Use Of Light Alloy Materials In Aircraft Construction Engineering Essay

Utilization Of Light Alloy Materials In Aircraft Construction Engineering Essay Q1. Assess and Analyze: The utilization of light compound materials in airplane development. Airplane development includes the utilization of different combinations including titanium amalgam, magnesium compound and aluminum composite. Titanium compounds are valuable in parts of airplane that should be of high opposition against heat. This compound is normally utilized in turbine motor edges, tail pipe housings, and motor firewalls. The compound is likewise favored more for development of fast airplanes. This amalgam has liquefying purpose of around 13000 C to 14500 C (Huang, 2004). This combination is valuable for airplanes that are worked for battling purposes. Cutting of combinations of titanium and magnesium brings about age of; starting at typical cases. These are difficult to chop down. In this manner, portions of airplane that need to chop down at any second later, don't utilize these two combinations. Magnesium composite is most appropriate for fortifying of sections the whole way across the airplanes, turbine motors for blower housings, cylinder motors wrench cases, and sections of motor mounting (Anyalebechi, 2005). This amalgam liquefies at a temperature going from 7000C to 8000 C and consumes at a temperature higher than this (Huang, 2004). Aluminum compounds then again are of very less dissolving point and are anything but difficult to be chopped down. Thusly, these are most appropriate for airplane parts that need not be excessively intense and can be chopped down as and when required. Amalgams of magnesium are ideally utilized in development of airplane because of their inclination of being light weight bringing about cost decrease on utilization of fuel and air contamination. The firmness and quality of magnesium amalgams is very lower at the temperature of around 1500 C (Greger et al., 2007; Kielbus et al., 2007; Dobrzanski et al., 2007). These qualities demonstration for the composite and raise its interest in the development work of airplanes. This combination is profoundly adequate because of its solid nature of material capacity driving it for the amalgam and expanded interest of this material to suit the necessities of the business. The utilization of composites in airplane development. Composite materials are broadly utilized in todays times for the development and improvement of current airplanes. Indeed, even these can be utilized to retrofit to airplanes that become old. The composites are created by utilizing MMMF (Also called as Man Made Mineral Fibers) to make it a tough and solid material for development motivation behind airplane. These materials are increasingly utilized for development of wheel cove entryways, motor cowlings, lodge floors, and control surface. Notwithstanding, these materials are bad for the individuals who situate around the airplane during destruction conditions. The material of airplane at specific cases require great proportion among quality and weight, for example the proportion must be sufficiently high (Anyalebechi, 2005). The nature to create fulfills this requirement for airplane development and advancement. Holding materials are utilized for advancement of these composite materials. Hence, these are most appropriate to get ready greater part of parts of an airplane. Due to this explanation, composite materials are in gigantic interest in present days for development motivation behind typical airplanes. The materials are additionally strong and in view of this nature of sturdiness, the pieces of airplane suit best for these. Be that as it may, there are circumstances when there is the need to cut the material while carrying on the development work. At such examples it gets essential to utilize these materials for parts that are sufficiently hard to protect the airplane against chance circumstances. With the adjustment in warm estimation of a composite happens, it produces warm weight on the body, which is because of the unsettling influence made. Composites are comprised of dainty sheets and filaments are expressed in lines inside the sheet subsequently for utilizing composite, these will be as layer (Olsen, 1986). For development work, airplanes closes that should be built by embellishment material, composites are appropriate. One can likewise control physical properties of the material by presenting a few directions in the middle of the layers of fiber (Olsen, 1986). Break down/Compare the decision of utilization made in a b above. For the development of an airplane, it gets critical to concentrate on the nature of material utilized. The material utilized will be of high quality as a matter of first importance. This is important to guarantee that the airplane is sufficient and can stand well. Be that as it may, there are chances that the airplane because of this factor turns out to be very substantial and thusly requires tremendous power to fly it because of serious extent of worry over its wings. The elasticity of gadgets will be sufficient in airplane. Notwithstanding, at present occasions the airplane development has moved towards the utilization of composites of high quality (Wireless News, 2005). At ordinary occurrences, graphite composites are utilized for development of airplane wings, which offers serious extent of solidarity. The thickness of these composites also is very high. Subsequently, the composite of this sort brings about a serious all around characterized estimation of solidarity to weight proportion. Figure 1: Change in coefficient of warm development because of progress in temperature. Source: Huang, 2004 From the above we can take note of how the expansion in temperature influences the estimation of coefficient of warm development for the composites of aluminum combinations. Higher the temperature of environmental factors, higher is the danger of liquefying of material utilized for development work. Consequently, it gets urgent to utilize materials dependent on the need, else there can be odds of mishaps for these gadgets. There are consistently dangers of fire and different mishaps in the earth for airplane industry. Compounds and composites are in any case, impractical to be utilized alone for the development of an airplane. Contingent upon the prerequisite, both of these will be utilized rather than simply relying upon both of the materials. Along these lines, before the development to occur, it will be clear enough as a main priority to know the necessity and essential needs of every one of the parts. For this situation, the circumstance gets good for airplane bringing about crea tion of a solid and safe airplane. It is noticed that composites of graphite beat the estimation of metal combinations of basic nature for developing any wing. The quality of graphite composite is higher when contrasted with that of steel as well. The solidness extend is very fluctuated up to the base estimation of AA6061-T6. Along these lines, the composite, on contrasting and aluminum, has high firmness. What's more, these composites can even be stiffer when contrasted with gentle steel. Composite materials are in this manner a favored decision in present occasions because of their serious extent of firmness and quality. These materials can be utilized in a serious huge number of parts of an airplane bringing about expanded interest for development work of an airplane, when contrasted with that of combinations (Anyalebechi, 2005). Contingent upon the necessity for development of any piece of the airplane, it gets significant to utilize the material that suits best to the need. A portion of the pieces of airplane request the utilization of solid material, though others needn't bother with high elasticity. Portions of airplane, for example, wings expect capacity to be protected against high temperature conditions, while different parts, for example, lodge and floor should be sufficiently strong to make a decent nature of airplane. Hence, composite materials, for example, graphite composite are very reasonable for development of wings while different parts can be made utilizing compounds of aluminum. Q2. Explore and Evaluate: Why the right distinguishing proof of airplane save parts is basic to the wellbeing of airplane. Airplane conveys many lives in danger in the sky. A minor error can bring about enormous misfortunes of life. In this way, it turns out to be very imperative to appropriately assess the wellbeing highlights of airplanes save parts. Fire is among the most hazardous danger against airplanes, regardless of whether they are for military, common or business reason. Fire while in flight is considered as fourth most elevated danger that emerges because of mishaps in fly airplanes (Boeing, 2005). This shows the danger of fire as very eminent ones. FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) had contended that if no appropriate measure is taken and the pace of event of mishaps in airplane occurring because of fire proceed at same rate, the expansion popular of air traffic would additionally build demise because of fire by 4% yearly (Federal Aviation Administration, 2006). On the off chance that no legitimate measures are taken, at that point the dangers are likely to build to an ever increasing extent. Polymer composites fortified by fiber are progressively utilized in todays situation and is a genuine purpose of concern, in light of the fact that these composites are increasingly hazardous against fire. These materials produce warmth and smoke, which cause genuine harm against animals. Along these lines, it gets essential to appropriately assess the hazard highlights against airplane and related fire risks. Airplane fabricating organizations take due consideration for development of airplanes with appropriate wellbeing principles. Airplane parts at both of its sides may seem to be comparative, however there are conceivable outcomes that they are somewhat unique then one another. This can bring about high danger of usefulness making it perilous for use. While building an airplane, it is imperative to take a gander at every single piece of airplane and embrace appropriate measures for pilot testing of completed airplane. Development Company for airplane will ensure that correct parts are utilized in development work. In spite of the fact that there are number of parts of airplane, ones that are more secure are favored ones. In this manner, the parts that are sturdy in nature will be the better decision for development. In the event that, dangers because of defects in airplane save parts are not distinguished at the opportune time, it might bring about colossal loss of lives. There is colossal affectability chance in this industry because of the explanation that a minor slip-up can be very perilous f

