The similarity and differences of No Country for Old Men and Dead Man Research Paper

The similarity and differences of No Country for Old Men and Dead Man - Research Paper Example Similarly, Dead man is a movie that was directed by Jarmusch Jim, in 1996, and presents a storyline of a young man’s adventure, both mentally and physically, into the strange land. William Blake starts his journey to the western frontiers of America and encountered an odd and outcast Native American known as ‘Nobody’. The encounter with ‘Nobody’ helps William Blake to overcome difficult situations, which were hilarious and brutal. Similarities between No Country for Old Men and Dead Man There are varied similarities between the films, No Country for Old Men and Dead Man. First, both films are filled with darkness and uncertainty of life because both directors reveal issues of violence, murder and coldhearted villains. These act as the main duties of the central characters in both movies, and their lives are full of obscurity. Additionally, both directors tie uncertainty with pessimistic belief that there is little one can do about uncertainty aspects of human life (McCarthy 34). There is a lot of evil in both films because the directors keep reminding the viewer about the inherent evil of human beings in every scene. For instance, the marvelous expressionless humor is one of the darkest aspects in the film of No Country for Old Men. This has greatly affected the characters of different persons; for example, Chigurh is one character, who has dreadful characters because he engages in violence issues. Moreover, both films reveal the mysterious dead as the only certaint y, and at the same time reveal greatest mystery cases and violence. For instance, the adventure story in the Dead Man film represents certainty of life, to William Blake. Consequently, the journey is a long-lasting ceremonial to the person known as‘Nobody’ because his intention was to save Blake and bring him back to the spirit level of the human race. The non-western viewpoint about Nobody was that life was seen as an unending cycle; thus presenting the significance of the film title, ‘Dead Man’. Both films reveal cases of violence, some of which contributes to death; for instance, in the film of Dead Man, nobody helps in leading William Blake through situations most of which turns to be violent and on the same time hilarious. Contrary to Blake’s personality, he turns to be a criminal, a murderer and a vicious man, whose physical being slips away gradually. Both novels portray characters, most of whom are violent and engage in the world of cruel, br utal and chaotic occurrences. Secondly, both films presents the theme of evil. Many western genre films are full of evil; thus, many characters take part in evil things, in the society. Both directors acknowledge the evil practiced by the power-hungry rich men, who dominates the weak; innocent people are used to enable the powerful achieve their needs. For instance, many crimes are committed in both movies, whereby many people end up being victims of evil because the crimes committed are beyond measure (Raff 61). In addition, the theme of fate is revealed, and is the cause for violence cases, as every character in the movie strives to reach his or her destiny. For instance, the film of Dead Man is about a young man, who sets the journey and hopes to reach his destiny in order to accomplish his missions. Fate is also revealed in the film, No Country for Old Men, whereby we see violent cases taking place right from the

Strategy for lisntening and speaking Term Paper

Strategy for lisntening and speaking - Term Paper Example Regardless of the problems with speaking, role playing engages all the students to interact using the new language and to build better conversational skills. Role playing is known to raise learners’ interest in the subject matter (Poorman, 2002) and assist in helping students to understand the concepts that have been taught associated with the foreign language. The role of the teacher in building interest in the role play cannot be understated, and the theory indicates that the educator should be asking a series of questions to help students to loosen their barriers and to set the theme of the role play exercises (Valimareanu, 2010). New language learners often find embarrassment and personal dishonour when they believe that their peers or others in the social environment have misunderstood their second language or failed to comprehend what was being discussed. Through role play, the educator can reinforce that such misunderstandings are normal and serve as a moderator to help with the comprehension process whilst also offering strategies to help better construct conversational skills. ... The strategy for the educator is to first identify the specific objectives to enhance listening development (Richards, 2008). Known as the metacognitive sequence, there is a step known as First Listen in which students are engaged with the instructor who is reading a text in a new language. Students follow along in their own texts where they will circle keywords or specific phrases that they have predicted accurately and are instructed to write down new information that they have heard, but are unfamiliar with (Richards, 2008, p.13). This helps students not only listen more effectively, but understand their own expertise or inability to comprehend as a part of metacognitive thinking. After identifying the strengths and weaknesses related to listening skills, the teacher then promotes a total in-class discussion to look through their failure to comprehend or to confirm their accuracy. This also builds a better self-confidence over the long term. References Lorch, R.F., Lorch, E.P., & Klusewitz, M.A. (1993). College students’ conditional knowledge about reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 85, 239-251. Poorman, P.B. (2002). Biography and role-playing: Fostering empathy in abnormal psychology. Teaching of Psychology, 29(1), 32-36. Richards, J.C. (2008). Teaching listening and speaking: From theory to practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Valimareanu, E. (2010). Speaking strategies: Developing communicative skills in English. Dynamics of Specialised Languages. Common European Framework of Reference for Foreign Languages: Communication Proficiencies in Teaching and Learning Specialised Languages, 98-113. Retrieved from

