the strategic reference points they use to judge strategic performance. Corporate-Level Strategies Corporate-level strategy is the over all organizational strategy that addresses the question â€Å"What business or businesses are we in or should we be in? † Exhibit 5. 4 shows the two major approaches to corporate-level strategy that companies use to decide which businesses they should be in: 3. 1 portfolio strategy33 and 3. 2 grand strategies. Review 3 CORPORATE-LEVEL STRATEGIES Corporate-level strategies, such as portfolio strategy and grand strategies, help managers determine what businesses they should be in. Portfolio strategy focuses on lowering business risk by being in multiple, unrelated businesses and by investing the cash flows from slow-growth businesses into faster-growing businesses. One portfolio strategy, the BCG matrix, suggests that cash flows from cash cows should be reinvested in stars and in carefully chosen question marks. Dogs should be sold or liquidated. Portfolio strategy has several problems, however. Acquiring unrelated businesses actually increases risk rather than lowering it. The BCG matrix is often wrong when predicting companies’ futures (as dogs or cash cows, for example). And redirecting cash flows can seriously weaken cash cows. The most successful way to use the portfolio approach to corporate strategy is to reduce risk through related diversification. The three kinds of grand strategies are growth, stability, and retrenchment/recovery. Companies can grow externally by merging with or acquiring other companies, or they can grow internally through direct expansion or creating new businesses. Companies choose a stability strategy—selling the same products or services to the same customers—when their external environment changes very little or after they have dealt with periods of explosive growth. Retrenchment strategy, shrinking the size or scope of a business, is used to turn around poor performance. If retrenchment works, it is often followed by a recovery strategy that focuses on growing the business again. 4Industry-Level Strategies Industry-level strategy addresses the question â€Å"How should we compete in this industry? † Let’s find out more about industry-level strategies by discussing 4. 1 the five industry forces that determine overall levels of competition in an industry and 4. 2 the positioning strategies and 4. 3 adaptive strategies that companies can use to achieve sustained competitive advantage and above-average profits. Review 4 INDUSTRY-LEVEL STRATEGIES Industry-level strategies focus on how companies choose to compete in their industry. Five industry forces determine an industry’s overall attractiveness to corporate investors and its potential for long-term profitability. Together, a high level of new entrants, substitute products or services, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and rivalry between competitors combine to increase competition and decrease profits. Three positioning strategies can help companies protect themselves from the negative effects of industry-wide competition. Under a cost leadership strategy, firms try to keep production costs low so that they can sell products at prices lower than competitors’. Differentiation is a strategy aimed at making a product or service sufficiently different from competitors’ that it can command a premium price. Using a focus strategy, firms seek to produce a specialized product or service for a limited, specially targeted group of customers. The four adaptive strategies help companies adapt to changes in the external environment. Defenders want to â€Å"defend† their current strategic positions. Prospectors look for new market opportunities by bringing innovative new products to market. Analyzers minimize risk by following the proven successes of prospectors. Reactors do not follow a consistent strategy, but instead react to changes in their external environment after they occur. 5Firm-Level Strategies Microsoft brings out its Xbox 360 video-game console; Sony counters with its PlayStation 3. Sprint Nextel drops prices and increases monthly cell phone minutes; Verizon strikes back with better reception and even lower prices and more minutes. Starbucks Coffee opens a store, and nearby locally run coffeehouses respond by improving service, increasing portions, and holding the line on prices. Attack and respond, respond and attack. Firm-level strategy addresses the question â€Å"How should we compete against a particular firm? † Let’s find out more about the firm-level strategies (direct competition between companies) by reading about 5. 1 the basics of direct competition and 5. 2 the strategic moves involved in direct competition between companies. Review 5 FIRM-LEVEL STRATEGIES Firm-level strategies are concerned with direct competition between firms. Market commonality and resource similarity determine whether firms are in direct competition and thus likely to attack each other or respond to each other’s attacks. In general, the more markets in which there is product, service, or customer overlap, and the greater the resource similarity between two firms, the more intense the direct competition between them. When firms are direct competitors in a large number of markets, attacks are less likely because responding firms are highly motivated to quickly and forcefully defend their profits and market share. By contrast, resource similarity affects response capability, meaning how quickly and forcefully a company responds to an attack. When resource similarity is strong, attacks are much less likely to produce a sustained advantage because the responding firm is capable of striking back with equal force.