Confederacy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Confederacy - Essay Example When his own Vice-President, Alexander Stephens became an outspoken critic of the Davis’ war polices, newspaper editors declared Davis a despot and added to the erosion of the Confederacy from within. Food riots and the Impression Act of 1863 further alienated civilian support of Davis and his government. Southern citizens divided over the issue of his right to rule the Confederacy’s nationhood; either they believed he now held too much power and wanted more or they believed him weak and unable to govern successfully. The absence of centralized power defeated Davis’ ability to feed and clothe his armies, or gain support from European allies. The loss of Stonewall Jackson on May 2, 1863 cost the commander of the Confederate forces, General Lee his most valuable soldier, and did a great deal to decompress Confederate military moral. June of 1863 saw Vicksburg captured by Grant and allowed the Union forces to control the Mississippi River all the way to the Gulf of Mexico, and further hurt the Southern states ability to garner support and supplies from the western states. President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address on November 17, 1863, changed the idea of Union for Union’s sake to Union for Freedom’s sake, and revitalized the northern impetuous to continue the war through to its end. Grants push southward using Sherman’s forces never retreated after 1864, and Lee’s surrender on April 9, 1865, sealed the fate of the Confederacy. The collapse of the Confederacy was as inevitable as the Civil War itself. "We are not one people. We are two peoples. We are a people for Freedom and a people for Slavery. Between the two, conflict is inevitable." New York Tribune  publisher Horace Greeley said that about the United States in 1854 and Davis could have paraphrased it when describing the political state of the Confederacy in

Systems Analysis and Design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Systems Analysis and Design - Essay Example This is especially true in the current digital age, in which a lot of information and data are generated on a daily basis (Langer 22). A Gantt chart is a horizontal bar chart that was designed in 1917 by Henry Gantt, an American social scientist and engineer, as a production control tool (Clark and Walter 33). Gantt charts are a common feature in project management, providing graphical illustrations of schedules that facilitate planning, coordination, and tracking of particular tasks in projects. They can be simple forms designed on graph paper or more sophisticated forms developed using project management tools like Microsoft Project or Excel (Clark and Walter 36). It is normally developed with a horizontal axis representing the total time scope of a project, divided into increments (for instance, days, weeks, or months) and a vertical axis representing chores that form the project (for instance, if the project is enhancing a computer with new hardware, the major tasks involved might be: carry out research, select software, install the selected

Emotional Labour In Call Centres Arlie Hochschild

Emotional Labour In Call Centres Arlie Hochschild The shift away from manufacturing industries in Britain towards service sector industries within the late 20th century, has led to a considerable growth within employment in the service sector (Hough, 2004), with many employees now involved in front-line service interactions with clientele or customers. Call Centres in particular has experienced a growth up to 400,000 employees; more than coal, steal and car manufacturing industry put together (Toynbee,2003). As a result of their rapid growth, it has provided a fascinating field of study for academic research into the human component of the working environment, with the process of work and its associated control and employment relations at the centre focus of most debates (FernieMetcalf, 1997). Given that Call Centre employees are working in an environment where tasks are often decidedly scripted and performance is closely controlled and monitored, academics have pointed to the similarities of this work to Tayloristic style productio n lines (TaylorBain,1998). However due to the labour and product of call centre work being relatively intangible, unlike the distinct process of product and service delivery in factory work, the emphasis within Call centres is almost exclusively on the quality of communication. In conjunction to the physical demands, cognitive requirements also need to be considered, whether an operative is dealing with a complaint, or a customer service call, they all demand emotion from staff. The increasing demand for client-centred services in a highly competitive business environment, has recognising that service workers are able to carry out emotional work which can be used as a vital part of the capitalists labour process (Hoschild, 1979,1983),to produce customer satisfaction. Therefore it is in an organisations interest to comprehend the impact of emotional labour on staff, in order to enhance the effectiveness of service and well-being of workers, ultimately decreasing costs such as stress, burnout, turnover and absenteeism (LewigDollard, 2003). Thus this writing will outline the concept of emotional labour and discuss generally the costs and benefits for front-line service employees within Call Centres and for the organisation itself, before looking at the ways call centre can help support employees. Emotional labour was a term constructed by Arlie Hochschild (1983) in her revolutionary study named The Managed Heart. The term describes the control of a persons behaviour to display appropriate emotions, within a situation (chu,2002), suggesting that certain emotions felt or not felt by an individual are suppressed or expressed in order to conform to social norms. Despite Hochschilds widely accepted definition, some researchers have defined and conceptualised emotional labour in different ways. However, the underlying assumption within organisational settings, is that emotional labour is to regulate both feelings and expressions in accordance with occupational or organisational display rules to achieve organisational goals (Schaubroeck Jones, 2000).For example, there is little doubt that emotional work in a Call Centre for staff can be demanding, boring, exhausting, tedious and  stressful (Carrim et al,2006).   