Futures contract

A formal treatment of this issue is provided by Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998), who allow the participation of informed traders in the option market to be decided endogenously in an equilibrium framework. In their model, informed investors choose to a â€Å"pooling quill? Trade in both the option and the stock market? In barium†? When the leverage implicit in options is large, when the liquidity in the stock market is low, or when the overall fraction of informed traders is high. Our main empirical result directly tests whether the stock and option market are in he pooling equilibrium of Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998).Using option trades that are initiated by buyers to open new positions, we form put-call ratios to examine the predictability of option trading for future stock price movements. We find predictability that is strong in both magnitude and statistical significance. For our 1990 through 2001 sample period, stocks with positive option signals (I. E. , tho se with lowest quintile put-call ratios) outperform those with negative option signals (I. E. , those with highest quintile put-call ratios) by over 40 basis points per day and 1% per eek on a risk-adjusted basis.When the stock returns are tracked for several weeks, the level of predictability gradually dies out, indicating that the information contained in the option volume eventually gets incorporated into the underlying stock prices. Although our main empirical result clearly documents that there is informed trading in the option market, it does not necessarily imply that there is any market inefficiency, because the option volume used in not our main test? Which is initiated by buyers to open new positions? Is publicly observable. Indeed, information-based models [e. , Glisten and Milord (1985); Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998)] imply that prices adjust at once to the public information contained in the trading process but may adjust slowly to the private information possess ed by informed traders. As a result, the predictability captured in our main test may well correspond to the process of stock prices gradually adjusting to the private component of information in option trading. Motivated by the differing theoretical predictions about the speed at which prices adjust to public versus private information, we explore the predictability of publicly errors nonpublic observable option volume. For Journal that 25, example, July 2002,the Wholesaler reported theChicagoBoardOptions was â€Å"unusual activity† options shares Whet, pharmaceuticals investigating trading in Madison, which tactical based increase trading volume earlier NJ, giant superintendence's month. Option occurred before release a government bathe study peptic days American Medical Association documented a heightened abreast risk heart cancer, coronary of the who disease, strokes, bloodspots women had benefiting Whitey's hormone-replacement drug years. Preemptor many 872 innovation De limitation Following previous empirical studies in this area [e. . , Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998); Chain, Chunk, and Font (2002)], we use the Lee and Ready (1991) algorithm to back out buyer-initiated put and call option volume from publicly observable trade and quote records from the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CUBE). We find that the resulting publicly observable option signals are able to predict stock returns for only the next one or two trade days. Moreover, the stock prices subsequently reverse which raises the question of whether the predictability from the public signal is a manifestation of rice pressure rather than informed trading.In a abbreviate analysis which includes both the public and the nonpublic signals, the nonpublic signal has the same pattern of information-based predict? Ability as when it is used alone, but there is no predictability at all from the public signal. This set of findings underscores the important distinction between public and nonpub lic signals and their respective roles in price discovery. Further, the weak predictability exhibited by the public signal suggests that the economic source of our main result is valuable private information in the option volume rather than an inefficiency across the stock and option market.Central to all information-based models is the roles of informed and uninformed traders. In particular, the concentration of informed traders is a key variable in such models with important implications for the innovativeness of trading volume. Using the PIN variable proposed by Easily, Kefir, and O'Hara (1997) and Easily, Heavier, and O'Hara (2002) as a measure of the prevalence of informed traders, we investigate how the predictability from option volume varies across underlying stocks with efferent concentrations of informed traders.We find a higher level of predictability from the option signals of stocks with a higher prevalence of informed traders. 2 Although the theoretical models define i nformed and uninformed trap? Deer strictly in terms of information sets, we can speculate outside of the models about who the informed and uninformed traders might be. Our data set is unique in that in addition to recording whether the initiator of volume is a buyer or a seller opening or closing a position, it also identifies the investor class of the initiator. We find that option signals from investors who trade through full-service brokerage houses discount brokerage houses.Given that the option volume from felicities brokerages includes that from hedge funds, this result is hardly surprising. It is interesting, however, that the option signals from firm proprietary traders contain no information at all about future stock price † Given stocks PIN smaller could driven the that be stocks, result higher artistically by fact there higher from stocks. Show that is notches. Len this signals smaller predictability option PIN result remains size. Intact controlling after particula r, 73 studies n 3 2006 movements.In the framework of the information-based models, this result suggests market primarily for hedging purposes. Finally, a unique feature of the MultiMate stock and option setting is the availability of securities with differing leverage. Black (1975) asserted that leverage is the key variable which determines whether informed investors choose to trade in the option market, and Easily, O'Hara, and Carnivals (1998) demonstrated that under a natural set of assumptions this is indeed the case. Motivated by these considerations, we investigate how the predictability documented n our main test varies across option con? Races with differing degrees of leverage. We find that option signals constructed from deep out-of-the-money (TOM) options, which are highly leveraged contracts, exhibit the greatest level of predictability, whereas the signals from contracts with low leverage provide very little, if any, predictability. 3 The rest of the article is organized as follows. In Section 1, we synthesize the existing theory literature and empirical findings and develop empirical specifications. We detail the data in Section 2, present the results in Section 3, and conclude in Section . 1.Option Volume and Stock Prices 1. 1 Theory The theoretical motivation for our study is provided by the voluminous literature that addresses the issue of how information gets incorporated into asset prices. In this subsection, we review the theoretical literature with a focus on insights that are directly relevant for our empirical study. In particular, we concentrate on the linkage between information genre? Dated by the trading process and the information on the underlying asset value, the role of public versus private information, and the process of price adjustment. 4The issue of how information gets incorporated into asset prices is central to all information-based models. Although specific modeling approaches differ, information gets incorporated into se curity prices as a result of the trading behavior of informed and uninformed traders. In the sequential trade model of Glisten and Milord (1985),

Women’s Studies

Major Essay Women across the world face challenges and experiences such as gender class inequality, oppression, struggle with identity, sexual awakening, women's objectification, personal resistance, reliving women's history, female empowerment and etc. These are some of the themes that will be addressed In this essay. These themes will be supported by feminist short stories from books such as â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper and other stories† by Charlotte Perkins Gillian and â€Å"The Bloody Chamber and other stories† by Angela Carter.Through the use of aesthetic texts, women's challenges and experiences will be interpreted using the themes in these stories. In the story â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† by Charlotte Perkins Gillian, focuses on women living In the 19th century where men have a high standing In the social hierarchy that oppressed women, Gender plays a big role In social hierarchy. Even a rich woman cannot exercise the same rights and privileges as men would . Women were not given the same equality as men. Gillian focuses on the themes such as personal resistance and women's history.As the narrator in this story battles with err own psychological mind and the outside world, she slowly falls into deep madness as her obsession grows with the yellow wallpaper. To relief herself from going Insane, she keeps a Journal that exercises her creative mind as her husband prohibits It. This act of writing In her Journal Is also similar to the movie, The Hours where the character Virginia Wolf wrote everyday to keep herself sane in her confinement. The wallpaper represented her sanity and freedom.As a show of resistance from her husband she tore the wallpaper, which made her feel free and powerful. â€Å"l wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper as I did? (Gillian 34) shows her longing of freedom and resistance. Women during this time period did not have much value as they were expected to be only wives and mothers and cannot carry on other r esponsibilities. â€Å"It Is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work† (Gillian 24) as her husband instructed her to stay in confinement and away from writing.She has spent her days confined in a room where there is only a window to look at which eventually made her insane. As a woman living In the 19th century, the narrator had no control over her own life and had let her husband dominate her. Women did not have the same opportunities as men did. The author's use of these themes gave the story a powerful message of women longing for freedom and equality in their society. In the story, â€Å"If I Were A Man† by Charlotte Perkins Gillian, focuses on a woman who fought social boundaries and â€Å"take risk to improve themselves and their material condition† (Hoofers 36).As in this story, women were not ready for business but Gillian challenged that. Gillian focuses on the themes such as gender Identity and empowerment, During this tim e period, women's roles were to stay confined In their preference in gender role was examined in this story, â€Å"Gerald had already about that bill, over which she- as Mollie- was still crying at home† (Gillian 39) shows how different the roles of men and women were. Women were the only subdue to be emotional who stayed at home while the men were the ones who held themselves together with pride and dignity.Mollie Matheson finds herself to be happy when she becomes her husband Gerald â€Å"walking down the path so erect and square- shouldered† (Gillian 35) as manly as she can ever be. The thought of being a man gave Mollie a sense of pride and dignity compared to when she was a woman. In Mollies sense to have