Disaster Analysis: Challenger Disaster

Disaster Analysis: Challenger Disaster It was the day in the history of America wherein the people had a great expectation of a mission that would take a civilian for the first time into space. After twenty four successful launches by NASA, the Challenger space shuttle was a test of their experience as an organisation. On January 28th 1986, the shuttle exploded shortly after liftoff, claiming the lives of all crew members onboard .The explosion could not be blamed just because of the technical faults but also raised numerous other issues such as organisational and ethical behaviour. It also questioned the leadership skills exhibited by the teams involved during the operation. This report discusses the organisational factors that contributed to the accident and reflects on the aftermath of the disaster explaining about space missions and the organisations associated with it. It also reflects on the role of management in order to manage a complex engineering operation. NASA OPERATION REASONING ITS FAILURE There were many organizational factors which contributed to the accident. To start with, NASA was always a narcissistic kind of organization, which believed in the number one spot. Since it landed the first man on the moon, prior to Russia, its technological ethos took backseat. It was more of an organization, which concentrated on the public display image rather than the true technology. The U.S. government declared to stop supporting the space shuttle programmes and asked NASA to raise their own funds for any further space programme. Also, for any complex engineering project, to be a success, the feedback and recommendations of the engineers and technical staff is considered, as the most mandatory and important requirement. In Challengers case, it was the most neglected aspect and thus leads to a disaster. There were some strong forces of reason and emotions which influenced the decision to proceed with the launch. The highly visible public display of Americas success as a multicultural society was also one of the reason they included many minorities in the group. NASA just wanted to go ahead with the launch as there was one lady school teacher, Christa McAuliffe in the team, which made this space launch a special centre of attraction for the citizens of the U.S. The US president was due with his assembly speech, which also somewhat forced NASA to go ahead with the launch. There was huge media pressure as the launch had been cancelled several times before. There was also the lack of leadership in the organization as there was really no one with the courage to make the right decisions, as it is one of the foremost requirements of a charismatic leadership. The relationship between Morton Thiokol and NASA is one of the strong reasons for the failure of mission. Both organizations managers were over complacent as they looked for evidence to support mission success rather than evidence indicating possible mission failure. The Thiokol management wanted to make sure it received future contracts from NASA. This is clearly evident from the communication, which took place between the two organisations during the teleconferencing. Basically, both the parties were looking and were guided by their own selfish interests. SHUTTLE DISASTER WHO IS TO BE BLAMED? One single entity cannot be held accountable for the challenger disaster. Responsibility falls on the managers at NASA and Thiokol. These are the people who made the decision to launch challenger and where the ones with the authority and power. They did not listen to or take any real notice of the engineers at Thiokol who are the experts in the area and have the knowledge base regarding the rocket boosters. There was a lack of communication and a sense of desperation from the managers to make sure the shuttle launched as they did not want any further delay. The role that the culture at NASA played in this disaster was very important and indeed can be directly attributed to the disaster. Within NASA there had developed a climate where communication was very closed. The culture did not encourage a free flowing exchange of information between departments and people of different levels; there was a concerted effort to discourage creative thinking. This mind set was also transfeered to Thiokol which had a detrimental effect. The mission was the first of its kind to have a non-astronaut aboard, this was done so that the space program would be more widely acknowledged by the public it would capture peoples imaginations again with the possibility that a regular person could go up into space. Although there was a non-astronaut on board the shuttle and a mix of ethnic backgrounds and genders this can in no way have had any bearing on the disaster as none of these people where responsible for giving the mission the go ahead that was purely down to management and once the shuttle