Research Topics: Character Building

HARRIET TUBMAN – THESIS STATEMENT

Born Araminta Ross in 1820, the life of Harriet Tubman continues to be of monumental courage and determination. As an African-American abolitionist, humanitarian and a Union spy during the Civil War, Tubman greatly contributed in ending slavery and women suffrage. Dubbed as the Black woman whose cruel experiences as a slave in the South led her to seek freedom in the North for herself and for others through the Underground Railroad, Tubman as a self-liberated heroine has a life continuously being glorified in children’s literature, film and history books. Drawing from the bravery demonstrated by Tubman, her life is said to be an exemplification of a particular virtue that will serve as the perfect material for character education intended for elementary schools. As such, how Tubman fight for freedom, how she managed to be the “conductor” of Underground Railroad and how being “ill and penniless” implicate a character building framework suitable for the young ages in addition to her being a hard working slave and being an emblem of servanthood. Though Tubman was born into slavery, she used her ‘Biblical literacy’ to save more slaves from 19 expeditions even though the act posed greater risks to her own life. Also known as the “Moses of her people”, integrating the life story of Tubman in elementary education would assist pupils to take proactive responsibility in building one’s own characters. The premise however lies on the extent of effectiveness of the integration with respect to successful character building. This qualitative study will attempt to explore the efficacy of such integration into teaching values through studying of Harriet Tubman’s life. In lieu with this, the paper maintains that having a good character depends on the willingness to do so and not on educational videos. Harriet Tubman though it may influence some students, how she would likely to influence these students is not clear and therefore not achieving the intended purpose of developing a good character.          Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

HARRIET TUBMAN – THESIS STATEMENT

Born Araminta Ross in 1820, the life of Harriet Tubman continues to be of monumental courage and determination. As an African-American ab...