Federal financial aid in relation to rising tuition costs Essay

Government budgetary guide according to rising educational cost costs - Essay Example It never appears that legislative mediation is wanted in many organizations and likely schools and colleges are the same. The individuals who may contend against the incomplete cost repayment program may propose this is a type of value control (Hauptman, 1998) which would give administrative controllers impressive authority over college and school business. In any case, the proof doesn't propose that fractional repayment of educational cost costs is value control rather it is intended to diminish the weights on educational cost paying understudies, particularly those with lower-level levels of pay. Extra contentions identified with value control may recommend this would be a strategy to make a type of seriousness between rival colleges and schools, when customer livelihoods are down, to give a few colleges with a higher monetary portfolio an edge over less-wealthy or money rich colleges. From a microeconomic point of view, the exercises of the school or college identified with repayment projects may guarantee a higher volume of intrigued understudies than those colleges which don't give halfway cost repayments. This would not be an incentive to the understudy on the off chance that they were denied incomplete repayments to help with everyday needs, for example, garments and in-house suppers. Fractional cost repayment would likewise furnish understudies with the essential instruments to succeed. Morris and Maisto (2005) offer a one of a kind hypothesis of human needs proposed by therapist Abraham Maslow in which the necessities of understudies begin at the most essential, for example, food and water (physiological) and progress through a progression of stages until they arrive at self-realization, or the apex of their human limit. Under this model, it is hypothesized that no individual can advance through self-improvement until essential thing needs are met. The halfway cost repayment program, as displayed by Maslow’s hypothesis, would give understudies a wide assortment of physiological

An Analysis of Fanons The Wretched of the Earth Essays

An Analysis of Fanons The Wretched of the Earth Essays An Analysis of Fanons The Wretched of the Earth Paper An Analysis of Fanons The Wretched of the Earth Paper Brutality influences an individual in a physical manner, yet in addition on a passionate level also. In Fanons The Wretched of the World On Violence, the paper presents the reasons and outcomes of the existences of brutality. Fanon states that decolonization flourishes of the pith of viciousness. The pioneer would not arrive at their objective for the colonized in the event that it was not for the demonstration of brutality. He experiences the components that expel distinction from the individual, for example, the congregation and the procedure of decolonization. This represses the locals essential ethics and tosses him/her into a mess. Fanon displays the connection between the settler and the colonized. He supplies one with all the profound feelings of both the homesteader and the colonized. The pressure between the two restricting hero is manufactured through his composition. (Fanon, 3) Finally, he uncovers the thought processes behind the brutality of both the pilgrim and the colonized. This savagery originates from two polar thoughts that can't make due with the other despite everything remaining. In Fanons composing, one truly becomes acquainted with about the points of view of a misused species (Fanon, 1). Fanon depicts these variables in such detail that it legitimizes the utilization of viciousness among the colonized. In Fanons The Wretched of the Earth On Violence, the article portrays how the settler attempts to constrain their real factors on the local, and keeping in mind that doing that strips the local of his/her character. This demonstration of decolonization evacuates the enthusiastic ties that the locals have to their past culture and their country. This frontier power causes strain between the homesteader and the colonized. Fanon indentifies the congregation as a significant factor of decolonization. Fanon thinks about the congregation to the pesticide DDT; he expresses that the congregation takes out any restricting conviction that the locals may have. This annihilates the essential ethics that make up a people personality. After Fanons examination of the congregation and DDT, he expresses that the congregation doesn't call the colonized to the methods of God, however to the methods of the white man, to the methods of the ace, to the methods of the oppressor. (7) This gives us how the pioneer was attempting to absorb the locals to their lifestyle. In the wake of removing the locals personality and stripping him of his pride, the locals are left unsteady with an undesirable measure of dissipated indignation. This displeasure is created due to the connection between the pilgrim and the colonized. Fanon explains on the connection between the colonized and the settler all through the exposition. One has to know the setting in every one of these individual gatherings, before one can completely comprehend the connection between the two. We will initially begin by revealing the universe of the homesteader. Fanon analyzes the life of a pilgrim to a structure; it demonstrates the settler thoughts to be concrete and has a feeling of request. One can truly process this idea through the homesteader area depicted as being ensured by strong in a division where the avenues are perfect and smooth. Fanon presents the bigot convictions that the homesteader world had. Fanon states You are rich since you are white; you are white since you are rich. (5) This announcement shows that it was a class issue, however there was a race issue also. The homesteader division stands out from the local segment which as Fanon portrays as a position of turmoil. The locals in this part are conceived anyplace, at any rate. You pass on anyplace, from anything. (Fanon, 4) This demonstrates the locals world to be sloppy and confined, a spot where nobody has a face. At the point when one has nothing and the craving for everything, the inclination on begrudge originates from a person. (Fanon, 5) This bothers the pilgrim since he/her are continually mindful of the colonized needing to have their spot. (Fanon, 5, 23) The colonized thought processes are basically put when Fanon states What they request isn't the status of homesteader, however his place. (23) This announcement shows the huge measure of strain that is between the pilgrim and the colonized. This presents the shamefulness and abuse that the outsider (pilgrim) forces on the first locals of the land. 5) This is where the pilgrim world is a scheduled, slow segment, its tummy is for all time loaded with beneficial things and the colonized world is a starving division hungry for bread, meat, shoes, coal, and light. The colonizeds division is a part that squats and cringes, a segment on its knees, an area that is prostrate. (Fanon, 4, 5) The picture Fanon paints for us, utilizing a ground-bre aking utilization of jargon, is amazingly distinctive. One can nearly feel the hatred that the colonized had towards the settler, sort of a brief look in to the unjustifiable and inconsistent universe of the colonized. One may likewise perceive how viciousness could be utilized as a yield for this wellspring of outrage. The colonized were not vicious before the pioneer. It was the homesteader who educated the colonized the utilization of viciousness. Viciousness is the fundamental motivation behind why the homesteader had the option to decolonize the colonized country. Homesteaders are individuals who are brought into the world with the information on their confined world, loaded with restrictions, which must be tested by without a doubt viciousness. (Fanon, 3) The homesteader oversaw the colonized world using brutality. Fanon depicts the pioneer driving their thoughts on them utilizing the instrument of dread. He expresses that in the industrialist economy there are councilors, sermonizers, and disarray mongers to ensure the misused dont misbehave yet in pioneer areas direct mediation by the police and the military guarantee the colonized are held under investigation and contained by rifle handles and napalm. (Fanon, 4) This is the means by which the colonized were shown the utilization of viciousness. The colonized, as expressed previously, have numerous variables that cause him/her to have a huge measure of disdain and outrage inside. This utilization of brutality is a yield for this displeasure and disdain, as are different things. This procedure cleanses these feelings, with the goal that an individual can feel steadiness once more. Tragically, the colonized don't simply utilize savagery to act against the pilgrim however they additionally use brutality against one another. This is appeared through local innate wars and battles. The utilization of savagery is a way that the colonized use to battle against what the pioneer has done to them and to free of the detonating feelings of outrage and disdain. The colonized had an extremely ground-breaking purpose behind the utilization of savagery, an explanation loaded with scorn. This is justifiable thinking about what the settler put the colonized through regularly. It is human sense to retaliate against what you believe is uncalled for and treacherous. It is sensible to follow up on your annoyance and change it into savagery, particularly if that is the sum total of what you have been instructed. Fanon presents a psyche - opening clarification of the colonized activities and sentiments. He manufactures an article that depicts viciousness as a physical power as well as a passionate power also.

