The Cold War and The Post-Cold War Periods Essay

The Cold War and The Post-Cold War Periods - Essay Example ost half of the twentieth century caused mutual suspicions, a series of global incidents, and heightened tensions resulted in world’s superpowers involving is disasters. Most Americans claim that it was Ronald Reagan who emphasized the ending of the Cold War. However, many historians point the Soviet Economy as the main factor that led to the end of the Cold War. The Soviet economy stagnated following the expensive race of weaponry. Due to this, Gorbatsjov was forced to change the Soviet economy using his â€Å"perestrojka† policies. This situation caused a definite economic fall. During this time, the Soviets found it difficult to maintain a firm grasp over eastern European satellite states. The policy of Gorbatsjov glasnost caused a lot of strain to the Eastern Europe. Therefore, afterwards, the Berlin Wall came down marking the ending of the Cold War. One of the main challenges that Europe faced after the end of the Cold War was security issues. The security environment of the European countries has been increasingly unstable and uncertain since the year 1989 when the Cold War ended. What is mainly affecting Europe after disintegration of USSR, Csechoslovakia breakup, and Yugoslavia crisis is the unravelling political arrangements that were established after the ending of the First World War (Mearsheimer 23). There are new territorial and ethnic issues that resulted from the Cold War. These issues have caused much destabilization in Europe and undermining efforts of creating new and stable security orders in Europe. Historically, after the end of the Cold War, most European states are unable to solve complex security problems by their own. After numerous enlargements, the Union of Europe currently has twenty seven members who have inevitably turned out to be international players. Additionally, despite the increment of EU and NATO membership, Cold War also brought political differences between Eastern and Western Europe (Phillips 54). On top of these

How the company combine to satisfy shareholders and the demands of Dissertation - 1

How the company combine to satisfy shareholders and the demands of society with no impact on the profitability - Dissertation Example Through these two elements, the reality of the global market, of virtual realities and faster access and exchange of information are realized (Brooke et al., 2004; Chandra, 2008; Soros, 2002; Suarez-Orozco & Qin-Hilliard, 2004), creating a vision of a better world across the globe. However, in 2007, the world has been hit by global economic crisis, which has led to serious difficulties in the lives of ordinary people (Roth 2009; Yandle 2010). The global financial meltdown has put into limelight the relationship and responsibility of businesses to the society as the economic crisis has been precipitated by excessive risk taking of businesses and masking its dangerous actions through, corporate philanthropic, activities (Bordo, 2008; Lin-Hi, 2010; Reinhart, 2008). The notion of economic institutions having social responsibilities has been widely discussed in the past two decades (Campbell, 2007). This coincides with the fact that also in the last two decades the influence and power of corporations have grown due to global presence of multinational corporations and trans- national corporations, which pave for more jobs and resources, higher standard of living and better social conditions (Uccello, 2009). Nonetheless, it should be noted, that the idea of economic institutions of being responsible not only in fulfilling their fiduciary responsibilities to the shareholders, but also satisfying the public interest and stakeholders demands have been proposed already as early as the 1930’s (Hemingway, 2002). As such, the concept of corporate social responsibility is not something new, but it has long been recognised that corporations have responsibilities towards, employees, shareholders, consumers, local communities, natural environment and other stakeholders (Hemingway & Maclagan, 2004; Zolsnai, 2006). However, due to the global financial crisis the urgency to look into the purpose and relationship of economic institutions (businesses) in the society becomes ne cessary. The global financial crisis has concretely shown that actions of corporations are not happening in a vacuum, but it has a direct effect not only to the shareholders but also to all stakeholders (Lin-Hi, 2010). In this regard, this research will look into how company combines satisfaction of both the shareholders and stakeholders and on how this can be measured. The research will be mainly dealing with corporate social responsibility; however, the research will attempt to provide alternative insights regarding CSR because the study will be conducted with the experience of the global financial meltdown as its beacon. The experience demands that CSR be re-understood with clearer parameters and measures that will assist people and stakeholders as attempts are made to further clarify the purpose and relationship of businesses in the society. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW In the literature review, current trends and discussions regarding corporate social responsibility (CSR) will be prese nted. The discussion will cover three sections. The first part will be dealing with the nature of CSR, while the second part will be touching on the apparent relationship among CSR, shareholder satisfaction and profitability. Finally, the third part will be about the means undertaken to determine the impact of CSR. To be able to embark on a discussion, the research has conducted a library research. The electronic databases Academic Source Complete, Business Source Complete, Jstor, Google Scholar, PsycheInfo and ERIC have been searched using a