equality amongst men, she â€Å"felt such freedom and comfort† (Gillian 36) in becoming Gerald as she has all these privileges a woman would not have. Empowerment became a big symbol once Mollie started to earn money and privileges only men would have had. She never had dreamed of how it felt to have pockets† (Perkins 36) shows how she realizes that she is powerful having money and being able to support herself without the need of having a man to rely on. The themes used in this story became an awakening for women to reach higher and climb the social hierarchy to have equal opportunities as men do. In the story, â€Å"The Cottage† by Charlotte Perkins Gillian, focuses closely on how traditional male and female roles are slowly evolving. In this story, despite of the old believe in women serving as wives and housekeepers was challenged.Gillian focuses on themes such as gender identity and status. Malta is expected to be nothing but a wife and housekeeper as â€Å"what they care for most, after all, is domesticity†¦ What they want to marry is a homemaker† (Gillian 55) according to her friend. This shows how inequality and lack of freedom plays along in traditional roles f women. Also, Mammal's lack of independe nce and longing for Ford's approval shows how she follows the traditional role of a woman. â€Å"l could cook. I could cook excellently†¦ But if it was a question of pleasing Ford Mathews- † (Gillian 56) as her goal was to please Ford and nothing but Ford.Women were expected to act polite and demure, as they do not want their status to be devalued. â€Å"†¦ She thought it would look better if we had an older person with us†¦ † (Gillian 57) shows how women are confined to act a certain way and are not able to show who they truly are. Women are also seen as trophies or objects a man can have whenever he wishes, â€Å"And woman? He will hold her, he will have her when he pleases† (Gillian 100). Women were treated nothing equally as men but in this story, this concept was challenged.The themes in this story reminds us that women do have traditional roles but can always do something more than being a wife or housekeeper. In the story, â€Å"The Bloody Chambers† by Angela Carter focuses on sexual awakening and women's objectification through fairytale storytelling. This challenges the typical fairytale story in which is structured as pleasant and happy into gory and violent. The heroine was blossoming into adulthood as she experiences her sexual awakening upon to losing her virginity. â€Å"†¦ Away from Paris, away from girlhood, away from the white, enclosed quietude of my mother's apartment†¦ (Carter 7) shows her freedom from childhood and practice her sexual curiosity. She also compares the act of â€Å"†¦ A tender, delicious ecstasy of excitement†¦ † (Carter 7) leading up to intercourse as meet her husband. She longs and waits the moment when her husband deflowers women â€Å"have been major targets of sexual stereotypical and detrimental orphaned† (Adams and Fuller 7) and seen as sexual objects. Marquis viewed the heroine as a sexual object that he can torture and violate. The heroine felt violated as Marquis in a way forced her to undress and deflower her like â€Å"disrobing of the bride, a ritual from the brothel† (Carter 15).The heroine is comparing the lost of her virginity as a ritual from a brothel depicts how disrespected and disgusted she felt while doing this act. Marquis was a power hungry who showed no respect to her brides. The heroine did not feel that losing her virginity was a special act but rather a aromatizing experiences as â€Å"watched a dozen husbands approach me in a dozen mirrors†¦ â€Å"(Carter 15). Although the story ended with a happy tone, the story still degrades women as the heroin was relieved that she was able to cover her red mark as the blind piano tuner â€Å"cannot see it†¦ T spares me shame† (Carter 41). The themes portrayed in this story shows that fairytale stories objectify women and given women a lesser value then they should have. In the story, â€Å"Puss in Boots† by Angela Carter exami nes the role of violence in sex and woman' objectification. The young woman was predicted as a poor girl who was arced to marry a rich man. In this case, gender and class play a role in social status in this story. As Signor Pantone symbolizes violence and sex for the young woman, as she wishes for sexual gratification she must submit to violence. L gave her the customary tribute of a few firms thrusts of my striped loins† (Carter 70). As Signor Pantone was murdered and passed away, the young woman and Puss' master proceeded with the act of intercourse despite having a dead corpse next to them. â€Å". They're at it, hammer and tongs, down on the carpet since the bed is occupy† (Carter 04) shows the young woman's absurd attraction of violence towards sex. It seems like the young woman is aroused by the acts of violence around her. Women were called unpleasant names and were treated as property by their masters or husbands.One of Signor Pantheon's servants was being call ed a â€Å"hag† and described as someone who is very ugly and useless. Also, Signor Pantaloon sees the young woman as property and a sense of please giver. She is also a prisoner of her own where she can only â€Å"sit in a window for one hour and one hour only' (Carter 101) shows how she doesn't have freedom and is being held captive by her own husband. The themes of violence in sex and women's objectification helped shaped the story poor outlook on women's value. In the story, â€Å"The Tiger's Bride† by Angela Carter focuses on women's objectification and sexual awakening.The heroine is a beauty whose father had a gambling addiction in which he had lost to the Beast. The heroine then was used as a wager for her father' gambling addiction. â€Å"My father lost me to The Beast at cards. † (Carter 60) shows how devalued the heroine is. There is also patriarchy played in this story. As the father and the beast holds the heroine in captivity and she has o voice i n her own life. â€Å"My father said he loved me yet he staked his daughter on a hand of cards. † (Carter 62) shows how helpless and out of control the heroine's life is.She is being used as an object and nothing more but a value of money and not life itself. The heroine's sexual awakening is measured when she transforms into a beast. This also signifies sex and birth as a way of her transformation. Losing her virginity lick the skin off me! † (Carter 69) she describes herself being reborn into a tigress. This act of rebirth signifies a man's reclaim in sex, as a man controls a woman during intercourse. This also ties in with violence in sex as she sheds blood during intercourse and sheds her own skin to become awaken.The themes delivered a powerful message of the pain and relief in finding one's awakening. Through the use of feminist themes and ideas, writers Charlotte Perkins Gillian and Angela Carter sent powerful messages in their short stories. Charlotte Perkins Gi llian mostly used the feminist themes such as personal resistance and gender identity to explain the underlying meanings in her stories. Characters in Sailing's writings were rebellious and did not conform to social norms. As they, freely expressed themselves in their own way with a positive ending.Contrary in Angel Carter's writings, focused on themes such as women's objectification and sexual awakening. The male characters usually portrayed having some essence of evil controlling the female character. The stories in Carter's books are very dark and sexual. Some descriptions in her writing almost have a sense of pornographic image. Both writers gave us a grasp on how themes powerfully send messages throughout the stories. Adams, Terrier M. , and Douglas B. Fuller. â€Å"The Words Have Changed But the Ideology Remains the Same: Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music. Women’s Studies Black Feminist Thought in the Matrix of Domination From Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 221–238 Black feminist thought demonstrates Black women's emerging power as agents of knowledge. By portraying African-American women as self-defined, self-reliant individuals confronting race, gender, and class oppression, Afrocentric feminist thought speaks to the importance that oppression, Afrocentric feminist thought speaks to the importance that knowledge plays in empowering oppressed people.One distinguishing feature of Black feminist thought is its insistence that both the changed consciousness of individuals and the social transformation of political and economic institutions constitute essential ingredients for social change. New knowledge is important for both dimensions of change. Knowledge is a vitally important part of the social relations of domination and resistance. By objectifying African-American women and recasting our experiences to serve the interests of elite white men, much of the Eurocentric masculinist worldview fosters Black women's subordination.But placing Black women's experiences at the center of analysis offers fresh insights on the prevailing concepts, paradigms, and epistemologies of this worldview and on its feminist and Afrocentric critiques. Viewing the world through a both/and conceptual lens of the simultaneity of race, class, and gender oppression and of the need for a humanist vision of community creates new possibilities for an empowering Afrocentric feminist knowledge. Many Black feminist intellectuals have long thought about the world in this way because this is the way we experience the world.Afrocentric feminist thought offers two significant contributions toward furthering our understanding of the important connections among knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. First, Black feminist thought foste rs a fundamental paradigmatic shift in how we think about oppression. By embracing a paradigm of race, class, and gender as interlocking systems of oppression, Black feminist thought reconceptualizes the social relations of domination and resistance.Second, Black feminist thought addresses ongoing epistemological debates in feminist theory and in the sociology of knowledge concerning ways of assessing â€Å"truth. † Offering subordinate groups new knowledge about their own experiences can be empowering. But revealing new ways of knowing that allow subordinate groups to define their own reality has far greater implications. Reconceptualizing Race, Class, and Gender as Interlocking Systems of Oppression â€Å"What I really feel is radical is trying to make coalitions with people who are different from you,† maintains Barbara Smith. I feel it is radical to be dealing with race and sex and class and sexual identity all at one time. I think that is really radical because it has never been done before. † Black feminist thought fosters a fundamental paradigmatic shift that rejects additive approaches to oppression. Instead of starting with gender and then adding in other variables such as age, sexual orientation, race, social class, and religion, Black feminist thought sees these distinctive systems of oppression as being part of one overarching structure of domination.Viewing relations of domination for Black women for any given sociohistorical context as being structured via a system of interlocking race, class, and gender oppression expands the focus of analysis from merely describing the similarities and differences distinguishing these systems of oppression and focuses greater attention on how they interconnect. Assuming that each system needs the others in order to function creates a distinct theoretical stance that stimulates the rethinking of basic social science concepts.Afrocentric feminist notions of family reflect this reconceptualizat ion process. Black women's experiences as blood mothers, other mothers, and community other mothers reveal that the mythical norm of a heterosexual, married