The fresh sea air blew in my cold face – Creative Writing

The fresh sea air blew in my cold face. The air was bitter, and I could hear the waves bashing against the pale white cliffs. I strolled along the cliff side, listening to the waves and the seagulls up above, they echoed as they swooped down past my shoulders. A shiver went down my spine as a raindrop hit my shivery hands; I pulled up the hood, on my old grey waterproof and searched for cover. The blackening clouds gathered in the murky grey sky, and a rumble of thunder was shortly followed by a bolt of terrifying lightening. I gazed out to the horizon and in the distance I could see a large unwanted ship. The wind started to howl and the rain came down harder and harder. The ship out at sea was swaying and disappearing deep into the troughs between the waves, and as it drew closer I could see that it was a cruise liner, it looked just like the ship which I once went on†¦. As I stepped out of the taxi, the humid sticky air hit me and the wind, blew my hair on my hot flushed face. I looked around and there it was the cruise liner. The sparkling white ship dazzled on the waters surface like diamonds. I glanced at it again, and there were crowds of people gathering. The sun crept through the clouds in the sky and shadows of palm trees covered the dull concrete floor. I walked down to the beach, to feel the warm sand rub against my toes. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of yachts sailing in the salty harbour. The smell of fish lingered in the air and I could feel the shallow waves tickle against my ankles and the blazing sun shining down onto my sore burnt shoulders. I stood there for a couple of minutes, enjoying the peace, but the humidity was too much. My parents called me and I rushed up the steep mound of hot sand and rumble. My Mum handed me my tatty passport and told me to get in the queue. I could barley see what was going on up head, I stood on tiptoes and attempted to pear through the gaps. I could just about see an old man, rather large and looking rather grumpy, he was taking pictures of everybody then checking there passports. I stood in the ever lasting queue for what seemed like ages, the hot sun still shining down. Once aboard the ship, I felt cooler, but the air conditioning felt like it was choking me, my mouth had gone dry and the soggy smell made me heave. The atmosphere was lively, but empty at the same time, there were young children clutching to there parents, screeching with amazement. Every where seemed dark and compacted, the reception was dull and bland. My mum went to the desk to collect our cabin keys; she handed them over and said that our luggage would arrive shortly. This is when we got more than we had bargained for. We struggled down the endless narrow corridor, squeezing past other peoples luggage, glancing at each and every number, on each and every door. Finally, we arrived at our cabins; however there was no luggage outside either of our rooms. We turned the key in the rusty lock and entered the cabin through the thin doorway. The rooms were bland and dull; the furniture was shabby and rather worn, the room felt stuffy and full. My sister and I decided to go and hunt for our suitcases. We dawdled down thin extended corridors still struggling to get passed peoples luggage, the corridor was decorated with bright pictures which opened up the confined space. We glanced at the name tags on suitcases which looked similar to ours, and after about twenty minutes we found three bags, stacked at the end of a corridor. When we arrived back at the room my brother had found the other bags, I sat on my bunk bed and stared out to the harbour, if you looked underneath the sea's surface you could see jelly fish swaying about in between pieces of rubbish. Once we had left the harbour I went exploring round the ship and as I wandered past the restaurant my stomach rumbled and my mouth watered, at the smell of burger and chips, I glanced in to see brightly coloured fruits all laid out, and many other passengers tucking into there lunch. I left the restaurant and strolled along to the pool, Young children dancing around in the corner with kids club and parents at the bar enjoying a drink or two! The wind had calmed down now and clouds had cleared, but it still wasn't that hot so I wandered back to my cabin to get my family for lunch, I kept on imagining the watermelon melting in mouth, and the chips covered in ketchup on my plate. I stopped to look out the window, we had been out of the harbour know for about an hour, I could faintly see dolphins swaying in and out of the twirling waves they looked like silk†¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦ The rain poured down harder and harder on my shoulders as I watched the cruise liner come into the harbour, I wondered if I would ever experience a cruise again? I hope so, but maybe not quite yet, the lightening struck once more, and the wind howled, I could hear the seagulls in the distance, and the bitter air blew up inside my loose waterproof, the howling wind pushed me over and I struggled to my feet, the horizon had drawn closer and the misty sky made it hard to sea out onto the deadly ocean, and I could see no further than the fence a few meters in front of me.

The Incident

This happened to me last weekend . I am bored at that day . I was sitting outside my house alone because all of my friends were out of town . I was getting bored so I decided to ride my bike out to nearby garden . When I got there , I saw nobody over there and I started feel curious at this moment . I sit on a meadow . 1 try to make myself more relax and take a nap . Suddenly , I heard roar of thunder and the sky started become bad weather ahead . Dark , smoky clouds threatened rain , It's rain cats and dogs . I try to run back to my house . When I stood alone outside my house .I saw a stranger woman in front of me . The woman face had heavily done up . The woman body like overweight . The woman hastily asked question to me . † Dampen do you have a umbrella † When he called my name , my brain was stun a few second . Eve been beating my brains out trying to think who Is she . My brain keep dodge out a lot of question mark . â€Å"Who are you ? Am I knew you ? Why you knew my name and I never seen you before. The woman angrily red face stared at me . When she stared at me , I feel afraid at that moment . The woman said : â€Å"l am your old classmate In secondary school I I am Joey !When she said â€Å"Joey † my brain flash to secondary school the girls who absolutely beautiful in the class . â€Å"L remembered you , Joey . How are you recently ? † â€Å"I'm fine , thank you . You look handsome Dampen . What are you doing after graduated at secondary school ? † â€Å"Thank you , Joey . I am still starting my new life and continue my certificate at university . How about you ? I heard from my friends you started looking Job at outside . Why don't you continue study at university ? I heard my friends you get result with flying colors † ‘Yup , I was looking job recently .My family income pretty bad so I have to save â€Å"Joey hope you dream come true . I heard from my classmate your father was not so well . Did you b ring him to clinic ? ‘ ‘Yes , I brought my father to clinic last week . My father get diabetes and high blood pressure and he still waiting his body check report . I still worries my father. â€Å"Joey , Don't worries everything goanna be alright your father no sick anymore will as right as rain . Do you want to take lunch at cafe ? ‘†II be there later . â€Å"Okay , let's go together . When we get there , before we go in the cafe . The scene of the accidents will never roger in my mind .The motorcyclist was following behind was taxi very closely . He was so impatient that he was trying to overtake the taxi even near a sharp bend . At that moment , there was an oncoming car . The taxi driver swerved to the roadside and I got a terrible Jolt . It was too late for the motorcyclist to avoid and dodge the car . The motorcycle ran against the bumper of the car and I heard a sound like † bang ! And the motorcycle smashed its windscreen . Joey and I freaked at that moment . After that , the motorcyclist somersaulted over the car and was found lying in a pool of blood .The driver , who was cut by the flying glass , was in a state of shock . All that happened in split second and fear overwhelmed us . Joey ask me to walk quickly over there to help them. â€Å"Dampen , let's go the motorcyclist need our helped ! ‘ I yelled around people to help them . â€Å"Help ! Help ! Help! † some people ran over here and help them. The taxi driver stopped his taxi and I quickly ran to the nearest telephone to inform the police and the hospital . When I ran backed the accident I saw a pool of blood and my heart pump started increase . I saw the motorcyclist his hand was broken arm and his face like feel exhausted .

The Impact of Technology in the Business World Speech or Presentation

The Impact of Technology in the Business World - Speech or Presentation Example Communication This is a fundamental factor in any business setting. Effective communication enhances coordination and planning activities, prior to the goals and objectives of the company (Bhatnagar, 2003). Technology has made communication easier by cutting the time taken to send and receive data and information as well making the communication process cheaper. Two or more businesses can actually work together from different locations. Online services in the context of the activities undertaken by businesses are easily handled in the current time, aided by internet and the World Wide Web. Computer and computer technology has enabled businesses to make diverse planning within a very short time. Planning and related programs have been developed for such purposes. Examples in this case are Gantt charts and schedule formats (Daft, 2008). Data handling technologies have provided functionality to the communication process, allowing for massive data storage and information transmission aro und the world. Customer service The success or failure of a business is determined by the customer base. Businesses may be well established based on capital portfolio and management but lack significant market share to facilitate its operational success. Adequate customer services facilitate market share take-over for businesses. Keeping in touch with customers is an essential business tool. Technology has provided easier means through which this can be achieved. Through online communication like chats and emails, a firm can consistently manage its customers. Timely response to issues raised by customers has been realized through the adoption of relevant technologies. Payments and receipts Business liquidity has improved with technological advancement. Modes of making and receiving payments have become more efficient with the adoption of proper technologies that aid the process. Fund transfer technology has provided a basis for the functionality of this. Funds can be transferred in the whole world in seconds. On the same note, invoices can be placed online without the buyer and the seller meeting. Debts and credits are easily handled without the need for the involved parties to meet physically. Financial institutions have integrated online services in their operations, making it easier to access funds from different locations in the world. Investments, exports and imports are effectively done without the need to travel to the specific locations that the goods and services are ordered from. Even where travelling is required, technology has enabled faster means of transportation. Multinational corporations Presence of a business in more than one location is important in diversifying that business’s portfolio. Multinational corporations are international firms that establish their operations in more than one country (Ojukwu, 2003). These firms have found a strong base of operation on technology. Activities between the affiliate firms and the parent firm ha ve been aided by technology. Use of websites has also provide a fundamental tool through which firms create awareness to the entire world about the products and services they offer as well as the prices they charge for their differentiated products.

Metrics That Will Measure the Success of Event Research Paper

Metrics That Will Measure the Success of Event - Research Paper Example The study will develop the metrics if not the criteria that will determine the success or failure of an event. Success, as it is, should not be measured in terms of financial gain alone or by opinions of those who attended it since their opinion may not only be tainted but also biased towards or against the event as a whole. Success should consider the attainment of the goals of the other sectors involved in the event such as the government in meeting their tourism traffic. Another measure of success is the peaceful and accident-free conduct of the event for the agency in charge of safety and security. Success can also be measured by the food industry sector when there have been no complaint or raves have been forthcoming from the participants. In terms of the hospitality industry, success can be measured by the provisioning of rooms or accommodation and other hospitality services to guests in the most efficient manner. One of the goals therefore of the proposed study is to show how events can galvanize the objectives of the food industry, the hospitality industry, the safety, and security industry, the government specifically its strategy to increase tourism traffic if the management and organizations of the event are not only well planned but also well executed. It is hoped that all sectors such as the food industry, hospitality industry and safety and security industries involved in the execution of an event will be informed of their importance and how their contribution and non-contribution in an event can make an event a disaster or a success. To ensure that the aims and goal of this paper are achieved it is the objective of this paper to determine the monetary and social cost implication of specific events to the organizers, local culture, tourism industry and the participants themselves. The potential of events as a vehicle to harness and advertise local tourism could be a potential solution for tourist destinations that will reinvigorate if not revitali ze its tourism industry. There are instances that events are even used to highlight if not present the cultural heritage of one location.