America’s current policies Essay Example for Free

America’s current policies Essay Often, present generations, completely apathetic about their own sins, casts judgment upon the people who came before. This is not to say that, contrary to the prevailing wisdom currently choking our country, there are not absolute truths that were present during the inception of this country as well as in our present day. It is very unfortunate that some of our founding fathers held slaves; especially the author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, who held nearly two hundred slaves at one time on his plantation at Monticello. We do not like that the father of freedom in America could not find it in himself to free his slaves. Jefferson’s own cousin, as well as a number of fellow Virginians freed their slaves. From 1780 until 1800, the population of free blacks in Virginia rose from just over 2,000 to more than 30,000. (Burns, 1997) Where is Thomas Jefferson? However, did those who contributed to the Constitution yet held slaves, serve to invalidate the Constitution or their own individual contributions? It would have to seem that it does. However, not to the same degree as some of America’s current policies invalidates our ability to even cast judgment on other generations in the first place. People in glass houses should not throw stones. This is a famous saying which can be applied to every person or generation who judges another while being less than perfect themselves. America is the 21st century is a far cry from America at its birth. The population, in 1776, was just under three million people. (McCullough, 2007 pg. 26) Last fall, America’s population exceeded three hundred million people. Technology has certainly made the world a much different place and America is not only the richest country in the world, it is also the most powerful. The founding fathers could scarily fathom what this country would become in a little more than two hundred years. However, would they be proud of what had been accomplished? In some ways, the founding fathers would be glowing with joy and pride. In other ways, they could not help but feel a great deal of shame and embarrassment at what America had become. In the past thirty years, revisionist historians have tried to tell Americans that this country was formed, not out of the pursuit of religious freedom as the Mayflower Compact reads but rather to make money and to expand their wealth and land holdings. Also, that the founding fathers were not deeply religious men but rather Deists who seemed apathetic towards absolute truths. These assertions are fallible to the core and scarily a student of history can accept such tripe. However, even the deists and atheists were still very moral men who were led by principles and not by what was convenient as they were men of the Enlightenment. Therefore, the question which should also be asked in conjunction with this theme is: Does America stand on any moral ground to even pass judgment in the first place on any past generation. Did our forefathers risk their lives so that more than thirty million babies could be aborted since 1973 and 40% of all children are now born without a father living in the home? Did our forefathers risk their lives so that more than 20,000 people could be murdered each year for the pursuit of money to buy drugs? When the forefathers secured freedom of speech, did that mean that pornographic movies could be shown on the television or curse words spewed at a dizzying rapidity? In a time when gay marriage is being pressed so heavily upon our members of Congress, would our forefathers; individuals who regarded the act as so impure, that they would go out of their way to describe such actions in an indirect way in their writings and all believed to be a sin? There can be added to this list, more than a dozen modern examples and whether or not one agrees that the aforementioned are problems in this country or not, our forefathers could not help but see them as grave mistakes and impediments on our history. It seems unlikely that those individuals, such as John Adams and George Washington, to name only a few; so fervent in their religious convictions, that they freely invoked the word of God in their writings and speeches, could have consented to such depravity. More than 35% of all of the quotes of America’s forefathers came from the Bible. Does America’s hunger for relativism and humanism disallow us from even being able to even ask the question: Were the actions of the forefathers pure enough to even form a country in the first place? For every person who would say no, there would be two of the aforementioned society which would say the same about us. Now, this is not to say that slavery was not extremely immoral which served as a cancer on our society at that time and created a legacy of racial hatred and inequality which is still present today. Anyone who believes that this country is one of the greatest in the world, if not the entire world as I do, such apathy towards our forefathers own words, has to invoke a degree of annoyance towards men who are revered for what the gave to future generations in the formation of a democratic, capitalist and free society. One wonders why a clear consciousness was not worth simply paying their workers a modest wage instead of forcing involuntary servitude. What was going through the minds when Thomas Jefferson introduced legislation to end slavery during the Constitutional Convention? Historians have argued that if Jefferson provided a hard line against slavery, then his other policies would have been pushed to the side and perhaps never passed. This is probably true. However, what stopped Jefferson from freeing his own slaves at Monticello? These questions may never be answered. So in the end, it would seem best for Americans to tread carefully when dismissing an entire generation and their works because of a sin which was all too apparent in 18th century America. Slavery was wrong? There is no doubt about that. However, has America lost most of its moral authority, as well as the rest of the West? This is to be sure. As more and more people turn away from the ideas of absolute truths and towards relativism and humanism, preferring instead what is convenient and not what is right, problems which America is now suffering, is its natural result. If the incompatibility of the actions and words of the slave holding forefathers invalidates their work, then it should be placed a top a very long list of this country’s ironic measures which have grown at an exponential rate in recent decades. WORKS CITED Burns, Ken Thomas Jefferson New York: Thirteen Productions PBS 1997 McCullough, David 1776. New York: Scribners 2007