Management Theory and Strategic Management Practices

Question: Examine about the Management Theory and Strategic Management Practices. Answer: Presentation The substance of the paper assesses execution of firms inside an industry through assessment of different advertising techniques. Woolworth is one of the associations which has been in the news for more than two years now because of the solid rivalry from different firms like Cole. Woolworth is a general store which stores different items and significantly manage food supplies. Woolworth has been in the news because of different advertising methodologies applied by the firm so as to keep up its endurance at the highest point of the business (Ghoshal, 2015). The firm applies significantly worth and evaluating methodology to control the general store industry. The point of this paper along these lines applies basic assessment on the advertising procedure utilized by Woolworth market. Promoting methodologies can be affected by different hypothetical ideas, for example, industry appeal, assets and upper hands. The substance of this paper accordingly apply and fundamentally assess how every one of the referenced hypothetical ideas impacts key administration rehearses in Woolworth as an association (Keith, 2015). The paper likewise looks profoundly into the different assets of Woolworth association which makes the association to have command over different firms inside the business. It further gives different suggestions that would upgrade vital administration in Woolworth grocery store inside the end. Industry engaging quality There are different variables which draws in a business person to go into a given industry. Industry engaging quality is in this way different factors inside the general store industry that has made different financial specialists to wander into retail business, for example, Woolworth (Parker et.al 2015). The idea of an industry may lead into arrangement of explicit advertising systems to guarantee the endurance of the firm inside an industry. Woolworth as a business association inside an alluring industry focuses on explicit variables present in the business for their development, endurance and gainfulness (Keith, 2015). Levels of rivalries The pace of rivalry inside the general store industry has come about into Woolworth market being in the news for quite a while. The business has broad market as it serves each person inside the nation and different pieces of the world also. Because of hardened rivalry from different firms, Woolworth in the ongoing past created value system model where they beat their contentions misusing their upper hands where they utilize low costs and client inclinations to control the business (Knights, Willmott, 2016). Woolworth utilize both imaginative, worth and evaluating to drive off firms joining the business making them battle to increase solid a dependable balance. Passage boundaries Venturing into retail location business has no significant hindrances contrasted with different divisions. There are no hardened guidelines set by the administrative bodies which permit numerous business visionaries to see openings in retail business area. So as to contain the clients, advertise control and productivity, Woolworth applies different methodologies to contain rivalry from different new pursuits. The firm utilize different techniques, for example, value control instrument as a serious methodology to control different firms joining the business. Asset based view Repair and new stores Woolworths capacity to make different stores according to the populace development. The organization contrasted with different firms can revamp in excess of eighty store yearly to keep up the not so distant. Contrasted with other 23 stores inside the business the FY14 and the other 61 stores accessible inside the FY15, the Woolworth stores are renovated agreeing the client wants and nearby client inclinations (Knights Willmott, 2016). Woolworth is additionally ready to create between 20 to 30 stores yearly which is a preferred position since the vast majority of the contention firms are not capable create. Woolworth is in this way ready to serve a broad market contrasted with other contention firms. Online framework The association has grown new arrangement of selling items on the web. Woolworth appreciates the nearness of around 250 snap and gather stores in different areas. Internet valuing is advantageous to the clients the same number of can get what they need. Through web based evaluating, the association can upgrade interests in different multi-channel client encounters (Phillipov, 2016). Labor and execution Experienced labor is another preferred position that Woolworth appreciate over other contention firms. The organization have the best advertising specialist who can plan different methodologies to control the business (Keith, 2015). The association has different characters who can make diverse promoting models empowering the Woolworth to beat different firms inside the business. Woolworth over the ongoing past have been controlling the business sectors because of the skillful executives who are fit for creating different fitting advertising techniques to beat different firms in a similar industry, for example, Cole store. Upper hand Multi year methodology Woolworth as a business association has been at the highest point of other retail association dependent on different favorable circumstances inside and without the association. In the ongoing past Woolworth showcasing group grew new promoting technique which has demonstrated them enhance their business (Knights Willmott, 2016). The organization under the administration of the new chief has sketched out multi year methodology which is one of their upper hand over different firms. The administration of the association chose to apply showcasing methodologies which are client arranged. Value control Woolworth as an association has been utilizing their strength in the market to control different firms. The administration of over the ongoing built up a technique of reasonable valuing to control different firms like Cole from assuming control over the market. The application and worth methodology by Woolworth is an upper hand over different firms which must charge reasonable costs so as to keep up creation and gracefully (Keith, 2015). Woolworth as association applies worth and bringing of different items down to keep up clients faithfulness keeping them from moving to different firms like Cole. At the point when an organizations is steady and ready to bring down their costs, the client reliability is kept up empowering them to sell a greater amount of the items. Provider power Woolworth over the past controls the provider power which is a significant upper hand guaranteeing its development and productivity (Knights Willmott, 2016). The firm uses different assets have control of significant providers who are predominantly horticultural makers. Woolworth applies evaluating and esteem component to keep up the provider dedication. The organization offer better costs for different homestead items along these lines ready to hold the provider power. End The principle target of the paper as indicated by the above investigation was to fundamentally survey the degree to which hypothetical just as different writing on the linkage between the kind of system utilized by a firm, assets of the firm, center skills and the upper hand. The paper was likewise planned for giving different proposals to the firm to guarantee its endurance and productivity (Ghoshal, 2015). It is hence obvious from the above conversation that center capabilities, advertise advantage, industry engaging quality and assets decides the decision of system utilized by a firm. It in this manner suggested that the firm ought to commit different assets together with the center abilities to secure an upper hand. From the above assessment, a firm like Woolworth should utilize assets to make wellsprings of reasonable and feasible upper hands (Ghoshal, 2015). At last, Woolworth supervisory crew should concoct different instruments of gaining a few assets from different firms so as to create supportable wellsprings of upper hand. References Ghoshal, S. (2015). Terrible administration hypotheses are devastating acceptable administration rehearses. Foundation of Management learning training, 4(1), 75-91. Keith, S. (2015). Coles, Woolworths and the nearby. Region: The Australasian-Pacific Journal of Regional Food Studies, 2, 47-81. Knights, D., Willmott, H. (Eds.). (2016). Work process hypothesis. Springer. Parker, C., Carey, R., De Costa, J., Scrinis, G. (2015). The Hidden Hand of the Market: Who Regulates Animal Welfare Under a Labeling for Consumer Choice Approach?. Phillipov, M. (2016). Helping Australia Grow: stores, TV cooking appears, and the key assembling of shopper trust. Horticulture and Human Values, 33(3), 587-596.

BBB Sees Rise in Scholarship Scams - OppLoans

BBB Sees Rise in Scholarship Scams - OppLoans BBB Sees Rise in Scholarship Scams BBB Sees Rise in Scholarship ScamsInside Subprime: April 3, 2019By Lindsay FrankelThe cost of attending college is increasing much faster than wages and available aid, according to insights from College Board. And while prospective students who are desperate to finance their college tuition will find plenty of legitimate scholarship opportunities to apply to, they will also encounter scam artists hoping to make money from an upfront application fee that doesn’t lead to a scholarship, or from stealing prospective students’ private information.According to a Federal Trade Commission report released in February, there was a slight dip in the number of consumer reports regarding scholarship and educational grant issues in 2018 when compared to previous years. The FTC received 972 consumer reports in 2016 and only 725 reports of scholarship problems in 2018. These figures don’t reflect the actual number of scams that occurred, but instead only reveal how often they were reported.New data from the Better Business Bureau reveals that the problem may be getting worse this year.BBB Scam Tracker doesnt get very many reports of scholarship scams â€" a few dozen a year â€" but weve seen a big jump recently, Katherine Hutt, spokeswoman for the Council of Better Business Bureaus Inc., wrote in an email. So far in 2019, weve received 24 reports, which is more than we got in all of 2018 (21).Experts say that even though scholarship scams are not as commonly reported as other types of fraud, such as student loan repayment scams, students searching for opportunities may have to sift through suspicious offers on websites, in emails, and in Facebook ads.Scholarships play an important role in financing a student’s education, and families used scholarships and grants to cover 28 percent of their children’s college costs in 2017-2018, according to a report released by Sallie Mae.High school students are particularly vulnerable to scams because of a combination of a lack of experience and desperation. About 24 percent of students who reported a scam to the BBB Scam Tracker experienced a financial loss from exposure to a scholarship scam. Fortunately, there are some red flags to watch out for.The biggest red flag is getting selected for a scholarship you never applied for. Often these offers ask for a processing fee or require you to pre-pay taxes before getting the award. Of course, once you pay the money, the scholarship disappears, Hutt wrote in an email. Another variation is a fake check scam, where you deposit what looks like a real check and then are asked to send part of the money back to cover fees. When the check later bounces, you are out the money.Some scammers will hold financial seminars to attract victims, sometimes charging a fee for the information they provide, even though the information is available free elsewhere. Families should be especially cautious of guarantees for student aid, according to the U.S. Department of Education. And the Office of the Inspector General cautions consumers against paying advance fees to be connected with scholarship opportunities.To avoid falling victim to a scholarship scam, you should never provide your social security number, bank account information, or an upfront fee to apply for a scholarship. Before applying, you should also research the organization providing the scholarship. Identifying past recipients of a scholarship is one way to establish legitimacy. Experts also recommend keeping a record of all written correspondence. If the company refuses to respond in writing, it may be a sign of fraud.For legitimate assistance securing financial aid, students should speak with their high school guidance counselors about opportunities and submit the Free Application for Federal Student Aid. You can also apply for scholarships through most colleges, either with your admissions application or by submitting separate forms.For more information on scams, predatory lenders and  payday  loans, see our  city and state financial guides  including states and cities like California, the District of Columbia, Florida,  Illinois, Texas and more.Visit  OppLoans  on  YouTube  |  Facebook  |  Twitter  |  LinkedIn

