Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles

Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles The concept of preaching Chapter Two Contextual Literature Review 2.1 Establishing a starting point. Sermons are not a kind of discourse given much serious public attention in twenty-first century Britain. The very concept of preaching often brings with it negative connotations. To accuse any contemporary commentator of preaching is to suggest that unsubstantiated opinions are being delivered in a tedious manner. That in such common usage preaching is almost invariably a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet indicates something of the social standing of the practice of preaching. Preaching is not an activity that is generally thought of as either intellectually or emotionally engaging. It is, rather, something that is considered to be at best passà ©, and at worst wholly untrustworthy. If challenged, those who speak of preaching in such pejorative terms will often cite the cultural distance in practice and understanding between contemporary society and the sermon form as the basis of their judgment. Mention will be made of the social irrelevance of the content of typical sermons, the perceived authoritarian position of the preacher, and the strangeness of the environment in which sermons usually occur. It is also likely that the methodology employed will be judged anachronistic, static, long-winded, and overly didactic for people used to the methods and time-frames of electronic media. The implication is that preaching is somehow out of place in modern society and that, therefore, the negative attitudes displayed in the colloquial use of the term preaching is something new. It is fashionably contemporary to adopt a contemptuous or at best a jocular attitude towards preaching. I use the term fashionably to emphasize that preaching is not the only discourse to receiv e such widespread opprobrium: advertising is similarly widely scorned yet, given the vast sums of money spent on it, is evidently effective nonetheless (Kilbourne, 1999: 34). Voiced contempt of preaching as a worthwhile actively is not necessarily to be taken at face value. As has been stated in the introduction, this thesis seeks to present an analysis of contemporary British preaching as a practice of social mnemonics. As the idea of social practice in that terminology refers to the whole of society rather than an interest group or a few like-minded people gathered together, such a perspective may appear to be an oxymoron given that recent poling suggests only just over six per cent of the adult population of the UK are churchgoers (see Brierley, 2008). This literature review will, nevertheless, seek to establish that Christian preachers who have reflected in depth on their practice in recent generations have invariably assumed that homiletics is an aspect of public discourse rather than an institutionally confined and specialized type of communication. In recent times, justifying that assumption has become more and more difficult, as this review will demonstrate. It has to be admitted that preaching no longer has the place in society-wide awareness i t once enjoyed, despite the occasional headline making exceptions, such as Archbishop Robert Runcies sermon at the Falklands War Memorial Service on 26th June 1982 that reportedly so annoyed the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (Brown, 2000). Despite the decline in preachings social status, this study argues that there are always connections between homiletic theory and wider social discourse, and that discovering those connections is a mnemonic skill required of all preachers. That many studies (for example, Ford. (1979); Bausch, (1996); and Day, Astley and Francis, (2005)) have observed that since at least the 1960s the idea of preaching as a worthwhile arena of social discourse has been repeatedly and vigorously questioned is part of the contextualization with which this thesis is concerned. That the very word preaching brings with it negative connotations that touch even regular Christian worshippers, as N.T. Wright observes in his foreword to the Reader on Preaching (Day, 2005: ix), is part of the social understanding this study aims to examine. The colloquial usage that applies the word preaching to the expression of any unsubstantiated opinions, or any speech delivered in a tedious manner, is not a prejudice that serious homiletic theory can simply ignore. That usage is widespread and is, for example, represented in the 1995 edition of the Oxford English Reference Dictionary where the second definition of preach is give moral advice in an obtrusive w ay. Similarly, the use of the word preaching as a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet is too frequent in newspapers to need much supporting elaboration. Andrew Rawnsley writing in The Observer on 13th July 2008 is but one example of a continuing journalistic convention. Rawnsley cited the drawbacks for politicians who preach in their campaigning via a long catalogue of negatives about the idea of preaching which included delivering patronising lectures from a position of immense privilege, wringing their hands about the sins of the world without offering any practical answers to improve society, and simplified to the point of parody. These kinds of associations related to the idea of preaching cannot be simply dismissed if it is to be argued that the practice of preaching within the churches is closely related to wider social trends. Instead, the contemporary bias that associates