couple, nuclear family with a nonworking spouse and a husband earning a â€Å"family wage† is far from being natural, universal and preferred but instead is deeply embedded in specific race and class formations.Placing African-American women in the center of analysis not only reveals much-needed information about Black women's experiences but also questions Eurocentric masculinist perspectives on family Black women's experiences and the Afrocentric feminist thought rearticulating them also challenge prevailing definitions of community. Black women's actions in the struggle or group survival suggest a vision of community that stands in opposition to that extant in the dominant culture.The definition of community implicit in the market model sees community as arbitrary and fragile, structured fundamentally by competition an d domination. In contrast, Afrocentric models of community stress connections, caring, and personal accountability. As cultural workers African-American women have rejected the generalized ideology of domination advanced by the dominant group in order to conserve Afrocentric conceptualizations of community.Denied access to the podium, Black women have been unable to spend time theorizing about alternative conceptualizations of community. Instead, through daily actions African-American women have created alternative communities that empower. This vision of community sustained by African-American women in conjunction with African-American men addresses the larger issue of reconceptualizing power. The type of Black women's power discussed here does resemble feminist theories of power which emphasize energy and community.However, in contrast to this body of literature whose celebration of women's power is often accompanied by a lack of attention to the importance of power as domination, Black women's experiences as mothers, community other mothers, educators, church leaders, labor union center-women, and community leaders seem to suggest that power as energy can be fostered by creative acts of resistance. The spheres of influence created and sustained by African-American women are not meant solely to provide a respite from oppressive situations or a retreat from their effects.Rather, these Black female spheres of influence constitute potential sanctuaries where individual Black women and men are nurtured in order to confront oppressive social institutions. Power from this perspective is a creative power used for the good of the community, whether that community is conceptualized as one's family, church community, or the next generation of the community's children. By making the community stronger, African-American women become empowered, and that same community can serve as a source of support when Black women encounter race, gender, and class oppression. . . Appr oaches that assume that race, gender, and class are interconnected have immediate practical applications. For example, African-American women continue to be inadequately protected by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The primary purpose of the statute is to eradicate all aspects of discrimination. But judicial treatment of Black women's employment discrimination claims has encouraged Black women to identify race or sex as the so-called primary discrimination. To resolve the inequities that confront Black women,† counsels Scarborough, the courts must first correctly conceptualize them as ‘Black women,' a distinct class protected by Title VII. † Such a shift, from protected categories to protected classes of people whose Title VII claims might be based on more than two discriminations, would work to alter the entire basis of current antidiscrimination efforts. Reconceptualizing phenomena such as the rapid growth of female-headed households in African-America n communities would also benefit from a race-, class-, and gender-inclusive analysis.Case studies of Black women heading households must be attentive to racially segmented local labor markets and community patterns, to changes in local political economies specific to a given city or region, and to established racial and gender ideology for a given location. This approach would go far to deconstruct Eurocentric, masculinist analyses that implicitly rely on controlling images of the matriarch or the welfare mother as guiding conceptual premises. . . Black feminist thought that rearticulates experiences such as these fosters an enhanced theoretical understanding of how race, gender, and class oppression are part of a single, historically created system. The Matrix of Domination Additive models of oppression are firmly rooted in the either/or dichotomous thinking of Eurocentric, masculinist thought. One must be either Black or white in such thought systems–persons of ambiguous ra cial and ethnic identity constantly battle with questions such as â€Å"what are your, anyway? This emphasis on quantification and categorization occurs in conjunction with the belief that either/or categories must be ranked. The search for certainty of this sort requires that one side of a dichotomy be privileged while its other is denigrated. Privilege becomes defined in relation to its other. Replacing additive models of oppression with interlocking ones creates possibilities for new paradigms.The significance of seeing race, class, and gender as interlocking systems of oppression is that such an approach fosters a paradigmatic shift of thinking inclusively about other oppressions, such as age, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity. Race, class, and gender represent the three systems of oppression that most heavily affect African-American women. But these systems and the economic, political, and ideological conditions that support them may not be the most fundamental oppre ssions, and they certainly affect many more groups than Black women.Other people of color, Jews, the poor white women, and gays and lesbians have all had similar ideological justifications offered for their subordination. All categories of humans labeled Others have been equated to one another, to animals, and to nature. Placing African-American women and other excluded groups in the center of analysis opens up possibilities for a both/and conceptual stance, one in which all groups possess varying amounts of penalty and privilege in one historically created system. In this system, for example, white women are penalized by their gender but privileged by their race.Depending on the context, an individual may be an oppressor, a member of an oppressed group, or simultaneously oppressor and oppressed. Adhering to a both/and conceptual stance does not mean that race, class, and gender oppression are interchangeable. For example, whereas race, class, and gender oppression operate on the so cial structural level of institutions, gender oppression seems better able to annex the basic power of the erotic and intrude in personal relationships via family dynamics and within individual consciousness.This may be because racial oppression has fostered historically concrete communities among African-Americans and other racial/ethnic groups. These communities have stimulated cultures of resistance. While these communities segregate Blacks from whites, they simultaneously provide counter-institutional buffers that subordinate groups such as African-Americans use to resist the ideas and institutions of dominant groups. Social class may be similarly structured.Traditionally conceptualized as a relationship of individual employees to their employers, social class might be better viewed as a relationship of communities to capitalist political economies. Moreover, significant overlap exists between racial and social class oppression when viewing them through the collective lens of fa mily and community. Existing community structures provide a primary line of resistance against racial and class oppression. But because gender cross-cuts these structures, it finds fewer comparable institutional bases to foster resistance.Embracing a both/and conceptual stance moves us from additive, separate systems approaches to oppression and toward what I now see as the more fundamental issue of the social relations of domination. Race, class, and gender constitute axes of oppression that characterize Black women's experiences within a more generalized matrix of domination. Other groups may encounter different dimensions of the matrix, such as sexual orientation, religion, and age, but the overarching relationship is one of domination and the types of activism it generates.Bell Hooks labels this matrix a â€Å"politic of domination† and describes how it operates along interlocking axes of race, class, and gender oppression. This politic of domination refers to the ideolog ical ground that they share, which is a belief in domination, and a belief in the notions of superior and inferior, which are components of all of those systems. For me it's like a house, they share the foundation, but the foundation is the ideological beliefs around which notions of domination are constructed.Johnella Butler claims that new methodologies growing from this new paradigm would be â€Å"non-hierarchical† and would â€Å"refuse primacy to either race, class, gender, or ethnicity, demanding instead a recognition of their matrix-like interaction. † Race, class, and gender may not be the most fundamental or important systems of oppression, but they have most profoundly affected African-American women. One significant dimension of Black feminist thought is its potential to reveal insights about the social relations of domination organized along other axes such as religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and age.Investigating Black women's particular experience s thus promises to reveal much about the more universal process of domination. Multiple Levels of Domination In addition to being structured along axes such as race, gender, and social class, the matrix of domination is structured on several levels. People experience and resist oppression on three levels: the level of personal biography; the group or community level of the cultural context created by race, class, and gender; and the systemic level of social institutions.Black feminist thought emphasizes all three levels as sites of domination and as potential sites of resistance. Each individual has a unique personal biography made up of concrete experiences, values, motivations, and emotions. No two individuals occupy the same social space; thus no two biographies are identical. Human ties can be freeing and empowering, as is the case with Black women's heterosexual love relationships or in the power of motherhood in African-American families and communities. Human ties can also be confining and oppressive.Situations of domestic violence and abuse or cases in which controlling images foster Black women's internalized oppression represent domination on the personal level. The same situation can look quite different depending on the consciousness one brings to interpret it. This level of individual consciousness is a fundamental area where new knowledge can generate change. Traditional accounts assume that power as domination operates from the top down by forcing and controlling unwilling victims to bend to the will of more powerful superiors.But these accounts fail to account for questions concerning why, for example, women stay with abusive men even with ample opportunity to leave or why slaves did not kill their owners more often. The willingness of the victim to collude in her or his own victimization becomes lost. They also fail to account for sustained resistance by victims, even when chances for victory appear remote. By emphasizing the power of self-def inition and the necessity of a free mind, Black feminist thought speaks to the importance African-American women thinkers place on consciousness as a sphere of freedom.Black