History The representations of Death in Medieval European Art Essay

History The representations of Death in Medieval European Art - Essay Example (Cartwright, 1972) It is popularly known as the Plague, Black Death or Black Plague although the medical term for it is Bubonic Plague. Throughout history, plague has riddled many civilizations, causing remarkable changes in the social construction, economic disposition and religious beliefs, resulting in the change of their representation in art and architecture. There have been recording of massive health epidemics striking Asia, Africa, and Europe where it is believed that at one point there were not enough alive to bury the victims of the Black Death. (www.cdc.gov, 3/12/2007) In such civilizations, the progress of medical studies was not near enough to study the outbreaks and analyze them in a scientific manor; in reaction, the people usually assumed they were divine punishment brought down from god or the gods for whatever reason the leading religious figure of the region and time would provide. This caused even further panic and chaos. In many cases, innocent groups of people would be blamed for the disaster and massive witch hunt like behavior would take place where the group would be hunted down and tortured or even killed in the belief that it would end the ordeal. Plagues have been repetitive in history and sometimes with no specific pattern. The Bubonic Plague of 1347 made appearances repeatedly afterwards throughout Europe and the Middle East, though not on as much of a large scale, the last of which ended in 1844. (Watts, 1997) Even in modern society the fear of people resides; at the hint of an outbreak, such as the bird flue of 2004, global economies have been affected and many industries have suffered. The Black Death holds the greatest number of victims in such a short time span than any other plague in history and this resulted in economic, social and political affects that have lasted for centuries and played a major role in the art and painting to follow. 14th Century: The Century of Changing European civilization and Fine Arts Medieval Europe was under an extreme burden at the turn of the century. The demographics of medieval Europe grew to an unprecedented scale. The population had grown to the brink of starvation. Only under the best conditions would the fields' yield enough to feed the population. The Black Death struck in 1347 and decimated the European population. The Black Death was a necessity to prevent overpopulation and economic decline. The economy of the fourteenth century was in a state of decline. The population boom along with the shortage of food was leading Europe down a road to starvation. The climate in Western Europe also was beginning to change at the turn of the fourteenth century. This caused a very wet climate and greatly adversely

A Review of Literature on How to Manage International Joint Venture - 1

A of on How to Manage International Joint Venture Successfully - Literature review Example This presents companies with greater opportunity to explore new foreign markets. IJV is an endeavor by a foreign firm to complement its product with local inputs and knowledge or in another case where the foreign firm has no right for property acquisition. Although IJVs have greater advantages, many severe problems appear to be intrinsic characteristics associated with poor IJV management. Many researches revealed that IJVs are volatile, hard to effectively manage and often fail especially when the venture is formed in a developing country. These researches stress that main reason for failure is inherent difficulties and tensions between the firms in managing the IJVs. Why Joint Ventures Fail Rond and Bouchikhi (2004) highlighted that this form of organization is quite challenging. In this context, cooperation as the main characteristic inherently required to defuse internal and external tensions. Hamel (1991) identifies the possibility of incompatibility with partner’s object ives resulting in conflict of resource priorities. This makes ventures prone to instability and ultimately to failure (Yan & Zeng, 1999). Many joint ventures are destined to failure because of following reasons:- Unrealistic Idea – In ideal scenario, companies form joint ventures because they do not have the required resources or expertise to undertake such efforts at their own. In fact, this form of partnership is more directed by risk sharing rather than resource sharing. Risks associated need to be evaluated because the risks identified by one firm prior to forming the venture would still be there and may not be mitigated by the cooperation of two firms turning into an unrealistic idea prone to failure. Inadequate Planning – Usually, there are no plans and what is available is a statement of intention or a form of memorandum of understanding describing the contribution and profit shares of both the firms. However, there lacks a proper plan for managing the venture, accomplishing the actual task and set the modalities of interaction and conflict resolution between the two firms. The plan must include:- The arrangement on which Joint Venture is based Future tax planning Both party’s contribution and obligation to provide resources Provisions for meeting the future needs Logistics planning Decision making and management Distribution of earned assets Issue and conflict resolution Conditions and provisions for conclusion Inadequate Capital Investment- Both parties usually allocate a fixed amount of budget that is deemed enough for the Joint Venture to meet its end objectives. However, costs overrun resulting in dispute and arguments. This necessitates thorough risk management planning and allocate contingency amount to cater for such situations. Lack of Leadership –In Joint Ventures, each party would like to act in leadership role to take control of situation and credit to itself. This may result in stalemate causing huge damage to ve ntures. Thus it is very critical to define in the beginning the roles and the mode for conduct of daily operations. Lack of Commitment – Companies usually expect huge and quick profits from a Joint Venture and when expectations are not realized, the parties begin to lose interest in the venture. Thus it is very