was launched those on board would not have been able to do anything differently. The challenger disaster was certainly avoidable, the warning signs were there but the people in charge did not heed them. The engineers knew there was a problem with the O rings and many attempts were made to communicate this but management did not want to listen to the engineers as it was something they did not want to hear as they clearly put financial gains ahead of the safety of the mission and its crew. NASA also could have stopped the launch but because they had already delayed the launch twice management were under pressure to not delay any further. The pressure to meet its targets led NASA to not follow the set down rules it had in place to stop something like this happening. All the pressures put on both NASA and Thiokol led to them taking risks which did not pay off. If the pressure to launch in conjunction with communication breakdowns had not occurred or had been managed better this disaster would not have happened. FACTORS INFLUENCING DISASTER Communication Communication was considered to be an issue since the engineers were not able to convince the management team at NASA to stop the launch of the space shuttle. It was very evident from the initial time that the management at Marshal Space centre contained already known problems and they were trying to resolve them internally instead of communicating them further. During the initial stages of the challenger project, the management of NASA had come up with certain guidelines and rules called the BURDEN OF PROOF wherein the technical team had to come up with exact proof to explain the consequences if there was a failure from their side. Robert Lund, an engineer and manager who played an important role during the challenger launch explained we had to prove to them that we werent ready, and so we got ourselves into the thought process that we are trying to find some way to prove to them it wouldnt work and we were unable to do that . We couldnt prove absolutely that the motor could not work (US Commission 1986) In any organisation communication decisions should not be set as rules and need to be flexible. Leadership Taking leadership into account, according to Max Webers theory of bureaucracy explained the structure of an organisation. NASAs organisation exhibited a rigid organisational structure wherein all the rules and regulations must be strictly adhered to and everyone should perform the role which they were assigned to. In this rigid type of organisation, the leadership exhibited by the NASA was a narcissistic approach. Narcissistic leadership occurs when leaders actions are principally motivated by their own egomaniacal needs and beliefs, superseding the needs and interests of the constituents and institutions they lead (Seth A.R. Todd L.P., 2006) The leader becomes more concerned with public relations thereby concerning a lot about the organisations image and in the process it forgets about the other issues that were equally strong. Behaviour of people Behaviour of people within both organisations with respect to the risk management was unplanned and NASA management had to make a decision at the last moment even when everyone agreed that a catastrophic possibility existed and it was known that responsibilities of the people were clearly defined. Much of the evidence pertaining to the disaster was dismissed. Behaviour of the entire team could be interpreted as group think. The concept of group think was formulated by Janis, according to his theory; the member of the teams worked as cohesive groups and had utmost confidence in their project. During group think, the decision makers get an illusion that they are invulnerable and it makes people take extraordinary risks at crucial moments. (Janis, 1986) There was an illusion of unanimity among the group members. Regarding the judgement made, the individuals in the Thiokol team remained silent and none of them had openly agreed to the launch. The silence from Thiokol was also worsened since it was a teleconference meeting wherein the body language was not noticed even if they had said no. Hence silence meant an agreement which explains the fact that the team were unable to voice their views. The influence of the media The influence of the media played in major role in decisions that were made by NASA. NASA was under tremendous pressure to achieve flight rates and was so pervasive that it was undoubtedly affecting the attitude towards safety. Scheduling pressures were playing a major role in making NASA biased to launch the shuttle and overseeing the risks which were attached to it, it was mainly due to the medias 24/7 coverage on NASA which was putting them under pressure to launch the shuttle on time because they did not want further negative coverage which could harm their public image. SPACE SHUTTLE AFTERMATH OF THE DISASTER All space exploration has a