Geography and GDP

Grade Level(s): 12Students will… 1.Develop an understanding of the relationship between GDP, life expectancy and standard of living. 2.Work with various kinds of information comparing nations based on population, economic might and life expectancy. 3.Note the differences between the locations of the first and third worlds

Early American self-reflexive writing: revising the tradition

This study focuses on self- reflexivity in early American texts. This self-reflexivity demonstrates that these early American authors were attempting to define “American fiction” and were participating in a new literary tradition that was developing simultaneously with the development of the new country. After the introduction, Chapter One lays the groundwork for my study by exploring current views of these texts and what led to these views. Chapter Two explores the difficulties facing post-Revolutionary authors and their reactions to these obstacles as reflected in their prefaces and their other writings. I show the way these authors self-consciously respond to the opposition to novels in more nuanced ways and less defensively than is generally acknowledged. In the remaining chapters, I explore the self-reflexivity in the novels themselves. In Chapter Three, I consider three novels by Charles Brockden Brown – Wieland (1798), Arthur Mervyn (1799/1800), and Edgar Huntly (1799) – novels that explore the nature of the American novel in different ways. In Chapter Four, I analyze The Coquette (1797), Charlotte Temple (1794), and Ormond (1799), to show the ways Hannah Foster, Susanna Rowson, and Brockden Brown subvert the sentimental tradition in order to explore characters as a literary element, to embrace a solidarity among readers, and to focus on a theme of language and writing rather than present a didactic moral. Chapter Five analyzes Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive (1797), Tabitha Tenney’s The Female Quixotism (1797), and Hugh Henry Brackdenridge’s Modern Chivalry (1815). The authors of these novels use self-reflexivity and humor in order to satirize and mock the state of American literary culture at the time. While each chapter focuses on different works and views them from different angles, they all extend my argument that these early novelists are working self-consciously toward developing a definition of “American fiction” as they are writing. If we reconsider these works in light of their self-reflexive moments then we begin to see that they are much more than harbingers of literature to come but worthy to be considered part of the American literary tradition in their own stead

Curvilinear Relationship between Diversification and Performance: A Replication and Extension of Previous Research

As argued in most strategic management textbooks, the relationship between diversification and performance is curvilinear and firms pursuing a related diversification strategy outperform those firms pursuing a dominant or an unrelated diversification strategy. Using SAS modeling techniques and controlling for industry, corporate and business unit effects new insights were gleaned with regards to the relationship between diversification and performance. The implications to performance (statistical significance), given the type and extent of diversification strategies, are discussed resulting in a deeper understanding of how the complex relationships between performance and diversification play out across the entire diversification spectrum

Strategic Adaptation in the Banking Industry: An Exploration of the Antecedents and Consequences of Strategic Change Following Deregulation.

This dissertation examined the antecedents and consequences of strategic change in the commercial banking industry between 1980 and 1987. Based on a review of the literature, a conceptual model was developed that predicted change would be influenced by two factors, adaptive forces and inertial forces. Adaptive forces include two factors that have been hypothesized to encourage change, prior performance and slack resources. Inertial forces include two factors sometimes thought to inhibit change, organizational size and age. Change outcomes were predicted to be influenced by degree of change and moderated by adaptive and inertial forces. Guided by previous theoretical and empirical research, cluster analysis was used to measure strategic change and degree of change. The conceptual model proved to be useful in understanding the relationship between certain firm level factors and the propensity of organizations to change strategies. Some evidence was found to support the notion that prior performance, slack resources, and age are all important antecedents to change. Specifically, declining performance and slack resources in the form of excess capital were found to encourage change as predicted. Contrary to predictions, age was found to be a positive force for change. Change was found to have positive consequences for the banks in this study; i.e. it was positively related to performance and survival. The relationship between change and performance became more clear when degree of change was considered. Those banks that underwent moderate levels of change outperformed those that did not change as well as those that underwent more drastic changes, suggesting a curvilinear relationship. Age and slack resources were found to moderate the change performance relationship as well. Specifically, for firms that changed strategies, age and slack resources in the form of liquidity were found to be negatively related to performance. The findings concerning slack were surprising, however, high levels of liquidity may suggest risk aversion on the part of banks. Overall, the findings provide some evidence to support the conceptual model and they lend credence to the major assumptions underlying the strategic management perspective

Macartney Rose Control Systems.

4 p