preaching with that which is intellectually lazy, emotionally sterile, untrustworthy, or simply passà ©, must be treated as a factor that needs to be addressed in considering the mechanisms of collective memory. That said, it must also be acknowledged that the assertion that preachings low social esteem is a modern phenomenon is not wholly true. Like the contemporary negative connotations of preaching, the characterization of preaching as formerly being held in great social esteem, is a generalization that obscures as much as it discloses. In the famous passage concerning preaching in Anthony Trollopes novel Barchester Towers the negativity usually judged as modern is apparent even at the so-called high-point of Victorian religious practice. Written between April 1855 and November 1856, Trollopes words contain the same kind of criticisms and sense of hostility encountered colloquially nowadays. He wrote: There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. No one can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sinbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sundays rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes Gods service distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God, without that anxious longing for escape, which is the common consequence of common sermons. (Trollope, 1995: 43-44) Only the assumption that Sunday worship is the norm and the invariable gender of the preacher signifies Trollopes diatribe as of another age. The notion of a static audience enduring a platitudinous and boring verbal presentation has an altogether familiar ring about it. As Colin Morris (1996: xi) points out, it is significant that the first series of the Lyman-Beecher Lectures on Preaching established at Yale University in the 1870s ended with a lecture entitled, Is Preaching Finished? Needless to say, the lecture firmly declared that preaching had a future; but, put alongside Trollopes criticisms, it demonstrates that negativity about sermons predates the age of mass electronic communication. In recent years, numerous influential homileticians have described preaching as being in crisis (for example, Jensen, (1993); Wilson, (1988); Morris, (1996)), but too often such worried analysis has overstated the contemporaneity of the problem. 2.2 The perception of a crisis in preaching. Three recurring emphases are common to the arguments of those who see the crisis in preaching as something of recent origin, namely: a widespread loss of confidence in institutions; a change in socially learnt communicative skills; and the all-pervasive influence of television and associated vehicles of mass communication. So, to amplify those three aspects, the argument is usually made in the following kinds of terms. First, not only has the severe decline in commitment to religious institutions in recent times resulted in far fewer people actually hearing sermons, even those who do experience preaching at firsthand are much less likely to treat sermons as being particularly significant than did their immediate forebears. Scepticism, and a questioning outlook that constantly raises issues of credibility, is part of the very air of social intercourse, and preaching has no social independence from such an atmosphere. Like every other voice, the preaching voice is one voice amongst a myriad of other voices, and is just as harried by questions of authenticity, doubt and competition as any other voice. Contemporary European society, it is said, has a fundamentally anti-authoritarian aspect to it that will not allow any single voice ultimate authority. Preaching, therefore, which is usually considered to require special and very particular authority being attributed to the preacher, is especially suspec t. This, in turn, has ramifications for those who preach, since as individuals they are just as much influenced by these contextual pressures as anyone else. This means that preachers, whatever they claim in public, almost inevitably have less confidence in the preaching task than even their recent predecessors. Second, in what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo (2001: 230) has termed a society of generalized communication, the very nature of communication itself has profoundly shifted. It is as if everything in human experience has become an object of communication. This shift is often associated with consumerism because, it is argued, such a process of ever widening objects of communication allows more and more events, things, and relationships to become marketable commodities. This expansion, however, brings with it three difficult consequences: it vastly increases the number and range of communication events each person encounters day by day, with a resulting loss in focus, concentration, and time spent on each one; it so stimulates the psychological and physical experience of each person that peoples boredom thresholds have decreased dramatically; and it makes communication itself part of the constantly changing, consumption dominated, arena of style and fashion. These things are pa rticularly problematic for preaching since they mean hearers have ever shortening attention spans, feel they need to be stimulated by what they hear, and employ fashion-like judgments to both their readiness to listen and their willingness to respond (Rogness, 1994: 27-29). Coupled with these changes comes an emphasis on technique in communication, and a preference for labelling unacceptable ideas or challenges as a failure in communication. As a result preachers face intense pressures to conform, both