mission with some specific technical objectives. All missions are time bound, it takes years to plan and implement them. Highly motivated people are needed in the workforce. Astronauts are chosen for the specific missions and are trained for the specialised roles. The Rogers commission provided nine recommendations to NASA after the challenger disaster to improve the safety of its shuttles. NASA not only considered these recommendations but also redesigned their space shuttles with new technical modifications including solid rocket boosters which were the primary cause of the disaster. The role of engineering in complex projects could be analysed by studying the Burns and Stalker theory about mechanistic and organic structures. They studied two different organizations- textile and electronics (Gabriel, 2007). The textile company was having more of a hierarchical structure as discussed by Marx Weber, as they were involved in the routine and bureaucratic tasks whereas the electronic company was more concentrated on the engineering work outs and thus were having more of a horizontal structure which demands more of verbal communications and less paper work. The concentration is more on the Innovation and inter-departmental communications. Above all, the employees have more discretion and liberty to suggest changes and chance to come out with productive innovations (Gabriel, 2007). NASA, being an organization, dealing complex engineering projects, should have provided their engineers with much discretion, rather than applying the unsuitable bureaucratic approach. While handling any complex engineering projects, it is thus advisable, to provide more autonomy of power to its ground level staffs. Power and politics in the organizations could be understood by studying the two well known dysfunctions of bureaucracy and they are as follows- Rigidity- It means that bureaucracy is slow to take advantage of opportunities and avoid threats. They are averse to innovation and experimentation. They generally avoid, which is new. This aspect of bureaucracy is not good for the managers who work in the changing environment. NASAs failure as an organization, by not accepting the new engineering recommendations from its engineers and taking the matter lightly, resulted to the disaster. Departmentalization- As per Webers theory, in bureaucracy, there is a strong hierarchical structure, which gets followed. So, the communication is from top to bottom level and never goes across horizontal level and this leads to setting up of different sub goals by different departments. These sub goals are not in good faith of organization as a whole and also leads to clashes and rivalry among departments. MANAGING COMPLEX OPERATIONS It is always very challenging to manage a complex engineering operation in any organisation. Generally complex organisation creates lot of problem and issues in management, so that management should consider the importance of culture, communication and leadership to manage this type of operation. According to our view following are the factors which should be considered while managing a complex engineering operation. Communication framework: Communication plays another key role in managing complex engineering solutions. A framework called as Leadership communication framework is taken into consideration wherein it starts with core communication skills represented in the centre of framework. It eventually expands itself from managerial communication skills which begin with emotional intelligence and cultural literacy. It finally leads to the concept of corporate communication skills where it becomes more complex and the organisation tends to become responsible to all internal and external stakeholders. The leaders who involve themselves within this type of communication model become the companys face and have numerous responsibilities. Therefore in order to effectively get the advantages of this model an improvement plan has to be initiated with self-assessment of the process. SOURCE: Deborah J Barret, 2006 Culture: Culture forms the function, as the linking mechanism by which network of understanding develops among the employees [Trice, 1988]. Culture works as the software of the mind and use of metaphor in the organisation. As especially strong culture became very useful to manage the project because people in strong culture know which things are right to do. In complex engineering situation feedback is often ambiguous and interpretation is the main key. In any organisation culture play a main role in how ambiguity is discussed and resolved in decision making (schien, 1992). Mainly in complex engineering time becomes a very important decision factor so that highly time urgent culture is very important in organisation. Management should consider the importance of culture in any operation. Leadership styles: Leadership style adopted by the management is very crucial