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Fingerhuts Price Strategy
Fingerhut’s Price Strategy
Introduction
The importance of ethics cannot be gainsaid as far as the sustainability of any business entity is concerned. Indeed, business ethics has a bearing on the appeal that a particular business has in the eyes of customers, both current and potential, and involves the application of ethical behavior to or values to business behavior. This application would encompass every other aspect of business conduct including the strategies that are used in the boardroom to the treatment that companies give their employees, suppliers and customers, as well as the accounting practices and sales techniques. Of particular note is the fact that ethics would go beyond the realm of the legal requirements placed on the company, in which case it would revolve around the discretionally decisions that the company makes, as well as the behavior that dictates the values that it holds or spouses. However, there are instances where the application of business ethics would seem to contradict the legal requirements for the companies (Ferrell et al., 2011). The fact that companies may not necessarily required by law to act in a certain way often breeds controversial issues or cases that may threaten the sustainability of a company, as is the case for Fingerhut’s price strategy. The determination of the ethical or unethical nature of Fingerhut’s price strategy would necessitate the examination of the “autonomy and creation of desire” by Roger Crisp.
In line with Roger Crisp’s assertions, Fingerhut would have been culpable or guilty of exploiting its low-income consumers through the application of unfair and deceptive marketing techniques (Treviño & Nelson, 2011). Of particular note is the fact that the company has created a database containing detailed information about its customers including their age, number of children, marital status, hobbies, dates of birth and others, thereby allowing it to make predictions pertaining to the types of products that every individual would be likely to require or purchase (Ferrell et al., 2011). This would then allow them to come up with a catalogue of an appropriate mix of targeted specialties on the basis of “statistically determined predictions pertaining to the behavior of customers”. Underlining the comprehensiveness of information that the company would collect is the fact that it would capture as much as 1400 pieces of information pertaining to a household. Crisp would underline the fact that the company purposely targets low income customers upon recognizing the motives that would present the least challenge to their marketing and manipulate the potential customers using their persuasive marketing and advertisement techniques (Treviño & Nelson, 2011). They, essentially, used the information on their clients to determine the behaviors that the customers would be most likely to exhibit, as well as what they would be most likely to need or want subconsciously, before creating the desires in them through the specialized catalogs. Of particular note is the fact that the catalogs were laced with information on easy weekly and monthly payments, which would complement the desires created to influence the potential customers to make the purchase, while making refusal of the offer extremely difficult (Ferrell et al., 2011). It goes without saying that the customers would not even have thought of buying the items if only the need for the same had not been created through the specialized catalogues that had been mailed to them alongside the incredible payment offers. Indeed, the specialization of the business catalogues with goods that matched the likely needs of the potential customers and their capabilities would make the entire business plan and pricing strategy unethical (Treviño & Nelson, 2011). According to Roger Crisp, the marketing technique used by Fingerhut denied its customers of an opportunity to act autonomously, especially considering the fact that the specialized catalogues had specific goods that were aimed at creating a desire thereby forcing the customers to buy the goods rather than making them want the same. Complementing this notion is the fact that the catalogs incorporated information on easy and low payment structures. These eventually masked the real prices that the clients would end up paying, a strategy that Crisp would see as amounting to deception of the clients. Indeed, Roger Crisp would see this as amounting to the brainwashing of the customers so as to create the impression that the items were cheaper than they were while, in fact, the goods thus sold could even have been about 100% more expensive compared to those of their competitors (Ferrell et al., 2011). Of particular note is the fact that the target customers were essentially low income individuals, in which case they can be assumed to have been less educated, and even less informed about the prices in the market, in which case they had no idea as to the variations in the prices of the goods that they paid and the prices that they should have paid in a perfect or fair market (Treviño & Nelson, 2011). This underlines the fact that the marketing techniques and motives used by Crisp were aimed at exploiting the ignorance of the customers, in which case it had acted unethically.