Yet to clearly display these feelings to management or c ustomers would be in appropriate. As call centre staff are expected to appear cheerful and welcoming. Therefore from these rules, which can be learnt from our everyday interactions, through education, socialisation and fine -tuned by individual experiences and socially regulated settings, we learn when and where to look sad or glad, fearsome or fearful (PayneCooper, 2001) Many organisations have display rules concerning the emotions that employees should demonstrate in encounters with customers, clients, or members of the public (Hochschild, 1983). These display rules stipulate the content and range of emotions to be displayed, along with the frequency, intensity and duration that such emotions should be displayed (MorrisFeldman, 1996). These display rules may be explicit in organisation training materials, or they may be implicit in organisational norms (SuttonRafaeli, 1998). For example, Call Centre operatives engage in work interactively with customers on either inbound or outbound calls on actions such as sales and telemarketing, product or service information, and customer queries and complaints. These employees perform an important role in the management of customer relationships. As a consequence, service sector organizations have sought to specify the way in which employees present themselves to their customers. This has led to particularly in vasive forms of workplace control as operatives are now generally monitored for service quality as well as productivity. In most call centres there are constant efforts to increase the number of calls taken per employee and reduce both customer call time and wrap-up time (TaylorBain, 1999). Yet rules are also enforced to be cheerful happy, sociable, inoffensive and polite, despite the customers behaviour. As the manner in which operatives display their feelings towards customers has a critical effect on the quality of service transactions (AshforthHumphrey, 1993). Undeniably, the quality of the interaction is often the service provided (Leidner, 1996). The behaviour of the employee is therefore central to the success of the service transaction. These contradictory but asymmetrical pressures both create role conà ¯Ã‚ ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å¡ict for employees yet provide a high quality service (KnightsMcCabe, 1998).To control these conflicting pressures management  invents ever more imaginati ve ways to extract the maximum, and most sincere, performances from emotional workers  smiling  and meaning  it  being the  aim (PayneCooper, 2001). From a similar observation Hochschild (1983) noted how emotional dissonance can occur when an employees true feelings are different from their expressed emotions. Moving further to suggest how individuals deal with emotional dissonance by either surface acting or deep acting. Surface acting being the effort to achieve only the expression of emotion, such as one call centre agent admitted, I make the right noises saying sorryà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦I dont really care (). While deep acting is a conscious attempt to produce and communicate the required emotions, and to manage the situation appropriately, by working to truly relate, believe and live the customers anxiety. Continually, academics such as, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) have noted that when employees deep act, there may not be any emotional dissonance, but there is still exertion involved in achieving the appropriate emotions to follow display rules. Despite, huge efforts to sustain expected behaviours of calm, courteous and supportive behaviour, regardless of how operatives are really feeling, or being treated by a customer, either through surface or deep acting there may come a point of illness, exhaustion and burnout, through continual emotional labour (Hochschild,1983). Suggestively, more so when an operative is continually surface acting. This is supported by Schaubroeck and Jones (2000) in an examination of adverse employee health outcomes, found that pressures to express positive emotion within a persons job was positively related to physical symptoms. With over 20% of a Call Centre interactions, containing anger and verbal abuse from a customer (Grandey,DickterSin,2004).Which is often maintained throughout the duration of the complaint, despite an operatives efforts to placate the consumer (SchererCeschi,1997). Undeniably facing hostile behaviour and abuse could lead to physical indications of unhappiness emerging as work place stress such as hypertension, heart disease, even exacerbate cancer (Mann,2004) due to suppression of an operatives true feelings, which may cause a burnout. Which eventually may lead to an extended struggle to care and illustrate feelings ` (Mann,2004). One explanation is that employees may find it more difficult to sustain higher levels of expressed positive emotion while surface acting, that this creates tension within the individual. Form this employee may then break character by allowing their true feelings to leak into the telephone conversation (TotterdellHolman,2003). The high control system employed in a Call Centres i.e. scripted working of responses and the wide knowledge and expectation from customers suggests that if this does occur customers recognise this and feel the power to reinforce managements control efforts reprimanding workersà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦.complaining to employees superiors when service [does] not meet their expectations (Leidner,1996,p.40) as customers are now able to distinguish the difference between genuine quality service and feigned quality service (Taylor,1998, p. 87). This in its-self leads to higher stressors within the job. In discussing her similar findings, Grandey (2003) suggested that emotional dissonance exhausts operatives resources, leaving them with too little resources to keep from breaking character. This depletion of resources may also cause the individual to adopt a strategy of withdrawal behaviours in order to cope with work demands to conserve resources: indeed, emotional exhaustion has been found to be associated with higher rates of employee absence (Deery et al,2002), as control pressure from several angles becomes too much to control. The correlation continues when looking at cognitive health cost, related to sustained emotional labour, Strazdins (2002) focuses on the cognitive processes involved, suggesting than an employee may find that their own mood becomes changed to mimic the anothers negative mood, around them in the team set up of a call centre floor. This process is known as emotional contagion (Pugh,2001). The employees cognitive processing may become negatively primed, stimulating recall of distressing events, or the employee may selectively process negative information relayed to them on the telephone, which in turn comes to affect decision-making. Negative emotions can then carry over and contaminate subsequent interactions with clients, fellow workmates or employees. Recent organizational research shows that employees working in team formats such as call centre staff do, are likely to share opinions, attitudes, thoughts and moods as well as behavioral patterns and general outlooks (Salanova,LlorensSc haufeli,2011). Moreover, group level job characteristics have shown to affect individual burnout levels. This means that shared group feelings of burnout can be described either in terms of comparable reactions to the same working conditions (VanYperenSnjiders,2000) or as the result of a process of emotional contagion (BakkerSchaufeli, 2000). In this perspective shared burnout within a team can be interpreted as a form of collective mood. Employees evaluate themselves through comparison with similar others. Observing similar others to succeed or to fail is likely to influence another emotional contagion which may have negative as well as positive influences on self-efficacy (Gist,1987). To positively control this successfully as a call centre manager would be hugely beneficial to all parties however for employees to perceive yet more control may simply have a negative effect. Since Hochschilds (1983) claims that emotional labour can lead to a sense of inauthenticity, loss of feelings, diminished self-esteem, stress and burnout, other authors have supported this suggesting that emotional labour is associated with higher work stress and psychological distress (Pugliesi,1999). Controversially, Wharton (1993) agreed that factors such as interactions with customers, self-perceptions of inadequate skills can and does adversely affect employees, however she also suggested that these werent the only work factors contributing to the incidence of emotional exhaustion, which may not always be linked to emotional labour, including job autonomy, tenure, and working hours, high workloads, lack of variety of work tasks and low promotional opportunities; importantly, the support and help of team leaders was associated with lower emotional exhaustion (Deery Iverson,Walsh,2002). Amy Whartons (1993) examination of front-line service workers found that, emotional labour may actually enhance the employees self-efficacy, make interactions more predictable, help avoid embarrassing disruptive interpersonal situations, and allow authentic self-expression where there is some latitude for occasional deviations from the display rules (AshforthHumphrey,1993). Morris and Feldman (1996) agreed that emotional labour is not consistently damaging or equally damaging to all employees, asserting it is emotional dissonance, not simply emotional labour, that is associated negatively with job satisfaction. Furthermore, Lewig and Dollard (2003) found that emotional dissonance is positively correlated with emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion, feeling emotionally drained and depleted from work, is the core component of the employee stress syndrome of burnout (CordesDougherty,1993) which has a range of consequences for employees health, performance, motivation, absenteeism and turnover (SchaufeliEnzmann,1998). Therefore the identified associations between emotional labour, emotional exhaustion and burnout are of critical importance for organisations, although admittedly they are hugely interlinked, one does not necessarily cause the other. If emotional labour carries such a high risk for call centre operatives working for