in managing complex engineering operation. As Kurt Lewin suggested, there are three major styles of leaderships Authoritarian or autocratic Participative or democratic Delegative or Free Reign In the case of any complex engineering operations, Participative leadership should be the first choice among the management wherein the leaders include one or more of their employees in the decision making process. By doing so, the leaders eventually gain the respect of their employees thus leading to a mutual benefit among them (Robert N, L Christopher F, A, .2010). Leadership is activity of mobilizing people to understand adaptive challenges which cannot be resolved by expert knowledge and daily management. To motivate the people who are working under you is very important in leadership. Motivation plays vital role to boost the confidence of the employee to do challenging task and also gave energy to perform their task better. As complex problems contain multiple system which includes technical analysis, to handle this type of project requires capacity of individual to skilful intervene in complex system. So that adopting proper Leadership approach is very important in organisation to handle any project. CONCLUSION Hence we conclude that there was strong need for leadership in NASA that would have been capable of organisational change. Its culture has always reflected self interested decisions.   NASA would have to flatten its organisational hierarchy; it should be going for rather than having a bureaucratic organisation. There should be a mechanism in place where engineers should be able to bypass the bureaucracy and hierarchy, especially in the pre launch process. There words and ideas should also be respected and given some credence by the upper management.    NASA would have collaborate rather than contracting , its shuttle development and maintenance programs are outsourced to contractors , but it necessary for NASA to form a production and delivery oriented relationships with their subsystem contractors for a better future  Ãƒâ€šÃ‚   . There should be a collaborative model of interaction.    NASA is still suffering from technical incompetences and narcissistic management, it has to make an overhaul change in its organisation for its best interests.   It is essential for NASA to be able to use its resources as efficiently as possible to effectively develop, explore and promote space. References: Gabriel,Y., 2007. Leadership and Organizations. University of London press publication Guthrie,R.,2005.The Columbia Disaster: Culture, Communication and change, Journal of cases on Information technology, [Online], 7(3) Available at http://www.infosci-journals.com [Accessed 20 Jan 2010] Moorhead,G.,1991.Group think Fiascoes Continues: Space Shuttle Challenger,available at http://ils.unc.edu/~bwilder/inls500/challengerarticle.pdf Janis,I.L.,1986.Group think,(2nd edition). Boston: Houghton. Mifflin Publication Seth A.R. Todd L.P.,2006. Narcissistic leadership. The Leadership Quarterly,Volume 17, Issue 6,[Online], Available at http://www.sciencedirect.com [Accessed 18 Jan 2010] Bella, D.A., 1987. Organizational Systems and the Burden of Proof. Thomson Publishing Challenger Disaster A NASA Tragedy.[Online]. available at http://space.about.com/cs/challenger/a/challenger.htm [accessed 23 Jan 2010] Deborah, B.,2006.Leadership Communication. NewYork:Tata Mc Graw Hill Publication Deborah,B.,2006.Strong communication skills a must for todays leaders.[online]Available at: http://www.emeraldinsight.com [accessed 18 jan 2010] Robert.N,L Christopher F.A.,2010.Leadership Theory,Application Skill Development.4th edition. Strategic Leadership and Decision Making.[Online] available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch16.html [accessed 15 jan 2010] William H.S, Moshe F.,2005.Organization at the limit lessons from the Columbia Disaster, Blackwell Publishing Sharon D.P.,2005.Leadership can be taught : a bold approach for a complex world. Harvard business school publishing

Strategic Management and Swot Analysis

Contents: I. INTRODUCTION a. Brand Extension for L’OREAL II. LITERATURE REVIEW a. Ansoff Matrix b. SWOT Analysis c. BCG Matrix III. REFLECTIVE STATEMENT IV. REFERENCES Brand Extension for L’OREAL Brand extension takes place whenever a company wants to enter a new market by using the name of one of its existing brands, rather than using a new one. Especially the luxury sector takes advantage of its well-known brand names when it comes to launching new products into new markets (Kapferer, 2008, p. 295).The popularity of brand extension strategy is due to the belief that it leads to higher consumer trial than the use of a new brand name because of the awareness levels of the brand name being leveraged (Keller, 2003, p. 582). L’Oreal as a global brand is known for high quality cosmetic goods like make-up and hair care products for women, men and kids. Its