However, other scholars or philosophers would hold a contrary opinion. Milton Friedman, in particular would insinuate that the company had acted ethically as it was operating in a capitalist market, in which case it had a duty to generate as much profit as possible. In addition, it adhered to the fundamental rules laid down by the society. They have carved niche for themselves amongst the low-income or middle income customers, who essentially had bad credit, a group that had been neglected by other companies (Ferrell et al., 2013). The investment of Fingerhut in this group would, essentially, have been a sufficient service to the society especially considering that not only was it making an immense risk by trading with this group, but was also offering it an opportunity to shore up its credit worthiness. Of particular note is the fact that the low income of these customers allowed them to live from paycheck to paycheck, in which case they could not save up for the items that they may actually have needed (Treviño & Nelson, 2011). The extension of the credit line by Fingerhut not only gave them an opportunity to obtain the items that they needed without saving, while also assisting them in building up their credit, an aspect that would eventually assist them in purchasing other necessities in the future (Ferrell et al., 2013). The variations in the price offerings by the company would essentially be justified on the basis of the risk that it was taking with this group. Indeed, other companies may have stayed away from this group thanks to the high probability that the individuals may be unable to make their payments. Indeed, Friedman would insinuate that high risks attract or necessitate high profits in a capitalist system, in which case the exorbitant pricing of Fingerhut’s goods would essentially not amount to the flouting of the ethics by which businesses should abide.
It is evident that the two groups have considerable differences in their point of view, in which case an examination of the facts would be essential. While I may not agree with any of them, combining their points of view would essentially be imperative. Fingerhut is a profit making business that aims at maximizing its earnings through marketing (Ferrell et al., 2013). The use of specialized catalogs, not only drives the agenda of the company but also enhances the relationship between the company and its customers (Treviño & Nelson, 2011). On the same note, the company is not deceiving its customers on the price of the goods, rather it is simply providing information on the options that are available to them. On the same note, it is essentially offering them a way of building their creditworthiness, in which case they can have the capacity to make further purchases in the future.
Using the principled reasoning approach, Jane would come up with the way forward. The problem in this dilemma is the pricing strategy, with the company having to make profits while meeting the requirements of business ethics. The company, as a stakeholder would need profits and a reduction of risks, while the customers would need the goods provided in fair market prices. Abolishing the pricing strategy, as an option, would essentially eliminate the only appeal that the company has as providing low income earners with an option, while keeping it intact may invite more legal problems. Nevertheless, irrespective of the strategy used, it is likely that there will always be disgruntled members of the public, in which case keeping the system intact would be the best option, while ensuring that the customers are aware of the other options in case they choose to pay in full.
References
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2011). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.
Ferrell, O. C., Fraedrich, J., & Ferrell, L. (2013). Business ethics: Ethical decision making and cases. Mason, OH: South-Western/Cengage Learning.
Treviño, L. K., & Nelson, K. A. (2011). Managing business ethics: Straight talk about how to do it right. New York: John Wiley.
Early Hominid and Cultural Behavior
Early Hominid and Cultural Behavior
Name
Institution
Date
Early Hominid and Cultural Behavior
Archeologist as well as paleontologist are often keen on understanding length of time represented in bone assemblage of the vertebrates. It is for a fact that time average is likely to affect the evolutionary as well as paleontologist analyses when it comes to faunal assemblages. The greatest debate that has existed between archeologist is the evidence on whether hunting or scavenging contributed to the bone assemblage in various sites. In hominid activities, behavioral interpretations are likely to be influenced by information about the period of time accumulation. Bone weathering has proved to be an important way of estimating the time that has lapsed since a mammal died, the preceded to when the bones were buried, thus period of accumulation of bones on the land whether ancient or modern may be determined. This paper will examine if the early hominids were either hunters or scavengers by determining the assemblage of fossils in the Olduvai Gorge, an archeological site in Tanzania.