Cultural Features of Poland

Cultural Features of Poland To begin with, Poland has a lot of different interesting facts like physical features, agriculture, and culture features. Poland is one of the ninth largest countries in Europe by the land area. The Polish American relations were officially established in 1919. Since 1989, Polish and American relations have been strong and Poland is one of the most stable European allies of the United States being part of both NATO   and the European Union. Poland is famous for being the home of the scientists. Poland has many interesting facts about its   physical features. The official name is Polands Rzeczpospolita Polska or as in America it is called Poland. This country is located on the continent of Europe and is surrounded by Germany on the west. The Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, while Lithuania and the Russian province of Kaliningrad Oblast to the northeast of Poland. Poland is about 120,726 square miles in size, that is about 3 times smaller than the United States. Poland has many agricultural techniques as well as a great economy. Poland has the largest economy in Eastern Europe, with GDP totaling $420 billion in 2007. The major industries in Poland are machine building, iron and steel, coal mining , chemicals, shipbuilding, food processing, glass, beverages, and textiles. Poland is one of the largest manufacturing industries in chemicals manufacture. Poland also has a very strong presence in making televisions. Most of Poland is country grounded in forestry and agriculture.   A lot of Polands land area is used for farming barley, oats, rye, and wheat. In farms they raise dairy cattle, pigs, poultry, and cultivate fruit. They imported goods for manufacturing and industrial retooling, such as machinery and equipment, fuels, minerals, chemicals, and metals. Some goods they exported were   furniture, foods, motor boats, light planes, hardwood products, casual clothing, shoes and cosmetics. The climate in Poland is warm in the summer and is fr eezing cold in the winters. Poland has many land forms such as the, sand dunes, deserts, mountains, hilly plains, lowlands, and many bodies of water. Lastly, Poland has many natural resources made from minerals are brown coal,copper, zinc, sulphur, lead, and silver. Poland has many Cultural features such as languages, holidays, education, food, and recreation. One of the language the Polish people speak is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland. Some of the Poland holidays are January 1st New Years Day, on May 1st Labor Day, on May 3rd its Constitution Day, on August 15th it is Assumption Day and lastly on November 11th it is Independence Day. The education in Poland is compulsory and starts at the age of six or seven, per the Reforms of 1999, from the 0 class kindergarten (Polish przedszkole, literally pre-school) and at the age of seven, for the 1st grade of primary school (Polish szkoÅ‚a podstawowa). Compulsory education lasts nine years. An important diet they have in Poland is meat. Pork is the most popular meat, and the most commonly eaten meat dish is a fried, breaded pork cutlet served with thick sauce. Beef, ham, and sausage are also eaten regularly. The meat stew called bigos is often called the national dish of Po land. Poland and the USA are two different worlds entirely. The USA is sunny and positive and casual. Poland is cold, dark and romantic. There is an ancient feel in Poland, something almost mystical. Even Though Poland has many interesting facts, it ranks   the ninth country in Europe.   Ever since 1989 the Americans and the Polish are pretty strong allies they are both part of both NATO and the European Union. We learned that Poland was invaded by the Germans in World War II. Also 90% of Poles have completed at least secondary education. An interesting fact we found is that Poles eat pizza with ketchup and watching Home Alone is a Christmas tradition.