Character Design of Lion King Animation

Animation in Entertaining and Educating Children: A Case Study on the Character Design of Lion King   Chapter 1 Introduction Character design is the development of a character, whether it has good or evil attribute, but it must be appealing and can tell a story. Character design is always about the story as much as the drawing. ( 2006) The ability to do drawings that have a touch of humor and personality in them is important and something all character designers should strive to achieve. For a character considered as cliché or being too similar with other characters, this would unlikely stand out to the audience. It is important to ensure that the characters designed are fresh and attractive. How the characters carry themselves and move is also important in character design. This will help to create differences among characters, incorporate personality traits, and background story would bring the character to life and make them unique.             Character design applies in many areas within the creative field either to promote products, for entertainment or educational purposes. For example, character design is a common consideration in computer games (Fig.1), movie posters (Fig. 2) and packaging design (Fig. 3).    Fig.1: Kumi (in what game???)                         Fig .4:van-helsing poster Fig.2: In this movie poster people, the character is being drawn with heroic attributes.                       Fig .5: pecochan Fig.3: Character design for Milky. It tries to convey the message of delicious and cute, which would attract young children.               A successfully designed character will stay in audiences’ minds. It is also important to note that when the unique characteristics of a character appear in different occasions or stories, the character must be the first thing to come to mind and thus narrate its traits either in physical or psychological manner (1997). In this sense, the character is important to make the audience react and feel in a certain way. This manner of story telling by using character design also applies in animated movie especially created for young children such as Lion King, Finding Nemo as well as Kung Fu Panda. The characters in these animations directly or indirectly help to entertain and educate young children in various ways – about love, compassion, and moral values.             There are several ways of designing and developing animated movie for children. Sometimes we can see that animal characters express some human emotions and thought and at other times, irrational or illogical things happen to the characters, which make people laugh or cry. In this regard, the character design involves the aspects of behaviour, outlook, personality, individual style, and actions. All these elements of the characters could engage the audiences and make them emotionally and psychologically attached to what they are watching. One interesting animated movie that shows all these elements of character design is Lion King (Fig. 4).                                                               Fig 4: Characters in Lion King             Lion King, an animated movie created by Walt Disney received recognition as a very successful piece of work. The story, characters, music, background environment and visual styles seen in the movie have attracted young viewers from all over the world. The animal characters of Lion King have unique character design. How these animal characters in Lion King could touch the hearts of young audiences as compare to other animal characters in other animated films from the past as well as today? How the Lion King characters communicate moral values to young audiences? Furthermore, how these Lion King animal characters win the hearts and minds (entertain) of its audiences?             This dissertation aims to study how character design in animated movie works in entertaining and educating young children. The main case study of this dissertation is the characters in Lion King. In analyzing the characters of Lion King, characters from other animated movies would be included as comparison. The analysis would look into all aspects of character design and development such as drawing techniques, animation techniques, narrative (parable, myth social and cultural contexts), personality and behavior (body language, facial features) as well as other psychological and emotional attributes. All these aspects are important to understand how character design can help animation to deliver its intended message. Chapter 2 Character Design in Animation             Character design refers to the process of defining the perspectives, personality, and traits of a character in animation games or films. This commences with the conceptualization of the character in terms of gender, age, race, height, body build, and other identity factors. Two factors are for consideration, the physical traits and the personality ( 2005). The determination of these factors relies on the planned story or the story could revolve around the character. The succeeding considerations involve various factors such as function and aesthetics. Character design is a key part of animation for entertaining and educating children. However, character design is not as simple because of the need to incorporate both artistic and technical factors (2006). Character Design as a Creative Process             As a creative process, character design could reflect personality. A basic creative standard is the use of proportions to reflect different personalities with sharp features for male characters with brute strength or gruesome features for villains such as witches or evil stepmothers. Designing a character could also be for its own sake to express unique forms and images even without a story in mind. Artists can use references in creating characters. Many known characters or images find bases on real life people or objects, although exaggerated to develop personality. Once a character has been conceptualized based on references, the next step is to refine the design by considering whether the design is capable of development into a full-blown animated character given the purpose and the allocated budget. (2006)             There are two basic character design options. One is realistic characters and the other is stylized characters. In the case of realistic characters, digital animation technology allows animators to create realistic characters or mimic actual individuals or objects. Nevertheless, this involves a greater price. The closer the character mimics the real thing, the harder it is to accomplish because of the need to consider details of the real thing and more costly. It is also challenging because audiences have personal knowledge and experience of human features, expressions, emotions and movements and realistic animations receive greater praise when the characters closely resemble the real thing. (2006) Even children can recognize disparities in animated characters and this could affect the quality of their experience with the animation. There is risk in using realistic animations but the reward is also great. In the case of stylized characters, this involves more freedom for animators to create unique features and the audience is willing to forego differences from the real thing. This is the preferred option since animation works best by creating its own reality. ( 2006)                                          Figure 6: Photo-Realistic Character                      Figure 7: Stylized Character                         The next step is to consider the physical and functional features of the character by identifying the features of the face such as the distance between the brows, the chin, and shape of face. The body structure is also considered. (2005)             After this stage, the last step is the finalization of the character by defining the emotions and movements and placing the final changes including the colors and sounds. Character Design as a Technical Process              There are also technical considerations