Olduvai Gorge, a site in Tanzania holds earliest evidence on human’s existence as well as their ancestors. Paleoanthropologists have discovered fossilized bones as well as the tools from the area which can be dated back to as early as millions of years ago. Louis and Mary Leakey are attributed to be the first family of paleontologist who discovered the site. Among their finds at the site include extinct vertebrates, proconsul primate that can be dated to be more than 25 million years old, a few fossil ape skulls and tools believed to have been used by the first humans. In their exploration, they stumbled also on 400 pieces of a complete skull which was dated to 1.75 million years ago, this made the discovery one of the oldest hominid to ever be discovered. They were able to get a fossil foot that had been well preserved supporting the theory that hominids walked while upright. Basically, their discoveries supported human evolution theory as the different bones which were dated in different periods during history had different defining features.
The best preserved archeological evidence from meat eating by hominids has been said to be Olduvai Gorge. Louis and May Leakey discovered the Zinjathropous Homin Cranium which exposed some stratigraphic levels including stones and bones buried to a depth of 12 m. The bone weathering that was seen on the fossils indicated that the assemblage is likely to have accumulated over a period of 5-10 years. From the evidence gathered from the site, Mary Leakey hypothesized that this may have been the location where the hominins dispersed and would later come back after a hunt (Rose, 1996). These beds contained bones and stones that would help shed a light on the early man behavior including their diet as well as their evolution.
Diet of the first early man is likely to have been omnivorous just as modern chimpanzees. Early man was thought to have eaten leaves, flowers and fruits because of the dental and tooth morphology. However, with evolution man became better adapted to taking meat. Scientists begun recognizing butchery marks on bones in 1980s and this is when the debate on whether early man scavenged or hunted for meat begun (Blumenschine, 1992). The place may have been a home base where food sharing may have happened. It is likely that carcasses that were obtained either from hunting or scavenging were brought and deposited at these locations and thus over the years there was an assemblage of bones. According to Bunn who was the first to examine the bone surface for marks, the Olduvai Gorge bed may have been a kill site for the carnivores and afterwards scavenging by hominins in search of the bone marrow (Bunn, 1986).
Archeologist have often used the proportional representation of the bones as parts I the assemblage to help them in the classification of archeological sites. In doing this they are able to understand how the bones got to the site i.e. fewer humans responsible for the transportation of bones to the site or animals such as the lion. There are two basic ways in which one may be able to understand or to get information from an archeological site they include: features and artifacts. Features are non-portable evidence and may include human behavior, their technology or activity. Artifacts on the other hand are portable objects that may indicate presence of humans such as their tools. Bones have also formed an important part when it comes to understanding archeology because of the important information it holds. A bone carcass may be important in obtaining of information such as was death natural or as a result of carnivore hominins. Study of the skeletal bone representation including bone surface modification as well as the analysis of the bone breakage pattern holds very important information. Olduvai gorge is among the archeological sites that have been named to have evidence on hominin-carnivore assemblage.
Both hunting and scavenging may have resulted in the bone assemblage at Olduvai Gorge. There have been debates that have existed between the experts on nature of hominid site use in plio-pleistocene. Bone accumulation in various sites including Olduvai Gorge and Koobi Fora portray a reflection of repeated transport of large animal carcasses and Dr. Leakey supports this. Others have however pointed out that these archaeological sites are a representation of competitive refugia. Hominins were likely to have faced constraints during the transportation of the edible remains to a central point. Assemblage points that are as result of scavenging are likely to how a relationship between skeletal part representation and the frequencies of bone breakage while assemblage by hunting is likely to show complete long bones and more complete.