the organisation, why do nearly all call centres and other service organisations insist on enforcing such a tool? The reasoning for this is, the manner in which employees convey their feelings over the telephone can have a critical effect on the quality of service transactions (AshforthHumphrey,1993). In a practical examination of these propositions, a study of Taiwanese employees found that when a psychological climate for service friendliness was higher, employees displayed more positive emotions toward customers that were associated with an increased customer willingness to return with follow up custom and pass positive comments to friends. Other articles published on the topic propose that appropriately-displayed employee emotions would result in three positive consequences for organisations: immediate gains (customers would immediately co-operate), encore gains (customers would go back), and cont agion gains (customers would pass positive comments to friends) (RafaeliSutton,1987). Further, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) proposed that compliance with display rules facilitates task performance. However doubt surrounding great customer employee action directly relating to purchase decisions has been raised (Tsai,2001). As a customer simply may not be interested in the service they have been telephoned for; a current example being PPI claim back marketing call, many of thousands of people receive these calls who despite polite conversational call centre operatives, organisations may not experience immediate gains from most customers. Therefore it can be said that although emotional labour can be damaging for both parties involved it can also be beneficial. Examining some techniques to facilitate emotional labour managers should be mindful of the costs involved in performance as well as emotional contagion, with this Egg credit cards created provision of time-out and a quiet staff-only space for staff to recover from stressful or distressing customer interactions, surrounding their call centre floor. Within this change came new job design, roles that incorporated emotional labour yet staff had some variety, autonomy, prospects of promotion, and reasonable working hours and workloads, with a culture of celebration, and support from all office members to help cope in all areas of each others working life. Increased by the community spaces purposely built and designed within the building (Citex,2001). The engineered culture egg brought in to the call centre supported staff. Further suggestions to help reduce the effe cts of negatively perceived emotional labour, is through training in emotional intelligence as it enhances skills of self-awareness and self-management and in particular, can be said to enhance the performance of deep acting, eliminating performance leak. Furthermore, focus is begging to be placed on the recruitment of staff members, upon their competency of their personality, with some call centres looking upon mount et als big 5 theory to gain the correct personalities for the job, enforcing tests and application techniques usually reserved for higher positioned jobs (CallaghanThompson,2002) as HR manager managers attitudes are now aimed to select staff with the required attitudinal and behavioural characteristics, induct them into a quality culture . . . selection often focuses on attitudes to flexibility and customer service rather than skill or qualià ¯cation levels (RedmanMathews,1998,p. 60). One manager went on to state some people are maybe not as fast round a keyboard, so they may struggle in achieving peer group average handling time for calls. But we can do something about that, we can use team coaches or leaders or training teams when available to develop that individual in those areas. Its very difà ¯cult to change somebodys attitude. With a combination of all can achieve or at least minimise the decrease of emotional labour for all. You can tell by talking to someone during interview whether they smile, whether their eyes smile. If you smile during your interview and you are enthusiastic, youll be okay (CallaghanThomphson, 2002 p.240) Over all Fineman (1993, p. 1) argued that the management and mobilization of emotions are pivotal in the way organizational order is achieved and undone. However, the organizational culture in Western society is heavily influenced by the rational traditions of theorists such as Weber, Taylor, and Fayol (Sashkin,1981) and therefore strives for the cognitive dehumanization of organizations. As a result, much of the research on organizational phenomena has focused on the rational side of functions, issues, and components of organizational life. This results in the removal of the emotional elements of organizational life from our understanding of organizational phenomena (Fineman, 1993).In the last few decades, however, scholars have attempted to study the emotionality inherent in organizational life (for example, Hochschild,1979; Fineman, 1993; Ashforth and Humphrey, 1995). From this is a growing body of research indicates that the performance of emotional labour may entail serious nega tive outcomes for employees, including stress, distress, decreased job satisfaction, burnout, and withdrawal behaviours such as absenteeism and turnover. It is in the organisations interest to understand and mitigate these negative outcomes, as the effective performance of emotional labour is generally beneficial for organisations. The manager of front-line service employees can draw on recent research findings to identify a number of practical techniques to facilitate the performance of emotional labour.