mission â€Å"Beauty for all† connects with the company’s slogan â€Å"Because you're worth itâ₠¬ , which is used in nearly every single L’Oreal advertisement.To identify all the different products of the brand’s portfolio they utilize the same logo for all of their goods by adapting to the specific field (L’Oreal homepage, 2012). Considering L’Oreal’s image of good appearance we decided to extend the brand by entering a new market with a new product. The diversification L’Oreal shoes should be placed in the customer products area with a target group of professional women. The leather shoes should be available for middle to high income consumers. Though the price is affordable for this group of customers the quality is still high.With this strategy we want to cover the needs of the existing customers and reach out for new potential clients. On one hand we intend to increase our sales and profits; on the other hand we use the good reputation of L’Oreal to get our new product connected to the values of the umbrella brand. To make sure that we created a new logo keeping the traditional L’Oreal letters with a reference to the shoe sector as shown in (image 1). Meanwhile, we forecast that L’Oreal shoes can strengthen the global brand in future.Image 1: Traditional L’Oreal letters mentioning the new sector Brief Literature Review Before putting theory into practice every company needs to consider its internal and external situation. In this part, three marketing theories will be applied to L’OREAL. These are: The Ansoff matrix, the SWOT analysis and the BCG matrix. Ansoff matrix is a model that helps firms to outline the range of marketing options open to them (Riley, 2012). L’Oreal shoes classified as a diversification was made according to the Ansoff matrix.A diversification is described as a new product for a new market. L’Oreal added shoes to its existing product range, left the skin and hair care market and entered the new footwear area. Image 2: Ansoff matrix With the SWOT Analysis we could discover our strengths and weaknesses, and identify both the opportunities and the threats for L’Oreal. In other words, as Renault stated â€Å"A SWOT is to reveal positive forces that work together and potential problems that need to be addressed or at least recognized†.Comparing the strengths to the weaknesses for L’Oreal shoes we have to mention that the variety of suppliers and the competitive quality price relation of the product overweight the missing expertise in the shoe sector. The opportunity of using the strong image of L’Oreal and the fact that there are no other middle price shoes in our own umbrella brand product range can be used to attract new customers. Taking into account that the economic situation has changed and people are not willing to spend as much as they did before the recession took place (Price, 2012).Using the BCG Matrix a company can recognize if a product is profitable or not. It can be helpful if a company has to decide whether investing additional resources in a certain product or services. There are four categories developed to the relative market share and market growth rate: star, cash cow, poor dog, question mark (Lu ; Zhao, 2006). A star is a product with a high market share and a high market growth rate. With this kind of product the company gains revenue. Therefore, a star can be used to support weaker sectors. These products with a low market growth rate and a low market share are called poor dogs.Cash cows are well-established with a high market share but as the market growth rate is low the company has to be aware of limited opportunities. Those limitations do not exist for question marks as they are located in high growth markets with a low market share. These unknown new products like L’oreal shoes do have the potential to establish and become stars or even cash cows. In future they could be able to promote weaker sectors and create a trade-off (Lu ; Zah o, 2006) ;;; I found another website to reference these two paragraphs From which website did you get this?! gt;;;; According to the Internet Center for Management and Business Administration (2012) the BSG matrix is limited. The different products in a company’s portfolio cannot be taken as independent; they are related to each other. This has to be taken into consideration when it comes to the question whether you keep or you eliminate a product. Reflective Statement To develop the topic we firstly did some research about the definition of brand extension and L’Oreal as a company.We discovered that creating a brand extension for L’Oreal is a difficult task as the umbrella brand already covers a lot of sectors in the beauty and care area. We thought about a product that would fit into the enterprise’s image of beauty and decided to choose shoes for middle-aged professional women. We looked into several marketing theories to support our decision such as t he SWOT analysis, Ansoff