The modern yoga body image - Free Essay Example

Shifting throughout history, the ideal yoga body has changed over time and place but in modern western society, it has looked the same—young, white, thin, females. Trends in the model yoga body size have shifted with culturally dominant body ideals over time. These shifting trends pose a few questions: 1.) has modern yoga become a practice for white, elitist, fit, females? and 2.) has modern yoga neglected majority of the population by branding itself as elitist? and 3.) have modern yoga advertisements featuring such models left a negative impact on those who do not represent the ideal yoga body? and 4.) how does the intensity and self-investment for the ideal yoga body compare to that of any religion? These questions I plan to address throughout this paper by examining multiple scholarly sources, as well as, conducting my own research on how the ideal yoga body is represented today in advertisements. I also plan to address if any yoga brands have taken initiative to include a more diverse representation of the modern yoga body. Back in 2013, lululemon, a high-end yoga apparel brand was finally criticized for only stocking sizes eight and under. The exiling of larger clothing by lululemon is a central piece of the company’s strategy to market its brand as the look of choice for the stylishly fitness-conscious† (Bhasin, 2013). This discriminatory treatment of larger clothes and customers left a sour taste in the eyes of the media, but has that really changed? Indeed it has not, with slowing growth and staying away from the $14 billion-dollar plus-size industry, lululemon has no interest in attracting plus-size shoppers in order to protect its brand image. In fact, when cross referencing multiple sites for their sizing charts, all of them are similar, expect for lululemon’s. lululemon’s sizing chart does not go above a size 14, which they deem as an XXL. When cross referencing multiple women’s sizing charts, a size 14 was a L. Clearly, they have no motivation to change their s mall size perception as the ideal yoga body. However, when also looking at the models on lululemon’s site, 12/13 of models featured on the front page, are not in fact, white. The models are diverse in backgrounds and ethnicities. One thing they share in common though, is their tall body and small frame. Although lululemon itself may not be deemed as â€Å"white elitist† in terms of their advertisements, in the eyes of many yoga teachers and consumers, it is still elitist. Paying an average of $98 dollars per pair of yoga pants that do not seem to be keep in mind the comfort yoga teachers are looking for when practicing is something many teachers see as being elitist. The only people wearing those pants are the stereotypical â€Å"lululemon moms and daughters.† Also known as, white women wearing expensive fitness apparel (Boccio, 2012). As lululemon’s online advertisements may be more diverse with the intention of being inclusive, their customer base is not. This leaves the majority of women, especial ly in the US to feel left out, as their body sizes and wallets do not match the ideal yoga body that lululemon and many other major yoga advertisers have created. â€Å"Got yoga?† was a study conducted on advertisements seen in Yoga Journal spanning over a four decade period of time. The results suggested that Yoga Journal now contains significantly more advertisements for food, nutritional supplements, and apparel and fewer advertisements for meditation and nutritional practices than in its early years of publication. Apparel took a 2500% increase between the years of 1975-2015, which increased its need for models. The study also found that overtime, models were more frequently rated as white and in their 20s and 30s. Across all four decades, 53.4% of models were rated as white, 57.1% were rated in their 20s and 30s, and 52.2% of the models were rated as underweight or low-normal weight. A range of BMIs (between 16-28) was used to rate the body size of these models and over a four decade period, only one model was found to have a BMI over 25, most models averaging a BMI of 18.5. This study suggests a shift away from yoga’s tradi tional philosophies to an increasingly objectifying and commercialized yoga culture emphasizing the purchase and use of products and an ideal â€Å"yoga body.† Most notably, I want to address that between 1985-1994, models in all yoga advertisements were significantly thinner and majority being white, than models featured in past and later decades. This specific period in time suggests the association between the consolidation of affluent white women and yoga shifting from counterculture to pop culture. As yoga has become increasingly popular among these western consumers, they have been the center focus of yoga advertising within the industry. As yoga’s ideal practitioner has shifted over history, it has become known in the US as the affluent white female. However, years prior, the ideal yoga body was represented by Indian men who sculpted their bodies to look like Scandinavian men through the use and practice of yoga. With the help of Iyer, Indian men were starting to body sculpt and bodybuild through the use of yoga. They were the face of yoga and they were the ones assisting in the formation of postural yoga. Soon thereafter, a shift from male models to female models began as more women became involved in physical activity in the 1930s. Through harmonial gymnastics in Britain, many women were adopting the trend of building the body beautifully. â€Å"The gender division established at the dawn of modern physical culture between regimens aiming at (masculine) strength and vigor on the one hand and those that sought to cultivate (feminine) grace and ease of movement on the other persists throughout the twentieth c entury and into the twenty first† (Singleton, 159). The transformation of ideal yoga bodies started early and has continually shifted throughout decades. As yoga was introduced in the US and consumers became more intrigued by yoga and less afraid of it, that Indian male model has morphed its way into a young, white, female. This shift can be attributed to the introduction of yoga to women in Britain, as well as, yoga becoming popular culture rather than counter culture. The philosophies and mental practices have faded, while the physical aspects (asana) have received most attention from the affluent white contingency. As the workout craze of the 1980s hit, affluent white women have helped shift the pre-existing model into what it is today. Yoga is said to be all-inclusive, and beyond all man-made ‘isms’, yet, many people feel that yoga has a racism problem. Noted from the International Journal of Yoga Therapy, about one in every fifteen Americans practices yoga, yet more than four-fifths of them are white. As outlined above, the ideal yoga body has shifted throughout history. It is likely that it will shift again, but for now, it is still predominantly the affluent white female. This has left majority of the population feeling left out. This may have to do with the fact that most, if not all yoga studios are concentrated in wealthy white neighborhoods. This leaves postural yoga under the criticism that there are also religious, economic, and social divisions that underlie yoga’s racial divide. A 2011 CDC report, â€Å"Health Disparities and Inequalities,† found that people who live in households with incomes below $15,000 experience significantly more health problems due to inactivity, and are more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes or asthma and to be obese than those from households with incomes above $50,000. There are often fewer parks, gyms, and recreational facilities in poorer neighborhoods, which reduces the likelihood that people in these communities will exercise at all. Comprehensive current data is difficult to find but a 2002 survey of just over 31,000 yoga practitioners published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine found that they tend to be female, college-educated, and white. Forty-eight percent of respondents made $65,000 a year or more. Advertisements of postural yoga, have not helped to mediate these issues. Nearly every spread within LA Yoga, Yoga Journal, and Yoga Magazine features a thin woman, usually in slim yoga pants and a tight t ank, stretching her arms toward the sky or closing her eyes in meditation. Again, nearly all of these women are white. Due to the shift throughout time, yoga’s focus is now based mainly on physical wellness rather than it’s philosophies. This leaves room for racial and socioeconomic inequalities. Yoga is advertised under health and wellness, an industry that is largely accessible to affluent white people and neglecting many others. When searching for the price of a yoga class, I found many results, therefore I took the average of those prices and found that the average price for a single yoga class is around $20. With postural yoga classes priced so highly, with the advertisements neglecting majority of Americans, and with the ideal yoga body being an almost unattainable image, yoga leaves a large divide in today’s society. Good branding and advertising is inclusive. It is important that audiences can experience reassurance and comfort that comes with seeing themselves reflected in the media they consume. The entire yoga advertising industry, has neglected to do that. Yoga, being under the wellness industry, should be accessible to everyone. Not only has yoga neglected many consumers who are not white, but it has also neglected many women who are not skinny. Another research article called, â€Å"Is the â€Å"Yoga Bod† the New Skinny?† examines a set of 142 yoga magazine publications from 2010-2015. Results show that models were mainly white females, who are lean and fit, portraying the media fitness aesthetic. Implications of this show that to practice yoga, women must be thin. Not only are yoga advertisements leaving out other races, they are leaving out a large majority of their core target market, white women. The average American woman is around 5’3 and wears around a size 16-1 8 (Zarracina, 2018). All models are a minimum of 5’7 and a maximum size 2-4. It is estimated that 68% of American women wear a size 14 or above (Plunkett, 2018). This statistic, does not take into account the percentage of women between sizes 6-12 which are sizes also not represented in yoga advertisements. When consumers cannot see themselves in a brand, they will not partake in the brand’s practices, in this case, yoga. For those that do see themselves within brand advertising, those brands can be like a religion to them. One instance of a religious-like brand is goop, a brand closely studied by Dana Logan in her article called, â€Å"The Lean Closet.