Theories of Development Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Theories of Development - Term Paper Example In this paper, I will argue that neo liberalism supports growth and promotes efficiency. This paper will include arguments regarding how neo liberalism has a positive effect on economic development. The paper will begin with introduction of neo liberalism. After that arguments in favor of neo liberalism will be discussed. In the end arguments against neo liberalism will be discussed and refuted. Neo Liberalism became popular in the later periods of 20th century. This school of thought became famous at a time when Keynesianism was declining in popularity. Also the notion of free market and private enterprise became the reason of popularity of neo liberalism all over the world. The growth of private enterprises, alongside with growth of capitalism paved the way for the acceptance of neo liberalism. This particular school of thought was in line with the overall spirit of capitalism and denied governmental intervention in the market. The deregulation that neo liberalism advocated also had cultural affects and therefore this school of thought became famous among economists all over the world. Neo liberalism questioned the utility of government intervention in the economy and therefore advocated free markets and free enterprises. Government intervention assumes that government knows everything about the market and is able to make the best possible decision. This assumption was questioned by neo liberalist economists. They argued that the role of government is not in the best interests of the economy and therefore government should let the markets decide about their course of action. Also on the issue of employment determination, neo liberalist argued that market forces were in a better position to make efficient decisions than government. This is how neo liberalism discourages the role of government in a particular economy. Neo liberal economic theory was attractive for the world because of the freedom it offered to both individuals and

Recent Trends in Privacy Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Recent Trends in Privacy - Article Example Companies do this by installing monitoring tools on the mobile phones of the employees (EY, 2014). However, the article warns organizations that they should ensure that the monitoring tools safeguard only essential information to avoid interfering with private information of workers. The next trend is the use of data analytics to conceal the information that companies get from consumers on social media. This is because social media users provide organizations with too much private information, and this means that such data needs to be safeguarded (EY, 2014). Therefore, the use of data analytics will protect information of social media users; for example, the data may be stored in encrypted forms to ensure that unauthorized persons are not able to read and understand its meaning. The last technique of privacy discussed in the article is the use of cloud service brokerage. The article, however, argues that companies need to analyze the use of this service to ensure that it does not threaten the privacy of information. EY, 2014. Privacy trends 2014: technology trends have privacy implications. EY building a better working world. Retrieved from

Intro to Visual Arts Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Intro to Visual Arts - Essay Example She is very appealing with her nipples erect and fixated on her chest due to her laying position. She covers her genital area with her left hand just by a glimpse of her fingers. On the right hand, she is holding a cluster of red flowers and one flower fallen on the bed cover. She lies sensually with her legs crossed. A dog is sleeping on the edge of the bed on the covers. At the end of the room are housemaids, one is kneeling down with head inside a suitcase and the other standing beside her. This painting falls in the category of fine arts. The painting has aesthetic qualities; conceptual qualities of viewing art object as being beautiful and having a good taste. Venus has qualities that are capturing and enlightening to the viewer to judge the painter of having a good taste. This quality differentiates it from popular arts. The Venus of Urbino painting portrays private and domestic function of a woman as a sexy goddess who is appealing to her husband. It also portrays the need of a woman to remain seductive and appealing to her husband. (Lazzari, Schlesier 22-25) It is for marital significance for the eyes of the husband only. The painting is intended for personal and private use of the owner. The line element portrayed on the crisis folding of the covers gives textural contrast of the cover. Line element reveals the well-defined body mass and volume of the woman. The floor patterns outline line element as a well coordinated and liberate space to show the harmonization of the room and social class taste of the residing people. Light element is used to demonstrate the illusion that the nude Venus is appearing to closer people than people behind (Lazzari, Schlesier 22-25). The dark wall behind her is able to bring contrast between the woman and the wall clearly to portray her body structure and formation without straining. It also brings emptiness on the dark background. On the window, light element is used to portray the

Arsenal Football Club Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Arsenal Football Club - Coursework Example Historical Record of Arsenal Football Club The financial performance of Arsenal Football Club was quite strong in the year 2010 and the club has also experienced significant drop of debt. From the historical viewpoint, the earnings of Arsenal Football Club have fluctuated. In the year 2001, the club had a profit of almost 24.3 million Pounds but in the subsequent year the club experienced loss of 20.5 million Pounds. The reason of loss in that financial year was rise in wages due to growth in the number of players (London Business School, 2009). Since initiation the club’s group turnover has progressed gradually. In the year 2005, the group turnover of Arsenal Football club was almost 138.4 million Pounds which had become more than double by 2010 to almost 379.9 million Pounds. The club also experienced growth of operating profit in that period. The low sales in the property development business were the main reason for decreasing operating profit in 2006. Arsenal Football Club operates in two prominent segments which are football and property development. Since the operating loss in the year 2006, the football segment has shown increased growth. In the year 2007, the turnover of football segment was almost 207.7 million Euros which had become 229.9 million Euros in 2009. The increase was generally motivated by new television series. In the year 2010, almost nineteen â€Å"Barclays Premier League†, 4 â€Å"UEFA Champion League†, 3 â€Å"FA Cup† and 2 â€Å"Carling Cup† matches were telecasted. The revenue of football segment mostly comes from the sales of tickets. The Emirates Stadium of Arsenal Football Club also hosted two international friendly matches (Arsenal Holdings PLC, 2007; Arsenal Holdings PLC, 2010). ... Arsenal Football Club operates in two prominent segments which are football and property development. Since the operating loss in the year 2006, the football segment has shown increased growth. In the year 2007, the turnover of football segment was almost 207.7 million Euros which had become 229.9 million Euros in 2009. The increase was generally motivated by new television series. In the year 2010, almost nineteen â€Å"Barclays Premier League†, 4 â€Å"UEFA Champion League†, 3 â€Å"FA Cup† and 2 â€Å"Carling Cup† matches were telecasted. The revenue of football segment mostly comes from the sales of tickets. The Emirates Stadium of Arsenal Football Club also hosted two international friendly matches (Arsenal Holdings PLC, 2007; Arsenal Holdings PLC, 2010). Source: (Arsenal Holdings PLC, 2005; Arsenal Holdings PLC, 2010) Property development is the other section from which Arsenal Football Club generates profits. In the year 2005, the company experience d low activity in property development business. The total turnover during the year was 23.3 million Pounds which was 44% lesser compared to 2004. In 2006, the turnover of property development business had increased to 23.8 million Pounds which was 4.6 times more compared to previous year. The reason for this increase in turnover was due to sale of ‘Drayton Park’, one of the expansion sites of Arsenal Football Club. In the year 2008, the returns of property development business had again reduced to 15.3 million Pounds, because the sales activity was restricted by the yielding leasehold interests and constricting operations within the communal housing component. In 2009–2010, Arsenal Football Club had seen extreme

Small Groups Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Small Groups - Essay Example The great thing was that we coped well without her because we already knew what points we needed to make. It was sometimes unexpected when one group member couldn’t make it, but the rest of us knew our roles and we also helped pitched in to make up for the lack of a group member I would say that the reason why our group was so successful was because there were many different cultures, styles, and personalities. There were times when some group members clashed, but the main advantage to working with such a diverse group is that everyone can offer a different opinion. More than that, everyone was open to the other group members expressing their own opinion and they were not shot down for it. This helped to create a sense of trust within the group and it also helped our meetings run smoother because we were able to work quite quickly. There were not too many factors that contributed to the group’s problems, but if I had to name one I would probably say that we were too relaxed at times. It was good that we all got on well as a group, but sometimes this togetherness would lead to going off topic because we had no one to keep us on track. I would not change the fact that we were friendly with each other, but there could have been a leader appointed at the beginning so that there was someone to keep us all in check. The first time I met Trish I thought that she was a time-orientated person. She just had a look on her face that showed determination and focus. My impression of Trish has stayed relatively the same because for our group she was the one to organize everything even though there was not a group leader. For Paul, I did not know him that well but I saw him as someone who could be useful as a conversation starter. He turned out to be the joker of the group because he would lighten the atmosphere at tense moments, but he was also

Environmental Toxicology. Homework 6 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Environmental Toxicology. Homework 6 - Essay Example 36 Bioassessibility refers to the amount of a pollutant that can be dissolved by the digestive fluids. Lead enters the body through either ingestion or inhalation. As much as it can be eliminated, continuous exposure leads to accumulation as well as intoxication. Analysis of waste materials indicates that 40% of lead was present as cerrussite (Brack, 2011). Cerrussite is a highly bio accessible lead-carrying molecule. However, 65% of lead also exists in the waste in a bio accessible form (Brack, 2011). This shows that lead which does not exist as cerrussite is also high bio accessible. Lead bearing minerals such as sulfur and oxygen make it more bio accessible. Presence of these stable minerals is evident in the stomach and the intestinal phase. The higher the residence of the lead in the gut the higher the bio accessibility. 13. Briefly describe the chemical and biological processes by which mercury from a coal-fired power plant enters a lake and makes it way to humans through fish caught and consumed by a fisherman or fisherwoman. Coal fired power plants emit mercury, which accumulates as sediments. Sulfur reducing bacteria then converts the mercury into methyl mercury. The sediments are then passed into water bodies and into the systems of fishes. Mercury is bio accumulative and hence it is retained in the bodies of the fish. There is a high bio concentration of methyl mercury in these aquatic organisms (Brack, 2011). Fishermen catch the fish and as they consume them, methyl mercury is passed on to

