Mattels's Chines Sourcing Crisis of 2007 Assignment

Mattels's Chines Sourcing Crisis of 2007 - Assignment Example 3.Many international trade and development experts argue that China is just now discovering the difference between being a major economic player in global business and its previous peripheral role as a low-cost manufacturing site on the periphery of the world economy. What do you think? 14 1. Mattel’s global sourcing in China, like all other toy manufacturers, was based on both low-costs manufacturing, low-cost labor, and a growing critical mass of factories competitively vying for contract manufacturing business. Do you think the product recalls and product quality problems are separate from or part of pursuing a low-cost country strategy? Mattel was founded in the year 1945 by Ruth Handler, Elliot Handler and Harold Matson (Mattel, 2001). Mattel, a toy company from the United States, has been preserving a business relationship with China since 1959. Despite having a long-term trade relationship with China, Mattel had to face numerous ethical problems regarding its production process. Likewise any other multinational company, Mattel’s functions in the Chinese manufacturing sector was majorly focused on the low-cost production process with the virtues of low-cost labourers. Moreover, with the effect of modernisation and globalisation, the Chinese industry was also flourishing with growing numbers of small factories which were solely focused on operating as third-party manufacturers for global brands and thus earn a large amount of foreign currencies. This further motivated Mattel to shift its production process in the Chinese manufacturing sector with the intention of minimising its responsibilities towards quan tity production and thus attaining a larger market share along with increased sales (Dietz & Gillespie, 2012). With its production functions transferred to the low-cost market of China, Mattel was able to earn various advantages in terms of low-cost labourers as well as low-cost raw materials. However, the shift of Mattel’s production functions

Frontline Analysis of Terrorist Attacks of September 11 Essay

Frontline Analysis of Terrorist Attacks of September 11 - Essay Example The first controversy that is detailed within this program is the lack of communication between US organizations such as the FBI and CIA. Former FBI agent, Ali Soufan is interviewed in this program and he describes how the CIA withheld information from the FBI which could have stopped the terrorist attacks on September 11th. According to Soufan, he requested information from the CIA on several occasions before the attacks because he was working on another terrorist attack that had occurred on the USS Cole in Yemen and was struggling to figure out specific connections between terrorist groups(â€Å"The Interrogator,† 2011). However, the CIA ignored all of his requests, but after September 11th, 2001, they suddenly began to provide him with documents and photographs which, if he had been given access to these sources earlier, he believes that the FBI would have been able to track down the people involved with 9/11 and ultimately been able to stop it. Ali Soufan did not really un derstand why he was ignored earlier, but most people seem to think that it had to do with miscommunication in that the CIA might have thought that the FBI and other agencies already had access to this information(â€Å"The Interrogator,† 2011). There is a lot of â€Å"what ifs† in this particular controversy as people imagine what the United States and the world might look like today if these two major agencies had been better at communicating with each other. There were other problems with communication as well when it came to interrogation techniques. Ali Soufan was one of the FBI’s foremost interrogators because of his ability to speak Arabic. He had spent a great deal of time questioning terrorist subjects; however, after September 11th, 2001, the United States decided to begin using enhanced interrogation techniques which included water boarding, nudity, sleep deprivation, and no toilets. Ali Soufan did not agree with these techniques because he believed th em to be ineffective in comparison to his own method of questioning. Ultimately, Soufan and others like him were replaced by experts in enhanced interrogation techniques. Soufan attempted to communicate his concerns about this, but no one really listened. He even spoke before the government with his identity concealed that there were plenty of examples which illustrated that techniques like water-boarding did more harm than good as terrorists simply give out false information in order to stop what some consider to be torture(â€Å"The Interrogator,† 2011). The controversy here stems from the fact that Soufan believes that no significant information has been gleaned from imprisoned terrorists using these severe interrogation techniques. However, those on the other side of the argument such as Dick Cheney, continue to defend these methods and say that they have been able to thwart many potential terrorist attacks because of it. The average American will never know the truth bec ause this controversey appears to be more of a difference of opinion than anything else with each side saying that the other is wrong. The average American is also unlikely to be aware of the controversey that surrounds how much money has been spent on counter-terrorism efforts and the ultimate impact that these efforts have had on stopping