matrix, and the BCG matrix. However, we discovered that The SWOT analysis is the most helpful theory for our research.Since L’OREAL shoes classified as diversification, the SWOT analysis helped us to discover our brand’s current strengths and weaknesses; as well as the potential opportunities and threats that we might find in the future. This made it easier for us to set our brand’s short term and long term goals. References: Collett, S. (1999). Business Planning, E-journal of SWOT Analysis, 33(29), 58. Retrieved November 05, 2012, from http://jr3tv3gd5w. search. serialssolutions. com/ Hussey, D. (1999). Strategic Change, E-journal of Igor Ansoff's Continuing Contribution to Strategic Management, 8(7), 05.Retrieved November 06, 2012, from http://onlinelibrary. wiley. com/doi/10. 1002/(SICI)1099-1697(199911)8:7%3C375::AID-JSC462%3E3. 0. CO;2-U/pdf Kapferer, J. N. (2008). The New Strategic Brand Management: Advanced Insights and Strategic Thinking. London: Kogan Page. Keller, Kevin L. (2003). Strategic Brand Management. (2nd ed. ). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Lu, H. & Zhao, L. (2006). INTEGRATING GIS AND BCG MODEL FOR MARKETING STRATEGIC PLANNING. 14(18), 02-04. Retrieved November 06, 2012, from http://iceb. nccu. edu. tw/proceedings/APDSI/2006/718-725. df Price, E. (2012). A reduction in European over-consumption will be undone by any Eurozone solution. Retrieved November 01, 2012, from http://blogs. lse. ac. uk/europpblog/2012/07/23/eurozone-over-consumption/ Riley, J. (2012). Ansoff Matrix. Retrieved November 07, 2012, from http://www. tutor2u. net/business/strategy/ansoff_matrix. htm Renault, V. (n. d. ). SWOT Analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. Retrieved November 08, 2012, from http://ctb. ku. edu/en/tablecontents/sub_section_main_1049. aspx

Information Paper

Use Daniell Jackson CIS 207 August 1, 2012 Timothy Thacker According to (Anthony Robbins, 2010) â€Å"The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives†. It is imperative that in any organization there needs to be a detailed and efficient flow of information. Communications is the key for a business to be successful, and it provides the solid foundation needed to construct a solid business process. One other very important part of communications in a company is the flow of that information which ultimately produces the results whether good or bad.This paper will describe how information is used and how it flows at Document Logistic Agency (DLA) Document Services Jacksonville in the IT department. It will also describe any concerns with properly controlling the information flow, including keeping it safe from unauthorized use. DLA Document Services Jacksonville is a Department of Defense (DoD) command that provides a web-based solution for ordering documents. The communication flow starts from the customer level as documents such as publications, posters, retirement programs, and many more available products are ordered online.Although the Document Services Online website where most of the communications is done electronically, there is still a need for communication flow for those of us here at DLA in order to produce the customers required results. I thought it would be fitting to compare the communications that I have experienced here at DLA and my military communications experience, to show some of the differences As a 23 year retired veteran of the United States Navy, communications becomes a major part of everyday life.Military men and women are introduced to what is known as the chain of command and the structure in which it is written at each command. Communications is something that we are taught not to take for granted because it could be the difference between losing and saving a life in a give n situation. Once retired and transferred into what most military men and women call â€Å"The Civilian World,† I immediately discovered that there is a difference concerning military and civilian communications, the flow, and the concern of controlling that information.Here at DLA document services we have a variety of personnel that come together to produce products for the customer. The accountants manage and handle financial issues, machine workers print and produce the orders, information technology personnel maintain the servers, and management oversees the entire business process. Upon reporting for work here at DLA, I have been privileged to several communication issues that have caused issues, but have been addressed and changes put in place.One of the main issues I discovered was that as the network security engineer, there was no communications between the system administrators working on the servers. There was no sharing of information, which consistently resulted in changes to the system by the system administrators, but no upward communications of these changes through the IT department. The program manager was not informed