† goop is a minimalist brand that follows the â€Å"religious now,† an imperative that combines contemporary capitalism and spirituality. â€Å"It is an overlap between religious practice and economic habit. As a brand it participates in the institutional history of the Christian church as a form of ascetic piety† (Logan, pg 602). goop distinguishes itself from other lifestyle brands through its distinctive take on elimination as lifestyle. For instance, detox is a form of consumption found in goop that requires purchase at almost every point through juices, saunas, retreats, etc. Even though it is supposed to be a minimalist brand, it still requires multiple purchases. â€Å"It blends the practices of religious asceticism and cons umption through the highly mediated form of post industrial capitalism, where capital accumulates without proximate relations of making, selling, and buying objects† (Logam, pg 603). Thus relating directly to the branding and advertising of yoga. As goop is a minimalist brand that has a background in the Christian church, lululemon and yoga journal have backgrounds in multiple religions associated with yoga. Both goop and lululemon overlap between religious practices and economic habits creating forms of consumption that consumers did not know they needed but now want or aspire to. Like goop, many yoga brands have an aspirational goal that many want to achieve by buying and living the brand’s lifestyle. For many yoga brands, that aspirational goal may not be enlightenment but rather, the ideal yoga body. When researching in the Journal of Consumer Culture, I found that highly successful forms of branded fitness such as bikram yoga, give insight into the enormous power and permeation of branded sensibilities into everyday life. In this case, going so far as to inform how consumers relate to, and attempt to modify, their own bodies. â€Å"Branded fitness is to be quite literally embodied: experienced within the devotee as well as on display, sometimes in highly promotional ways, to those with whom the devotee interacts† (Powers, pg 528). The article â€Å"Branded Fitness and Promotional Culture† explains how capitalism and the state have exercised biopower to discipline the body into a productive asset and most notably, how a fit body may pro duce physical capital for the person who possesses it, reflecting a sense of diligence, self-care, and self-worth. This sense of intense diligence, self-care, and self-worth associated with a fit body, I argue are the aspirational goals similar to that of an actual religion. The costs associated with the ideal yoga body for certain brands like lululemon or non-yoga brands like goop, are very high. Again, take into consideration that one pair of lululemon leggings cost an average of $98 and to reach the ideal, yoga models must have multiple pairs of those leggings, and dressed head to mat in lululemon. Attaining the end goal of the ultimate yoga body is no easy feat and requires a lot of money, time, self-investment and brand investment, similar to a religious institution. Religious institutions require their practitioners to invest much of their time, money and self into the institute before attaining the end goal. Yoga brands have become forms of religion in this post industrial capitalist society that require their brand ambassadors/practitioners/consumers to partake in the brand at almost all times, not just through fitness initiatives. Unfortunately, these brands are leaving many consumers behind who cannot afford to partake in the religious-like intensities of the brand. Throughout my research, I have attempted to find yoga brands that are more inclusive in race, body type, age, and gender. As lululemon advertisements are diverse in race, they are not diverse in body type. Good American, a clothing brand by Khloe Kardashian, shows models diverse in race and body type but all women shown are young and there are no males on the site at all. Also, Good American fitness apparel does not appeal to everyone as the average price of leggings on the site are around $129. Again, although the advertisements may look diverse and indicate inclusivity, the price reflects the elitist brand culture. Searching through multiple sites and brands like Yogaoutlet, Manduka, Athleta, Fabletics, I found that the models on these sites are barely diverse in race, age, body-type, and gender leading me to believe that yoga has become branded as a young, white, fit, female, elitist culture that neglects majority of American consumers. This is also reflected in the pricing of the clothes on each site. Sadly, brands have yet to take a stand and promote inclusivity but some non-profits have taken a stand by insisting that yoga practice is for everyone, not just for people who can afford the class and a mat. In response to the non-inclusive brands, organizations like Street Yoga and Yoga 4 Change are aiming to bring yoga to populations that cannot afford it. Yoga 4 Change trains teachers to bring yoga into places where people do not usually have access to it, including schools, veterans’ facilities, public housing, and substance-abuse treatment centers. â€Å"When we come in, this is the first time that 90 percent of our students have experienced yoga† Kathryn Thomas (founder of Yoga 4 Change). By bringing yoga into places where yoga is not found, it increases the inclusivity that yoga was once about. Hopefully, brands will start pairing up with these non-profits to increase the overall number of yoga practitioners. Throughout my research I have found that the ideal yoga body has shifted throughout history but for the past 30+ years, it has stayed relatively the sameyoung, affluent, white females who portray the perfectly sculpted yoga body. Brands have neglected majority of Americans by only catering to the target audience of affluent, white women. They have left women and men alike to feel left out by not giving them the ability to attain the perfect yoga body due to high prices and elitist culture. Yoga advertisements have shown a clear pattern in their model choices by only showing models who are under a size four and who are mainly white. For those who have taken on the ideal yoga body, I argued that these people have a certain brand that they have adopted as their religion. To attain the ideal yoga body, these people have invested a multitude of time, money, and their physical and mental selves, much like that of any religious institution. As the yoga body continues to shift throughout his tory, my hope is that brands take the initiative to become more inclusive, at the very least in their advertising by showing a variety of races, genders, ages, and body types so consumers can see themselves within the ads and not feel so neglected. Yoga was intended to be inclusive, brands should be too.

Mutual Fund Voting And Pension Ties Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 21 Words: 6206 Downloads: 7 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? Because mutual funds are the largest equity holders and because the retirement assets that are managed by mutual funds have been growing, mutual fund managers may have more incentives to support management in order to attract and retain pension business. I explore whether pension business ties have an impact on voting behaviors of mutual funds by examining the link pension business ties between mutual funds and the firms to actual mutual fund voting outcomes. At the fund family level, I find a positive relation between pension ties and mutual funds voting support for management. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Mutual Fund Voting And Pension Ties Finance Essay" essay for you Create order This relation becomes stronger when there is a voting divergence among funds within the same families. At the individual fund level, I find that individual funds are more likely to vote with management if they are included as one of the investment options of the pension plan of their portfolio firms. This suggests that the SEC should at least consider the recent petition from the AFL-CIO proposing that the SEC require mutual funds to disclose business ties with the firms in which they invest. Keywords: Mutual funds, Pension ties, Proxy voting * I thank Larry Dann and Diane Del Guercio for helpful comments and suggestions. All errors are mine. INTRODUCTION As institutional ownership has increased over the last few decades, there has been much academic interest in whether institutional investors take an active role in corporate governance. It is important to note, however, that due to potential conflicts of interest, all institutions do not necessarily have the same incentives to monitor management. In particular, mutual funds, the largest equity holders in the United States, were previously considered to be free of conflicts of interest because they did not do business with portfolio firms.  [1] According to the Investment Company Institute, as of the end of 2011, 61.2 percent of 401(K) plan assets and 45.1 percent of Individual Retirement Account (IRA) market assets were invested in mutual funds.  [2]  Since one half of the IRA market assets and 401(K) plan assets have been held by mutual funds since the late 1990s, there is a potential for conflicts of interest in mutual funds, and thereby fund managers have less incentive to exert an effort to monitor management and more incentive to support management in order to attract and retain the assets from the retirement market. Several studies document that mutual fund managers pursue their own interests at the expense of fund investors. For example, Cohen and Schmidt (2008) find that fund families acting as trustees systematically overweight their sponsor firms and even increase their holdings of the sponsor firms stock when other mutual funds are engaged in aggregate selling of sponsor firms shares. Other than through trading, mutual funds can support the management of the invested firms through voting for management proposals. Since proxy voting is the primary forum through which shareholders participate in the governance of corporations, examining mutual funds voting outcomes is one way to investigate the existence of mutual funds conflicts of interest. Davis and Kim (2007), Ashraf, Jayaraman, and Ryan (2010), and Pengfei Ye (2008) provide evidence tha t mutual funds are more likely to vote for management regardless of the best interest of the investors due to the existence of conflicts of interest. In this paper, I explore whether the pension business ties between mutual funds and their portfolio firms have an impact on mutual fund voting behavior. Through mapping mutual funds pension business ties to their portfolio firms onto mutual funds actual voting outcomes, I examine 61,336 voting decisions made by 3,130 mutual funds from 101 fund families for 172 management sponsored proposals and 129 shareholder sponsored proposals voted on at 257 firms over the sample period from June 2003 to December 2005. Using a probit model, I document a positive association between mutual fund voting and pension business ties. Analysis at the fund family level shows that fund families are more likely to vote for the ISS unfavorable management proposals and to vote against the ISS favorable shareholder proposals. The influence of pension ties to mutual fund voting becomes four times stronger when there is voting divergence among funds within the same families. However, there is no evidence that voting support of mutual funds is higher for