embedded in the artistic or creative process. The first technical consideration is modeling to transform the character into a three-dimensional character. Modeling is digital sculpting by manipulating surfaces. Surfaces could be patches involving simple and flat surfaces and polygonal involving more flexible and complex surfaces to fit the anatomy of the character. If the character mimics a human, it helps to have knowledge of the human anatomy to know the places to make surface indentations to form the human body but also the places to manipulate to create movement. ( 2006 )                     Figure 8: Example of Modeling                         The second technical consideration is texturing or the use of colors and surface features to distinguish character features such as rough hair, silky eyes, solid teeth, and smooth skin. Texturing also covers the clothing and other accessories. This uses brushes and colors palettes to make the distinction. (2006)     Figure 9: Example of Texturing (Spiderman)                                     The third technical consideration is rigging or the integration of movement into the character. Manipulating polygonal models would provide complex movements of the joints to show walking and the arms to express movements such as carrying an object or brandishing a sword. Techniques in rigging include the use of skeleton chains, layering, rotation planes, sliders, pole vectors, clusters and lattices, and other systems that mimic kinetics and movement. ( 2006)                             Figure 10: Example of Rigging (human arm)                         The appeal and ability of animation to convey messages depend on the effective consideration of these technical factors in character design. The technical aspects of character design should coincide with the creative aspects to create characters able to communicate to the audience in themselves. Basic Elements of Character Design             There are also basic elements of character design. One, more or all of these elements could occur in an animation and although standards in animation are flexible, these elements support the development of effective animated characters in providing both entertainment and learning.                First element is function or the form and construction of the character. The form of the animated character should take a logical form. (2005) In creating a giant, the idea is to stack shapes to create bulky character. In addition, function also pertains to practice movement in space. Moving characters should move in space and there should be modes of movement such as the curves of a rolling ball, feet for humans, and legs for animals. This involves using angles in a plane and more angles means more complicated work in creating movement ( 2006). Moreover, the character should be repeatable since movement involves the same drawing with changes to indicate movement.   Figure 11: Examples of Functional Characters                         Second element is aesthetics ( 2005). This means that the character should express balance in terms of forms or shapes regardless of whether the character is the lead or the villain. Much like an architect designing a building, the initial consideration is a design that would stand followed by the succeeding consideration of ways of making the visual impact pleasant by combining and manipulating shapes, curves and lines.   Figure 12: Example of Animation Aesthetics (balance)                         Third element is distinction and recognition. Even if the character is stylized, the audience should be able to recognize the character and distinguish this from other characters (2005). By manipulating proportions and shapes, the characters should become distinct. Even if most characters utilize generic surfaces and shapes as the starting point, the outcome should have a distinguishing mark.   Figure 13: Example of a Distinguishable Character (Mickey Mouse as a mouse)               Fourth element is personality (2005, 2006). This constitutes the most important but difficult to integrate into the character design because this comes from the contribution of many people involved in the animation such as animators, storyboard artists, animators, and the director. The physical feature of the character already exudes character for substantiation by movement and voice. A humorous personality finds expressed through the eyes and mouth as well as body build and clothing. Figure 14: Example of Differences in Personality (woman scaring a girl)                         Fifth element is originality so that the character should be something that the audience has not seen before. Although this is difficult to achieve since most characters evolve from stereotypes or generics, originality means showing characters in a different light ( 2005)                       . Without originality, gamers or viewers would relate the two characters leading to confusion. In games, originality depends on the theme and character profile such as skills and weapons while in animated shows or films, this find expression in character features, voice, and personality.                                                          Figure 15: Example of an Original Character (Betty Boop)                         These elements are important but not exclusive considerations in developing animation that integrated both entertainment and education. These elements guide character design so that the animation that affectively mixed entertainment and education evolved the characters, more or less, using these standards. Chapter 3 How Character Design Tells a Story             Character design is in itself visual storytelling. Ten characteristics of character design when combined provide visual storytelling. By developing each of these characteristics, animated characters can effectively convey a story. ( 1996,    1996 ;  1998,)             First is identity, which encompasses the physical description of the character such as body build, weight, hair color, and other proportions or features; demographic description of the character such as age, gender, race, and income class; and personality of the character such as attitude, lifestyle and temperament. These could find expression in the likes and dislikes, signature expressions, and idiosyncrasies of the character. (1996) Identity should be easily discernible by just looking at individual characters or interactions among the characters.             Second is back-story, which pertains to the culture-based variances in the reactions of individual characters based on the historical and current experiences of the character that molds individual identity. There is always an underlying reason for the identity of characters. ( 1997) An example is a villain taking revenge for the unjust treatment of people in the village or a pompous king treating servants badly by growing up as a spoiled child and does not know any better. Protagonists are usually kind because these have learned the value of love and kindness while growing up.             Third is appearance, which refers to the process of encoding of the identity and back-story into the selected embodiment of the character. The embodiment of these factors affects the credibility and effectiveness of the character is acting a role in a story. (1996) Before the characters even speak, the visual appearance of the character should already be distinguishable so that a king, knight and peasant have different appearance in terms of built, clothing, style of hair, and movement.             Fourth is content of speech, which encompasses the language or regional dialect, accent, and intonation of the character to support a story. This means that the physical characteristics and attitudes of the character should match speech content. By listening to the speech of the character, the audience reinforces their perception of the identity, back-story and appearance of the character. (1998) It is easy to differentiate an oriental character from a Caucasian character through speech so that speech in itself contributes to the story.             