China Urbanizes the Making of the Chinese Middle Class - 2750 Words

China Urbanizes the Making of the Chinese Middle Class (Essay Sample) Content: NameCourseDate China Urbanizes the Making of the Chinese Middle ClassThe china economy has risen at a very high rate with the many local and global companies seeking to have a share from the urban affluent customers. This is however changing with the emergence of another more complex Chinese segment which is the urban middle class whose spending power is projecting upwards and might be the one to redefine the Chinese market. This has triggered many companies to focus on this evaluation of the new class to ensure they benefit significantly to the opportunity. The rising economy in chine is lifting many households from poverty which means that the urban households would therefore be the world largest consumer market (Bach 425). Chinas middle class is therefore growing very fast and becoming a major factor in the urban china. This middle class has better education and is equipped w ith understanding of democracy and politics. This segment of china population is capable of self-justification and is viewed to be have benefits and gaining a steady influence on the society . The middle class have a relatively open mobility which is important as it acts as a perfect buffer zone in case of confrontation between the mass and the political leadership (Chun 16). The growth of the chinas middle class has therefore attracted attention from both the policy makers and academia field. For most industrialized societies, the middle class is usually the mainstream. It is the main source of power and is also to provide an amicable buffer some between the upper class and the lower class, and the middle class also acts as the stabilizer of the society at a large. Previously in the communist era , the Chinese class structure was as simple alliance of intellectuals , workers and peasants. How ever, the 1978 economic reforms in china has seen the emergence of the middle class which is increasing in number ,cultural influent ,complexity and social political influence in the rapidly growing urbanization and industrialization. The trend in china is likely to continue as indicated by many scholars. Therefore, the middle class in china is becoming the main component of the entire population (Chun 18). Urbanization in china has transformed in scale and speed in the past three decades. During the communist period in the 1980s there were less than 200 million Chinese population but currently over 700 million, which is more than half the total population lives in urban area and this is also projected to rise with the increased migration of foreign workers in the cities. This means that over 70% of the Chinese population would be living in the cities (Bach 427). The urbanization in china is said to be the largest and fastest social movement witnessed in the human history which has evidently transformed the structure of the Chinese society creating an emerging middle class living in the urban area for the first time in the chines history. The Chinese stability and peace of its political system is attributed to the prosperity of the new middle class . During the economic reforms , the middle class was allowed to accumulate wealth geared up by new policies. This made the Chinese middle class to become the important drivers of growth.it is projected that in 20 years , china will have added more than 350 million people in the cities. However, china will also have more than 221 cities with more than 1milion people will (Yu 322). This is therefore an opportunity for companies in china and the world because this urbanization scale promise new markets for investments. Rapid urbanization is also encouraged by the leadership as this is included in their five year plan because it is said to help the economy. The Chinese government is however planning to create new towns and cities instead of opening up the existing cities to urbanization. Therefore urbanization is an important Chinese plan with the priority of making the migrant workers into urban citizens which calls for fundamental change in the leadership systems. The ongoing urbanization in china will see an expansion of the economy with relatively a faster growth rate in the coming few years (Chun 22). This is because urbanization will create a huge consumption and investment demand, which will also create many job opportunities. Although there is a rising challenge of the aging population, increasing labor cost and financial risks , the huge consumer demand is projected to expand steadily which will also advance urbanization and enhance household income. China has also taken the direction of the private capitalism. The private entrepreneurs have emerged in china as the new economic elite. The continued economic growth in china and increasing scope and scale of the privatization of the state enterprises would be also lead to political changes that would be initiated by the growing number of the private entrepreneurs. The middle class are better educated and having vast knowledge on entrepreneurship. Privatization has therefore brought a revolution in home ownership and living thereby creating a powerful middle class of professionals and entrepreneurs (Bach 432).Therefore, the rapid privatization and commercialization witnessed in the 19190s is the foundation of disintegration of the socialists system in china. This has also led to the formation of the urban economic and distribution systems. The emerging middle class in the urban are more conscious of private property ownership (Yu 324).Globalization is said to create a middle class as they are measured in terms of their income and consumption levels. The increase in the global middle class has also triggered a geographical redistribution. Since globalization involves the movement of ideas and information, good a and people across the national boundaries, the influx of the migrants in china is fueled by the rapid growth of the middle class which has created an opportunity for jobs due to increased demand for resources. Globalization has made the globe literally flat because the lifestyle and tastes are more becoming influenced by the global trends and is changing rapidly. The middle class has diverted from struggling for physiological needs to a more robust consumption which is driven by media and information (Yu 328). The chinas open economic policy , exports and foreign investment has contributed greatly to its rapid economic growth. The rapi d growth of this segment of the population is china has also led to the change in consumption behavior with many households looking for more luxurious goods such as insurance, tourism , houses and automobiles. This has therefore led to an emerging middle class market to satisfy the consumption trend. On the other hand, globalization has been on the transforming end of the ideologies, lifestyle and culture of the Chinese population. The Chinese traditional culture have been tremendously altered with the anti-capitalism ideologies abolished through the middle class consciousness. It is evident that globalization has affected the daily lives of the chinas population and has changed the attitudes of the people towards issues such as beauty ,fashion shows ,dressing and hair styles, leisure and sexual behaviors (Yu 340). During the 1980 and 1990s that saw the onset of globalization came at a time when china was shifting from the autarki c system of central planning to a trade driven market economy. Scholars indicate that globalization led to the collapse of the socialist system in china and has come through this transition as stable and stronger state. The new middle class has in the chinas cities tend to imagine that with democratic system, the majority of the rural poor would be empowered. However, the Chinese middle class were afraid of the war that erupted following the collapse of the soviet union and therefore were ready to work with the technocratic and authoritarian political leadership (Yu 351). The socialist system characterized by a social revolutions which was spearheaded by the Chinese communist party in1949 under the Mao on top of the leadership. This movement was aimed at transforming china to a centralized planned socialist economy to curb unequal and capitalist society in the forming. This socialist transition was implemented by 1956. In the 1960 a strict china communist party household registration system was in play preventing villagers from seeking opportunities in the cities. This had led to a wide gap between those living in the urban areas with those in the farmlands with regard to their income (Chun 24). During the socialist regime the urban economy became state owned with all the businesses and assets ,employment and productions became organized to a state controlled systems . They were therefore subject to a lot of bureaucracy and not market regulations. The youth and graduates were bureaucratically assigned jobs which had designated wage ladder, benefits and subsidized housing among other goodies. However, in 1978 the new leadership came up with a fundamental rejuvenation from the planned socialist economy to state to install market reforms. This market reform was done is a systematic strategy of priv...

The Tational Decision-Making Model in a Civil Engineering - 1925 Words

The Tational Decision-Making Model in a Civil Engineering Organization (Essay Sample) Content: THE RATIONAL DECISION-MAKING MODEL IN A CIVIL ENGINEERING ORGANIZATIONNameProfessorCourseDateIntroductionThe decision-making aspect of the processes of an organization plays a central role in fostering an effective approach top handling the challenges experienced. Particularly, civil engineering organizations need to make rational decisions that would facilitate their sustainability in the engineering and construction industry. For this reason, the adoption of a theoretical decision model has gained popularity in civil engineering organizations as managers seek to develop solutions that would bolster the organizational performance (Triantaphyllou 2013, p. 45). Importantly, the decisions could fall under the strategic, operational, or administrative elements of organizational undertakings. As such, the theoretical decision model embraced ought to consider the nature of the issue prompting the decision. In this regard, the rational decision model could apply fully in a civil engineering setting since it comprises of logical steps that guide the decision-making process. Therefore, this paper seeks to provide a description and illustration of the rational decision model with regards to its application pertinent to the strategic, operating, and administrative aspects of decision-making in a civil engineering organization.The Rational Decision Making ModelThe rational decision-making model offers a systematic and logically sequenced strategy to making decisions. When embracing the rational decision-making model in the civil engineering atmosphere, decision-makers including CEOs and managers are guaranteed a logical and orderly approach to decision-making. The logic and order aspects of the model get realized by the frameworkà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬s sequential steps that guide the manner in which managers approach the problem before identifying a solution that suits implementation and evaluation afterward. As such, the rational decision-making model comprises of e ight steps that would assist civil engineering professionals to arrive at sound decisions that solve issues in an efficient manner. Notably, the decision-making process guided by the said model starts with identifying the problem and ends with evaluating the decision implemented. The figure below demonstrates the sequential steps involved in the rational decision-making model (Pei 2013, pp. 699-702).Figure 1. The Rational Decision Making ModelAs depicted by the diagram above, the rational decision-making model could considerably assist the management of a given civil engineering organization to logically and orderly approach the various problems that prompt practical decisions. Importantly, managers in the civil engineering organizational atmosphere ought to understand the assumptions of the model so as to understand the manner in which it works to ensure successful implementation. The model assumes that the problem prompting the decision-making undertaking ought to be clear and una mbiguous. Additionally, the decision-makers need to have known options by identifying the viable alternatives and the suitable criteria. What is more, the decision-makers need to assume that alternatives and criteria identified are subjective to ranking and weighing to for purposes of ensuring preferences clarity (Pei 2013, pp. 703-704).Further, the decision-maker ought to bear the constancy of the particular decision