of the lack of maintenance on the servers and the only concerned seem to be that the systems stay up to produce orders.This line of thinking was unfamiliar to me and I felt it would be a recipe for disaster. â€Å"Information sharing is critical to an organization’s competitiveness and requires a free flow of information among members if the organization is to remain competitive† (JP Hatala and J Lutta, 2008). Although we held a bi-weekly meeting that consisted of minutes from the last meeting and the old business to new business concept, it was clear that it served no purpose and I was determined to change that concept.I introduced the Configuration Control Board (CCB) to the Program Manager and showed her how it would make our meetings more effective by allowing communications to flow from the bottom to the top. Eventually I was able to get the SA’s to fill out a configuration change form and submit that form through the leadership, so that all parties would be aware of any major changes to our systems. We ensure that our transmission and handling of sensitive information is handled discreetly. The protection of our information is controlled on a need-to-know basis, which is the same as when I was in the military.The only concern that I had was sending and receiving emails with sensitive information such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses and other detailed information via e-mail without encryption. We started ensure that we encrypted our emails to add that extra layer of needed security on sensitive documents. We also started the digital signature initiative that ensures all CCB documents are genuinely signed by each responsible IT department personnel, using our Common Access Cards (CAC).The DoD CAC card allows employees to have their own unique identification, authentica tion privileges, encrypting, and crypto graphical ability to sign emails and other documents. DLA Document Services Jacksonville delivers quality products to the men and women of our military. Although there were some issues with communications, the improvements have been astounding. We realized that when companies are dealing in the information technology field there is a need for excellent communications amongst team members up, and down the organization so that the best customer service can be provided.We discussed the importance of ensuring that communications is protected and secured because it is the cornerstone of maintaining that need-to-know responsibility. References Anthony Robbins (2010), Power of Giving. Retrieved on July 30, 2012 from http://www. power-of-giving. com/tony-robbins-quotes. html JP Hatala and J Lutta (2008), Managing Information Sharing Within an Organizational Setting: A Social Network Perspective. Retrieved July 30, 2012, from https://ehis. ebscohost. c om/eds/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? vid=2&hid=3&sid=8a83ca4d-a18d-4679-b2e7-f631c1b0a62c%40sessionmgr11

Facts and History About the Country of Cambodia

The 20th century was disastrous for Cambodia. The country was occupied by Japan in World War II and became collateral damage in the Vietnam War, with secret bombings and cross-border incursions. In 1975, the Khmer Rouge regime seized power; they would murder approximately 1/5 of their own citizens in a mad frenzy of violence. Yet not all of Cambodian history is dark and blood-drenched. Between the 9th and 13th centuries, Cambodia was home to the Khmer Empire, which left behind incredible monuments such as Angkor Wat. Hopefully, the 21st century will be much kinder to the people of Cambodia than the last one was. Capital: Phnom Pehn, population 1,300,000 Cities: Battambang, population 1,025,000, Sihanoukville, population 235,000, Siem Reap, population 140,000, Kampong Cham, population 64,000 Cambodias Government Cambodia has a constitutional monarchy, with King Norodom Sihamoni as the current head of state. The Prime Minister is the head of government.  The current Prime Minister of Cambodia is Hun Sen, who was elected in 1998.  Legislative power is shared between the executive branch and the bicameral parliament, made up of the 123-member National Assembly of Cambodia and the 58-member Senate. Cambodia has a semi-functional multi-party representative democracy. Unfortunately, corruption is rampant and the government is non-transparent. Population Cambodias population is about 15,458,000 (2014 estimate).  The vast majority, 90%, are ethnic Khmer. Approximately 5% are Vietnamese, 1% Chinese, and the remaining 4% includes small populations of Chams (a Malay people), Jarai, Khmer Loeu, and Europeans. Due to the massacres of the Khmer Rouge era, Cambodia has a very young population. The median age is 21.7 years, and only 3.6% of the population is over the age of 65. (In comparison, 12.6% of US citizens are over 65.) Cambodias birth rate is 3.37 per woman; the infant mortality rate is 56.6 per 1,000 live births.  