Fifth is manner of speech, which encompasses the choice of words, the timing of speech, and manner of delivery of the character. This relies on the artists to consider speech, pronunciation, timbre, intonation, and vocal quality to augment the storytelling capability of the character. (1998,) Characters portraying royalty speak more eloquently and formally compared to peasant characters.             Sixth is the manner of gesturing or the use of signals usually through facial expressions and hand movements. These augment content of speech and manner of speech to communicate and relate better to the audience. Gestures also reinforce the historical and socio-cultural experiences of the character to express messages better to create a clear story. (  1998)             Seventh is emotional dynamics, which refer to the emotional model of the characters relative to each other. This constitutes the manner that the characters influence and become influenced by each other. The emotional state of the characters build-up and stabilize as these communicate with other characters throughout the story. A character’s emotional state could remain constant throughout the story or shift from happy to sad and the energy level could range from lively to tired. However, the dominant emotional state of the character creates a story. (1997) Villains usually keep up an angry or taunting emotional state or silent when plotting against the protagonist while the protagonists usually express a wider variety of emotions centering of goodness.             Eighth is social interaction pattern or the manner that a character deals with other characters expressed through speech, gestures and actions. A character playing the role of a mother would likely express care and concern over her husband and children. ( 1997) Enemies are likely to act hostile towards each other with the mode of interactions expressing a story in itself as to why the individuals act this way towards each other and the actions they would likely consider towards each other.             Ninth and tenth are role and role dynamics. Role refers to the position or status of each character relative to the other characters. This expresses nature and proximity of the relationship with some characters more closely related when compared to other characters. The relationship of the characters contributes in building the story. Role dynamics pertain to the extent that characters uniquely immerse in the unfolding experiences, human experiences to relate to the audience. ( 1996)                 Integrating all these factors into the character design should target consistency, balance, and holistic value to make the characters tell a story to entertain children and impart to them the intended educational message. Chapter 4 Case Study of Character Design of Lion King Background on the Lion King             Disney released the animated film Lion King in 1994 after more than four years of collaborative work with scriptwriters, animators, creative artists, and directors ( 1994). The story revolves around the coming of age of Simba a young lion whose birth made him the heir to the throne of his father, King Mufasa, and making his Uncle Scar second in line. Scar, wanting the throne, joined with the hyenas to plot the death of both King Mufasa and Simba. Scar killed King Mufasa but made Simba believe that it was his fault and urged Simba to run away and never come back. Simba ran away in Shame until he reached the place where Timon (a meerkat) and Pumba (a warthog) are living. They take Simba into their hakuna matata (no worries) lifestyle. When Simba was older, he met Nala, a childhood friend, who was running away from the oppressive leadership of Scar. Upon learning about this, Simba decides to go back. Timon and Pumba came with him to honor their friendship. Simba challenged Scar and learned that it has his uncle who caused the death of King Mufasa. This gave Simba strength and made Scar recognize him. The hyenas upon learning of Scar’s defeat turned against him. Simba took over the throne with Nala as his partner and a son to succeed him. His family and friends, Rafiki the wise man, Timon and Pumba, and the other lions as well as the other animals in the safari surrounded Simba. Design of Lion King Characters             There are a number of important characters in Lion King. The development of these characters took years to realize not only because of the number of characters but also because of the need to create different but balanced characters playing parts in the story. However, the creative team had room for imagination and innovation because the story was original and not based on previously published stories. The creative process of the animated film involved 600 artists, animators and technicians producing more than 1 million drawings including more than 2 thousand hand-painted backgrounds, and 119,058 individually colored frames of film (1994).             The characters expressed both creative and technical aspects of character design. In relation to the creative aspect, all the characters were animals but presented in a stylized manner as opposed to picture-realistic manner. The intention was to mimic reality but present this in the animated world. As such, the creative team visited Africa to observe the safari environment, the weather, and behavior of animals. Even if the creative team did not target to achieve picture-realistic characters, there was an attempt to present the stylized characters close to the real thing to support audience recognition. Lion King relates ‘the circle of life’ story and the audience should be able to recognize, differentiate, and understand the characters and the relationship of the various characters via character design. The figure below shows clearly showed African animals and landscape including male and female, young and adult lions, hyenas, warthog, meerkat, baboon, and bird. These characters are easily distinguishable.   Figure 16: Animal Characters of Lion King                         With regard to the technical aspects, modeling, texturing and rigging, these became apparent in the design of the characters and helped in enabling the characters to express life. Modeling is apparent by using clay models of the animals based on watching documentaries of African animals and the trip to Kenya. Capturing real animal form and shape into the clay models led to the design of the characters of different animals. There are a number of exaggerations to make the characters more pleasant and express different personalities. Pumba has an overly huge and rounded head, an overly huge task, and thin legs to support his cheerful character [Compare Figure 17 and 18 below]. This is very different from the physical features of a real warthog.                       Figure 17: Real Warthog                      Figure 18: Pumba (left) and Timon (right)                         Young Simba and Nala have huge round eyes, which is very different from the eyes of real lion cubs [Compare Figure 19 and 20 below]. The young cubs in the animated film have more tame looks than the real lion cubs that already look like wild animals even as cubs.                      Figure 19: Real Lion Cubs         Figure 20: Young Simba (left) and Nala (right)                         The hyenas’ also have large rounded yellow eyes, menacing teeth, and large pointed ears to create a look for protagonists [Compare Figure 21 and 22 below].   .                      Figure 21: Real Hyena                             Figure 22: Shenzi, Banzai and Ed                         The form and shape of the characters distinguish the different animals as well as set out the protagonists from the antagonists. Even by just viewing pictures, the personality of the characters and their part in the story becomes apparent.             