women intellectuals realize that domination operates not only by structuring power from the top down but by simultaneously annexing the power as energy of those on the bottom for its own ends. In their efforts to rearticulate the standpoint of African-American women as a group, Black feminist thinkers offer individual African-American women the conceptual tools to resist oppression. The cultural context formed by those experiences and ideas that are shared with other members of a group or community which give meaning to individual biographies constitutes a second level at which domination is experienced and resisted.Each individual biography is rooted in several overlapping cultural contexts–for example, groups defined by race, social class, age, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. The cultural comp onent contributes, among other things, the concepts used in thinking and acting, group validation of an individual's interpretation of concepts, the â€Å"thought models† used in the acquisition of knowledge, and standards used to evaluate individual thought and behavior. The most cohesive cultural contexts are those with identifiable histories, geographic locations, and social institutions.For Black women African-American communities have provided the location for an Afrocentric group perspective to endure. Subjugated knowledges, such as a Black women's culture of resistance, develop in cultural contexts controlled by oppressed groups. Dominant groups aim to replace subjugated knowledge with their own specialized thought because they realize that gaining control over this dimension of subordinate groups' lives simplifies control. While efforts to nfluence this dimension of an oppressed group's experiences can be partially successful, this level is more difficult to control t han dominant groups would have us believe. For example, adhering to externally derived standards of beauty leads many African-American women to dislike their skin color or hair texture. Similarly, internalizing Eurocentric gender ideology leads some Black men to abuse Black women. These are cases of the successful infusion of the dominant group's specialized thought into the everyday cultural context of African-Americans.But the long-standing existence of a Black women's culture of resistance as expressed through Black women's relationships with one another, the Black women's blues tradition, and the voices of contemporary African-American women writers all attest to the difficulty of eliminating the cultural context as a fundamental site of resistance. Domination is also experienced and resisted on the third level of social institutions controlled by the dominant group: namely, schools, churches, the media, and other formal organizations.These institutions expose individuals to the specialized thought representing the dominant group's standpoint and interests. While such institutions offer the promise of both literacy and other skills that can be used for individual empowerment and social transformation, they simultaneously require docility and passivity. Such institutions would have us believe that the theorizing of elites constitutes the whole of theory.The existence of African-American women thinkers such as Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, Zora Neale Hurston, and Fannie Lou Hamer who, though excluded from and/or marginalized within such institutions, continued to produce theory effectively opposes this hegemonic view. Moreover, the more recent resurgence of Black feminist thought within these institutions, the case of the outpouring of contemporary Black feminist thought in history and literature, directly challenges the Eurocentric masculinist thought pervading these institutions.Resisting the Matrix of Domination Domination operates by seducing, pressuri ng, or forcing African-American women and members of subordinated groups to replace individual and cultural ways of knowing with the dominant group's specialized thought. As a result, suggests Audre Lorde, â€Å"the true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us. † Or as Toni Cade Bambara succinctly states, â€Å"revolution begins with the self, in the self. Lorde and Bambara's suppositions raise an important issue for Black feminist intellectuals and for all scholars and activists working for social change. Although most individuals have little difficulty identifying their own victimization within some major system of oppression–whether it be by race, social class, religion, physical ability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, age or gender–they typically fail to see how their thoughts and actions uphold someone else's subordination. Thus white feminists routinely point with confidence to their oppression as women but resist seeing how much their white skin privileges them.African-Americans who possess eloquent analyses of racism often persist in viewing poor white women as symbols of white power. The radical left fares little better. â€Å"If only people of color and women could see their true class interests,† they argue, â€Å"class solidarity would eliminate racism and sexism. † In essence, each group identifies the oppression with which it feels most comfortable as being fundamental and classifies all others as being of lesser importance. Oppression is filled with such contradictions because these approaches fail to recognize that a matrix of domination contains few pure victims or oppressors.Each individual derives varying amounts of penalty and privilege from the multiple systems of oppression which frame everyone's lives. A broader focus stresses the interlocking nature of oppressions that are s tructured on multiple levels, from the individual to the social structural, and which are part of a larger matrix of domination. Adhering to this inclusive model provides the conceptual space needed for each individual to see that she or he is both a member of multiple dominant groups and a member of multiple subordinate groups.Shifting the analysis to investigating how the matrix of domination is structured along certain axes–race, gender, and class being the axes of investigation for AfricanAmerican women–reveals that different systems of oppression may rely in varying degrees on systemic versus interpersonal mechanisms of domination. Empowerment involves rejecting the dimensions of knowledge, whether personal, cultural, or institutional, that perpetuate objectification and dehumanization.African-American women and other individuals in subordinate groups become empowered when we understand and use those dimensions of our individual, group, and disciplinary ways of kn owing that foster our humanity as fully human subjects. This is the case when Black women value our self-definitions, participate in a Black women's activist tradition, invoke an Afrocentric feminist epistemology as central to our worldview, and view the skills gained in schools as part of a focused education for Black community development. C.Wright Mills identifies this holistic epistemology as the â€Å"sociological imagination† and identifies its task and its promise as a way of knowing that enables individuals to grasp the relations between history and biography within society. Using one's standpoint to engage the sociological imagination can empower the individual. â€Å"My fullest concentration of energy is available to me,† Audre Lorde maintains, â€Å"only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restriction of externally i mposed definition. Black Women as Agents of Knowledge Living life as an African-American woman is a necessary prerequisite for producing Black feminist thought because within Black women's communities thought is validated and produced with reference to a particular set of historical, material, and epistemological conditions. African-American women who adhere to the idea that claims about Black women must be substantiated by Black women's sense of our own experiences and who anchor our knowledge claims in an Afrocentric feminist epistemology have produced a rich tradition of Black feminist thought.Traditionally such women were blues singers, poets, autobiographers, storytellers, and orators validated by everyday Black women as experts on a Black women's standpoint. Only a few unusual African-American feminist scholars have been able to defy Eurocentric masculinist epistemologies and explicitly embrace an Afrocentric feminist epistemology. Consider Alice Walker's description of Zora N eal Hurston: In my mind, Zora Neale Hurston, Billie Holiday, and Bessie Smith form a sort of unholy trinity.Zora belongs in the tradition of black women singers, rather than among â€Å"the literati. † . . . Like Billie and Jessie she followed her own road, believed in her own gods pursued her own dreams, and refused to separate herself from â€Å"common† people. Zora Neal Hurston is an exception for prior to 1950, few African-American women earned advanced degrees and most of those who did complied with Eurocentric masculinist epistemologies.Although these women worked on behalf of Black women, they did so within the confines of pervasive race and gender oppression. Black women scholars were in a position to see the exclusion of African-American women from scholarly discourse, and the thematic content of their work often reflected their interest in examining a Black women's standpoint. However, their tenuous status in academic institutions led them to adhere to Euroce ntric masculinist epistemologies so that their work would be accepted as scholarly.As a result, while they produced Black feminist thought, those African-American women most likely to gain academic credentials were often least likely to produce Black feminist thought that used an Afrocentric feminist epistemology. An ongoing tension exists for Black women as agents of knowledge, a tension rooted in the sometimes conflicting demands of Afrocentricity and feminism. Those Black women who are feminists are critical of how Black culture and many of its traditions oppress women.For example, the strong pronatal beliefs in African-American communities that foster early motherhood among adolescent girls, the lack of self-actualization that can accompany the double-day of paid employment and work in the home, and the emotional and physical abuse that many Black women experience from their fathers, lovers, and husbands all reflect practices opposed by African-American women who are feminists. But these same women may have a parallel desire as members of an oppressed racial group to affirm the value of that same culture and traditions.Thus strong Black mothers appear in Black women's literature, Black women's economic contributions to families is lauded, and a curious silence exists concerning domestic abuse. As more African-American women earn advanced degrees, the range of Black feminist scholarship is expanding. Increasing numbers of African-American women scholars are explicitly choosing to ground their work in Black women's experiences, and, by doing so, they implicitly adhere to an Afrocentric feminist epistemology.Rather than being restrained by their both/and status of marginality, these women make creative use of their outsider-within status and produce innovative Afrocentric feminist thought. The difficulties these women face lie less in demonstrating that they have mastered white male epistemologies than in resisting the hegemonic nature of these patterns of th ought in order to see, value, and use existing alternative Afrocentric feminist ways of knowing. In establishing the legitimacy of their knowledge claims, Black women scholars who want to develop Afrocentric feminist thought may encounter the often conflicting standards of three key groups.First, Black feminist thought must be validated by ordinary Atrican-American women who, in the words of Hannah Nelson, grow to womanhood â€Å"in a world where the