Stone tools which were part of the artefacts that were discovered in Olduvai gorge indicates that human ancestors were both scavengers and hunters. The evidence from Olduvai gorge that points to eating of meat was dated 1.8 million years ago. Cut marks on carcasses ma suggest use of crude weapons in cutting up the meat. The humans through their evolution became adapted to using tools as they became handy men which would have been important in their hunting. In scavenging, man is thought to have collected heads. Animals like hyenas were often unable to crack the skull of their kills to access the brain. Early man would take the brains and crack them up in order to access energy-rich, nutritious fatty brains. The nutrition may have contributed to body changes as seen in the human evolution for example in homo erectus
In understanding scavenging, it is important to look at animals including leopards and hyenas. These two animals have often been known to be carnivores that transported their prey. However, there is a great difference that exists among the taphonomic characteristics if these bones are found. The leopard is likely to transport an almost complete carcass including the limb bones as well as the axial skeleton. The bone surface of the carcasses also has few tooth marks as compared to a carcass that may have been ravaged by a hyena. According to Cruz-Uribe and Siner, bone accumulation made by a hyena may be characterized by the abundance of compact bones, hones as well as antlers. Often the carcasses have a relative abundance on remains of the carnivore.
Unlike hyenas and leopards, most lions tend to consume their kill on site. Bones are more likely to create bone assemblage as they do not transport their prey (Pante, 2012). Archeologists have often stated that carcasses that were left on the field were transported to early location by scavengers the early humans. The bone surface modification on most of these bones that have been recovered on the archeological site has proved one of the best ways that evidence is collected especially on meat eating by hominins. The debate on lion and contribution of bone assemblage was supported by butchery marks that were present as well as carnivore tooth marks on the bones. These modifications have been important in demining the timing that the hominins and carnivores had access to the carcasses (Dominquez-Rodrigo, 2014). Bone breakage pattern is an important bone modification that can help in identification of a carnivore that may be responsible for the bone assemblage for example hyenas are likely to break bones in search of nutrients while on the other hand lions just tear into the fleshy meaty part.
I believe that early hominids use hunting and power scavenging which was confrontation with predators who made primary kill in order to have access to the carcasses. There are factors that may have contributed to humans being able to hunt or savage. Hominids were able to use weaponry for catching a prey or chasing away carnivore competitors. Passive scavenging by the early hominids may have been rear whereby they may have scavenged for kills already done. Evidence suggest that early man may have scavenged by stealing kills from leopards that were stored away in trees thus accommodating the cut marks evidence. There have been theories also that hominids may have obtained carcasses in occurrence of mass disasters such as the drowning of wild beast.
There are limitations that have arisen in understanding hominid evolution their behavior and diet. The first limitation is despite the fact that there are evidences on the assemblage, most are small analytical data sets. They contain very few specimens and the bone surface preservation is also poor. Most of the archeological sites including the Olduvai Gorge preserves evidence of one or more hominid butcher acts but it’s often within a very small fauna collection. From the Lowdown hominins archeologists have reported that they consumed animal tissue occasionally. Due to limited amount of behavioral information on the assemblage it is quite difficult to ascertain if the records reflect if hominids were actually carnivores. Another limitation is that in recovering these assemblages, most are not recovered in stratigraphic succession and thus it becomes quite difficult to demonstrate continuity of a certain hominid behavior. With just a single ecological context then getting considerable interpretive as well as analytical information may prove to be quite difficult.
In conclusion, many paleo-archeologists studying faunal assemblages have pointed out that it is possible humans obtained meat and bone marrow from hunting and scavenging. However, there has been evidence that marks structures on some carcasses were not made by man but rather by other carnivores supporting the theory that humans scavenged especially obtaining food by chasing way predators who may have made the kills. Hunting and scavenging whether passive or confrontational were both employed by early man depending on different ecological as well as behavioral variable such as prey size, the habitat, other available food resources, number of hominins in the group for the carcass procurement and presence of other predators who were their competitor. The experimental models on frequency, tooth marks, location of cut and percussion have been important factors in giving information of timing of access as well as the accumulators that led to assemblage.
References
Blumenschine, RJ and Cavallo, JA (1992) Scavenging and human evolution. Scientific American 267: 90-96.
Bunn, HT and Kroll, EM (1986) Systematic butchery by Plio/Pleistocene hominids at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Current Anthropology 27: 431-452.