Texturing or the consideration of color and other texture details is also apparent in the design of the Lion King characters. The characters all exude color contrasts pleasing to the eyes. One example is the King Mufasa with reddish mane in contrast to his orangey earthy body. This has a huge difference from a real lion, which only hues of brown and cream. In addition, Mufasa’s main also hangs down much like human hair but this together with the contrast in the rougher texture of the hair with smooth skin shows provides a regal look for Simba’s father. [Compare Figure 23 and 24 below]                              Figure 23: Real Adult Lion                            Figure 24: King Mufasa                                         Other examples are the characters of Rafiki and Zazu, which have a similar color contrast schemes of yellow, red, blue and white. The similar contrast in colors suggests the protagonist roles of these characters and the similarity of their position in the movie, with Rafiki as the advisor to King Mufasa and Zazu as King Mufasa’s majordomo. [See Figure 25 and 26 below]                                            Figure 25: Rafiki                                           Figure 26: Zazu               Rigging refers to the embedding of movement into the characters. This happens by mimicking the movement of real animals and manipulating the points of movement such as joints to create movement. An example is the rigging of the hyena characters. Originally, a single model and texture applies to the three hyenas. However, rigging depicts differences through movement, which in Figure 25 below involves movement in the eyes and mouth or tongue. In Figure 22 above, different movements of the neck and head also create three hyena characters.   Figure 27: Rigging of a Hyena in Lion King                         Movement of the other animals is also apparent especially in the gait or walk of the lions, with paws gracefully touching the earth. There is also a difference in the movement of King Mufasa and Uncle Scar, with the latter moving in crouched position (much like a lion about to spring) as opposed to the tall and regal walk of the former. This expresses Uncle Scar’s scheming and treacherous character. The movements of the hyena also show their predator roles. Rafiki’s movement depicts the character of an old and wise baboon.   Figure 28: Uncle Scar               There are exaggerations especially in the movements such as the almost standing position of Rafiki and Zazu as well as the human expressions of the animal characters but these creative and technical factors substantiates the story. The design of the characters expresses in themselves the personalities and the story.             There are also specific standards in character design. First is function with all of the characters being functional because these express the form of the animals mimicked as well as the movement. Although the creative team experienced challenges in working with animals with four legs making it more difficult to adjust movements of four legs instead of two for human characters, the form and shape of the characters supported movement. Second is aesthetics particularly balance on the character designs. The team-up of Pumba the warthog and Timon the meerkat [See Figure 18 above] expresses balance of form, shapes and color albeit in contrast. The Lion King characters are aesthetically and visually pleasant because of the combination of various elements of design. Third is recognition and distinction. The characters are clearly distinguishable especially the lions, with the most number of characters, from the female to the male adult lions and cubs to the protagonist and antagonist lion. The other animals were also recognizable in terms of the real animals these mimic. Fourth is personality, which is distinct in the case of the wise Rafiki, the happy Pumba, the regal King Mufasa, and the treacherous Uncle Scar. Fifth is originality. The characters are not original in the technical sense because these mimic real animals but original in the animated world because the characters were not based on a previously published story or television show. As such, the design of the Lion King characters aligned with basic standards of character design to come up with characters that in their personality express a story. Entertainment Value of Lion King             Due to the design of the characters, Lion King has a high entertainment value. This is due to the design of the characters combining the ten characteristics useful in telling a story. The characters of Lion King have clearly defined identities whose emotional dynamics portray the good and bad animals and social interaction patterns in terms of the manner that the villain, Uncle Scar and the hyenas, manipulate Simba to get the throne. The appearance of the characters apart from being pleasant also tells the lively life cycle of animals in the African wild. Children would be able to relate and immerse in the character of the lion cub Simba as he deals with the death of his father until he matures to take on responsibility. The entertainment value finds expression in the number of viewers and phenomenal gross income obtained by Disney from the animated film. Since entertainment means fun and easy recall, the fact that many children in 1996 still remember the film even in their adolescence and adulthood and remember the characters, story, and theme song. The younger generation also knows the Lion King through the release of the sequel and storybooks. This is the first Disney animated film without entirely animal characters and the appeal to children is likely the design of the characters as pleasant by not posing any threat to children unlike real wild animals in zoos requiring parental or adult supervision and involving warnings to approach cautiously and not too closely. The hakuna matata song and dance number of three friends, Pumba, Timon and young Simba also creates delight and fun for children and even adult audiences. Educational Value of Lion King             As part of the integrative strand or ‘edutain’ approach to animation, the educational value of Lion King is positive but indirect and subtle, and clearly deviating from the traditional classroom lessons. Nevertheless, it was apparent that the character design and the emerging plot tell the story of African animals. The focused subject is science. The ‘circle of life’ is akin to the ecosystem and life cycle, which are lessons in biology and zoology. The ‘circle of life, portrays the symbiotic relationship among animals. Although there are preys and predators operating in defined territories, these are necessary to support balance. This also expresses the life cycle of animals with the younger generation eventually taking over the protection of the territory and procreation. Apart from the indirect science lesions that children can learn from watching Lion King, the speech, gestures, role and role dynamics of the characters also convey a number life lessons for children audiences. One is the value of friendship in times of despair and sadness. Another is the importance of family support in personal growth. Last is the role of love in helping individuals cope with problems. By using character design, the animated film Lion King expressed both entertainment and educational value. Chapter 5 Conclusion             By focusing on the design of characters in animated films, these can provide entertainment and educational value to children. Animated films now reflect the integrative or ‘edutain’ approach to animation. To express the entertainment and educational values, character design becomes an important element. Character design comprises the entirety of the creative style and technical design expressed in the form or shape, color, movement, and emotions of the characters. The consideration of the design of the characters of Lion King exemplifies the importance of character design in considering the values of entertainment and education. The design of the characters in itself tells a story with elements of fun and subtle lessons in science and growing-up.   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Character Design of Lion King Animation