criteria and the stability of the weights allocated over time. Also, the rational decision-making model assumes the absence of cost or time constraints so as to avail adequate information for making decisions. Finally, decisions makers in the civil engineering fraternity need to assume that the yield the maximum payoff concerning the value of the choice alternative realized using the rational decision-making model (Byrnes 2013, 49-57). Therefore, illustrating each step of the decision-making model would significantly foster and understanding of its application in the c ivil engineering setting.Identifying the ProblemThe initial step in the rational decision-making model entails the identification of the problem that required the development of a decision to combat its escalation into detrimental outcomes (Triantaphyllou 2013, p. 49). The problem facing the civil engineering firm could be perceived or felt and thus, identifying the problem before defining it acts as a crucial step in the rational decision-making process. For instance, the technicians on site undertaking construction works could regard the equipment or resources used as inefficient thereby consider it as a felt problem while the top managers regard it as a perceived problem. Therefore, identifying the need and defining it to all the stakeholders involved would facilitate a mutual understanding of the issue at hand in a bid to solve it collectively. As such, everyone in the in the organization ought to have a matching frame of the reference pertinent to the opportunity, need, or prob lem.Establishing a Decision CriteriaAfter identifying and defining the issue, the next step in the rational decision-making model entails the establishment of decision criteria. In this respect, the decision-maker selects variables that determine the outcomes of the decision. In establishing the decision criteria, the civil engineering managers chooses the relevant metrics required to arrive at a reliable decision (Byrnes 2013, 59). In this context, the interests, preferences, and values of the organization come into play and thus, the top management identifies the criterion that is relevant to their area of specialty, civil engineering. The factors that fail identification at this phase of the rational decision-making model acquire regard as irrelevant to the decision-makers.Weighing the Decision CriteriaIn this step, the decision-maker allocates the weights to the identified measures to determine the most significant criteria. Here, the management team in a civil engineering organ ization engage in a ranking of the criteria in a manner that depicts the relevance of the identified criteria in solving or addressing the problem, need, or opportunity successfully. Then again, the decision-making team established a "first cut" pertinent to weights of the decision-making criteria before reviewing and revising their results to guarantee reasonableness (Gal, Stewart, Hanne 2013, pp. 30-32).Generating AlternativesAfter weighing the decision criteria, the decision-maker proceeds to generate the alternatives that would solve the problem successfully (Triantaphyllou 2013, p. 57). Here, the management of the civil engineering organization endeavor in the consideration of probable solutions by coming up with a list. At this point, the decision-maker needs not to engage in appraising the alternatives besides developing a list. For instance, in the case involving the technicians experiencing the inefficiency of the equipment on-site, the management could consider brainstorm ing alternatives including reparation, servicing, and upgrading the resources. Doing so allows the team to facilitate the evaluation of the options in the succeeding step.Evaluating the AlternativesThe evaluation of the alternatives listed forms a crucial part of the rational decision-making model. Here, the management of an organization engages in the analysis and evaluation of each of the alternatives identified based on the earlier developed decision criteria (Byrnes 2013, 68). Therefore, the decision-maker gets to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the different alternatives by considering the criteria and weighs developed in the second and third phases of the rational decision-making model respectively. For instance, the team could analyze and evaluate the reparation, servicing, and upgrading alternatives so as to identify the most efficient intervention for the equipment inefficiency issue affecting the technicians.Choosing the Best AlternativeThe decision-maker then progresses to select the alternative that would result in the most desirable outcomes. The management needs to know that the best decision should be founded on the alternatives that depict the strength to handle the opportunity, need, or problem satisfactorily (Pei 2013, p. 706). For this reason, the rationality of the model in this phase manifests in the consideration of the alternative with the highest score. For example, if upgrading the civil engineering equipment would result in improved performance of the technicians, then the alternative holds water in that case.Implementing the DecisionThe implementation phase of the rational decision-making process epitomizes the whole undertaking. Here, an allotment of the required resources for the implementation of the decision based on the best alternative takes place. As such, the management team oversees the application of the decision to ensure a smooth execution of the decision (Baumann et al. 2014, p. 26). For example, the civil en gineering organization could avail the necessary resources required for the acquisition of the upgraded equipment so as to solve the problem affecting the technicians in a satisfying manner (Gal, Stewart, Hanne 2013, pp. 47-50).Evaluating the DecisionAn evaluation of the decision acts as the last step of the rational decision-making model since it weighs or gauges the impact of the implemented decision. In this respect, the evaluation process seeks to assess the effectiveness of the decision in solving the problem undermining the efficiency of the organization (Ilankovan, Ethunandan, Seah 2015, pp. 63). For instance, if upgrading the equipment used by the technicians led to improved performance, then the decision would be regarded as effective.Integration of the Rational Decision-making Model in Strategic, Operating, and Administrative DecisionsThe rational model of decision-making applies t...