Technologys Impact on the Upper Mississippi River Essay -- Enviroment

Technology's Impact on the Upper Mississippi River Since the days of Lewis and Clark men have dreamed of harnessing the "Father of Waters" in the interests of commerce and development. The long struggle which ensued required incredible ingenuity and determination on the part of engineers as well as enormous capital investment. The Mississippi River Commission, established in 1897, was the first federal program designed specifically to meet these requirements, and early systems, instituted by the Army Corps of Engineers, saw much success. Technological advancements in the fields of transportation, flood control, and natural resource management were needed and, eventually, emerged to provide the level of control possible today. This report will discuss the technological transformation of the upper Mississippi river and the motivation behind it from the middle 1800's. Economics, in the form of cheap transportation, have been the impetus behind most of the development along the Upper Mississippi. In the early 1800's, transportation was limited to keelboats (large rafts made of roughcut lumber) which floated downstream with the current where they changed their cargo and then were poled or warped (pulled from shore with a rope) back upstream. With the development of the steamboat the arduous journey up and down the river, taking up to nine months by keelboat, became a much more reliable route for transporting both products and people. In the late 1800's, the invention of the internal combustion engine led to the powerful towboats seen on the Mississippi today. Towboats move 70 to 85 million tons of cargo annually between Minneapolis and the Missouri River [http://www.emtc.nbs.gov]. Underscoring the economic importance of such ... ...ing fascinating about science, one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investments of fact." References: Mairson, Alan, "The Great Flood of '93," National Geographic, vol. 185 (January 1994),pp. 42-81. National Biological Service, Department of the Interior, "Environmental Management Technical Center," http://www.emtc.nbs.gov (1996). Twain, Mark, Life on the Mississippi (New York, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1917). Upper Mississippi River Basin Coordinating Committee, Upper Mississippi River Comprehensive Basin Study, vol. 1 and 5 (1972) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "Upper Mississippi River--Illinois Waterway System Navigation Study," http://www.usace.army.mil/ncd (1996). U.S. Geological Survey EROS Data Center, "Upper Mississippi River Basin Flooding," http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/sast (1996). Technology's Impact on the Upper Mississippi River Essay -- Enviroment Technology's Impact on the Upper Mississippi River Since the days of Lewis and Clark men have dreamed of harnessing the "Father of Waters" in the interests of commerce and development. The long struggle which ensued required incredible ingenuity and determination on the part of engineers as well as enormous capital investment. The Mississippi River Commission, established in 1897, was the first federal program designed specifically to meet these requirements, and early systems, instituted by the Army Corps of Engineers, saw much success. Technological advancements in the fields of transportation, flood control, and natural resource management were needed and, eventually, emerged to provide the level of control possible today. This report will discuss the technological transformation of the upper Mississippi river and the motivation behind it from the middle 1800's. Economics, in the form of cheap transportation, have been the impetus behind most of the development along the Upper Mississippi. In the early 1800's, transportation was limited to keelboats (large rafts made of roughcut lumber) which floated downstream with the current where they changed their cargo and then were poled or warped (pulled from shore with a rope) back upstream. With the development of the steamboat the arduous journey up and down the river, taking up to nine months by keelboat, became a much more reliable route for transporting both products and people. In the late 1800's, the invention of the internal combustion engine led to the powerful towboats seen on the Mississippi today. Towboats move 70 to 85 million tons of cargo annually between Minneapolis and the Missouri River [http://www.emtc.nbs.gov]. Underscoring the economic importance of such ... ...ing fascinating about science, one gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such trifling investments of fact." References: Mairson, Alan, "The Great Flood of '93," National Geographic, vol. 185 (January 1994),pp. 42-81. National Biological Service, Department of the Interior, "Environmental Management Technical Center," http://www.emtc.nbs.gov (1996). Twain, Mark, Life on the Mississippi (New York, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1917). Upper Mississippi River Basin Coordinating Committee, Upper Mississippi River Comprehensive Basin Study, vol. 1 and 5 (1972) U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, "Upper Mississippi River--Illinois Waterway System Navigation Study," http://www.usace.army.mil/ncd (1996). U.S. Geological Survey EROS Data Center, "Upper Mississippi River Basin Flooding," http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/doc/edchome/sast (1996).