Animation in Entertaining and Educating Children: A Case Study on the Character Design of Lion King Chapter 1 Introduction Characte...

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Summary of the Strangers in the Strange Land: The Mitsubishi Sexual Harassment Case California Baptist University           Managerial Ethics May 24th, 2006               Summary of the Strangers in the Strange Land: The Mitsubishi Sexual Harassment Case   Author’s Purpose “An organization that is strong and stable and is ready to commit time, money, and patience will be more apt to reap rewards than the quick-hitting opportunist.”  (,,  ) Organization is composed of a group of people purposely structured to carry out an overall, common goal or set of goals. They have several aspects that were considered and are vital for progress. These sets of features includes vision (members would have an outlook in their mind on how it should be working in a time line that have been set), mission (the purpose of the organization), strategies and strategic goals (ways or set of task in order to achieve the set goal and as a final point, the values (this what truly makes the organization going, how their personal character builds a vigorous relationship with one another and their flexibility to meet the demands of every culture). In this chapter it features the problem that existed between the managers and the employees of a multi-national corporation doing business in a foreign country knowing beforehand the diverse cultural values and belief system from their own. This clearly states that the universal ethics of foreign trade has been observed and that is highly called business ethics. In the previous viewpoint, if it is to be taken with high regards. Ergo, the acknowledged principles must be put to practice to strengthen the awareness and maintain harmonious working conditions. Ethics is synonymous with moral philosophy that single out what is right from wrong. What has ethics got to do with business? Let me quote the words of Professor  in a short interview in  dated last 2005. “Western capitalists need to enlist the entire human community in the capitalist dream, which is about pulling yourself up. Unless we can do that for everyone — in a way that respects local culture and doesn’t destroy underlying ecosystems — global capitalism is in trouble”. This simply implies that ethical behavior is the heart of every company’s activities may it be an individual, peer or group activity depending in the cultural (region) one is habituated to stick to. Cultural differences are notable in the world of industry and trade, its function depends mainly in its employees especially by manual labor and that not only comprises a certain race or gender but variably and in multitude amounts. In this context, we shall discuss the relationship between the managers and the employees and how these two variables affect the other lawfully or just mainly on work ethics. Responsible management entails the transparency of the mandated vision, mission and goals that has been set to achieve in the long run which can be done by observing the basics of etiquette and upholding human rights.The loophole of this statement would be: how and why sexual harassment rises in distressing frequency in the corporate world. Is it because of power or gender inferiority? Or this proves that the very principle of existence, our inalienable rights together with the ideals of humanitarian movements’ that we are now facing human rights crisis in the shadow of sexual harassment in which the accustomed concern are the females in the workplace. Ethical principles, Issues, and Applications involved The main issue of this chapter is the examination of human rights in cross-cultural aspect in the said sexual harassment cases filed against Mitsubishi motors auto plant in America. The said management neglected the so-called repeated occurrences of mistreatment. The U.S. EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) argued the five types of sexual harassment that has allotted an antagonistic working environment for female workers in the said enterprise. The U.S. EEOC defines workplace sexual harassment as unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature, under any of the following conditions. <ul type="disc" style="margin-bottom: 0in"> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Submission to such conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of an individual’s employment</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Submission to or rejection of such conduct by an individual is used as the basis for employment decisions affecting such individual</li> <li class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; line-height: 200%"> Such conduct has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance or creating an intimidating, hostile or offensive working environment</li> </ul> Basing on the above guidelines, one can say that the main factor of a sexual behavior to deem as sexual harassment is that it is unwanted by the victim. Examples of such advances are the following: unwanted and repeated indecent proposals, unwelcome gestures, jokes or comments which are sexual in nature, unwelcome flirting and pornographic photos displayed publicly or unwelcomingly. As reported by  in the  morning edition, EEOC Files Sexual-Harassment Lawsuit against Mitsubishi dated April 11, 1996; , plaintiff’s attorney, partly blames the Japanese culture of Mitsubishi management for creating an atmosphere where sexual harassment may have been tolerated. However, the deputy officer of the U.S. EEOC,  saying that most perpetrators were mainly Americans, did not support the pervious statement. True, that it was the culture of the plant but whether the culture of the plant had anything to do with the fact that the company was Japanese-run, is questionable. The aforementioned simply proves that the management does have moral issues to settle. It’s not a question of cultural differences in running the said auto plant but it’s a query of adequacy in implementing laws and regulations to uphold ethical principles. Sexual harassment is a criminal offense that needs to be look-in.  In the famous adage that says, “justice delayed is justice denied,” is a clear picture depicting the monopoly of power over the victim. Nonetheless, giving one a dose of his own medicine would bring about change. To embark it, is to take risk in the hope of winning the struggle. Fortunately, after long – years of tribulation, the Mitsubishi and the U.S. EEOC meet in an agreement to settle the case, last June 11, 1998 that benefited both parties. Conclusion Culture is defined as the way of living of people and ethnic groups.  Language issues, diverse customary beliefs and practices and values are the barriers of understanding cultural differences between people of diverse ethnicity and race. The only way of becoming perceptive enough to know the boundaries of each culture is the willingness to adapt words and actions through valuing respect. In an organization where it caters indifference among other employees not because of culture nor gender issues but the lack of responsibility to take matters at hand and create an environment free from hostility. The Mitsubishi sexual harassment case shows a defect in their administrative system to handle the said moral degradation of women that were victimized by their so – called supervisors or low – level managers but because of superiority complex they were being shunt to keep quiet or lose the job if they try to squeal or worse, receive death threats. Their executives have failed to educate themselves in the changing roles of the sexes, the laws of the land and careless enough to adapt in the cultural norms and ethical values in doing business abroad. Moreover, they have failed to exercise their power to attain a justified cause. The intimidating working milieu proves that they have been incognizant on certain inalienable truths and that is their failure to practice the two major concerns of the universal code of business ethics, the virtue theory and the natural right/natural law theory. Both laws, abhors every move that the Mitsubishi has made right from start of utter incompetence in tolerating sexual harassment towards women and the vicious sarcasm of their managers towards the complaints of such acts. The management has failed to act prudently on the moral welfare of its people by acting indifferently on the sexual allegations thus; certain human rights were tarnished and exploited. That made way for those women to make a stand. For a foreign business to flourish in a foreign land, one must be capable to educate itself in the legal and moral obligations that might be an exact opposite from theirs. This case has made a mark in history, on how foreign businesses should act deliberately on a land other than their own. To make a commitment on their policies they have made and qualified enough to run a hostile-free environment. Thus, the adage goes, “ignorance of the law excuses no one.”         Reference: Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