Operations in hilti company Essay Example for Free

Operations in hilti company Essay You are the manager of a firm selling product X in a competitive market. You consider writing a market report on X. Due to some economic changes, there is significant increase in the wages of workers. Please write a report about the expected effects on the market equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity of product X. the following points help you organize your report: 1. Indicate the effect of this event on supply and / or on demand. 2. Analyse what will happen to market equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity in the short run. 3. If wages are expected to continue at higher levels, analyse what will happen to market equilibrium price and equilibrium quantity in the long run. The competitive market is one of the type of economic market structure. In a competitive market the price is determined through the forces of demand and supply. The following essay the effects of increase on wages on product price, quantity traded, and the supply and demand. The demand is the want or need of the person with the willingness to purchase the good at a particular price. The demand is negatively correlated to price. As the price increases the quantity demanded decreases. The supply is the desire and willingness of the supplier to sell the product at a particular price. The downward sloping curve represents demand. Supply is positively correlated to price. As the price increases the quantity supplied increases. Hence, the positive sloping curve represents supply. In the competitive market the point where demand and supply meets is the equilibrium point, which shows the equilibrium price and quantity traded. This is illustrated in the following graph. The increase in wages, increases the costs of the product. This then will decrease the supply bringing a shift in the supply curve. The shift of the supply curve occurs when any factor except price changes bringing an effect on supply. The increase in cost of production will reduce the supply at level of the price because now it has become more costly to produce the supply. The supply curve will shift towards left. The following diagram shows that the supply curve S1 has shifted to S2. This has increased the market equilibrium price in the short run from P1 to P2. The quantity traded has decreased from Q1 to Q2. Long? Run market supply curve. The short? run market supply curve is just the horizontal summation of all the individual firms supply curves. The long? run market supply curve is found by examining the responsiveness of short? run market supply to a change in market demand. As the wages will increase, in the long run the price will reduce and the quantity traded will increase because there will be more entrants into the market and the competition will reduce the price of the product. However, the profit levels will also decreases due to the increase in the wages. Question 2 You’ve been hired by a firm to determine whether it should shut down its operation. The firm currently uses 70 workers to produce 300 units of output per day. The daily wage (per worker) is $40, and the price of the firm’s output is $20. The cost of other variable inputs is $500 per day. The firms fixed cost is $3000 per day. You know that the marginal cost of the last unit is $30. 1. Calculate the firm’s daily losses 2. Should the firm continue to operate at a loss? Carefully explain your answer. Total daily losses are the following: Description Cost / Revenue Total cost Total daily sales 300 x 20 6000 Daily total wages 70 x 40 2800 Variable inputs 500 Fixed costs 3000 Total Cost 6300 Daily losses 300 According to the profit maximization theory, each unit sold, marginal profit (M? ) equals marginal revenue (MR) minus marginal cost (MC). Then, if marginal revenue is greater than marginal cost at some level of output, marginal profit is positive and thus a greater quantity should be produced, and if marginal revenue is less than marginal cost, marginal profit is negative and a lesser quantity should be produced. At the output level at which marginal revenue equals marginal cost, marginal profit is zero and this quantity is the one that maximizes profit. In this case, the marginal profit is negative as according in competitive market marginal revenue is equal to price hence, it is $20 and marginal cost being $30, this equals to -$10. The company should not operate at a loss. Question 3 Given the data of the last question (2), the owner of the firm suggested that losses can be reduced by firing some workers. If you found that the marginal product of the 70th worker was 4units of output per day, do you agree with the owner to reduce employment in order to reduce losses? Please explain carefully. The marginal product of labour is the change in the output compared to the change in the number of labour. Hence, the 70th labour is producing 4 units per day according to the data given in the question. The marginal product of labour is 4. In order to determine the demand of labour, the value of marginal product will be calculated. The value of marginal product should equal to price of the product which is the marginal revenue (MR) with the marginal product of labour (MRP). As long as a worker’s value of marginal product exceeds the wage, the worker is hired. But because the marginal product is diminishing, eventually so many workers will have been hired that the value of the marginal product of an additional worker would be less than the wage. At this point the hiring will stop. A firm hires labour up to the point at which the value of marginal product equals the wage rate. If the value of marginal product of labour exceeds the wage rate, a firm can increase its profit by employing more workers. This can be summed in the following way: Where TR = total revenue; Q = quantity MR x MPL = (? TR/? Q) x (? Q/? L) = ? TR/? L Hence, in this case the value of marginal product is: MR X MPL = 20 x 4 = 80 Wage rate = ? TR/? L = 40 The company should continue to hire more labour as the marginal product will diminish which will eventually bring the marginal revenue product of labour down until the wage rate is equal to the marginal revenue product of labour.

Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors

Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors One: Introduction Best Value (BV) was introduced into the public sector in 1998, announced through the government’s white paper Modern Local Government in Touch with the People. This paper introduced extensive reform to local government, including the new initiative of BV. Within this BV is the e-Government, Community Planning, Strategic Partnerships and new political management structures (White Paper 1998). BV replaced the system of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) (Local Government Act 1999). The aim of BV is to influence the efficient expenditure of public money; estimated to total  £455.2 billion for 2004, forecasted to grow by 3-5% for the period 2005-9 (www.statistics.gov.uk/). The 2001 review of local government procurement in England (Delivering Better Services for Citizens) was published as a consultation paper. The report included the following recommendation; there should be clear political responsibility for procurement, with elected members taking a strategic role in secur ing outcomes. Best Value is about breaking down the boundaries between the public and private sectors in local service delivery (The Byatt Report 2001). Supplier relationship management within the public sector has to an extent been dictated by the central government initiatives evolving the CCT era into the Best Value regime. Best Value has led to distinctively different approaches within the public sector to consultation, competition, performance reviews, and to partnership working. Since the abolition of CCT, evidence is emerging of a new maturity in localgovernments relationships with the private sector. In some authorities, this is evidenced by the fact that they are now recognisingthe inevitability of the mixed economy of provision,and are prepared to work within it (Bovaird, 2000). Procurement, and best value procurement, is a complicated subject to examine, largely because getting the best value for a product or service does not necessarily mean choosing the lowest bidder. Indeed, modern procurement strategies need to consider several interrelated factors, of which costs is just one, when determining and implementing the best value procurement process. This implies a significant increase in the number of issues encountered by many public sector agencies, for who best value procurement and competitive tendering concerns have replaced the simpler days of low bid auctions for services. As a result of these changes, best value procurement has now developed into a significant strategic option, which can provide many advantages to the public sector procurement professionals. However, along with the potential benefits, best value procurement also brings significant related risk factors, especially in the public sector where policy and political considerations can lea d to significantly different interpretations of best value both across public sector organisations and across individual projects within the same organisation. Indeed, when efficiently written and executed, best value contracts can both save money and increase service levels, however by its very nature best value involves a great deal of evaluation and comparison, which can complicate the process to the point where the potential gains are lost. Equally, distortions caused by interpretations and political factors may enter into play when gauging the many factors in addition to price, often leading to debates around different perceptions of what constitutes value for a given product or service. Each best value procurement example is subjective and entirely unique, especially in the public sector, and because of this, communication between end users, procurement professionals, policy makers, and suppliers is of utmost importance. In procurement, as in other fields, people with the right knowledge about the product or service being supplied, and the project for which it is required, will be able to make better decisions than those without the necessary information. As such, when choices must be made, project sponsors, buyers, contract administrators, technical authorities, advisors, bidders, and contractors must be kept in the know. This leads to the hypothesis that supplier relationship management in the public sector will, by virtue of increasing the spread of knowledge along the procurement chain, better help the public sector to achieve best value in its procurement activities. This work intends to test this hypothesis through a detailed search of the existing literature on procurement in the public sector, and the various aspects of procurement which underlie the provision of best value for public sector organisations. This will be achieved using the positivist paradigm and phenomenological hermeneutics to identify, contextualise and analyse the various research on best value, and also to determine how supplier relationship management will impact on this for public sector organisations. Two: Methodology Due to the wide scope of the subject matter of this dissertation, and the specialised nature of procurement within the public sector, the work will be solely based on existing secondary research. As there is no primary research to interpret, the research process will be different from conventional dissertations. As such, the interpretation of the existing research will form the cornerstone of the analysis and also drive any conclusions. This means that the dissertation will not only need to analyse the content of these articles, but also the motive of the authors for writing them, the context and any inherent bias. A research method is needed that will identify any contextual factors or bias and exclude them from the overall results. The chosen method is phenomenological hermeneutics, because this methodology states that literature can only be fully interpreted through an analysis of its contextual basis. The method further argues that, instead of being based on historical or cultura l contexts, each text reflects the mental frame of the writer or writers. As such, phenomenological hermeneutics will be used as the research methodology and philosophy because it allows one to take a text and methodically isolate it from all extraneous things including the subjects biases and allow it to communicate its meaning to the subject (Demeterio, 2001). In order to effectively achieve this goal, the research method shall focus on eliminating any sources of inherent bias in order to draw out its key messages and fit them into a coherent discussion and analysis; however, as Lye (1996) states, In order to understand one must fore understand, have a stance, an anticipation and a contextualization. This is what is known as the hermeneutic circle: one can only know what one is prepared to know, in the terms that one is prepared to know. As such, this work will need to examine the various articles of literature in the context of each other; to enable the construction of a hermeneutic circle and to truly understand the points each author is trying to make. As such, the interaction of the text with the contextual frame of reference given by the literature as a whole will lead to an interpretive paradigm being formed (Lye, 1996), through which it will be possible to draw out the common themes and the salient points from the literature. To appropriately construct this paradigm, it is necessary to understand that each article will be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experiences of the author, and that the interpretation of the text will also be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experience of the reader; as such, it will be necessary for the author of this work to be aware of the impact that this will have on the interpretation of the articles. This work will embody the style of the author (Lye, 1996), and will likely reveal some significant aspects of the authors views on politics and asset allocation, both conscious and unconscious. This will potentially add a further contextual bias to the interpretation, and one which may be significantly harder to identify, isolate and remove. This potential contextual bias will also make it difficult to effectively apply the logical positivist paradigm, which is strongly based on taking an objective view of reality, rather than a subjective view. The view of positivism that knowledge can only be obtained by the use of data that can be verified by an independent observer (Schrag, 1992) implies that someone attempting to use the positivist paradigm for research purposes must be as objective and unbiased as possible. Indeed, as all phenomena are subject to natural laws that coexist with each other in a logical manner, humans can only discover these laws through the use of inductive and deductive hypotheses and empirical testing of social and scientific theories. As such, the positivist paradigm will have to be carefully applied to all research and interpretation in this work, taking into account the phenomenological hermeneutic interpretation to provide a well rounded argument and conclusion. Regarding the research and data collection methods used, an inductive approach has been taken, which is appropriate as it involves interpretation of the research and data during the gathering, as well as the analysis phase. This has been extended through the use of a standard horizontal and vertical analysis of the existing literature and the initial sources found. The horizontal aspect of the research has involved using the terminology, key words and arguments underlying historical public sector procurement processes and strategies to uncover other related works which discuss the same concepts but with different arguments and in different contexts. The vertical aspect has involved examining the sources cited in the initial sources used to move back up the chain of argument and see how different arguments and theories have been formed and influenced over time. Online searches have also been used to facilitate looking for sources which cite the identified articles and examining how th ese sources have further developed the article. The research and data gathered for this dissertation is composed entirely of secondary research. Initially, the author considered gathering and analysis primary data, however this was deemed to be unfeasible for two reasons. The first reason is that the majority of people working within public sector procurement are busy professionals, working full time to ensure that their procurement goals are met. As such, they would be unlikely to have the time available to assist in the research process, and their responses would be limited by the commercial and confidentiality considerations that underlie most procurement projects. Secondly, as was discussed above, this topic is highly specialised, with practitioners, advisors and academics having significant levels of knowledge and experience. As a result, it is more appropriate, and probably more accurate, to use the results of experienced academics and practitioners, who have carried out significant amounts of in depth, and often independent , research on this subject, as a contextual basis of the positivist paradigm being used; however, research gaps should be discussed when identified. Another important consideration when collecting the data was the time horizon because, as stated above, the UK public sector procurement industry is now in a fundamentally different state than at any time in its prior history following the longest consecutive period under Labour rule. As such, examining research data and literature from too far in the past will likely be of limited use when discussing public sector procurement in the modern economic and political environment. Therefore it has been decided that data will only be used from the period 1997 to 2007, which is the period for which the Labour government has been in power, and within which most of the major reforms underlying the current processes, strategies, and improvements have been drawn up and implemented. This research methodology has produced analyses of about fifty major articles on which the work will be based; together with some other articles defining the research methodology itself, and some sources providing general public sector procurement context and supplementary information. The major articles have been analysed and reviewed in the Structured Literature Review, under each of the main themes identified. This is the most logical method of analysis for this work, as the majority of the articles and surveys carried out around best value in the UK public sectors have been focused on specific areas such as the Public Private Partnership initiatives and the work of the Audit Commission. As such, a longitudinal method of analysis is also useful for the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, as it will enable progressive clarity of understanding of the contextual factors underling the literature reviewed. Considering the chosen methodology for this work, this dissertation will have a Structured Literature Review instead of a conventional literature review. This is because the research used is solely secondary; therefore there is no need to conduct a standard literature review, which is usually done to contextualise and direct any primary research and to help explain its results. As this work is not based on primary research, there is no need for a standard literature review, and hence the structured literature review is more appropriate, because it can serve as the findings, results and analysis for the work, which shall be interpreted within the ‘findings’. Because the research philosophy and methodology is phenomenological hermeneutics, an interpretive, positivist method of analysis is required, which is facilitated by a structured approach to the analysis. Finally, as the literature review is being conducted along various themes, it is vital that it is correctly struct ured to ensure that it is analytical rather than just descriptive, and that it maintains some criticality. As such, the structured literature review will involve a thematic/structured review of all the salient articles in the work, analysing the arguments and themes within each article and linking the various articles and themes to each other. The last part of the literature review will be an interpretation of all the articles discussed in the review, identifying common themes, disagreements and any potential implications or conflicts. This analysis will need to consider the various biases, backgrounds and any knowledge of the authors. Many of the major disagreements may not be based on the subject of best value itself, but rather the authors views on the ultimate aims of ‘procurement’ and the importance of the process and methodology underling it. This scrutiny will enable analysis of the validity and reliability of the articles by means of triangulation with the other articles reviewed and analysed. This will further assist in the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, and it will facilitate the identification of any bias or conflicts that were not obvious in the initial review of the literature. The methodology will also attempt to identify existing gaps within the literature, and highlight areas where further research could be beneficial to the work. Because most of the literature is written from academic perspectives, there are likely to be gaps around the various objectives and contextual factors of the various public sector organisations; and the various procurement frameworks the have in place; and potentially a lack of in depth research around issues such as political pressure and policy directives. As such, this work will attempt to identify where the existing literature has failed to focus on areas such as these, and how these omissions can be addressed by future studies and research. Three: Literature Best Value Procurement in the UK Public Sector There is a large volume of research focusing on procurement strategies and measures of value for private sector organisations, and recently