the proposals voted at their clients firms compared to non-client firms. At the individual fund level, a fund included as one of the investment options of the pension plans of a firm in which it invests is more likely to vote against the ISS favorable shareholder proposals. The results of this study extend the findings of Ashraf et al. (2010) but are different in four aspects. First, to the extent that the marginal effect of the influence of business ties on mutual fund voting support for management is greater for close votes, the sample only includes votes in which the level of the voting support of the proposal is between 40% and 60%. Second, given the evidence of the impact of the Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) advice on mutual fund voting support, I segregate the sample in to the proposals recommended by the ISS and the proposals not recommended by ISS. Third, as I observe non-trivial divergence in fund votes within the same families for both management proposals and shareholder proposals, I look into whether the association between business ties and fund voting is stronger with the existence of divergence. Furthermore, the finding of divergence among fund votes drives me to analyze the data at the fund level. Given the fact that the size of mutual funds has significantly grown and is expected to grow more in the future, the findings of this paper suggest that the policy makers should consider new rules in order to mitigate the concerns from conflicts of interest. For example, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) should seriously review the recent petition from the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) proposing that the SEC require mutual funds to disclose pension business ties with the firms in wh ich they invest. The paper is organized as follows: the next section reviews background; section III describes the sample data; section IV shows the empirical results; section V concludes the paper. II. BACKGROUND Conflicts of interest of mutual funds induced by pension plan business While institutional investors have grown in size and number over the last few decades, whether they play an appropriate monitoring role in corporate governance is still being debated. One possible method to reveal whether institutions exert effort in the monitoring of corporate governance is by examining proxy voting, because proxy voting is one of the primary mechanisms through which shareholders participate in corporate governance. Through management sponsored proposals, corporate management seeks approval of new and existing policies from shareholders. Likewise, through shareholder sponsored proposals, shareholders advocate changes in corporate policies. Brickley, et al. (1988) examine how large shareholders vote on management sponsored proposals for antitakeover amendment provisions during the 1984 proxy season, and they find that institutional investors are more likely to cast their votes against these p roposals. While institutional investors might have greater incentives to participate in monitoring management than do small shareholders, the incentives of all institutional investors are not necessarily the same, and there may be conflicts of interest. With respect to proxy voting, all institutional investors will not necessarily vote against management, even if they believe it will maximize share value. Some institutional investors may choose to vote for management strategically in order to facilitate business ties with companies they own. According to Pozen (2011), among institutional investors, mutual funds are the largest equity holders in the United States. Mutual funds have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of the fund owners. By sponsoring or supporting value-enhancing shareholder proposals and preventing value-destroying management proposals, mutual funds can influence corporate governance to maximize firm value in order to benefit shareholders. How ever, there is some evidence that mutual funds do not perform their fiduciary duties due to conflicts of interest. Mutual funds are able to benefit from pension fund business such as managing the 401(K) plans of their portfolio companies, providing the financial incentive for mutual funds to support management regardless of the best interests of fund owners. Cohen and Schmidt (2008) explain why being the trustee of a large 401(K) plan is attractive for mutual fund families: (1) the trustee fund family guarantees a large initial inflow invested in family funds, (2) the family receives additional inflows in retirement assets from employee savings each year, and (3) trustees of 401(K) plans rarely change. The empirical evidence that conflicts of interest for mutual funds have effects on proxy voting is as follows. Davis and Kim (2007) analyze conflicts of interest in proxy voting by mutual funds using aggregate voting outcomes and find that fund families with pension business ties a re more likely to vote with management compared to fund families without pension business ties. Moreover, by using records of actual mutual fund voting patterns on shareholder proposals, the authors compare mutual fund voting outcomes at firms in which the funds manage pension plans with their votes to firms that do not manage. The authors argue that funds are no more likely to vote with management at client firms than at non-client firms. However, their data is based on the 2003 proxy season, which is the first year of mandated voting disclosures of mutual funds. Therefore, under close public scrutiny, mutual funds might have incentives to appear to not be subject to the influence of management. Likewise, Ashraf et al. (2010) investigates whether pension ties between mutual fund families and the firms affect how fund families vote on shareholder sponsored compensation proposals. The authors find that while fund families that have business ties to the firms they own are less likely to support shareholder proposals for executive compensation, there is also no difference in voting support of fund families with pension ties between client firms and non-client firms. Other than voting for management, mutual funds can support the management of the invested firm through trading. Cohen and Schmidt (2008) find that fund families acting as trustees systematically overweight their sponsor firms and even increase their holdings of a sponsor firms stock when other mutual funds are engaged in aggregate selling of that sponsor firms shares. Duan, Hotchkiss, and Jiao (2011) investigate whether pension business ties enable mutual funds to gain informational advantage in trading. The authors find that there is a positive relation between mutual fund trading and future performance of the portfolios firms with which funds have pension business ties. In response to increasing concern that conflicts of interest allow mutual funds to vote for management regardless of the best in terest of fund owners, on January 23, 2003, the SEC adopted new regulations: (1) the SEC required mutual funds to disclose actual voting results and (2) the SEC required mutual funds to publicly disclose a set of policies on how they will make decisions on proxy votes. The advocates of these rules expected that investors would be better able to monitor whether mutual funds engage in proxy voting in the interests of investors, preventing mutual funds from voting in support of management in order to facilitate other business relations with corporations whose shares they own. Cremer and Romano (2007) investigate the impact of the 2003 mutual fund voting disclosure regulation on voting outcomes by comparing voting outcomes of similar proposals sponsored at the same firms both before and after adoption of the regulation. The authors find no evidence that the rule decreases mutual funds voting in support of management. Indeed, they show that mutual funds appear to have increased their sup port for management on executive equity incentive plans (EEIC) since the rule change. Close votes Listokin (2008) finds that there is a large difference between the frequency of management sponsored proposals passing with votes just above 50% and the frequency of proposals failing with votes just below 50%. As shown in Figure 1, there is a discontinuity in the distribution of voting outcomes in management-sponsored votes at the 50 percent level. This discontinuity suggests that management has information about the outcome of voting at a time when management can do something to change the outcome of votes. One possible explanation for this pattern could be that managers, in order to achieve success, encourage mutual funds that manage their pension. Suppose that management predicts that the percentage of voting support for a management sponsored proposal is just below 50%. In that case, to pass the proposal, management attempts to pressure mutual funds that manage its pension pl ans to vote in favor of management. With a small shift, management can win the proposal as the marginal effect of mutual fund voting shift in close votes is large.  [3]  However, management will withdraw or alter the proposal if it predicts that the proposal would fail with far below 50% of voting support. Furthermore, management will not act if it predicts the proposal will win with far above 50% of voting support. To the extent that marginal effects of voting support of mutual funds for management proposals are greater for close votes than for non-close votes, I expect that the influence on proxy voting of pension ties is more likely to be detected in close votes rather than non-close votes. Therefore, the analysis of this study involves the voting outcomes for close votes. Although there is no such discontinuity in shareholder sponsored proposal, examining close votes for shareholder proposals is also meaningful given that marginal effects of mutual voting shift is large, wit h a small shift from voting against management to voting for management. The ISS recommendation As suggested by prior literature, the ISS has a non-trivial influence on mutual fund voting behavior. As a leading proxy advisory firm, the ISS gives recommendations on proxy voting by publishing general guidelines on each issue of each proposal or by providing case-by-case recommendations. Cotter, Palmiter, and Thomas (2011) find that voting support of mutual funds decreases by 68.3% for ISS unfavorable management proposals and increases by 53.1% for ISS unfavorable shareholder proposals. Choi, Fisch, and Kahan (2010) observe that the cases in which mutual funds always follow management of their portfolio firms are twice as many as cases in which mutual funds always follow the ISS. In considering the importance of the impact of the ISS recommendation on proxy voting, Ashraf et al. (2010) segregates its sample into shareholder proposals recommended by ISS and shareholder proposals o pposed by the ISS. They detect a negative association between voting support of fund families and pension business ties only for the first case. When the ISS opposes shareholder proposals, there is no association between fund family voting and pension ties. Considering that mutual funds likely follow the ISS advice for potential value reducing shareholder proposals regardless of whether they have business ties, their finding is somewhat predictable. If we assume that the ISS provides reliable advice and that mutual funds are the only shareholders, the ISS unfavorable shareholder proposals are comparable to the ISS favorable management proposals. This is because both mutual funds and management likely consider the former as value reduction proposals and consider the latter as value improving proposals. However, for the ISS favorable shareholder proposals, mutual funds consider them to be value increasing while management votes against them as it always opposes shareholder sponsored p roposals. When there is a disagreement between management and mutual funds, management acts to influence votes by using mutual funds ability to attract pension inflows as an incentive. Likewise, for the ISS unfavorable management proposals, shareholders consider them as value deceasing while management makes efforts for them to be passed by encouraging mutual funds with business ties to side with management. Therefore, I expect the association between business ties and voting support of mutual funds is more likely to be detected when the ISS endorses shareholder proposals and when the ISS opposes management proposals, compared to when the ISS opposes shareholder proposals and the ISS endorses management proposals. Divergence in fund votes within fund families Most prior studies on mutual fund voting analyze data at the fund family level since they consider that fund families vote their shares as a block.  [4]  However, Morgan, Poulsen, Wolf, and Yang (2011) argue that for shareholder sponsored proposals there is a large divergence in voting among funds within a fund family while there is a substantial uniformity in management sponsored proposals.  [5]  Such a divergence in shareholder proposals suggests that it may be important to perform individual fund level analysis in addition to fund family level analysis. If a fund votes for a proposal of its portfolio firm and this fund is included as one of the pension investment options of the firm, the fund likely has more incentive to support management compared to other funds in the same family which are not included as an investment option. If this is the case, dispersion in voting within fund families would be more likely to be observed when one of the funds is included as an investment option of the pension plan. Furthermore this dispersion may drive a stronger association between mutual fund votes and business ties. In other words, mutual funds more strongly support their portfolio firms with busi ness ties when dispersion within the same family exists compared to when there is uniformity. Therefore, I expect that mutual funds with business ties are more likely to vote for management when there is a divergence in voting among funds within fund families, compared to those funds when there is uniformity. In a similar vein, Burtler and Gurun (2011) find that educationally connected funds are 42% more likely to vote for management when there is a divergence in voting among funds within fund families (about 19% of the observation in their data), while those funds are 7% more likely to vote for management when there is uniformity. In addition, in order to support the achievement of managements goals, mutual funds with pension ties may be more likely to diverge from their family voting policy for close votes compared to non-close votes.  Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ °. SAMPLE DESCRIPTIONS 3.1 Source of data Data on voting outcomes by mutual funds is obtained from the ISS Voting Analytics Database which includes Company Vote Results and Fund Vote Results (mutual fund N-PX filings). Company Vote Results contain aggregate voting outcomes for Russell 3000 companies shareholder meetings as well as the total number of shares outstanding, the total number of votes cast, and the ISS recommendation. Fund Vote Results show how individual funds of fund families vote on each proposal. Voting outcomes are recorded as being for, against, or abstaining per proposal per fund. I have access to voting outcomes of corporate governance related management sponsored proposals and shareholder sponsored proposals occurring from June 2003 through December 2005. Data on pension plans comes from the Form 5500 filings filed with the Department of Labor (DOL) and Internal Revenue Code and 11-K filings filed with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The Form 5500 is required to be a nnually filed by plan administrators in order to report financial, investment, and operational information about pension and welfare benefit plans. The Form 5500 provides information on the fees paid to the service providers such as trustees and recordkeepers as well as the amount of assets held by investment providers. Although the Form 5500 covers most of the sample firms receiving proposals, the data is not as complete as the 11-K. The 11-K is an annual report dealing with employee stock purchases and savings plans which is required to be filed if a companys stock is offered as one of the investment options for plan participants. The 11-K filings include the identity of the trustee, total assets invested in the plan, and the proportion invested in each investment option. The analysis of this study first examines 354 firms that all have at least one corporate governance related proposal that has 40% to 60% of voting support. The percentage of votes in favor of a proposal is dif ferently computed according to the denominator of the calculation of both support level and the required threshold for each proposal.  [6]  For each firm in the initial sample, I gather pension data from both the Form 5500 and the 11-K by mapping the IRS Employer Identification Number (EIN) into CUSIP using the CRSP/Compustat Merged Database. Including firms with either the Form 5500 or the 11-K leaves me with 257 firms.  [7]  As my interest of in this study is whether mutual funds with business ties affect how mutual funds vote, by looking at the fund name and the family name. I check each sample firm to see whether the fund family of the individual fund that casts its vote is the trustee or the service provider for the firms pension plans and whether the individual fund is included as one of the pension investment options of the plans. Following Ashraf et al. (2010), I classify fund families in the sample sample as having a pension business tie if the fund family is a trus tee or service provider or if the individual fund is included among one of the investment options of the plans offered by a firm. The final step is to gather additional information about sample firms: the data on firm characteristics are from CRSP and Compustat; the data on governance index (G-index) is available freely from Metricks web-site; the data on institutional holdings is obtained from the Thomson-Reuters 13F database. The final sample of this study is constituted of 257 firms with close votes. As some firms have more than one proposal, 172 management sponsored proposals and 129 shareholder sponsored proposals are collected over the sample period from June 2003 to December 2005. The analysis at the fund family includes 13,120 voting decisions by 101 mutual fund families, and 41,407 fund voting outcomes on ISS favorable shareholder proposals are analyzed at fund level. 3.2 Summary sStatistics Table 1 provides information on the number of proposals and the number of mutual fund families that cast their votes for each type as well as information on how uniformly funds within the same family vote with management for each proposal type. Voting with management is equivalent to funds voting in favor of management proposals. This is also equivalent to voting against shareholder proposals given the fact that management always takes a position against shareholder sponsored proposals.  [8]  Given the importance of the effect of the ISS advice, I divide each proposal type according to whether the ISS endorses it or not and according to who sponsors the proposal (ISS favorable management proposals, ISS unfavorable management proposals, ISS favorable shareholder proposals, and ISS unfavorable shareholder proposals). Panel A of Table 1 shows that for the ISS favorable management sponsored proposals, fund families uniformly vote in favor of management 78% of the time and uniformly vote against management 11% of the time. The divergence in fund votes w ithin the family is, on average, 11%. Interestingly, individual funds show the greatest divergence (50%) surrounding the issue of Declassify the Board of Director, known as one of the most significant value reducing effects. Compensation related proposals such as Approve Omnibus Stock Plan, Amend Omnibus Stock Plan, and Amend Stock Option Plan have the next highest level of divergence as well as the next highest frequency. For the ISS unfavorable management proposal at in Panel B of Table 1, funds uniformly vote against management 64% of the time and vote for management 19% of the time. The average divergence of funds within fund families is registered at 17%. Unlike previous studies, I observed a non-trivial voting divergence among funds within a fund family. Compensation related proposals (Approve Omnibus Stock Plan, Amend Omnibus Stock Plan, and Amend Stock Option Plan) are again the most frequently occurring types of proposals. Panel C of Table 1 shows that for the ISS fav orable shareholder sponsored proposal types, funds are less likely to vote uniformly within families, compared to management sponsored proposals. On average, funds in a family vote identically on 73% of the proposals while votes of funds in a family differ in 27% of the proposals. Board related proposals (Require a Majority Vote for the Election of Directors and Declassify the Board of Directors) are the most common shareholder sponsored proposals. Compensation related proposals (Expense Stock Options and Performance- Based/Indexed Options) have the next highest divergence as well as the next highest occurrence. Table 2 presents the number of and the percentage of business ties of funds families with pension ties to the any of the sample firms and fund families without any pension ties. It also shows the number of proposals for which fund families cast their votes. The top five mutual funds families with business ties are Fidelity Investment, John Hancock Funds, Vanguard Group, S SGA Funds, and Oppenheimer Funds/MassMutual, and these families account for 35.8% of ties in the sample. The top 15 fund families account for 67.6% of pension ties, which is more than twice the level of pension ties of the next 50 fund families managing any pension assets of the sample firms. As shown in Panel B of Table 2, Jackson National, Thrivent Investment Management, USAA, and Munder Funds cast their vote on more than 200 proposals while these families do not engage in any pension business to any firm in my sample. Given the findings of in the previous literature showing that firm characteristics affect how institutional investors vote, I include firm characteristics such as past performance, market capitalization, market-to-book ratio, G-index, and institutional holdings as control variables. Past one year performance is definied as the one year buy and hold market adjusted abnormal returns from the meeting date of proxy voting, and market capitalization is defined as the total number of shares outstanding times the closing price at the end of the year of the proposal. Market-to-book ratio is obtained by dividing the sum of market capitalization of equity and the book value of debt by the book value of total assets. As the sample period of this study is June 2003 to December 2006, I use the G-index published in 2004. Institutional holdings are calculated according to ownership held by institutions as of the end of the meeting year. Table 3 provides information on firm characteristics in the sample. On average, past one year returns for the sample firm are 13.1%, market to book ratio is 2.9, and market capitalization is 26,536 million dollars. Average institutional ownership of the sample firm is 71.4%, and average G-index for the sample firm is 9.4. IV. EMPIRICA ANALYSIS 4.1 Analysis at fund family level The main analysis of this paper explores whether business ties have an impact on mutual fund voting behavior by comparing the association between pension business ties and mutual fund voting support. I begin with the analysis at the fund family level and then extend my analysis to the individual fund level. At the fund family level of analysis, the dependent variable is the percentage level of votes in support of management. Following Ashraf et al. (2010), the percentages of voting support in favor of management for each mutual fund family are calculated by dividing the number of individual funds within the same fund families that vote with management for a proposal by the number of funds in the family that are eligible to vote on the proposal.  [9]  Therefore, the higher voting support indicates that funds are more likely to vote with management by voting for management proposals and by voting against shareholder proposals. As the distribut ion and the level of shareholder support of management proposals differ from those of shareholder proposals, I separately estimate the impact of pension ties on management sponsored proposals and on shareholder sponsored proposals. In addition, given the previous findings on the influence of the ISS recommendation to mutual fund voting, I segregate my sample into the ISS favorable proposals and the ISS unfavorable proposals. Therefore, through segregating the proposals according to sponsors and according to whether the ISS recommends passage of a proposal, the results of this study are separately presented for management proposals recommended by ISS, for management proposals not recommend by ISS, and for shareholder proposals recommended by ISS. The sSmall sample size of shareholder proposals not recommend by ISS does not allow me to include them in the analysis. All analysis is estimated using robust standard errors (Whites heteroscedasticity consistent standard errors). The result s also hold if I use standard errors with clustered by fund family, year, and firm. Table 4 compares the percentages of voting support for management among mutual fund families with pension ties and mutual fund families without pension ties using a simple t-test. For the ISS favorable management sponsored proposals, there is no significant difference in voting support between mutual fund families with ties and mutual fund families without ties. However, for management proposals opposed by the ISS, I find that the percentage of voting support in mutual fund families with pension ties accounts for 32.7 % of the proposals while fund families without pension ties accounts for 22.6 % of the proposals. In order words, voting with management of mutual funds with pension ties is significantly greater than that of mutual funds without pension ties for the ISS unfavorable management sponsored proposals. As discussed, to the extent that shareholders are likely to consider ISS unfavorable ma nagement proposals as value reducing, management may ask affiliated institutional investors such as mutual funds managing their pension plans to support it in order to win a victory. Likewise, management may pressure its trustees of pension plans not to support shareholder proposals as shareholders are likely to consider the ISS favorable shareholder proposals as value improvement. Consistent with this hypothesis, when the ISS recommends passage of a shareholder proposal, fund families with pension ties vote with management 31.5 % of the time while fund families without pension ties vote with management 28.1% of the time, and the difference is statistically significant. Table 5 is the main analysis of this study. As the finding thatSince previous studies have found that firm size, prior performance, institutional holdings, and corporate governance affect the behavior of institutional investors, I include these factors as control variables. The dependent variable is one if the per centage of voting support for management is equal to or more than 50%; otherwise it is zero. The independent variable equals one if a fund family has business ties with the firm in which they invest and is thereforeso eligible to cast their votes; otherwise it is zero. As the dependent variable is the indicator variable, I use a probit model to examine whether pension business ties of mutual fund families affect mutual fund voting behavior. The coefficient estimates of Table 5 present marginal effects of independent variables. I begin by examining whether there is a relation between the likelihood that a fund family votes with management and business ties. As shown in column (1) of Table 5, the marginal effect of the pension ties is negatively significant for the ISS favorable management proposal, indicating pension ties decrease the probability that fund families support management by 11.3%. Although this result opposes the hypothesis that mutual funds are more likely to vote wi th management in order to attract assets from pension inflows, it is not surprising. Suppose that there are two different management proposals: one is recommended by ISS and the other is not recommended. To the extent that shareholders are more likely to vote for the ISS favorable proposal compared to for the ISS unfavorable proposal, the probability that the former proposal is passed is greater than the latter. Therefore, the managers need to exert more effort in order to pass the ISS unfavorable proposal by contacting its affiliated shareholders such as mutual funds managing their pension plans. As expected, for the ISS unfavorable proposals in column (2) of Table 5, there is a strong positive relationship between business ties and voting support of fund families. This indicates that a business tie increases by 11.6% the probability that a fund family votes with management. Regarding the ISS favorable shareholder proposals in column (3) of Table 5, the probability that the fund fa mily supports management by voting against shareholder sponsored proposals is increased by 4.3% when a business tie exists. As discussed in the previous section, the ISS favorable shareholder proposals are comparable to the ISS unfavorable management proposals given that the disparity in voting decisions between management and shareholders is large. Therefore, it is expected that management puts exerts more effort to achieve a victory through pressuring mutual funds that manage its pension plans. Although the table is not included due to inconclusive results, I provide conditional logit analysis as including fund family fixed effect to investigate whether there is a difference between voting support by fund families at their client firms versus non-client firms. Contrary to my expectation that narrowing down the sample to close votes where the marginal effects of voting shift is large would allow me to examine different voting behavior of mutual funds for their client firms and f or non-client firms, I find no difference in voting support of mutual funds across the two groups. This indicates the probability that mutual funds that manage retirement assets vote with management of their client firms is similar to the probability that those mutual funds vote with management of their non-client firms. This result is consistent with the previous findings on mutual fund voting behaviors. As argued above, there is a non-trivial divergence in fund votes within the same families. It is likely that an individual fund has stronger incentive to support management if the fund is one of the pension investment options of the firm in which it invests, compared to other funds in the same families that are not included as investment options. Therefore, I expect the influence of pension ties to be stronger when there is divergence within fund families. To test this, in Table 6 I analyze the subsample with the proposals voted by mutual funds which have divergence within fund families. When there is disparity in fund votes on the ISS favorable management proposals, I find no relation between pension ties and voting support of fund families. However, for the ISS unfavorable management proposal, a pension tie increases the probability that a fund family votes with management by 43.3%. Compared to Table 5, the marginal effect of pension ties is four times greater if there is a disparity in fund voting. Similarly, the marginal effect of pension ties becomes four times stronger when fund families do not uniformly vote for the ISS favorable shareholder proposals. 4.2 Analysis at fund level As shown in Table 7, some funds vote uniformly with other funds in the same family while other funds vote in a diverse fashion. Although most of the previous literature argues that funds within the same family tend to vote uniformly, the evidence in Table 1 suggests that mutual fund voting should be analyzed at the individual fund level rather than at the fund family l evel. To investigate how support of individual funds toward management in proxy voting is influenced by business ties, I use a probit model. Due to limited observation availability, I can only test for the ISS favorable shareholder sponsored proposal. To do this, I examine fund voting at the individual level. The dependent variable equals one if a fund votes with management, zero otherwise. The independent variables is 1 one if a fund is included as one of the pension investment options of the firm in which it invests, and zero otherwise. Table 6 illustrates that the coefficient estimate of the pension tie is positively significant, which indicates that a business tie increases by 15.3% the probability that a fund supports management. This result suggests that individual funds are more likely to vote with management if they are included as investment options in the pension plans of their portfolios firm, compared to other funds not included. Individual funds are more likely to vote against shareholder proposals to support management of the firms with large size and high market to book ratio, and with high institutional ownership. V. CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORKS This paper investigates whether pension business ties have an influence on mutual fund voting. As pension assets managed by mutual funds have been growing since the late 1990s, the concern that mutual fund managers could potentially pursue their own interest at the expense of fund owners is raised. This is because fund managers might have more incentive to support management in order to attract and retain pension business. In fact, recent studies provide evidence that mutual funds tend to support management of their portfolio firms through proxy voting or trading. Using the mutual fund voting outcomes fromoccurred the period from June 2003 to December 2005, I find a positive association between mutual fund voting and business ties. Analysis at the fund family level show that fund families are more likely to vote for the ISS unfavorable management proposals and to vote against the ISS favorable shareholder proposals. The influence of pension ties to mutual fund voting becomes four t imes stronger when there is voting divergence among funds within the same families. At the individual fund level, the a fund included as one of the investment options of the pension plans of the firm in which it invests is more likely to vote against the ISS favorable shareholder proposals. Overall, my findings provide the evidence that mutual funds are conflicted due to their pension business ties with the firm in which they invest.Only close votes have been included in the sample proposals at in this analysis. In that Since the probability that management causes an upset by encouraging mutual funds to support management in close votes is higher than in non-close votes, I expect that the difference in voting support between mutual funds with pension ties and mutual funds without pension ties in close votes would be greater than the difference in the voting support across two groups in non-close votes. I leave comparison between close votes for a future analysis.