Suez Crisis :: Papers

Suez Crisis Anthony Eden was Prime Minister at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. His political career began in 1923 and by 1926 he had become a parliamentary private secretary at the Foreign Office. He was very involved with the League of Nations, believing in their principles and at the age of 38, became Foreign Secretary. At this time international affairs were seen as being aggressive and Anthony Eden was forced to resign from Neville Chamberlain's Government over his policy of appeasement. He joined the Government during World War Two and became Secretary of State for war under Churchill. After the war times were very difficult with the Cold War at its peak and trouble in the Middle East. Colonel Nasser became dictator of Egypt in 1954 after leading a successful revolution against King Farouk. British troops left Egypt for the first time since 1882, and as soon as they had gone, Nasser declared the Suez Canal to be the property of the Egyptian Government. The Suez Canal was a vital shipping route for oil being brought to Britain. Eden wrongly saw Colonel Nasser as the next Hitler and was determined to make a stand against him. "Nasser has a finger on our wind pipe", he remarked. Nasser was going to be taught a lesson. Nasser was seen as a nationalist who was determined to rid Egypt of foreign influence and make Egypt the Arab world's leading state. He had tried to buy arms from the West but eventually had to buy them from Czechoslovakia and western powers were concerned that Nasser was leading Egypt towards communism. His seizure of the Suez Canal was justified in his mind by the refusal of Britain and US to finance his ambitious project to build the Aswan Dam across the Nile. In Source A, Eden says Nasser is "not a man who can be trusted", and also "we all know this is how dictators behave and we all remember the cost of giving in to Hitler". This shows that Eden cannot help

Describe the qualities in the young Beowulf and later in Wiglaf, that make them stand out as warrior heroes

Beowulf's sea journey and arrival into Denmark is expressed with potent dramatic splendour and magnitude. The immediate realisation of our being introduced to a character of great consequence is shared by the Shieldings' watchman and highlighted with Heaney's colourful adjectives and powerful imagery. Before Beowulf has even spoken or been addressed, we have heard that ‘there was no one else like him alive / In his day he was the mightiest man on earth high-born and powerful. ‘ Travelling on a boat ‘loaded' with ‘a cargo of weapons' and ‘shining war-gear' is indicative of a feat these men are about to undertake. When the watchman witnesses their arrival, he is astonished most by Beowulf's physical appearance: ‘Nor have I seen a mightier man at arms on this earth'. Throughout the poem this is a recurring theme as we are delivered countless images of his physical strength including his ‘handgrip' ‘harder' than that of ‘any man on the face of the earth' when in battle with Grendel and his use of the sword ‘ so huge and heavy of itself only Beowulf could wield it in battle' during his combat with Grendel's mother. Such repetition of course was a key feature in the oral tradition of Anglo-Saxon poetry to establish their important attitudes and values, and Heaney has ensured this is maintained in his translation. We cannot however, award the young warrior heroic status merely as a result of his overwhelming brute strength, both by modern standards and more importantly those of the Anglo-Saxons, there were numerous other qualities required to fulfil this role. The Germanic heroic-code went a long way to defining the system of valuing and honouring its peoples including warriors, kings and ordinary citizens. For a man to be considered a warrior he must obey the code and to be classed as a heroic-warrior ought to exceed its expectations. As mentioned above, strength most certainly was present within this code, along with courage, loyalty and reputation. When the young Beowulf and Wiglaf are examined according to the code, their behaviours as described to us by the poet and as validated by other characters within the epic, confirm that they clearly adhere to its requirements. The importance of reputation is closely linked with that of lineage, few