SEXUAL HARASSMENT

Summary of the Strangers in the Strange Land: The Mitsubishi Sexual Harassment Case California Baptist Universit...

The impact of football on youth character development especially self esteem/self image/self belief

The impact of football on youth character development   Research is to focus on the impact of football on youth character development, research posits towards understanding youth’s self esteem, image and belief. Presumably, the use of sport in youth development has gained a lot of momentum in the past decade with a number of programs being introduced by various organizations including governments. Although sport cannot be seen as a panacea for all social ills, some evidence has been generated by researchers in various countries, on the impact of sport youth development programs on youth development. However, the sport of football, which is a universal game played by millions of people around the world, has not attracted the scrutiny of researchers when it comes to the evaluation of its possible impact as a youth development tool. The proposed research seeks to isolate the sport of football from the milieu of other codes used in other research, and evaluate its impact on youth character development in general but specifically on self esteem, self-image and self belief.  Youth participation in an activity does not automatically assure the acquisition particular habits and dispositions, but rather, programs need to be explicitly designed to teach these habits and critical life skills (2002), there is a need to play an active role in appropriate implementation, as there features of settings that promote football youth development, integrating to self esteem, self image and self beliefs that can be used to promote positive character development through football. There needs to highlight benefits of organized football sport and role that football can play in contributing to positive character among the youth. To present literature demonstrating how youth involved in football sport, to benefit from self esteem, self image and self beliefs and develop social skills ( 2002;  1997) as starting point for theoretical and applied research. As researchers continue to gain understanding of factors contributing to positive and negative outcomes in youth sport settings, comprehensive models of positive youth development through sport evolve, research urge that sport organizations, coaches and parents stay abreast of research, and apply youth sport programs within relationships of self esteem, self image and self beliefs, it is necessary to recognize that positive youth development through football is not automatic, dependent upon multitude of factors that must be considered when planning and designing character building through sport programs.  (2005) suggested, nothing magical about school sport will teach adolescents life skills, how sport programs are structured and delivered is likely to influence adolescents’ experiences ( 2004). However, evaluation work is required to establish the efficacy and effectiveness of self esteem, self image and self beliefs (2007). Literature based studies will enable researchers and policy‐makers to obtain better understanding of impact of football on character development, and thus help the youth become productive members of the society. Does football sport build positive self esteem, self image and self beliefs among varsity football players? Research will have to investigate the relationship of self esteem, self image and self beliefs on competitive youth football players. Perceived performance climate will be associated with lower moral functioning, less appropriate moral atmosphere perceptions and likelihood of investigating relationship of self esteem, self image and self beliefs in competitive football sports climate as associated with moral cognitions and behavior. The presence of cross section study of 50 youth football players, a mixture of boys and girls, the case of South Africa. Participants will respond to questionnaire measuring self motivated climate, functioning, personal  atmosphere and effective self actions pertaining to a football game. Regression analysis will be conducted to investigate positive or negative relationship of self esteem, self image and self beliefs on youth character development through football sport in South Africa. Thus, performance climate can significantly predict low self esteem, self image and self beliefs, that perceiving youth development climate do predict low sport morality, whereas self esteem, self image and self beliefs perceive youth determine sport atmosphere disproving of low self esteem, self image and self beliefs. Research findings will emphasize relationships of self esteem, self image and self beliefs in lieu to youth character development seen in football games, competitive youth football. Ideally, youth and character do not develop in vacuum as football involves imperative developmental context with potential to investigate the relationship of self esteem, self image and self beliefs, there may not continue to leave character development on the down side, be an achievement and positive youth development ethic built into football sport for youth in South Africa. It can be that, sport culture, conventional social wisdom and promotional ideology by athletic associations suggest that participation in varsity sports programs has positive effects on prosocial personality traits, it is an open ended process to specify which facets of personality are affected during high school years by playing football incorporating ports participation measure to evaluate ‘sport builds character’, self esteem, self image and self beliefs. Few significant impact of football sports participation on social character has been observed in research, the need to challenge sports builds character of conventional sport programs.     Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