saner you are, the madder you are made to appear. † To be credible in the eyes of this group, scholars must be personal advocates for their material, be accountable for the consequences of their work, have lived or experienced their material in some fashion, and be willing to engage in dialogues about their findings with ordinary, everyday people. Second, Black feminist thought also must be accepted by the community of Black women scholars.These scholars place varying amounts of importance on rearticulating a Black women's standp oint using an Afrocentric feminist epistemology. Third, Afrocentric feminist thought within academia must be prepared to confront Eurocentric masculinist political and epistemological requirements. The dilemma facing Black women scholars engaged in creating Black feminist thought is that a knowledge claim that meets the criteria of adequacy for one group and thus is judged to be an acceptable knowledge claim may not be translatable into the terms of a different group.Using the example of Black English, June Jordan illustrates the difficulty of moving among epistemologies: You cannot â€Å"translate† instances of Standard English preoccupied with abstraction or with nothing/nobody evidently alive into Black English. That would warp the language into uses antithetical to the guiding perspective of its community of users. Rather you must first change those Standard English sentences, themselves, into ideas consistent with the person-centered assumptions of Black English.Although both worldviews share a common vocabulary, the ideas themselves defy direct translation. For Black women who are agents of knowledge, the marginality that accompanies outsider-within status can be the source of both frustration and creativity. In an attempt to minimize the differences between the cultural context of African-American communities and the expectations of social institutions, some women dichotomize their behavior and become two different people. Over time, the strain of doing this can be enormous.Others reject their cultural context and work against their own best interests by enforcing the dominant group's specialized thought. Still others manage to inhabit both contexts but do so critically, using their outsider-within perspectives as a source of insights and ideas. But while outsiders within can make substantial personal cost. â€Å"Eventually it comes to you,† observes Lorraine Hansberry, â€Å"the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is ine vitably that which must also make you lonely. Once Black feminist scholars face the notion that, on certain dimensions of a Black women's standpoint, it may be fruitless to try and translate ideas from an Afrocentric feminist epistemology into a Eurocentric masculinist framework, then other choices emerge. Rather than trying to uncover universal knowledge claims that can withstand the translation from one epistemology to another (initially, at least), Black women intellectuals might find efforts to rearticulate a Black women's standpoint especially fruitful.Rearticulating a Black women's standpoint refashions the concrete and reveals the more universal human dimensions of Black women's everyday lives. â€Å"I date all my work,† notes Nikki Giovanni, â€Å"because I think poetry, or any writing, is but a reflection of the moment. The universal comes from the particular. † Bell Hooks maintains, â€Å"my goal as a feminist thinker and theorist is to take that abstraction and articulate it in a language that renders it accessible–not less complex or rigorous–but simply more accessible. † The complexity exists; interpreting it remains the unfulfilled challenge for Black women intellectuals.Situated Knowledge, Subjugated Knowledge, and Partial Perspectives â€Å"My life seems to be an increasing revelation of the intimate trace of universal struggle,† claims June Jordan: You begin with your family and the kids on the block, and next you open your eyes to what you call your people and that leads you into land reform into Black English into Angola leads you back to your own bed where you lie by yourself; wondering if you deserve to be peaceful, or trusted or desired or left to the freedom of your own unfaltering heart. And the scale shrinks to the use of a skull: your own interior cage.Lorraine Hansberry expresses a similar idea: â€Å"I believe that one of the most sound ideas in dramatic writing is that in order to create t he universal, you must pay very great attention to the specific. Universality, I think, emerges from the truthful identity of what is. † Jordan and Hansberry's insights that universal struggle and truth may wear a particularistic, intimate face suggest a new epistemological stance concerning how we negotiate competing knowledge claims and identify â€Å"truth. † The context in which African-American women's ideas are nurtured or suppressed matters.Understanding the content and epistemology of Black women's ideas as specialized knowledge requires attending to the context from which those ideas emerge. While produced by individuals, Black feminist thought as situated knowledge is embedded in the communities in which African-American women find ourselves. A Black women's standpoint and those of other oppressed groups is not only embedded in a context but exists in a situation characterized by domination. Because Black women's ideas have been suppressed, this suppression ha s stimulated African-American women to create knowledge that empowers people to resist domination.Thus Afrocentric feminist thought represents a subjugated knowledge. A Black women's standpoint may provide a preferred stance from which to view the matrix of domination because, in principle, Black feminist thought as specialized thought is less likely than the specialized knowledge produced by dominant groups to deny the connection between ideas and the vested interests of their creators. However, Black feminist thought as subjugated knowledge is not exempt from critical analysis, because subjugation is not grounds for an epistemology.Despite African-American women's potential power to reveal new insights about the matrix of domination, a Black women's standpoint is only one angle of vision. Thus Black feminist thought represents a partial perspective. The overarching matrix of domination houses multiple groups, each with varying experiences with penalty and privilege that produce co rresponding partial perspectives, situated knowledges, and, for clearly identifiable subordinate groups, subjugated knowledges. No one group has a clear angle of vision.No one group possesses the theory or methodology that allows it to discover the absolute â€Å"truth† or, worse yet, proclaim its theories and methodologies as the universal norm evaluating other groups' experiences. Given that groups are unequal in power in making themselves heard, dominant groups have a vested interest in suppressing the knowledge produced by subordinate groups. Given the existence of multiple and competing knowledge claims to â€Å"truth† produced by groups with partial perspectives, what epistemological approach offers the most promise? Dialogue and EmpathyWestern social and political thought contains two alternative approaches to ascertaining â€Å"truth. † The first, reflected in positivist science, has long claimed that absolute truths exist and that the task of scholarshi p is to develop objective, unbiased tools of science to measure these truths. . . . Relativism, the second approach, has been forwarded as the antithesis of and inevitable outcome of rejecting a positivist science. From a relativist perspective all groups produce specialized thought and each group's thought is equally valid. No group can claim to have a better interpretation of the â€Å"truth† than another.In a sense, relativism represents the opposite of scientific ideologies of objectivity. As epistemological stances, both positivist science and relativism minimize the importance of specific location in influencing a group's knowledge claims, the power inequities among groups that produce subjugated knowledges, and the strengths and limitations of partial perspective. The existence of Black feminist thought suggests another alternative to the ostensibly objective norms of science and to relativism's claims that groups with competing knowledge claims are equal. . . This app roach to Afrocentric feminist thought allows African-American women to bring a Black women's standpoint to larger epistemological dialogues concerning the nature of the matrix of domination. Eventually such dialogues may get us to a point at which, claims Elsa Barkley Brown, â€Å"all people can learn to center in another experience, validate it, and judge it by its own standards without need of comparison or need to adopt that framework as their own. In such dialogues, â€Å"one has no need to ‘decenter' anyone in order to center someone else; one has only to constantly, appropriately, ‘pivot the center. ‘ † Those ideas that are validated as true by African-American women, African-American men, Latina lesbians, Asian-American women, Puerto Rican men, and other groups with distinctive standpoints, with each group using the epistemological approaches growing from its unique standpoint, thus become the most â€Å"objective† truths. Each group speaks fr om its own standpoint and shares its own partial, situated knowledge.But because each group perceives its own truth as partial, its knowledge is unfinished. Each group becomes better able to consider other groups' standpoints without relinquishing the uniqueness of its own standpoint or suppressing other groups' partial perspectives. â€Å"What is always needed in the appreciation of art, or life,† maintains Alice Walker, â€Å"is the larger perspective. Connections made, or at least attempted, where none existed before, the straining to encompass in one's glance at the varied world the common thread, the unifying theme through immense diversity. Partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard; individuals and groups forwarding knowledge claims without owning their position are deemed less credible than those who do. Dialogue is critical to the success of this epistemological approach, the type of dialogue long extant in the Afrocentric call-and-response trad ition whereby power dynamics are fluid, everyone has a voice, but everyone must listen and respond to other voices in order to be allowed to remain in the community.Sharing a common cause fosters dialogue and encourages groups to transcend their differences. . . . African-American women have been victimized by race, gender, and class oppression. But portraying Black women solely as passive, unfortunate recipients of racial and sexual abuse stifles notions that Black women can actively work to change our circumstances and bring about changes in our lives.Similarly, presenting African-American women solely as heroic figures who easily engage in resisting oppression on all fronts minimizes the very real costs of oppression and can foster the perception that Black women need no help because we can â€Å"take it. † Black feminist thought's emphasis on the ongoing interplay between Black women's oppression and Black women's activism presents the matrix of domination as responsive t o human agency.Such thought views the world as a dynamic place where the goal is not merely to survive or to fit in or to cope; rather, it becomes a place where we feel ownership and accountability. The existence of Afrocentric feminist thought suggests that there is always choice, and power to act, no matter how bleak the situation may appear to be. Viewing the world as one in the making raises the issue of individual responsibility for bringing about change. It also shows that while individual empowerment is key, only collective action can effectively generate lasting social transformation of political and economic institutions.