Dominquez-Rodrigo M, Bunn HT, and Yravedra J (2014) A critical re-evaluation of bone surface modification models for inferring fossil hominin and carnivore interactions through a multivariate approach: Application to the FLK Zinj archaeofaunal assemblage. Quaternary International 322-323: 32-43.
Pante MC, Blumenschine RJ, Capaldo SD, and Scott RS (2012) Validation of bone surface modification models for inferring fossil hominin and carnivore feeding interactions, with reapplication to FLK 22, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Journal of Human Evolution 63: 395-407.
Rose, L and Marshall, F (1996) Meat eating, hominid sociality, and home bases revisited. CurrentAnthropology 37: 307-338.
Finding Out That Morale Among Police Officers Is Poor
Finding Out That Morale Among Police Officers Is Poor
It is not easy to determine that the morale of police officers covering a certain jurisdiction may be affected. This is due to the observation that the general results such as low crime levels, prompt delivery of service, reports and arrests made may indicate performance above average rating but morale remains low (Guilfoyle, 2011). According to the author, the determination of the success of public official service delivery is very difficult. In order to obtain the relevant data to determine if the police officers in charge of a certain jurisdiction are competent enough, service quality analytical studies must take charge. Understanding the dynamics of human resources, management of employees is a factor of work and non-work functions. Conceptualization of public service being similar to the private sector enabled the consideration of issues tackled in the survey touching on working conditions. To this end, the following quickly assembled setup assisted in the study of the complications in the delivery of police work in a particular jurisdiction.
The snap survey involving ten randomly picked officers included collection of information regarding perceptions on improvement of the working environment. Respondents gave information on a few areas where most challenges affected the delivery of their work. Alternatively, respondents gave information on the interventions related to the work difficulties that would improve their work ratings. A different section of the survey collected optional information on difficulties in non-work life related issues that directly affect work. On the third element of the survey, public views obtained in the same period were compared with what the officers gave. Three observations emerged as contained in the hypothesis and recommendations below.
Hypothesis: police officers’ morale dips due to lack of resources, few officers and inefficient equipment. Evaluation process will be implemented by isolating a few affected officers and changing their working conditions to capture the proposed changes.
A unanimous opinion from the ten officers gave the indication that available resources for use in police work were inadequate. This affects the commitment invested in different assignments and a feeling that more resources would facilitate morale existed (Bramble, 2012). Only one of the officers had the opinion that resources are not enough an excuse for poor job attitude. The public held the opinion that the police need better resources and remuneration than they currently get.
Officers’ numbers during work greatly determine how teamwork establishes. Policing is a team related assignment and the respondents felt that their safety at work depended on the cover given by colleagues. Fears of mistakes as well as poor personal safety during discharge of services contribute to reduced morale to work in few numbers. The work handled is also difficult and additional personnel into the force would eliminate the challenge (Moore, 2010). Public opinion on this issue was divided with half agreeing with the police and half holding the opinion that there are enough police officers.
Obsolete equipment affects the morale of the police officers. A unanimous opinion observed that lack of appropriate equipment to deal with police duties reduces the desire to take up assignments. Better equipment would solve the need for motivation and commitment.
References
Bramble, L. (2012). “Unethical Behavior & Employee Morale,” Retrieved from: HYPERLINK “http://www.ehow.com/about_6466822_unethical-behavior-employee-morale.html” http://www.ehow.com/about_6466822_unethical-behavior-employee-morale.html
Guilfoyle, S. (2001). “Crime in Progress: The Impact of Targets on Police Service Delivery,” Retrieved from: HYPERLINK “http://inspguilfoyle.wordpress.com/crime-in-progress-the-impact-of-targets-on-police-service-delivery/” http://inspguilfoyle.wordpress.com/crime-in-progress-the-impact-of-targets-on-police-service-delivery/
Moore, J. (2010). “Low Morale among State Employees Boosts Fraud,” Retrieved from: HYPERLINK “http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/low-morale-among-state-employees-boosts-fraud-2018515.html” http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/low-morale-among-state-employees-boosts-fraud-2018515.html