The literacy rate is 73.6%. Languages The official language of Cambodia is Khmer, which is part of the Mon-Khmer language family. Unlike nearby languages such as Thai, Vietnamese and Lao, spoken Khmer is not tonal. Written Khmer has a unique script, called abugida. Other languages in common use in Cambodia include French, Vietnamese, and English. Religion Most Cambodians (95%) today are Theravada Buddhists. This austere version of Buddhism became prevalent in Cambodia in the thirteenth century, displacing the combination of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism that was practiced previously. Modern Cambodia also has Muslim citizens (3%) and Christians (2%). Some people practice traditions derived from animism as well, alongside their primary faith. Geography Cambodia has an area of 181,040 square kilometers or 69,900 square miles. It is bordered by Thailand to the west and north, Laos to the north, and Vietnam to the east and south. Cambodia also has a 443 kilometer (275 miles) coastline on the Gulf of Thailand. The highest point in Cambodia is Phnum Aoral, at 1,810 meters (5,938 feet). The lowest point is the Gulf of Thailand coast, at sea level. West-central Cambodia is dominated by Tonle Sap, a large lake. During the dry season, its area is about 2,700 square kilometers (1,042 square miles), but during the monsoon season, it swells to 16,000 sq. km (6,177 sq. miles). Climate Cambodia has a tropical climate, with a rainy monsoon season from May to November, and a dry season from December to April. Temperatures dont vary much from season to season; the range is 21-31 °C (70-88 °F) in the dry season, and 24-35 °C (75-95 °F) in the wet season. Precipitation varies from just a trace in the dry season to over 250 cm (10 inches) in October. Economy The Cambodian economy is small, but growing quickly. In the 21st century, the annual growth rate has been between 5 and 9%. The GDP in 2007 was $8.3 billion US or $571 per capita. 35% of Cambodians live below the poverty line. The Cambodian economy is based primarily on agriculture and tourism- 75% of the workforce are farmers. Other industries include textiles manufacturing, and extraction of natural resources (timber, rubber, manganese, phosphate, and gems). Both the Cambodian rial and the US dollar are used in Cambodia, with the rial mostly given as change. The exchange rate is $1 4,128 KHR (October 2008 rate). History of Cambodia Human settlement in Cambodia dates back at least 7,000 years, and probably much farther. Early Kingdoms Chinese sources from the first century A.D. describe a powerful kingdom called Funan in Cambodia, which was strongly influenced by India. Funan went into decline in the 6th century A.D., and was supplanted by a group of ethnically-Khmer kingdoms that the Chinese refer to as Chenla. The Khmer Empire In 790, Prince Jayavarman II founded a new empire, the first to unite Cambodia as a political entity. This was the Khmer Empire, which lasted until 1431. The crown jewel of the Khmer Empire was the city of Angkor, centered around the temple of Angkor Wat. Construction began in the 890s, and Angkor served as the seat of power for more than 500 years. At its height, Angkor covered more area than modern-day New York City. Fall of the Khmer Empire After 1220, the Khmer Empire began to decline. It was attacked repeatedly by the neighboring Tai (Thai) people, and the beautiful city of Angkor was abandoned by the end of the 16th century. Thai and Vietnamese Rule After the fall of the Khmer Empire, Cambodia came under the control of the neighboring Tai and Vietnamese kingdoms. These two powers competed for influence until 1863, when France took control of Cambodia. French Rule The French ruled Cambodia for a century but viewed it as a subsidiary of the more important colony of Vietnam. During World War II, the Japanese occupied Cambodia but left the Vichy French in charge. The Japanese promoted Khmer nationalism and pan-Asian ideas. After Japans defeat, the Free French sought renewed control over Indochina. The rise of nationalism during the war, however, forced France to offer increasing self-rule to the Cambodians until independence in 1953. Independent Cambodia Prince Sihanouk ruled newly-free Cambodia until 1970 when he was deposed during the Cambodian Civil War (1967-1975). This war pitted communist forces, called the Khmer Rouge, against the US-backed Cambodian government. In 1975 the Khmer Rouge won the civil war, and under Pol Pot set to work creating an agrarian communist utopia by exterminating political opponents, monks and priests, and educated people in general. Just four years of Khmer Rouge rule left 1 to 2 million Cambodians dead- about 1/5 of the population. Vietnam attacked Cambodia and captured Phnom Penh in 1979, withdrawing only in 1989. The Khmer Rouge fought on as guerrillas until 1999. Today, though, Cambodia is a peaceful and democratic nation.