Coffee Bean – Malaysia

Our research is conducted with the purpose of investigating and studying the current retail mix. We chose The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf  ® as the retail company which operates in Malaysia. This report is important for The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf  ® as it helps them to identify their problems and make further improvements to enable them to compete with their competitors, for example, Starbucks.As we know, The Coffee Bean has a lot of franchises, there were about 750 stores in 22 countries, for example in California, Arizona, Nevada, Singapore, Malaysia, Sabah, Taiwan, UAE, Korea, Brunei, Indonesia, Australia, Shanghai, Israel and Brunei and continues to expand both domestically and internationally. As it is hard for us to conduct a research on this topic in so many countries, therefore we only focus on The Coffee Bean operating in Malaysia. We conducted our research by using searching for detail information through the internet.Besides that, we went to one of the franchises lo cated in Penang to see how the business operates, how the staffs serve their customer and to know more information on the store layout and design. The result of our research shows us that The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf  ® has encountered many problems. As conclusion, we did include several recommendations to The Coffee Bean and to help them to improve in order to earn more profit and their sales can increase. RETAIL ENVIRONMENTRetailing is the final activities and steps needed to place merchandise made elsewhere into the hand of the consumer or to provide services to the consumer. Nowadays, retail sector is increasingly being viewed as an important in the economy and to the society. According to Malaysia Retail Report 2010, it predicts that total retail sales will grow from an estimated US$35bn in 2009 to almost US$58bn by 2014. A low unemployment rate, which rise the disposable incomes and a strong tourism industry are key factors behind the forecast growth. In 2009, Malaysia's n ominal GDP was US$201. 6bn. Over the forecast period through to 2014, it predicted that average annual GDP will growth 4. 3%. With the population expected to increase by 9. 8%, GDP per capita is predicted to rise from US$7,103 in 2009 to US$9,654 in 2014. Furthermore, it also forecast that consumer spending per capita will increase from US$1,961 in 2009 to US$3,197 in 2014. Moreover, Malaysia is classified as an upper-middle income country. According to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DSM), the average consumer spending was MYR2,285 per month in urban areas and MYR1,301 per month in rural areas.With the urban population predicted to account for almost 76% of the total by 2015, according to UN data, this is likely to have a positive effect on retail sales. Thirteen years ago, The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf brought the art of coffee drinking and the world of gourmet grinds to the land of kopitiams and has since successfully integrated it into the fabric of the urban Malaysianâ₠¬â„¢s lifestyle. Thirteen years later, there are over 54 stores in the east and west Malaysia. We can see that between this time period, Coffee Bean had rapidly growth.Besides, Malaysian today is also familiar with Coffee Bean compare to a few years ago. In the future, it is expected that Coffee Bean will continue to growth in Malaysia due to the changing lifestyle of Malaysian and other factors. INTRODUCTION In year 1963, Herbert B. Hyman started The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf  ®. With a dedication to excellence and the quality of coffees and teas in the world, Herbert’s efforts made him the founding father of gourmet coffee in California. Now The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf  ® has grown into one of the largest privately-owned, family-run coffee and tea companies in the world.Besides, the endurance and popularity of The Bean attributed to the high standards that were established from the beginning. The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf  ® has discovered the formula for a succe ssful coffee and tea company, which is start from trend-setting drinks such as the World Famous Ice Blended ®, to the employees who become a part of the communities they work in. Today, they offer over 22 varieties of coffees and 20 kinds of teas. Moreover, Coffee Bean is also a Clicks and Mortar retailer. They sell their product at both online and via physical stores.The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf  ® mission is to create a spirit within the company that inspires their team members to provide their customers with a total quality experience that is: Quality of Product, Service and Environment Furthermore, they also believe in the fundamental truths that guide them through their daily lives at The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf  ®, which is: 1. Friendly with each other and their customers. 2. Respect for each other’s values, opinion and individual diversity. 3. Ownership, it is because they are proudly entrusted with the responsibility. . Teamwork, it is because they achieve success by working together. 5. Honesty, it is because they are truthful to each other and to themselves. In short, they realize that their customers deserve ‘simply the best’. THREATS AND OPPORTUNITITIES Opportunities 1) Changing lifestyle Although there is an economic downturn in year 2009, however, the specialty of coffee industry has grown every year. According to one of the economy observer, when times are good the coffeehouse industry is great, and when times are bad the coffeehouse industry is still great.This means that the coffee industry is strong at all times. What makes the coffee industry become a strong industry at all time? One of the main factors is changing in the Malaysian’s lifestyle. Nowadays, many of them are hard-working, fast-paced Malaysian considers a stop at their local coffeehouse as their necessary part of the day. This is because coffeehouses provide calm, inviting environment for people to socialize, relax or catch up on work. Coffee house for such The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf is one of the places where they can meet with their friends.Besides, with the relaxing atmosphere and environment it makes the coffeehouse become a suitable place for the college student to do their assignment or discussing their homework. During weekend nights, coffeehouse is the place where full with the young customers. Furthermore, instead of going to a bar and paying for an alcoholic drink or a restaurant where a meal usually comes with a hefty price tag, the older adults now choose to spent their time in the coffeehouse. With a cup of coffee and snack, they can meet with their friends and relax. 2) Market potentialAs what we had discussed just now, Malaysian’s lifestyle is changing and therefore, coffee industry for such The Coffee Bean has the potential to growth in Malaysia. According to the research, there are only 54 outlets of The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf in the whole Malaysia included East Malaysia. In the future, it is expected that the number of outlet will continue to increase. In short it means there is a market potential for The Coffee Bean. Threats 1) Competition Global coffee market is one of the very competitive sectors. The main competitor of The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf in Malaysia is Starbuck.This is because both Starbuck and The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf are addressing the same target group. Both The Coffee bean and Starbucks have developed a strong and successful business by adhering to their core values that is to offer customers the best coffees and teas, to hire friendly staff from local community and to provide comfortable places to them to relax. Therefore, The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf has to develop the best strategies to compete with Starbuck. In here, the most important thing to compete with Starbucks is to improve its services.For example, The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf had offering â€Å"Party Pack† which customer can order when throwing a house or office part y. They provide services of giving their customer the possibility to bring The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf lifestyle back to their homes. Moreover, the company also provides online services. They have their home page with virtual stores which is being defined as collection of all pages of information. The customers can buy their product through online and knowing the latest promotion through the homepage.Besides, coffee manufacturer, such as, Nestle USA, Inc, distribute premium coffee products nationally in supermarkets and convenience stores. Most of these products may be substitutes for this company’s coffees and their coffee drinks. Therefore, if the company wants to retain its status as the world’s leading specialty coffee retailer, it must be aware of their competitors. 2) Host country risk management Risk management issues such as government policies, regulation, macroeconomic variations and monetary uncertainties are important to The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf on its international franchising.Therefore, it is a necessary for The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf to understand the host county government policies concerning to the transfer and repatriation of dividends, fees and royalties. However, this company conducts a very little host government policy evaluation due to attributed to a lack of resources and reactive approach to market expansion. 3) Enthusiasm of health consciousness Nowadays, people attitude are changing and they care more to health. More and more people are taking responsibility for their health rather than passively accepting medical decisions.With this, the consumers are cutting down on caffeine. It is because they believe that drinking coffee will harm their health. This is because that they feel that the pros of consuming coffee are less than the cons. As a result, this may decline the demand for coffee from The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf. COMPANY’S RETAIL MIX Retail mix is the combination of merchandise, assortment, price, promotion, customer service and store layout that best serves the segments targeted by the retailer. Price The price is what the customer willing to pay in exchange for the benefits of the product and services.From the research that we had conducted on several Coffee Bean franchises, it is clearly shown that the price of most of the products offered is around RM10 and above. For example, an egg club sandwich and a plate of Chinese chicken salad cost Rm15. 