Students:2010/2011 student case studies: Difference between revisions

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'''[http://www.czp.cuni.cz/vcsewiki/index.php/shopping_centres www.czp.cuni.cz/vcsewiki/index.php/shopping_centres]'''
'''[http://www.czp.cuni.cz/vcsewiki/index.php/shopping_centres www.czp.cuni.cz/vcsewiki/index.php/shopping_centres]'''
= Case study brainstroming  =
Made in China
Globalisation consists of many features, however most visibly of international trade. The flow of goods and services form an imaginative web all over the globe. This web which might had been clearly knitted centuries ago has become so intense, multilayered and interconnected during the 20th century that hardly anyone can unravel it now. What worries me is the energy and material it requires to function. Mining, production, transportation, recycling, more production, more transportation…is it in order to satisfy basic need of life? Partially. More of it feeds overconsumption though. The so called developed world is obsessed with shopping, buying unnecessary goods, gathering stuff. My question is who allows this lavishing? How is it possible that economy has become unattached to the real world, the world of limited resources? Who sets the prices of resources, quite evidently without considering their possibilities of renewal or replacement? Finally which forces drive consumer behaviour?
Prague, my home town, has experienced a construction boom of shopping centres in the past decade. Many locations which now host huge concrete buildings could have served as urban green areas. My closest example is the Chodov shopping Centre which stands instead of a previously planned swimming pool.
In my study case I would like to find out which gaps enable the current system to exploit the developing world - through using both their cheap labour and their resources – in order to flood the developed countries with products and services. I would also be interested in discovering the bottom-up side of this issue, that means how (un)aware consumers are of the consequences of their choices.
My early guess is that MNC´s despite all the fuss around corporate social responsibility simply abuse the poverty of the countries with important raw materials and consumers don’t r
ealize that buying local apples instead of Caribbean bananas does make a difference.


= Literature review  =
= Literature review  =
94

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