Frankenstein’s Ambition :: Mary Shelley

Frankenstein’s Mistakes Victor Frankenstein was the creator of the monster in the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. He was an ambitious man who had high hopes and dreams. Even as a child, he was very intelligent, studying the sciences and scientists of the past. But, as ambition caused the downfall of Julius Caesar, it caused the downfall of Victor Frankenstein. As the creator of his monster, he had responsibilities as a mother has towards her child. Out of pride, he ignored his responsibilities. Even after his ambitious mistake, had he acknowledged his responsibilities, he could have saved himself from destruction. He made significant mistakes out of pride and ambition that brought unhappiness and destruction to himself and his loved ones. Victor was reared in a household where he had the proper environment to learn many things. His father was well-educated and encouraged Victor to further his knowledge. There was, however, one subject that he did not encourage Victor on; it was natural philosophy. Victor’s father told him not to waste his time on such trash. This remark fueled Victor’s curiosity and he studied further into it. At the age of 13, Victor â€Å"entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained [his] undivided attention†. This foreshadowed Victor’s biggest mistake of his life that was to happen later in his life. When he entered the university, Victor started his studies in great detail and intensity. His greatest ambition was this: he wanted to recreate life out of something which life had already parted. He â€Å"described [himself] as always having been imbued with a fervent longing t o penetrate the secrets of nature†.