50 each. It may be expensive for certain group of people such as the youths who are the zero income earners. With this we can see that the price charged by The Coffee Bean is slightly higher than those coffee shops such as Old Town Coffee but if we use Coffee Bean pricing and compare it to their biggest competitor in the coffee industry, for such, Starbuck.Starbucks will have a little advantage on the pricing as with high price, they will earn higher profits in just a short period. Based on the research, we can see that Cof fee Bean focused on non price decisions, but on other factors such as qualities and facilities. Thus in here it is clear that Coffee Bean is using the above – market pricing policy as they do provide the wifi facilities and also the good environment for people to do their business or assignments. It also had show that they target the market most on the youths. The muffins and cookies which cost only less than Rm5 are affordable for the youths but the cakes nd also the pasta set are not affordable for them as they are not working and thus no income for them. They only depend on the pocket money given by their parents. Thus The Coffee Bean should offer their products with lower prices so that it is affordable for the youths to purchase it. Coffee Bean can earn back their profits in the long term. The adults with middle and high income can afford to spend on the products offer by Coffee Bean. For example, although the price for those cups and gifts available in The Coffee Bean a re quite expensive, but there were actually people who purchase them especially those with high income.Merchandise Merchandise is being defined as goods, ware, stocks, articles or item to be sold. In another way of defining merchandise is the availability of assortment of products available in the retail shop. For The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf or also known as The Coffee Bean in short, offer many types of products such as coffees, teas, cakes, party-packs, pies, cookies, muffins, sandwiches, salads and even hot pasta. They even offer different types of drink menus for their customers. The Coffee Bean does customise to meet the wants and demands of their customers.This is because different consumers have different types of preferences. It can be shown clearly when The Coffee Bean customises their coffees into light and subtle, rich and smooth, dark and distinctive and flavoured. For example the light and subtle coffee is especially for the customers who prefer mild and delicate flav our. Whereas for teas, it is being categorise into black and oolong tea, green tea and flavoured green and herbal and fruit infusion. For such, green, black and oolong teas all have their own signature flavours and aromas, and each will have its own unique set of blends that complements and expands their essence.A mellow Ceylon tea, for example, blended with a delicate peach flavour works the magic sparks of fruitiness with a light floral finish. And to those who dream of having spectrum of aromas and flavours, a cup of oolong tea will be their choice. Furthermore, the cakes being offered can be customised into cheesecake special, signature classic, for kids and special occasions. They also offer the drink menus to suit the taste and preferences of their valuable customers. For such, they offer coffee, espresso, brewed tea, tea latte, non-coffee, coffee ice blended drinks, coffee-free ice blended drinks and many more.Thus with the way of customising their products to suit the tastes and preferences of different customers, it will then help to attract more customers to The Coffee Bean and with customers, retail trade can be done. They also do provide merchandise line depth whereby they allow their customers to choose the size for their drinks whether they want small, regular or large size. In conclusion, customer satisfaction can be met when the retail organisation, The Coffee Bean is being influenced by the customers’ needs and wants.Besides from all these, The Coffee Bean also do offer some gift packs, for example The Holiday Tea Trio which includes three mini square tins each containing five tea bags of whole leaf teas. They are nicely wrapped with ribbon on top of it which makes it attractive for people to purchase them. Although Coffee Bean offer a variety of products for their customer but it may bring some disadvantage such as the taste and aroma of coffees and teas may not be that fragrant anymore as they do not focus on only a particular type of coffee and tea.This may make the good quality of the products offer by them to be turned into bad quality. Therefore, to prevent this from happening, Coffee Bean should only picked up some of their famous products to specialise in and to continually improve on it. Advertising and promotions The Coffee Bean become famous and as a media darling, their brand have been place and promote in hits shows like Entourage and The Hills, to coverage leading publications like Forbes Magazine and the Times. Coffee Bean had advertised its brand not only through the media or magazine but some other ways such as donations, promotions and others.The Coffee Bean have come out with a numbers of examples they been using to reflect the concept of social responsibility and also to promote their brand through donations. It can be shown by the following example; The Coffee Bean made a donation, 50% from their sales item to be donated to serves children with autism, learning disabilities, hyperactivity or a ttention deficit disorder, mental retardation, and emotional challenges. Through an ongoing commitment, The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf ® holds The Help Group's annual Deck the Walls holiday fundraising program and proudly features the children's artwork.Their most recent activity is the project of Caring Cup initiatives which planted and nurtured domestically in communities served by the company, as well as internationally in communities which the product originate. The framework of caring cup initiatives is rooted in need; where need from preventing the environment to improving education. Through these, The Coffee Bean will definitely well known in public and as we can see nowadays more and more people will come to purchase from the shops whereby there do a lot of charity work and these charity programs will be part of The Coffee Bean social responsibilities.Beside donation there are a few promotions being used to promote their brand. At times, The Coffee Bean ;amp; Teas also giv e free drinks today to celebrate the launch of the cafe’s holiday drink line. For example, from 4p. m. to 8 p. m. (11/12) customers can get a free 12 oz holiday drink. Choices include: Peppermint Latte or Ice Blended drink; Pumpkin latte or Ice Blended drink. Besides that, they also promote their famous drinks by posting pictures on the wall and putting up banners outside of their franchises.People who own The Coffee Bean Card may have some benefits too and it acts as a way of promoting and thus can attract their customers to purchase more. By having the card the consumers may enjoy the convenience of debit purchase, the more the people top up the card the more benefit they will get, such as 10% more value and redeemable of other item by having at least 5 point. They do have the holiday promotion. When it is near by the holiday season, they had been preparing some merchandise to go, such holiday cocoas gift set and others.This had helping in promote the brand by his consumer to others. They also have their online advertisement. They are not only having their own web site but they already create their pages in Facebook, Twitter and also Youtube which are the famous connection web on current time. They also post some short video on the web to promote and attract to the customer. With all the relevant aspect, connection and advertisement use by the company, Coffee Bean has successfully passed their information to their customer.Through the promotions of the products by hanging up banners and pictures on the wall sometimes may not contain full information such as the pricing and the nutrition of the particular product. They may only contain attractive pictures on it. In order to solve it, the management of Coffee Bean should publish their nutrition label and the pricing on the banners. With these, customers can get the information of the products they choose and can decide whether to purchase it or not. Besides that, we also noticed that Coffee Bean do not give out brochures as a mean of promotion. This may be a disadvantage for them.If brochures are provided to the passer-by, they may tend to go in to the Coffee Bean to enjoy the products offered by them. As a conclusion, the Coffee Bean should also provides brochures and distribute it to the people so that they can have more information on the offers and promotions offered. Customer service and Selling Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase. For The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, they provide a series of customer service to their customers. Such as, their entire customer can apply for a member card or so called The Coffee Bean Card.Basically, The Coffee Bean Card is a loyalty card introduced to reward regular customers with loyalty points called â€Å"BEANS† which can be subsequently redeemed against purchases at The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf outlets (CBTL). With perception, Coffee Bean is a big believer in teamwork (just lik e Starbucks) as they feel that success is achieved by working together. After our research on several franchises of The Coffee Bean, we noticed that their staffs are efficient, friendly and helpful enough. They maintain amicable relationships between customers and each other.This can be shown when customers ordered their drinks and food at the counter, they served their customers with smiles and when we asked them certain questions for our assignment purpose, they will try their best to answer us. The employees have respect for each other's values, opinions and individual personalities and are honest and truthful to themselves and each other. Due to this strategy, they can serve their customers in a better way. In addition, Coffee Bean also provided online service which customer can view their website that having the latest news and more information towards their company.In order to let their customer to contact them or get more information towards them, Coffee Bean also provide the ir headquarter address, email, telephone and even fax number on their website. They even have their website for their customers to comment on their services and products provided. Selling is being defined as trying to make sales by persuading someone to buy one's product or service. Coffee Bean also did selling. They try to sell out their product as much as their competitors do. Therefore, promotion will exist. Besides that, Coffee Bean tends to sell their product through their good and friendly customer service.Due to the customer service provided by them are good, customers tend to come back to them when they think of having a cup of coffee and enjoying the peaceful environment there. Although most of the Coffee Bean franchises are well organised with their efficient workers, there is a possibility that they do made mistakes to especially in delivering the drinks to the customers or