literature (Male et al, 2007; Lian and Laing, 2004) has begun to focus on the different procurement practices needed by the public sector. Indeed, Lian and Laing (2004) focused on the transactional and relationship based nature of procurement strategies to determine to what extent procurement is different between the public and the private sector. They focused on health services, as public health services are often seen as one of the most complex services provided by the public sector (Male et al, 2007), and their research demonstrated how the differing environmental factors, such as politics and resource allocation in the public sector, impacted on procurement, whilst many service specific factors, such as the need for medicines and temporary staff, were constant across the public and private spheres Indeed, their research demonstrated that poli tics and policy drivers have a major impact on the procurement strategies used by public sector organisations, and that these strategies, and the methods used to engage suppliers, were significantly different from that of private sector organisations. This research ties in with that of Dixon et al (2005) which showed that, whilst the private sector tended to build relationships with suppliers, and leverage these to obtain better value, public sector organisations often based their procurement strategies on the costs of individual transactions. As such, the literature concludes that the private sector’s relationship based procurement strategies offer better value than those of the public sector. However, Lian and Laing (2004) also commented that public policy decisions often restrict public sector organisations from building relationships with their suppliers, and thus the very nature of public sector organisations often hinders or prevents them from achieving best value from their procurement activities. Palaneeswaran et al (2003) criticise this political dimension, claiming that procuring best value should be one of the key objectives (for the) public sector. Their argument is that best value depends upon the use of sound selection strategies, intended to ensure that all the procurement objectives are met, which includes the client and end user demands. As such, best value initiatives should all be geared towards the final state of business, rather than to serve public policy decisions. They conclude that, whilst the overall goal of any public sector organisation should be determined by public policy, best value procurement efforts should all be directed towards that goal and be free from political interference. Unfortunately, as Lian and Ling commented, whilst this may be desirable it is not always possible. Current successes and failures of procurement strategies within central and local government Walker (2006) notes that UK public sector organisations often make their main procurement decisions, for assets and services, at the local level, reflected in the fact that the NHS trusts and local government authorities all have their own procurement departments. Whilst this policy allows individual bodies to select the procurement strategy that best suits their needs, the lack of coordination of the procurement process can lead to inefficient supply markets, with either too few or too many suppliers, which reduces the efficiency of individual suppliers and thus increased the cost to the purchasers. These local procurement decisions are also often superseded or influence by central government guidelines and policies, for example Builders Merchants Journal (2006) detailed a new central government policy on public sector timber procurement. This policy specified that, whilst organisations are still responsible for their own procurement decisions, they must ensure that any timber they procure comes from a legal source, which increases the administrative burden for the local organisations. Furthermore, the government has also specified that organisations should supply sustainable timber wherever possible, however this is not compulsory. Such vague policy guidelines also make it difficult for organisations trying to balance budgets against policy. Equally, such fragmented policies make it hard for public sector organisations to plan long term procurement strategies to respond to market uncertainty. For example, Loveday (2005) reported that the UK public sector was forced to cut back service provision as a result of significant energy price rises which they had not planned for. Whilst this failing is shared with the private sector, which Loveday (2005) stated as having lost over  £1 billion due to a lack of energy procurement strategies and poor energy risk management, the fragmented nature of local procurement means that the public sector is often as much as risk from utility price rises as small businesses, some of which have been almost bankrupted due to rising energy bills in recent years (Loveday, 2005). Perhaps in response to these drawbacks, the literature highlights one of the main strategies used in recent years by the public sector to improve its procurement strategies: the rise of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which form long term partnerships with private sector organisations to share the provision of public services. Smyth and Edkins (2007) examined the management of these projects, the relationships between the primary public and private sector partners and the use of the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPUs) to facilitate the partnerships. They found that the management of these relationships had two main dynamics: the contract, transactional, approach of the public sector, and the relationship management approach of the private sector. The combination of these two approaches, and how they influenced the project management discipline within the partnership, showed that they led to greater strategic and tactical consideration being giv en to functions such as procurement, leading to greater value generation. This consideration led to greater collaboration, both between and within the organisations, as they adjusted to new procurement conditions, demonstrating improved proactive and strategic relationship management versus individual public sector organisations (Smyth and Edkins, 2007). Dixon et al (2005) also examined the several case studies of the success of the Private Finance Initiative schemes, focusing on projects related to the construction of infrastructure and other facilities. These studies highlighted several examples of best practice and best value procurement, together with the key critical factors for success in PFI projects, whilst also pointing out some drawbacks and lessons for future projects. Indeed, the literature demonstrated that the key value benefits of the PFI are that the public sector obtains increased value for money, whilst also transferring risk to the private sector partner. However, this transfer is offset by higher procurement and transaction costs, relative to the private sector’s standard costs; partly due to the cultural differences between the public and private sector, and partly due to large-scale nature of PFI projects, which frequently acts as a barrier to entry for some financing partners and suppliers. This highligh ts the need to develop competitive public sector supplier markets, and also to develop the appropriate procurement and project management skills within the public sector to ensure that they can work with private sector partners to ensure best value (Dixon et al, 2005). These show two contrasting views of the PFI/PPP, with Smyth and Edkins (2007) seeing the initiatives as an excellent way to bring private sector efficiency to public sector procurement, but with Dixon et al (2005) claiming that the wide differences in skill sets mean that a lot of the benefits from the private sector methodologies are lost. In response to contrasting views such as these, Li et al (2005) conducted research into the various perceptions of what makes the PFI attractive or unattractive to potential partners as a procurement system for projects. The research was based on a questionnaire / survey of stakeholders in the various projects, with the various potential issues and factors for the survey identified from the existing literature. This research showed that PPP and PFI procurement efficiency can have wide ranging benefits and drawbacks across different areas of a project. In particular, Li et al (2005) found the public / private sector partnerships were perceived as g iving better access to the technology required for projects, and thus leading to better project economy. This in turn drove greater public benefit, helped the public sector avoid transactional costs, and also helped manage or avoid some regulatory and financial constraints, such as the public sector timber procurement policy (Builders Merchants Journal, 2006). However, they also found that participants inexperienced is public / private sector co-operation, the high costs of setting up and participating in the initiatives, the length of time they took, and the tendency to over-commercialise some projects could lead to PPP / PFI procurement being less attractive for both parties. These various factors will impact differently on different projects, thus showing why there are such wide disparities between articles in the literature on the relative merits of PPP and PFI. For example, Weston and Cassidy (2006) claim that the procurement of public facilities and services under the PPP and PFI arrangements provides a wide variety of significant benefits to the public sector, and to the private sector partners. In contrast, Chapman (2006) highlights claims that private sector participation harms services and efficiency, whilst purely focusing on guaranteeing the private sector partners their profits. As a result, the literature concludes that the difference between the success and failure of PFI and PPP schemes depends on a clear and common understanding of the positive and negative factors surrounding PPP / PFI procurement (Li et al, 2005). Another development in procurement is that direct competition between providers, via invitations to tender, is now widely used as the means of choosing suppliers or outsourcers for many public services in the UK. Smyth (1997) describes how competitive tendering can ensure local accessibility and accountability for users, innovation, from providers and help purchasers to reduce procurement and transaction costs. However, in common with many other writers, Smyth (1997) discusses co-operation and collaboration and the interference of policy decisions and the political process, which has led to the emergence of monopolies and inefficient integrated delivery systems, often to the detriment of value in the procurement process (Smyth, 1997). Another effort made by the public sector, specifically the UK NHS, to improve purchasing efficiency is in the use of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency, PaSA, to negotiate National Framework Agreements through which individual NHS trusts can procure goods and services at bulk negotiated rates. However, as each NHS trust is a separate legal and managerial entity, responsible only to the Department of Health, a significant number of NHS trusts have resisted the move towards this centralised procurement approach in favour of their own relationships with suppliers. As a result, Cox et al (2005) discussed how PaSA, and the NHS senior management as a whole, have created regional procurement hubs and confederations in order to overcome this inability to enforce the Agreements within individual NHS Trusts. Whilst this was a sensible approach to resolving the lack of effective consolidation of demand at the individual Trust level, the individual procurement practices of regionally based NHS Trusts is still strongly driven by their own supply and demand considerations, and this has created a number of internal demand problems that the regionalised procurement approach has failed to overcome. These include the failure by the Trusts individually, and by the NHS centrally, to control and manage the NHS design and specification process effectively and, in many cases, an inability to measure or collect information on the clinical and cost effectiveness of medical interventions (Cox et al, 2005). As such, whilst these new reforms can be seen as a significant improvement on past collaborative procurement efforts, it is likely that they are still destined to fail, due to the fundamental nature of procurement in the NHS, and the lack of understanding around effectively aligning supply and demand at all levels of the NHS. One final area, in which the public sector is often accused of being inefficient by the Audit Commission, and failing to secure best value procurement, is in the employing of management consultants for project management and other support roles. Corcoran and McLean (1998) investigated the purchase of management consultants in the public sector context, specifically the appointment of consultants to work with government departments, focusing specifically on the particular selection decisions. They found that, in accordance with government policy, many public sector decision makers focus mainly on securing best value for money when procuring consultants, however the criteria and information sources used to make the procurement decisions were often inconsistent. Similar to Cox et al (2005), Corcoran and McLean (1998) found that whilst the government’s public sector procurement principle was well known and relatively well understood, public sector decision makers seemed to be unab le to connect this principle to the procurement process, often claiming that they did not have access to sufficient information to make an informed choice. Paradoxically, the majority of government departments tend to hire management consultants in an attempt to understand the procurement process that has hired the management consultants in the first place. One significant outcome of this is that the decision makers in many government organisations stated that they didn’t believe the selection process and decision around hiring management consultants was difficult, and would be straightforward if sufficient information was made available (Corcoran and McLean, 1998). Future developments in procurement and threats to movement The public sector is increasing beginning to rely on private sector organisations to form supplier consortia for major projects, especially those where the scale is such that individual suppliers are unable to cope with the demand. As the number of projects, especially the major PPP / PFI projects, increases; the demand for these consortia is likely to rise, and Jost (2005) believes that this may become the dominant model for public sector procurement in future. However, in order for this to occur, greater attention must be paid to building successful relationships, both between the consortium and the public sector organisation, and between the members of the consortium itself. Jost (2005) conducted a qualitative study of the existing consortia, and claimed that building trust, engaging staff and reconciling the differing objectives of the partners will be the main factors critical to this development, and a lack of trust among the private sector partners will be the biggest threat t o progress. Indeed, Swan and Khalfan (2007) claim that partnering will continue to grow significantly throughout the UK public sector. They focus on the UK public sector construction industry, and identified that, in future, factors such relationship management with external stakeholders, the general public in the case of public sector projects, will be important to the growth in partnership based projects. Indeed, whilst issues such as cost, quality, timeliness and safety will remain crucial to successful delivery, objectives such as sustainable and environmental development will grow in importance, and failure to acknowledge and address these issues will again pose threats to movement. Swan and Khalfan’s research showed that the industry is already moving forward, with a su Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors Effect of Supplier Management Procurement on Public Sectors One: Introduction Best Value (BV) was introduced into the public sector in 1998, announced through the government’s white paper Modern Local Government in Touch with the People. This paper introduced extensive reform to local government, including the new initiative of BV. Within this BV is the e-Government, Community Planning, Strategic Partnerships and new political management structures (White Paper 1998). BV replaced the system of Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) (Local Government Act 1999). The aim of BV is to influence the efficient expenditure of public money; estimated to total  £455.2 billion for 2004, forecasted to grow by 3-5% for the period 2005-9 (www.statistics.gov.uk/). The 2001 review of local government procurement in England (Delivering Better Services for Citizens) was published as a consultation paper. The report included the following recommendation; there should be clear political responsibility for procurement, with elected members taking a strategic role in secur ing outcomes. Best Value is about breaking down the boundaries between the public and private sectors in local service delivery (The Byatt Report 2001). Supplier relationship management within the public sector has to an extent been dictated by the central government initiatives evolving the CCT era into the Best Value regime. Best Value has led to distinctively different approaches within the public sector to consultation, competition, performance reviews, and to partnership working. Since the abolition of CCT, evidence is emerging of a new maturity in localgovernments relationships with the private sector. In some authorities, this is evidenced by the fact that they are now recognisingthe inevitability of the mixed economy of provision,and are prepared to work within it (Bovaird, 2000). Procurement, and best value procurement, is a complicated subject to examine, largely because getting the best value for a product or service does not necessarily mean choosing the lowest bidder. Indeed, modern procurement strategies need to consider several interrelated factors, of which costs is just one, when determining and implementing the best value procurement process. This implies a significant increase in the number of issues encountered by many public sector agencies, for who best value procurement and competitive tendering concerns have replaced the simpler days of low bid auctions for services. As a result of these changes, best value procurement has now developed into a significant strategic option, which can provide many advantages to the public sector procurement professionals. However, along with the potential benefits, best value procurement also brings significant related risk factors, especially in the public sector where policy and political considerations can lea d to significantly different interpretations of best value both across public sector organisations and across individual projects within the same organisation. Indeed, when efficiently written and executed, best value contracts can both save money and increase service levels, however by its very nature best value involves a great deal of evaluation and comparison, which can complicate the process to the point where the potential gains are lost. Equally, distortions caused by interpretations and political factors may enter into play when gauging the many factors in addition to price, often leading to debates around different perceptions of what constitutes value for a given product or service. Each best value procurement example is subjective and entirely unique, especially in the public sector, and because of this, communication between end users, procurement professionals, policy makers, and suppliers is of utmost importance. In procurement, as in other fields, people with the right knowledge about the product or service being supplied, and the project for which it is required, will be able to make better decisions than those without the necessary information. As such, when choices must be made, project sponsors, buyers, contract administrators, technical authorities, advisors, bidders, and contractors must be kept in the know. This leads to the hypothesis that supplier relationship management in the public sector will, by virtue of increasing the spread of knowledge along the procurement chain, better help the public sector to achieve best value in its procurement activities. This work intends to test this hypothesis through a detailed search of the existing literature on procurement in the public sector, and the various aspects of procurement which underlie the provision of best value for public sector organisations. This will be achieved using the positivist paradigm and phenomenological hermeneutics to identify, contextualise and analyse the various research on best value, and also to determine how supplier relationship management will impact on this for public sector organisations. Two: Methodology Due to the wide scope of the subject matter of this dissertation, and the specialised nature of procurement within the public sector, the work will be solely based on existing secondary research. As there is no primary research to interpret, the research process will be different from conventional dissertations. As such, the interpretation of the existing research will form the cornerstone of the analysis and also drive any conclusions. This means that the dissertation will not only need to analyse the content of these articles, but also the motive of the authors for writing them, the context and any inherent bias. A research method is needed that will identify any contextual factors or bias and exclude them from the overall results. The chosen method is phenomenological hermeneutics, because this methodology states that literature can only be fully interpreted through an analysis of its contextual basis. The method further argues that, instead of being based on historical or cultura l contexts, each text reflects the mental frame of the writer or writers. As such, phenomenological hermeneutics will be used as the research methodology and philosophy because it allows one to take a text and methodically isolate it from all extraneous things including the subjects biases and allow it to communicate its meaning to the subject (Demeterio, 2001). In order to effectively achieve this goal, the research method shall focus on eliminating any sources of inherent bias in order to draw out its key messages and fit them into a coherent discussion and analysis; however, as Lye (1996) states, In order to understand one must fore understand, have a stance, an anticipation and a contextualization. This is what is known as the hermeneutic circle: one can only know what one is prepared to know, in the terms that one is prepared to know. As such, this work will need to examine the various articles of literature in the context of each other; to enable the construction of a hermeneutic circle and to truly understand the points each author is trying to make. As such, the interaction of the text with the contextual frame of reference given by the literature as a whole will lead to an interpretive paradigm being formed (Lye, 1996), through which it will be possible to draw out the common themes and the salient points from the literature. To appropriately construct this paradigm, it is necessary to understand that each article will be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experiences of the author, and that the interpretation of the text will also be an embodiment of the ideas, beliefs, knowledge and experience of the reader; as such, it will be necessary for the author of this work to be aware of the impact that this will have on the interpretation of the articles. This work will embody the style of the author (Lye, 1996), and will likely reveal some significant aspects of the authors views on politics and asset allocation, both conscious and unconscious. This will potentially add a further contextual bias to the interpretation, and one which may be significantly harder to identify, isolate and remove. This potential contextual bias will also make it difficult to effectively apply the logical positivist paradigm, which is strongly based on taking an objective view of reality, rather than a subjective view. The view of positivism that knowledge can only be obtained by the use of data that can be verified by an independent observer (Schrag, 1992) implies that someone attempting to use the positivist paradigm for research purposes must be as objective and unbiased as possible. Indeed, as all phenomena are subject to natural laws that coexist with each other in a logical manner, humans can only discover these laws through the use of inductive and deductive hypotheses and empirical testing of social and scientific theories. As such, the positivist paradigm will have to be carefully applied to all research and interpretation in this work, taking into account the phenomenological hermeneutic interpretation to provide a well rounded argument and conclusion. Regarding the research and data collection methods used, an inductive approach has been taken, which is appropriate as it involves interpretation of the research and data during the gathering, as well as the analysis phase. This has been extended through the use of a standard horizontal and vertical analysis of the existing literature and the initial sources found. The horizontal aspect of the research has involved using the terminology, key words and arguments underlying historical public sector procurement processes and strategies to uncover other related works which discuss the same concepts but with different arguments and in different contexts. The vertical aspect has involved examining the sources cited in the initial sources used to move back up the chain of argument and see how different arguments and theories have been formed and influenced over time. Online searches have also been used to facilitate looking for sources which cite the identified articles and examining how th ese sources have further developed the article. The research and data gathered for this dissertation is composed entirely of secondary research. Initially, the author considered gathering and analysis primary data, however this was deemed to be unfeasible for two reasons. The first reason is that the majority of people working within public sector procurement are busy professionals, working full time to ensure that their procurement goals are met. As such, they would be unlikely to have the time available to assist in the research process, and their responses would be limited by the commercial and confidentiality considerations that underlie most procurement projects. Secondly, as was discussed above, this topic is highly specialised, with practitioners, advisors and academics having significant levels of knowledge and experience. As a result, it is more appropriate, and probably more accurate, to use the results of experienced academics and practitioners, who have carried out significant amounts of in depth, and often independent , research on this subject, as a contextual basis of the positivist paradigm being used; however, research gaps should be discussed when identified. Another important consideration when collecting the data was the time horizon because, as stated above, the UK public sector procurement industry is now in a fundamentally different state than at any time in its prior history following the longest consecutive period under Labour rule. As such, examining research data and literature from too far in the past will likely be of limited use when discussing public sector procurement in the modern economic and political environment. Therefore it has been decided that data will only be used from the period 1997 to 2007, which is the period for which the Labour government has been in power, and within which most of the major reforms underlying the current processes, strategies, and improvements have been drawn up and implemented. This research methodology has produced analyses of about fifty major articles on which the work will be based; together with some other articles defining the research methodology itself, and some sources providing general public sector procurement context and supplementary information. The major articles have been analysed and reviewed in the Structured Literature Review, under each of the main themes identified. This is the most logical method of analysis for this work, as the majority of the articles and surveys carried out around best value in the UK public sectors have been focused on specific areas such as the Public Private Partnership initiatives and the work of the Audit Commission. As such, a longitudinal method of analysis is also useful for the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, as it will enable progressive clarity of understanding of the contextual factors underling the literature reviewed. Considering the chosen methodology for this work, this dissertation will have a Structured Literature Review instead of a conventional literature review. This is because the research used is solely secondary; therefore there is no need to conduct a standard literature review, which is usually done to contextualise and direct any primary research and to help explain its results. As this work is not based on primary research, there is no need for a standard literature review, and hence the structured literature review is more appropriate, because it can serve as the findings, results and analysis for the work, which shall be interpreted within the ‘findings’. Because the research philosophy and methodology is phenomenological hermeneutics, an interpretive, positivist method of analysis is required, which is facilitated by a structured approach to the analysis. Finally, as the literature review is being conducted along various themes, it is vital that it is correctly struct ured to ensure that it is analytical rather than just descriptive, and that it maintains some criticality. As such, the structured literature review will involve a thematic/structured review of all the salient articles in the work, analysing the arguments and themes within each article and linking the various articles and themes to each other. The last part of the literature review will be an interpretation of all the articles discussed in the review, identifying common themes, disagreements and any potential implications or conflicts. This analysis will need to consider the various biases, backgrounds and any knowledge of the authors. Many of the major disagreements may not be based on the subject of best value itself, but rather the authors views on the ultimate aims of ‘procurement’ and the importance of the process and methodology underling it. This scrutiny will enable analysis of the validity and reliability of the articles by means of triangulation with the other articles reviewed and analysed. This will further assist in the phenomenological hermeneutic approach taken by this work, and it will facilitate the identification of any bias or conflicts that were not obvious in the initial review of the literature. The methodology will also attempt to identify existing gaps within the literature, and highlight areas where further research could be beneficial to the work. Because most of the literature is written from academic perspectives, there are likely to be gaps around the various objectives and contextual factors of the various public sector organisations; and the various procurement frameworks the have in place; and potentially a lack of in depth research around issues such as political pressure and policy directives. As such, this work will attempt to identify where the existing literature has failed to focus on areas such as these, and how these omissions can be addressed by future studies and research. Three: Literature Best Value Procurement in the UK Public Sector There is a large volume of research focusing on procurement strategies and measures of value for private sector organisations, and recently