International Retail Buying & Merchandising

International Fashion Branding International Retail Buying & Merchandising ‘Evaluate the various buying structures that exist in order to support a retail buying function and the impact of these buying structures on the roles and responsibilities of the retail buyer. Use illustrative examples to support your answer. ’ Within the retail environment customer satisfaction and company profitability are a crucial consideration in the merchandise choice of the buyer (Diamond & Pintel, 2008).The range of the buyer’s duties will depend on the size of the business and can be seen as three main buying approaches; centralised, decentralised and a combination of the two. Throughout this essay the buying structures will be explored in depth and the advantages and disadvantages of each will be underlined. The difference between these three approaches will highlight further the roles and responsibilities of the retail buyer and how they change depending on the type of organisati on. The buyer’s role within the retail sector is an extremely crucial one.A fashion buyer selects a range of products targeted at a specific clientele within a certain price range to hopefully gain profit for a retail company (Kang, 1999). Therefore getting the merchandise collection correct has been described as ‘the engine of success’ within retailing (Aufreiter et al. , 1993). A successful buyer requires a variety of skills including communication, calculation, analysing market positions, the power of negotiation and should also be creative (Varley, 2005).There are three roles of a buyer as stated by Hirshman and Stampfl (1980), firstly as a change agent where the buyer inspires the consumer to consider purchasing new and exciting goods, secondly as a gatekeeper where the buyer will coordinate the movement of the product from supplier directly to the customer. Finally the opinion leader role will encourage the customer’s outlook however this does not ne cessarily result in a direct purchase from the company.The key activities which a retail buyer must carry out are as follows; analysis of market opportunity which helps understand consumer buying behaviour, the creation of a merchandise plan which will incorporate a range of goods and merchandise within that category. The buyer needs to then select and build a solid relationship with a supplier to give the business a competitive advantage. The development of the product will ensure an exclusive feel of the brand, precisely tailored to meet the desires of the retailer and their customer. These goods will then me packaged, presented and promoted accordingly (Fernie et al. 2003). The buying role can differ between companies due to the size of the organisation, the budget allocated, classification of merchandise, the number of employees and where the stores are located (Diamond & Pintel, 2008). These attributes clearly define the organisational structure that a business will use to appr oach the buying role. The first of the three approaches, which large chain stores favour, is a centralised structure. This is where a whole buying team are involved and all purchase decisions are made at Head Office.Usually buyers will have separate departments and select a specific product range, for example lingerie or footwear (Goworek, 2001). As the size of a company grows, the buyer’s role becomes more intense as they deal with larger sums of money, a greater number of products and competition increases. More staff is brought in to help spread the workload and this in turn separate the buying role from the marketing one. This can be perceived as a negative as buyers are required to be kept up to date with promotions and merchandising decisions (Rosenbloom, 1981).On the other hand, there any many advantages of buying taking place in Head Office over store level. Stores with full point-of-sale data capture systems can accumulate up to date information on sale trends and bu ying patterns for each item and store them to allow forecasts to be more precise. This helps provide buying power with the negotiation of supply prices and allows a single point of communication for supply base. Subsequently allocating more time to the buyer to analysis market trends and discovers new products for their customer.In short the cost of buying function is lower as economies of scale are achieved. Tighter quality control techniques can be applied to improve production and delivery performance whilst buying and stock control choices are levelled across all stores. This gives store managers the opportunity to focus on motivating their staff and the running of their store (McGolderick, 2002). However while centralised purchasing does have its advantages, it can occasionally not recognise the needs and variation in demand of an individual store as well as that of the store manager.With buyers working from Head Office quarters there is very little informal communication with the various units making ‘the organisation less adaptive to marketplace and environmental changes’ (Stampfl, 1978). Every store will have a different set of customers and product assortment. However as the retailer is not in control of buying the merchandise they must work with the allocated product from the central buying team (Wang, L, 2010). This in turn can demotivate managers at local levels as they feel their input or contribution to the buying activities is invalid.All buying teams within centralised structure main goals are to become the front runner in the marketplace. Marks and Spencer are one of the many chain stores which are constantly reviewing their buying strategy to ‘deliver lower stock levels, shorter lead times and greater flexibility’ (marksandspencer. com, 2013). Decentralised merchandising can be found within independent retailers selling products with stable demand. In such cases the store managers often take on the function of buying locally as well as many other numerous management roles.It is favoured when a number of decisions need to be made at store level based on customer’s needs. A well-known brand which takes this type of approach is Johnson & Johnson who offer a range of health care products. This is due to the various businesses they are involved in which have different customer desires. By having a diverse range of businesses, with more than 250 autonomous units, the company has managed to modernise and grow regardless of its size (Singer & Abelson, 2010). Giving store level management more opportunity to have an element of control over the buying for their stores.A method of enhancing customer service and the stores efficiency against the large companies who use the centralised method is to allow the small retailers to cater fully to their local product choice (Varley, 2005). A major plus of using a decentralised structure is the ability for a store to adapt to change within the local market without having to wait for the centralised buying team to give the go ahead. This can boost self-esteem of store managers as they feel they have a large contribution with the buying decisions.The CEO of Johnson & Johnson, William Weldon stated a negative with having a decentralised approach, the head of the company will have to gain a good deal of trust with their store managers to make the correct decisions. Having decisions spread out amongst the company can also lead to inconsistency across