when they prepare the drinks. This can be shown when our group when to one of The Coffee Bean to do our research while having our drinks there; we noticed that they made the drinks for us not according to the size we ordered.For such, we ordered a regular size black forest ice blended and a large size of the caramel ice blended, but during the preparations of the drinks, the staffs made mistakes, everything goes the other way round. These mistakes can be avoided by sending those staffs to more training programs so that they can improve and be more efficient and the operations in The Coffee Bean will be more effective and productive. Location Location is an area that retailing may undergo significant changes in the decade to come.Besides that, retailers have been classified according to their location within a metropolitan area, be it the central business district, a regional shopping centre or neighbourhood shopping centre, or freestanding unit. In order to have the businesses caring out well or to improve the businesses, location and target market can be considered as important factors. For example, if the location that retailers choose is too far away from the town or is it hardly or impossible to find a parking lot to park their vehicles, most of the consumers will choose not to go there.Locations that retailers mostly choose to run their businesses and to earn a profit from there are such as metropolitan area (e. g. : town area), central business district (e. g. : heart of the state) and so on. In Malaysia, most of the retailers would like to operate their businesses at metropolitan and central business district. The reason they choose these places is because the locations tend to attract more consumers to their shops as there were also many hypermarkets and supercenters around.As for this assignment, we carried out a research on The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf, The locations that Coffee Bean may choose to run their franchise businesses are basically the two popular locations. Besides that, The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf currently has over 750 stores in 22 countries. In addition, in Malaysia currently have over 54 stores. 31 franchises in Klang Valley, 6 in Penang, 1 at Ipoh, 2 in Pahang, 3 in Johor Bharu, 2 in Malacca, 6 in Sabah and 3 in Sarawak. Every Coffee Bean in Malaysia tends to gives people a relaxing and enjoyable environment.The location that Coffee Bean’s retailer pick mostly at those places which can attract more people. The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf tends to attract those tourists and people who used to hang out with friends or to those who were carrying out their direct selling with others. For such, after a tired shopping day, most of those shoppers will tend to find a relaxing place for a rest. They can enjoy the coffee and the sweet aroma of teas that are provided by the Coffee Bean. Next is the customers may also enjoy the beautiful scenery around these franchises, for such the beaches.Through these, more of the tourists will pay a visit and spend their time there. Besides that, location such as shopping complexes is also a hot spot for shoppers and tourists to spend their time there either the day or night. Customers can sit and relax themselves; they can also view the shoppers shopping around and can feel the friendliness of the people. Locations that Coffee Bean chooses are also convenient to the entire consumer. Most of the franchises operate at the shopping complex; this is because there are a lot parking places provided for their customers.This will let those consumers to pay more visits to their shops which can provide them with the drinks provided and the good customer service provided. Target Market is the specific group of customers that a company aims to capture. They have been identified as people with needs or wants that can be met with the products or services from the company. The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf is targeting the youth, who are teens and working adults in their twenties. This has become a weakness for the firm. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf aligns itself wit h other major brands targeting the youth market.This may lead it to lose some potential market. For example, DOME’s positioning is â€Å"expensive and exclusive† as its target market is basically the professionals, managers, executives and businessmen. But The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf’s target market is the youth and who didn’t have strong consumption power. The target market for The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf is sensitive to the price issue. The Coffee Bean positioned them well in the target market by a competitive pricing strategy. This pricing strategy likes a threat for The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf.Thus the market share and profit for The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf are limited. They also target the adults with stable income. The problem on the location is that there were only 54 outlets in Malaysia. For example, Pahang there is only 1 branch but we found out that it may not be enough for the Pahang residents. The people who want to go to The Coffe e Bean may need to travel a long distance to reach Coffee Bean. As a recommendation, we recommend that the management of The Coffee Bean should increase the number of outlet in Pahang.Next we also found out that The Coffee Bean target the youth as their main target. Our group feel that the youths who are the zero income earners might not have enough income to spend on the products offer which will be slightly expensive for them. Thus Coffee Bean has made a mistake, they should target adults with medium and high incomes as their main target group as they can purchase the products without worrying that they would not have enough cash to pay. Store layout and design Layout and design is defined as an arrangement, plan, design of a building, book, picture and etc.As we know, Coffee Bean is one of the franchise companies. Most of their layouts and designs are almost the same in every outlet. For example, the theme colour of the outlet. You can see that their outlet mostly is painted in b rown colour. Brown colour is a natural, down-to earth neutral colour. It represents warmth, wholesomeness, friendliness and simplicity. With this, it gave their customers a warmth feeling when they are inside their outlet. As the customers enter into the Coffee Bean, they can also notice the pictures of the famous drinks at Coffee Bean are being hang up on the wall.Besides that, the playing of the sentimental music makes the environment calm and relaxing. This makes their customers willing to pay for a higher price for a cup of coffee and enjoy it in such calm and relaxing atmosphere. Furthermore, there are also a counter is used to display their products such as packets of teas and coffees, cakes, cookies, muffins and etc in every outlet. It is well organised, people can easily find the products they want as the products are being arranged in order. Each of the products display is being priced.Customers can choose whatever products they want from there and they can see the price fo r it. Moreover, in every outlet, there is a menu board at the counter. It shows the menu of coffee drinks and beverages that sell and their price. Customers can refer to the board and make their orders. There is also a small blackboard hanging on the wall which states that what the special offer is for the day. The outlets for most of the Coffee Bean franchises were big enough, there were spacious space for the customers to walk around without asking the others to shift their chairs to allow them to walk pass.The management of The Coffee Bean also placed some plants in their outlets as part of the decorations on the franchise. They do provide magazines for their customers to read. Next is the lighting system in The Coffee Bean franchises. They usually will use the bulbs with orange colour to give people the romantic and warmth feeling. The lights being used by them are those with nice designs on it and are in various shapes. There is also wifi provided for their customers who wants to serve on the internet for the assignments and business purposes.After stating the store layout and design of The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf, our group also do noticed some problem on it. For such, the writings on the small blackboard which is used to write what the special offer of the day are too colourful and it is too small as it can make the customers difficulty in reading it. Thus to improve it, they should provide each Coffee Bean franchises with a bigger blackboard and the writings should be change to a bigger size and the fonts which can be easily readable by the customers. CONCLUSIONFrom the report above, we can see that The Coffee Bean ;amp; Tea Leaf has been growing from time to time, but on the way of growing there are several issues that need retailer’s attention and take certain actions to correct and to improve it.. From the research, we found out that most of their customers are youngster and are of the middle income earner, but the price of most of the pro ducts offered is around RM10 and above, with this, it may not be affordable for the zero income earners in here the youngsters. As from these, Coffee Bean may need to lower the price of their products.As for the location and the number of outlets of the Coffee Bean, it is shown that there are only 54 outlets of Coffee Bean which operate in Malaysia, 31 franchises in Klang Valley, 6 in Penang, 1 at Ipoh, 2 in Pahang, 3 in Johor Bharu, 2 in Malacca, 6 in Sabah and 3 in Sarawak. As we can see there are unequal balances of outlets located, with this they may need to add more branches on those states which are under stored. Beside this, The Coffee Bean also conducts a small part of host government policy evaluation due to attributed to a lack of resources and reactive approach to market expansion.With this take should pay more attention on it. As on the side of health, a medical report had state on caffeine which conduct in the coffee may cause harm on our health; this had cause the cons umers to cut down on the consumption of coffee which contains caffeine. With this, The Coffee Bean may concentrate on tea left beside the coffee. Next, they offer a variety of products and thus they need to choose certain products which are popular among the tastes and preferences of the consumers.For their advertisement and promotions, they should provide more information on it, such as nutrition labels and the pricing on the banners, this not only can attract the customer, and it may also help those consumer make decision on their choice. Although The Coffee Bean franchises are well organized with their efficient workers, but there still have some problems occur, such as mistake in making order, to avoid this problem occur again, they should provide more training to their worker to improve their service system.

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