literature (Male et al, 2007; Lian and Laing, 2004) has begun to focus on the different procurement practices needed by the public sector. Indeed, Lian and Laing (2004) focused on the transactional and relationship based nature of procurement strategies to determine to what extent procurement is different between the public and the private sector. They focused on health services, as public health services are often seen as one of the most complex services provided by the public sector (Male et al, 2007), and their research demonstrated how the differing environmental factors, such as politics and resource allocation in the public sector, impacted on procurement, whilst many service specific factors, such as the need for medicines and temporary staff, were constant across the public and private spheres Indeed, their research demonstrated that poli tics and policy drivers have a major impact on the procurement strategies used by public sector organisations, and that these strategies, and the methods used to engage suppliers, were significantly different from that of private sector organisations. This research ties in with that of Dixon et al (2005) which showed that, whilst the private sector tended to build relationships with suppliers, and leverage these to obtain better value, public sector organisations often based their procurement strategies on the costs of individual transactions. As such, the literature concludes that the private sector’s relationship based procurement strategies offer better value than those of the public sector. However, Lian and Laing (2004) also commented that public policy decisions often restrict public sector organisations from building relationships with their suppliers, and thus the very nature of public sector organisations often hinders or prevents them from achieving best value from their procurement activities. Palaneeswaran et al (2003) criticise this political dimension, claiming that procuring best value should be one of the key objectives (for the) public sector. Their argument is that best value depends upon the use of sound selection strategies, intended to ensure that all the procurement objectives are met, which includes the client and end user demands. As such, best value initiatives should all be geared towards the final state of business, rather than to serve public policy decisions. They conclude that, whilst the overall goal of any public sector organisation should be determined by public policy, best value procurement efforts should all be directed towards that goal and be free from political interference. Unfortunately, as Lian and Ling commented, whilst this may be desirable it is not always possible. Current successes and failures of procurement strategies within central and local government Walker (2006) notes that UK public sector organisations often make their main procurement decisions, for assets and services, at the local level, reflected in the fact that the NHS trusts and local government authorities all have their own procurement departments. Whilst this policy allows individual bodies to select the procurement strategy that best suits their needs, the lack of coordination of the procurement process can lead to inefficient supply markets, with either too few or too many suppliers, which reduces the efficiency of individual suppliers and thus increased the cost to the purchasers. These local procurement decisions are also often superseded or influence by central government guidelines and policies, for example Builders Merchants Journal (2006) detailed a new central government policy on public sector timber procurement. This policy specified that, whilst organisations are still responsible for their own procurement decisions, they must ensure that any timber they procure comes from a legal source, which increases the administrative burden for the local organisations. Furthermore, the government has also specified that organisations should supply sustainable timber wherever possible, however this is not compulsory. Such vague policy guidelines also make it difficult for organisations trying to balance budgets against policy. Equally, such fragmented policies make it hard for public sector organisations to plan long term procurement strategies to respond to market uncertainty. For example, Loveday (2005) reported that the UK public sector was forced to cut back service provision as a result of significant energy price rises which they had not planned for. Whilst this failing is shared with the private sector, which Loveday (2005) stated as having lost over  £1 billion due to a lack of energy procurement strategies and poor energy risk management, the fragmented nature of local procurement means that the public sector is often as much as risk from utility price rises as small businesses, some of which have been almost bankrupted due to rising energy bills in recent years (Loveday, 2005). Perhaps in response to these drawbacks, the literature highlights one of the main strategies used in recent years by the public sector to improve its procurement strategies: the rise of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) and the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which form long term partnerships with private sector organisations to share the provision of public services. Smyth and Edkins (2007) examined the management of these projects, the relationships between the primary public and private sector partners and the use of the Special Purpose Vehicles (SPUs) to facilitate the partnerships. They found that the management of these relationships had two main dynamics: the contract, transactional, approach of the public sector, and the relationship management approach of the private sector. The combination of these two approaches, and how they influenced the project management discipline within the partnership, showed that they led to greater strategic and tactical consideration being giv en to functions such as procurement, leading to greater value generation. This consideration led to greater collaboration, both between and within the organisations, as they adjusted to new procurement conditions, demonstrating improved proactive and strategic relationship management versus individual public sector organisations (Smyth and Edkins, 2007). Dixon et al (2005) also examined the several case studies of the success of the Private Finance Initiative schemes, focusing on projects related to the construction of infrastructure and other facilities. These studies highlighted several examples of best practice and best value procurement, together with the key critical factors for success in PFI projects, whilst also pointing out some drawbacks and lessons for future projects. Indeed, the literature demonstrated that the key value benefits of the PFI are that the public sector obtains increased value for money, whilst also transferring risk to the private sector partner. However, this transfer is offset by higher procurement and transaction costs, relative to the private sector’s standard costs; partly due to the cultural differences between the public and private sector, and partly due to large-scale nature of PFI projects, which frequently acts as a barrier to entry for some financing partners and suppliers. This highligh ts the need to develop competitive public sector supplier markets, and also to develop the appropriate procurement and project management skills within the public sector to ensure that they can work with private sector partners to ensure best value (Dixon et al, 2005). These show two contrasting views of the PFI/PPP, with Smyth and Edkins (2007) seeing the initiatives as an excellent way to bring private sector efficiency to public sector procurement, but with Dixon et al (2005) claiming that the wide differences in skill sets mean that a lot of the benefits from the private sector methodologies are lost. In response to contrasting views such as these, Li et al (2005) conducted research into the various perceptions of what makes the PFI attractive or unattractive to potential partners as a procurement system for projects. The research was based on a questionnaire / survey of stakeholders in the various projects, with the various potential issues and factors for the survey identified from the existing literature. This research showed that PPP and PFI procurement efficiency can have wide ranging benefits and drawbacks across different areas of a project. In particular, Li et al (2005) found the public / private sector partnerships were perceived as g iving better access to the technology required for projects, and thus leading to better project economy. This in turn drove greater public benefit, helped the public sector avoid transactional costs, and also helped manage or avoid some regulatory and financial constraints, such as the public sector timber procurement policy (Builders Merchants Journal, 2006). However, they also found that participants inexperienced is public / private sector co-operation, the high costs of setting up and participating in the initiatives, the length of time they took, and the tendency to over-commercialise some projects could lead to PPP / PFI procurement being less attractive for both parties. These various factors will impact differently on different projects, thus showing why there are such wide disparities between articles in the literature on the relative merits of PPP and PFI. For example, Weston and Cassidy (2006) claim that the procurement of public facilities and services under the PPP and PFI arrangements provides a wide variety of significant benefits to the public sector, and to the private sector partners. In contrast, Chapman (2006) highlights claims that private sector participation harms services and efficiency, whilst purely focusing on guaranteeing the private sector partners their profits. As a result, the literature concludes that the difference between the success and failure of PFI and PPP schemes depends on a clear and common understanding of the positive and negative factors surrounding PPP / PFI procurement (Li et al, 2005). Another development in procurement is that direct competition between providers, via invitations to tender, is now widely used as the means of choosing suppliers or outsourcers for many public services in the UK. Smyth (1997) describes how competitive tendering can ensure local accessibility and accountability for users, innovation, from providers and help purchasers to reduce procurement and transaction costs. However, in common with many other writers, Smyth (1997) discusses co-operation and collaboration and the interference of policy decisions and the political process, which has led to the emergence of monopolies and inefficient integrated delivery systems, often to the detriment of value in the procurement process (Smyth, 1997). Another effort made by the public sector, specifically the UK NHS, to improve purchasing efficiency is in the use of the NHS Purchasing and Supply Agency, PaSA, to negotiate National Framework Agreements through which individual NHS trusts can procure goods and services at bulk negotiated rates. However, as each NHS trust is a separate legal and managerial entity, responsible only to the Department of Health, a significant number of NHS trusts have resisted the move towards this centralised procurement approach in favour of their own relationships with suppliers. As a result, Cox et al (2005) discussed how PaSA, and the NHS senior management as a whole, have created regional procurement hubs and confederations in order to overcome this inability to enforce the Agreements within individual NHS Trusts. Whilst this was a sensible approach to resolving the lack of effective consolidation of demand at the individual Trust level, the individual procurement practices of regionally based NHS Trusts is still strongly driven by their own supply and demand considerations, and this has created a number of internal demand problems that the regionalised procurement approach has failed to overcome. These include the failure by the Trusts individually, and by the NHS centrally, to control and manage the NHS design and specification process effectively and, in many cases, an inability to measure or collect information on the clinical and cost effectiveness of medical interventions (Cox et al, 2005). As such, whilst these new reforms can be seen as a significant improvement on past collaborative procurement efforts, it is likely that they are still destined to fail, due to the fundamental nature of procurement in the NHS, and the lack of understanding around effectively aligning supply and demand at all levels of the NHS. One final area, in which the public sector is often accused of being inefficient by the Audit Commission, and failing to secure best value procurement, is in the employing of management consultants for project management and other support roles. Corcoran and McLean (1998) investigated the purchase of management consultants in the public sector context, specifically the appointment of consultants to work with government departments, focusing specifically on the particular selection decisions. They found that, in accordance with government policy, many public sector decision makers focus mainly on securing best value for money when procuring consultants, however the criteria and information sources used to make the procurement decisions were often inconsistent. Similar to Cox et al (2005), Corcoran and McLean (1998) found that whilst the government’s public sector procurement principle was well known and relatively well understood, public sector decision makers seemed to be unab le to connect this principle to the procurement process, often claiming that they did not have access to sufficient information to make an informed choice. Paradoxically, the majority of government departments tend to hire management consultants in an attempt to understand the procurement process that has hired the management consultants in the first place. One significant outcome of this is that the decision makers in many government organisations stated that they didn’t believe the selection process and decision around hiring management consultants was difficult, and would be straightforward if sufficient information was made available (Corcoran and McLean, 1998). Future developments in procurement and threats to movement The public sector is increasing beginning to rely on private sector organisations to form supplier consortia for major projects, especially those where the scale is such that individual suppliers are unable to cope with the demand. As the number of projects, especially the major PPP / PFI projects, increases; the demand for these consortia is likely to rise, and Jost (2005) believes that this may become the dominant model for public sector procurement in future. However, in order for this to occur, greater attention must be paid to building successful relationships, both between the consortium and the public sector organisation, and between the members of the consortium itself. Jost (2005) conducted a qualitative study of the existing consortia, and claimed that building trust, engaging staff and reconciling the differing objectives of the partners will be the main factors critical to this development, and a lack of trust among the private sector partners will be the biggest threat t o progress. Indeed, Swan and Khalfan (2007) claim that partnering will continue to grow significantly throughout the UK public sector. They focus on the UK public sector construction industry, and identified that, in future, factors such relationship management with external stakeholders, the general public in the case of public sector projects, will be important to the growth in partnership based projects. Indeed, whilst issues such as cost, quality, timeliness and safety will remain crucial to successful delivery, objectives such as sustainable and environmental development will grow in importance, and failure to acknowledge and address these issues will again pose threats to movement. Swan and Khalfan’s research showed that the industry is already moving forward, with a su