The impact of football on youth character development especially self esteem/self image/self belief

The impact of football on youth character development Research is to focus on the impact of football on youth character development, r...

Does Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs Make a Difference for Elementary and Middle School Children?

Does Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs Make a Difference for Elementary and Middle School Children? Introduction In today’s school climate, the character building and appreciation of differences among the Elementary and Middle School children became major issues. The cultural awareness, self-esteem, gender equity and respect in each other are the essential issues in understanding the different behaviors of the students in school communities. In the event that there are arguments, conflicts, bullying, etc., teachers are expected to be in the middle in school chaos and grab the opportunity to integrate the conflict resolution and character education.   Educations in conflict resolution and peer mediation are the results of the growing awareness and concern about the maltreatment of the other student to the other such as bullying inside the vicinity of the school. Those educational programs usually involved the music, role-playing, and demonstrated videos that focuses on the negative outcomes or consequences of bullying and teaches the students, as well as teachers, in handling those crucial events. Furthermore, the role of the teacher as the leader in education encouraged to speak with the students and relaying their thoughts about the no-tolerance policy for bullying they imposes inside the classroom (2003). The teacher is expected to gain the cooperation and the trust of the disputants or the person involved in a disagreement to solve the conflict. In that time, the teacher should provide the cooling off period. Then, the teacher should reintroduce the ground rules and proper guideline on how to handle the conflict well. Through the responsive approach on the issue of honesty, responsibility, appreciation, compassion, fairness, acceptance, respect, perseverance, self-discipline, and trustworthiness, the teacher can have a better idea in dealing with conflict resolution (Drew, 2003). The Field of Conflict Resolution Education The education on conflict resolution teaches the meaningful way, variety of processes, practices and skills that addresses the individual, interpersonal, and institutional conflicts and therefore creates safe and welcoming communities. The conflict resolution provides basic understanding in the nature and role of conflict in the culture, most especially on how this affects the children (2004). The Field of Peer Mediation The focus on peer mediation programs and conflict education serves as a type of cooperative learning. Some experts argued that the peer mediation is the most effective approach because it increases the use of the integrative negotiation behaviors after the mediation training. In other studies, it is said that peer mediation may transfer the constructive conflict skills to sibling conflicts at home ( 2004). Peer mediation is a method of conflict resolution in which a third party helps the disputants to resolve the conflict through communication. This is possible in schools and students are taught to utilize the diplomacy skills in recognizing the other perspectives and at the same time respecting the differences of the opinions ( 2000).   Goals of Conflict Resolution Program and Peer Mediation The effectiveness of the conflict resolution education can be measured in the four core goals (2004). First is to create a safe learning environment. This is possible if there is a decreased incident of violence, decreased conflict between students particularly based on the racial and ethnic differences, and decreased suspensions, absenteeism, and drop-out rates in the school and other learning environments. Second is to create a constructive learning environment. This goal reflects on the improvement of the school and/or classroom climate, increased respect and caring  environment, increased approach in classroom management, reduced the time of the teachers allotted in solving the conflict, and increased the students’ discipline. Third is to enhance student’s social and emotional development. Many research show that the improved problem-solving activities and perspective over the conflict can support this goal. In addition, the improved emotional awareness and management, reduces aggressive orientation can help achieve the constructive conflict behaviors.  Fourth is to create a constructive conflict community. The success can be seen in increased parental and community involvement in school affairs, increased parental links between school and community, and decrease of the community tension and violence.    On the other hand, as an outcome of peer mediation, it can give way to increase the agreement, improved the academic achievement, improve the attitude toward conflict, increase the self-reliance in dealing with differences, and decrease the disciplinary problems or suspension of the students. There is a positive approach on the efficacy of peer mediation and conflict education, specifically in student’s conflict knowledge, social behavior, communication skills, and impacts on classroom climate. To support the issues of peer mediation’s effectiveness, evidences show that there is an improvement of behavior in class and at school in most of the elementary and middle schools (2000). Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Does Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs Make a Difference for Elementary and Middle School Children?

Does Conflict Resolution and Peer Mediation Programs Make a Difference for Elementary and Middle School Children? Introduction In today’...