the organisation. Weldon also pointed out that by having a decentralised approach it allows his business to advance internationally. They count on local employees in overseas markets to make critical business decisions (Kokemuller, n. ). A combinative structure is the third approach that a retailer may adopt where the ability to purchase takes place at both central and local level. This may involve the central buyers buying the core lines for all the stores and products to suit local needs are bought in turn by local managers. This method has been utilised by international food retailers whose head office buy main brands sold in all stores. The local management are in control for obtaining goods from local suppliers in order to fulfil customer tastes.In 2001 Waitrose itself has encouraged the use of local produce by stocking over two thousand lines alongside other large chains such as Asda and Co-operative Group (Morrell, 2010). Another method used within this structure involves a centralised buying team who select a range of goods from which store level managers choose according to the desires of their consumers. Whilst this does not entirely give the opportunity for the store manager to select exact products for their outlet, it does allow them to have some say within the buying decisions.An example of this would be the franchise restaurant Subway, where their Head Office takes control of the marketing, menus and food quality but the store managers themselves take cont rol over matters such as hiring and training of staff (DuBrin, 2009). A further illustration would be the famous clothes apparel Benetton, who create a variety of styles. Although the individual licensee cannot buy from outside suppliers, the single units have the opportunity of selecting the clothes from the company that they believe will suit best with their customer (Diamond & Pintel, 2008).A combinative method fulfils the demands and expectations of customers through the organisations ability to buy centrally, prices are more competitive and the local taste is also met (Bruce, 2004). The roles and responsibilities of a retail buyer can vary in terms of what purchasing structure is used within a business. For a small organisation the buyer can be involved with the sales and promotional sides of the business whereas in large chain stores they have various positions at different levels such as buying directors, managers, buyers, buying assistants and trainees (Goworek, 2001).Single units opt for a decentralised buying approach where the store level management are responsible for all buying tasks. Shop owners operate their own store as they believe they could provide a tailored product and service specific to their customer. Independent stores generally sell one arrangement of products or restricted amounts of merchandise; this is purchased by the store level manager. Within single units the owner takes on many roles but with chains, that have hundreds of stores, the role of the buyer becomes more constrained and focused on purchasing (Diamond & Pintel, 2008).A crucial skill of the buying team within a centralised structure is to be efficient communicators as they are constantly speaking with suppliers and other departments. As the distance between stores increase, it becomes more challenging for a buyer to make frequent visits to each store. These units are controlled at Head Office with very limited contact occurring between buyer and store manager. The main focus being purchasing and communication is achieved through telephone and e-mail, information is also accumulated via electronic reports (Diamond & Pintel 2008).Within a smaller business the range of merchandise is usually wider, for example men’s business-wear which would include suits, shirts and ties. With large chain store such as Bhs and Oasis, buyers are given a more concentrated product range for instance men’s shirts. This in turn leads to further pressure to generate more sales for their specific department. In comparison to individual stores which acquire a more flexible buyer with a broader skill set to assist with quality control.The roles and responsibilities of a buyer within a combinative structure is a mixture between the buying department at Head Office purchasing the core lines of a range and the store manager’s contribution to providing the store with local good they believed to cater to needs of their customer. This could be difficult to ma nage as purchasing will take place at both levels, for this to be successful, the general manager and the buying team would need to communicate regular so that merchandise within the store was consistent.Overall a buying structure is needed in order to help support a retailing company deliver its market with a carefully selected product range, providing them with a competitive advantage and in turn hopefully generating profit. Three main approaches were evaluated and linked with different types of businesses which best suited them. Centralization is more broadly used by larger retailers such as chain stores; decentralization provides a structure for independent retailers and thirdly a combination of the two which takes elements of both of these to create a core line as well as using local produce.When companies are considering both the handling of data and of merchandise then the decision must be made as to which is the preferred method. A centralised approach allows organisations t o have a larger buying department with greater efficiency which becomes more focused on areas of purchasing. Some retailers see this as restricting as store managers have limited say within this process, therefore they opt for a more flexible method offered within the decentralised approach.After clear assessment of all three structures it was concluded that a combination of centralised and decentralised approaches would be an overall satisfactory method to put in place for most organisations as the main ranges within a retailer would be controlled by Head Office with an experienced buying department but also store level managers would contribute to the buying decisions as they had expertise with what the customer would desire. References Aufreiter, N. , N. Karch and C. Smith Shi (1993) ‘The engine of success in retailing’.McKinsey Quarterly, 3, 101-116. Bruce, M. (2004). The anatomy of retail buying. In: Butterworth-Heinemann, E International retail marketing : a case study approach . Oxford: Elsevier Ltd. 64-68. Diamond & Pintel. (2008). The Buyer's Role. In: Vernon R. A Retail Buying. 8th ed. New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.. 3-32. DuBrin, A. (2009). Organizing. In: Calhoun, J and Acuna, M Essentials Of Management. 8th ed. Mason: South-Western Cengage Learning. 219-295. Fernie, J et al. (2003). Principles of Retailing. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. p145-150 Goworek, H. (2001).The Role of the Fashion Buyer. In: Blackwell Science Ltd Fashion Buying. Great Britain: DP Photsetting. 4-14. Hirschman, E. C. ; Stampfl, R. W. (1980). Roles of retailing in the diffusion of popular culture: Microperspectives. Journal of Retailing 56 Kang, KY. (1999). Conceptual Framework: Retail Buying Process. In: Kang, KY Development of an Assortment Planning Model for Fashion Sensitive Products. 1-14. Kokemuller, N. (n. d). Decentralized Company Business Structure. 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