characters are described without reference to their fathers or their ancestors, when Beowulf introduces himself to Hrothgar he says ‘I am Hygelac's kinsman'. In order that he may be permitted to enter Hrothgar's kingdom and embark upon the task of restoring peace and order within Denmark, he must be accepted by the king ‘my one request is that you won't refuse me'. This form of introduction is echoed later when the young Wiglaf is described as ‘a son of Weohstan's' ‘well regarded' and ‘related to Aelfhere'. In terms of personal reputation, we understand that Beowulf has already established an element of fame within Geatland when he relays to the king: ‘I have suffered extremes and avenged the Geats' his modesty is apparent as he resists the need to elaborate on his acts of heroism confining himself only to convey the essential details. He only begins to boast of his accomplishments in a swimming contest against Breca when Unferth questions his motives for participating. Unferth is presented as a foil to the heroic Beowulf, the poet informs us that he is ‘sick with envy' but his own bitterness and inferiority is exposed and Beowulf's virtues accentuated as the latter is able to articulate an intelligent and composed response: ‘it was mostly beer that was doing the talking' ‘I was the strongest swimmer of all'. Again Heaney encompasses powerful adjectives, ‘perishing', ‘deep boiled', ‘mangled' into Beowulf's speech, closely adhering to the traits of Anglo-Saxon poetry and successfully winning over the reader and ensuring ‘the crowd was happy'. Where Beowulf has established and proceeds to heighten his fame, we see the young Wiglaf at the beginning of his journey to achieve the same. It is impossible to overlook his role in the execution of the dragon and in such a feat we can draw parallels with the young warrior Beowulf. Equally as important as strength and reputation in the heroic code is loyalty which is highly evident in both our young warriors. Of course it his loyalty to Hrothgar that brings Beowulf to Denmark to engage in battle with Grendel and in part a repayment for a debt once settled by the king for Beowulf's father, having ‘healed the feud by paying'. Wiglaf could almost be considered an epitome of allegiance when we later see Beowulf entering into combat with the dragon, taking with him eleven of his assumed most faithful and greatest warriors and only Wiglaf remains by his lord's side whilst the others, ‘that hand picked troop broke ranks and ran for their lives'. Wiglaf's entrance is reminiscent of that of Beowulf as Heaney uses a powerfully emotive introduction: ‘But within one heart sorrow welled up: in a man of worth the claims of kinship cannot be denied'. Wiglaf has an acute understanding of loyalty being imperative to the heroic code, when he rebukes Beowulf's men who fled from battle he affirms that they have ‘disgraced' themselves and that ‘A warrior will sooner die than live a life of shame. ‘ Such devotion could only be demonstrated by one who was equally courageous, Wiglaf was willing to sacrifice his own life for his lord and their peoples and of course, this is the exact behaviour which earned Beowulf his worthy right to the throne and his sound reputation. Recognition of the young warriors' heroic deeds and attitudes is not limited to the poet and the modern day reader or Anglo-Saxon listener, the poet assures us that Beowulf was rewarded for his actions, ‘furnished' with ‘twelve treasures' ‘gold regalia' and many other gifts by the king. However, it is important to consider heroism as being subjective and that it should be measured within its context both in terms of history and religion. Whilst Pagan beliefs would have viewed the vengeful and murderous nature of the heroes necessary to conform to the heroic code, such behaviour severely contravenes the principles of Christianity. We must also understand that Beowulf as with all the warriors illustrated within the poem, were human and thus fallible, their being at the mercy of God's will or fate. We must also reserve judgement for the young Wiglaf as we have yet to see him in battle alone and whilst the limited behaviours we do observe in him are commendable, we cannot assess him in the same way as Beowulf whose character has been developed to a much greater extent within the poem.