Crisis Communications Toyota UK’s sticky accelerator pedal

Crisis Communications Toyota UK’s sticky accelerator pedal Toyota UKs sticky accelerator pedal recall of January 2010 was considered by journalists as a disaster for its reputation with UK customers (Booth and Teather, 2010 and Hutton, 2010). Yet just three weeks after the crisis broke comments left by customers on the companys UK website revealed that they did not share this opinion. This essay will seek to understand these reactions, explain them and suggest ways Toyotas own crisis communication efforts may have helped and hindered them. After establishing the Toyota recall as a crisis, the essay will undertake a content analysis of customer comments to the companys UK website. The Situational Crisis Communications Theory (SCCT) of Coombs and Holladay (1996, 2001 and 2002) will then be applied to the results to start to explain these responses. The essay will then move on to assess how Toyotas own crisis communication efforts, as evidenced by a content analysis of company statements uploaded to Toyotas UK website, followed the tenets set o ut by SCCT. The aim will be to demonstrate how Toyotas crisis response strategies could have negatively and positively influenced these customer reactions. The essay will then conclude by suggesting further research needs to be done to prove any direct causal relationship between Toyotas crisis communication strategies and the resulting customer reactions. Before beginning this analysis it is important we give the essay a strong foundation by establishing that the Toyota accelerator recall was in fact a crisis and therefore warrants the application of crisis communications theory. Underpinning this process is the definition of a crisis as a an event or a perception of an event that threatens or violates important value expectancies of stakeholders and [where] stakeholders reactions can seriously impact the organizations performance and generate negative outcomes (Coombs, 1999, quoted in Tomasz and others, 2010, p. 637). Within this definition is the concept of stakeholders, which is interpreted as any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the achievement of the organisations objectives (Freeman, 1984, p. 46). In the case of Toyota this could include the customers who buy the cars; the staff, who make them and the shareholders, who finance the company. According to Tomazs and others (2010) the expectations mentioned in this definition above centre on what they perceive to be an agreement or promise by the organisation. These are formed from exposure to information about the organisation, published by the organisation itself and the media; societal norms and interpersonal interactions with the company and other parties. Tomasz and others (2010) go on to explain that an episode that threatens or violates these expectations can be considered a crisis. The result of which can make stakeholders change their attitudes towards the organisation and/or change their behaviours, thus negatively affecting profitability and stockholder value. How well a company is meeting expectations can be described as reputation (Coombs, 2004a). So, it is important that, before applying this theory to the sticky accelerator pedal recall, we ascertain Toyotas reputation. From Toyotas own corporate material (Toyota, 2010a and Toyota, 2010b) and media articles (The Telegraph, 2010) about the car marque, the brand promises are clear. By buying a Toyota customers are promised safety, reliability and quality. By applying the theory above to the accelerator recall, it is reasonable to suggest that if the sticky accelerator fault occurred, a car could become unpredictable thus making the vehicle unreliable and unsafe to drive, and threatening two key customers expectations As a consequence, because these issues had never occurred before, customers could begin to feel like the quality associated with the marque had diminished, thus potentially violating the third brand pillar. With Tomasz and others (2010) placing a direct link between the threat or violation of expectations and negative stakeholder behaviour, it is also reasonable to suggest that the recall episode could have some damaging consequences for Toyota and its business goals, including a potential drop in car sales as customers stopping purchasing the marque, which would then lead to a drop in the companys share price. This therefore shows that the sticky accelerator pedal recall defiantly fits into definition of a crisis, as outlined above. What was at stake was Toyotas relationship with its customers. That is why this essay will focus on looking at the crisis from their point of view, in particular its UK customers. In the next part of the essay I will seek to start to understand how customers reacted to this crisis by analysing messages this stakeholder group left on Toyotas UK website. The aim of this examination is to start to build a picture of what damage was done to the relationship between Toyota and its customers due to the crisis episode. This analysis is heavily influenced by the work of Tomasz and others (2010) and as a result breaks the possible harm into two categories; negative changes in customer attitudes to the organisation and negative changes to customer behaviours. With these categories in mind 400 posts were analysed that had been left on Toyotas UK website in reaction the companys pleas for Your Experiences of the Recall (Toyota, 2010c).Toyota uploaded this appeal to their blog two weeks after the countrywide fix of affected models began, therefore giving an indication of the final thoughts of customers. Firstly, these posts were coded as positive, negative or neutral in their attitude towards Toyota. Each post was then broken down further and coded for evidence that the customers perceived Toyota to be responsible for the crisis, that their opinion of the car marquee had been damaged and that the crisis had affected their purchase intentions. Reputation was examined by looking for evidence of the three stakeholder expectations, as established above. These results showed that only 16% of customers in this sample had a negative attitude towards Toyota and only 1.3 % blamed the car marque for what had happened (Purnell, 2010). As for the three pillars of Toyotas reputation, just 2.6% of the customers sampled thought Toyotas were now unsafe, 1.9 % considered them unreliable and 1.3 % thought quality had dropped (Purnell, 2010). However, most interestingly just 2.7 % said the crisis had put them off buying a Toyota (Purnell, 2010). It is therefore fair to say that overall the posts were positive, with comments including not a major problem; not changed my loyalty ; will keep buying Toyotas and 11 out of 10 for Toyota acknowledging the problem and actually doing something about it. With percentages high in the not mentioned categories it is also interesting to stop for a moment and look at the topics that customers were concerned about. Many customers were concerned and confused about how they were affected by the way the recall had been handled. In the next section of the essay I will apply the tenets of SCCT as developed by Coombs and Holladay (1996, 2001 and 2002) to the sticky accelerator crisis in a bid to shed light on why customers may have reacted in the ways established above. The reason SCCT was chosen was because the core proposition of the theory is that during crisis situations organisations need to protect their reputations. The way they can do this is by developing crisis responses based on the specific circumstances of a particular situation. Successfully implementing such tailored responses will have a positive effect on stakeholder perceptions. The match between the situation and the response strategy is based on attribution of responsibility and different responses strategies imply different degrees of responsibility (Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001 and 2002). SCCT ( Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001 and 2002) suggests that a match between the Toyota crisis and the suggested crisis response strategy can be identified using a two step process, which involves determining the frame stakeholders use to categorise the crisis and then establishing if any intensifying factors are present. SCCT (Coombs and Holladay, 1996, 2001 and 2002) offers three frames, victim, accidental and intentional. The categories present increasing levels of attributions of responsibility and therefore threat posed by the crisis. Using this model in relation to the Toyota recall, reveals that the episode fits into the accidental crisis category which has a low attribution of crisis responsibility. This is because the situation was caused by the failure of a mechanism in certain models of their cars that could not be detected by normal inspection and could therefore be considered technical error product harm, one the subsets of the accidental crisis category. With this base level of threat established the next step is to look at whether any intensifying factors were present during Toyotas sticky accelerator pedal recall. SCCT identifies two intensifying factors, a crisis history and prior reputation (Coombs, 2004b). In SCCT if an organisation had a similar crisis in the past or is suffering from a poor reputation with stakeholders, the current crisis will be a much greater reputational threat because it will establish a pattern of behaviour by an organisation (Coombs and Holladay, 2004). In Toyotas case one of the two intensifying factors is present. The company, despite having a strong reputation with customers, had been having problems with product recalls since 12 months before the accelerator pedal problem. In January 2009, Toyota issued a global recall of 1.3million cars, including some in Britain, because of seatbelt and exhaust problems. The companys woes in this department were also exacerbated by the fact that two weeks into the sticky accelerator pedal crisis, the company issued another global recall for its Prius model because of suspected brake problems. SCCT (Coombs, 2007b) then combines these factors to evaluate the reputational threat presented by the crisis. Therefore Toyotas accelerator pedal recall rates as an accidental crisis, with minimal attributions of crisis responsibility but because of the intensifying factor it has the potential to produce greater reputation damage than would normally be for this category. This means that although customers see the event as largely out of the control of Toyota and unintentional, there is an increased chance that it will damage the companys reputation with customers The application of SCCT to the Toyota recall supports the results of the content analysis above and goes a long way to explain by customers reacted this way. A much stronger attribution of crisis responsibility and therefore threat would have been levelled at Toyota, if customers considered the product recall has been intentional, perhaps a human error crisis caused by someone not doing their job properly(Coombs, 2007a; Coom bs and Holladay, 2002). Although the SCCT model (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002) starts to explain the customers reactions represented above, especially as to why they did not blame Toyota, what we cant forget is that SCCT to the predicts that the episode has the potential to create serious damage to Toyotas reputation with its customers in the posts analysed. It is reasonable then to expect to see a significantly larger proportion of negative feedback from this audience group. However, this is not evidenced, which suggested that Toyotas own crisis communications efforts may have helped to minimise the impact the crisis had on the companys relations with its customer base. The next section of the essay will analyse how well Toyotas own crisis communication efforts met the tenets of SCCT (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002). By analysing statements made by the company on its UK website between January 28 2010- when the crisis began and February 10 when the company began fixing the affected v ehicles. On January 28 Toyota UK issued its first public statement explaining that the accelerator pedal problem currently affecting the US could now affect the UK and Europe (Toyota, 2010d). It focussed on explaining to drivers what signs to look out for and what Toyota was doing to rectify the situation. This is the type of message that SCCT would consider to be instructing information, i.e. information that would help affected people cope physically with the crisis. Instructing and adjusting information are the two types of information that SCCT suggests begin and are part of every crisis response strategy (Coombs, 2010). So it was entirely appropriate that Toyota began its crisis communication efforts in this way. But it is equally important that this hard work was sustained Organisations must protect their stakeholders to protect themselves (Coombs, 2010, p. 29). However, Toyota did not do this. Once the first statement was issued Toyota waited three days before issuing any further statement (Toyota, 2010 e) on their website or elsewhere, leaving customers with no instructing information during this period. To make matters worse there was also a complete lack of adjusting information. Adjusting information are expressions of compassion and the efforts the company is making to prevent a repeat of the crisis (Coombs, 2010) Such information makes victims feel better about the crisis and hold less animosity toward the organisation (Cohen, 2002). Yet until day five of the crisis, February 1(Toyota, 2010e), Toyota had not expressed any sympathy towards those affected and had not announced what steps the company was making to prevent a reoccurrence. This evidence shows that during the initial stages of their crisis response Toyota broke both of the basic tenets set out by SCCT, which Coombs ( 2010) would suggest meant that the company failed in helping customers deal practically or psychologically with the crisis. Although this was not a strong start Toyotas efforts from February 1(Toyota, 2010e) were significantly better. They regularly updated their website with instructing information, including confirming what vehicles were affected, that a fix had been found and how the fix process would work (Toyota, 2010f, Toyota, 2010g, Toyota, 2010h, Toyota, 2010i, Toyota, 2010j, Toyota,2010k, Toyota, 2010l and Toyota, 2010m). This instructing information was also supported by a steady flow of adjusting information, including comments by President and CEO of Toyota Motor Europe, Tadashi Arashima, on February 1( Toyota, 2010e), which expressed regret that it( the crisis) was causing concern; and a statement by the world-wide President of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, on February 5( Toyota, 2010i), which indicated that the company deeply regretted the inconvenience and concern caused to our customers(by the crisis) and confirmed that he would lead a special quality task force to address the problems. This demonstrates a strong use of both instructing and adjusting strategies, but Toyotas crisis response efforts did not stop there. The companys January 28 release also shows the start of a third strategy (Toyota, 2010d). Toyota explains that the accelerator problem only occurs in rare instances which this author interprets as the beginning of what SCCT theorists would consider a diminishing strategy. This strategy continues in subsequent posts and is Toyotas bid to minimise the seriousness of the crisis. This strategy continued throughout the crisis, as evidenced by statements such as Toyota is not aware of any accidents resulting from this condition in Europe (Toyota, 2010e) and that the recall is merely a precautionary measure to guarantee the highest quality standards to all customers (Toyota, 2010e). These efforts are in line with the SCCT tenets for crises which attract minimal responsibility but have an intensifying factor. The use of such strategies significantly strengthene d Toyotas efforts and these are further bolstered by correct application of reinforcing strategies alongside these primary strategies, as suggested by SCCT (Coombs, 2006). These are demonstrated through the use of comments such as those made by MD of Toyota GB, Miguel Fonseca, on February 4 (Toyota, 2010g), which state that customer safety has been and will remain our top priority. These seek to add positive information about the organisation and remind people of its past good works. In summary then, it is reasonable to say that, despite a weak start, Toyotas crisis responses efforts did follow the tenets set out by SCCT (Coombs, 2010) and should therefore have worked to minimise the possible damage the recall had on the companys reputation, by positively influencing customer opinions. It is interesting at this point to return to the findings of the content analysis of customers reactions ( Purnell, 2010), which showed that minimal damage had been done to Toyotas relationship with important stakeholder group and where there was negative feelings towards to company, these reflected the areas of weakness subsequently found in Toyotas crisis response strategies. An example of this is that the lack of information and detail about the product recall and how the fix would be handled that occurred in the first few days of the crisis. The company then paid for this weakness, with many of the negative customer comments expressing confusion and worry about how the recall a ffected them and frustration about how the process was being handled. These findings are very useful because they strongly point to the fact that the weaknesses in instructing and adjusting information at the start of Toyotas response strategy did have an ultimate affect on customer perceptions. With this in mind, it is also reasonable to suggest that where Toyotas efforts correctly followed the tenets of SCCT (Coombs 2010), these may have had a positive effect on customer impressions of the organisation. But, although this analysis strongly suggests such a direct relationship, it far from proves one. It is therefore suggested that further research is needed to substantiate such claims and prove that Toyotas strategies actually influenced the resulting customer reactions and therefore definitely diminished the impact of the crisis episode had on the company. In conclusion, this essay would like to propose that, despite media warnings to the contrary ((Booth and Teather, 2010 and Hutton, 2010), the sticky accelerator recall of 2010 was not a disaster for Toyotas reputation with UK customers. Critical to understanding why this occurred is the recognition that despite threatening to violate customer expectations, the product recall did not actually do so. Insight into why this did not occur can be found by applying SCCT (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002) to the episode. This predicted that Toyota customers would attribute minimal responsibility to Toyota because the episode was caused by a technical fault; something that goes a long was to explain why so few customers blamed Toyota for the episode. But, nevertheless, SCCT (Coombs, 2007a; Coombs and Holladay, 2002) points out that the recall still remained a substantial threat, because of Toyotas crisis history. This essay proposes that this threat was successfully minimised by Toyot as own crisis communication response. Despite weaknesses in the provision of instructing and adjusting information, the brand successfully followed the tenets of SCCT (Coombs, 2010) and used diminishing and reinforcing strategies to minimise the negative effect the recall had on customer perceptions. However, despite customer reactions appearing to mirror the strengths and weaknesses of Toyotas strategy, how they influenced them remains unconfirmed. It is therefore suggested that further research in undertaken to try to prove a direct causal relationship between Toyotas strategies and the resulting customer responses.