Buyer Behavior & Integrated Marketing

The problems on which this assignment focuses on is how can an organization understand and influence the demands and needs of a consumer by using consumer decision making model and the a decision sequence model which helps an organization define a set sequence in order to plan for its marketing and promotional strategy. The company that has been researched upon in the research paper is Automobili Lamborghini S. p. A that has recently launched its new SUV in the market which also happens to be the first SUV car from the company.The car is known is Lamborghini SUV and there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of when introducing and marketing the car in automobile arena. A consumer decision model will help the company in order to see how a particular group of consumers decides for a particular commodity. What are their preferences, their expectations, how can they be attracted, what is their taste, how well do they memorize a certain product, their loyalties to a particular brand, their interpretation from a product or marketing strategy and the knowledge that they possess.A consumer consciously or unconsciously using all these factors when going to buy a product thus in the case of Lamborghini SUV the consumer will again question himself on the above mentioned grounds (MacKenzie 1986). As given in the research done on the company, the main problems that the company tends to identify from the consumer behavior are; 1. What is the product 2. What is the target market 3. What are the substitutes 4. How does the price and value for money are correlated 5. Is the product a luxury item 6. What sort of a decision sequence model can be usedHere is a brief answer to all of the questions mentioned above. As we all know that the product is a luxury SUV that is being marketed for the first time by the company, the company has to target to a specific group with specific characteristics. These people are supposed to be well to do by having good executive level jobs or running businesses and having a family of 2 to 3 persons. This suggests that the targeted customer should be more then 35 years of age but not more than 45 because that goes beyond the sporty and speedy characteristics of the car.The sport and speedy characteristics of the car open two marketing and targeting corridors for the company, that are, 1. executives and managing directors, (as discussed above) and 2. The existing sports cars clients who will then be filtered for having or not having a taste for a sports SUV. The problem is that the product that is in question in the research is quite expensive and thus it is not at all like marketing coke. Customers need to be educated and informed about the value and worth of the product that should be other than the actual cost price of the car (Bettman 1975).With reference to Blackwell, Miniard and Engel analytical framework, analyze the likely buying behavior of your target market, in terms of degree of problem solving, and identif y the probable influences on this decision process. You should also identify any issues related to the information processing aspect, as this will inform task 3 With reference to Blackwell, Miniard and Engel, the decision of any consumer is based upon and involves two or more products that are substitutes to each other.For example a consumer might choose between going out for a movie or staying at home, for this matter going to movie and staying at home will serve to be as substitutes to each other. Similarly, in this of Lamborghini, the consumers have a range of choices. These choices include other sporty SUV’s that already in the market by competitor brands like BMW, Mercedes, Chrysler and others. Thus Lamborghini should look into the matter that what do consumers want in an SUV, how and what characteristics they should highlight to attract their customers.Blackwell, Miniard and Engel advocate the fact that there are a number of cognitive processes going on in a consumer mi nd while he makes purchase decisions. These cognitive decisions can be identified as consumer knowledge about the market and the product, beliefs and memories about information that a consumer gathers from marketing and promotional activities going on around them, their cognitive process of comprehension and lastly their integration cognitive process in which a consumer evaluates two or more choices and short lists to one final choice.This choice is made on the basis of certain behavioral decisions, thus the decision making process of a consumer can also be regarded as their decision plan. A Cognitive Process Model of Consumer Decision Making Lamborghini should keep in mind that its consumers will gather most of the information from their surroundings. Apart from their own marketing campaign, the consumers consciously and unconsciously are gaining information about the sporty cars, their models, information about other brands, performance of other SUV’s that come I the same c ategory of sporty cars and much more.Consumers are exposed to TV shows, magazines, discussions and even get to see these products live at show rooms that they already a lot about the car. However, a marketer should always keep in mind that in order to attract a customer and give him what he wants, the product should be marketed in such a way that the consumer directly notices what he wants in the product without him being analyzing and comparing with other brands(Roberts 2000).The marketing campaign should highlight the characteristics of the product itself in the marketing campaign rather than letting the customer gather the information on his own that can also lead to possibilities that the customer may not be able to find those characteristics on his own. Same goes for Lamborghini, the company must market the new SUV in such a way that it highlights both its sporty nature and its symbol of power of status in order to cater both the target markets that have already been identified in the previous section.