in terms of the content of sermons and the techniques of presentation, to what is socially acceptable simply to gain a hearing. Accordingly, it is argued that the requirement to attract attention and engagement is of a wholly more onerous intensity than it ever was in past times. In the distracted age that is contemporary society the static commitment and attention required of sermon audiences is so counter-cultural as to be almost unachievable. Third, the argument gives prominence to the absolute dominance of television as the popular medium, and characterizes contemporary culture as televisual and post-literate. It is said that through television, for the first time in the history of humanity, children are being socialized into image use prior to word use (see Warren, 1997). Consequently, the use of words is likely to no longer occupy the pole position in social discourse, but rather to occupy an inherently second order, commentary position. In other words, our culture has shifted from a reading-formed preference towards the ear over the eye, to an image-formed favouring of the eye over the ear, with an obviously detrimental effect on a word dominated form like preaching. Television also appears to be an open and democratized form of communication that offers the prospect of an absolutely free flow of information. It tantalizes with the notion that anything that happens will be almost instantaneously communicable; an impre ssion further reinforced by the Internet. Of course there are serious criticisms to be made of these judgments, but they are nevertheless widely persuasive, at least at face value, both because of the sensory immediacy of the medium and because of the entertainment factors closely allied with it. In comparison preaching seems a highly subjectivized personal choice in which the preacher demands of an audience assent without prior consent and justification, and in which the factor of entertainment does not figure at all. In a televisual world of a seemingly infinite number of stories, preachings insistence, as it is perceived, on the one story of Gods relationship with humanity in Jesus Christ seems partial and even tedious. Those who lived before the development of electronic media lived lives in which stories, colour, and pictures were rare and precious events; people of the televisual age inhabit a world alive with an ever changing array of images, colours and narratives. Is it any wonder then that preaching that developed as a communication technique in that pre-television world is thought of as having become outmoded? Such are the usual parameters of the argument—broadly stated, no doubt, and perhaps caricatured a little—of recent scholarly analysis of the social location of the practice of preaching in contemporary European society. Interestingly, it is apparent that the scholarly commentary not only echoes colloquial opinion about the recentness of the relative decline of the authority afforded preaching, but also the reasons given for that decline. One of questions which this thesis seeks to address is whether such judgments adequately represent what is actually going on in the act of preaching, and whether by an all too easy assumption of preaching as an essentially distinctive activity somehow distanced from other forms of discourse such analysis does not fall prey to the very forces it is trying to counter. After the hiatus caused by World War II, the BBC resumed television broadcasting in 1946, and the commencement of broadcasting by commercial stations in 1955 accelerated the use of the medium. By 1958 the number of British households with a TV exceeded those with only a radio (Mathias, 2006). Given the above discussion of the widely perceived influence of new electronic media and TVs escalating use, the 1950s seem an appropriate starting point for the consideration of publications dealing with preaching. Quite apart from this more commonplace sense of a shift having taking place, scholarly analysis of both Church history and homiletics tends to support the idea that very significant changes relevant to the thesis topic did in fact occur at this period. Those changes were not necessarily recognized at the time; perhaps an indication of the lag that occurs as the memories of one generation gives way to those of a succeeding one. One British preacher, however, was alert to the possibili ty that something profound was happening. That preacher was a R. E. C. Charlie Browne, a Manchester vicar, whose 1950s reflections on the preaching task turned out to be amazingly prescient of things that would become major concerns years later. Browne serves as a marker of change. It is sensible, therefore, to examine Browne in some detail before returning to the more general overview. 2.3 R. E. C. Browne as a marker of the changing social location of preaching. R.E.C. Brownes The Ministry of the Word was first published in 1958 in a series of short works entitled Studies in Ministry and Worship under the overall editorship of Professor Geoffrey Lampe. Lampes editorship lent theological credibility to a series that was notable on two counts. First, it was decidedly ecumenical (for example, two of the studies were by Max Thurian, who later became internationally known as the theological expositor of the ecumenical Taizà © community); and second, it was written from a perspective that only later would be widely termed applied or practical theology. Brownes book is the acknowledged masterpiece of the series and has been reissued three times since its first publication (1976, 1984 and 1994), as well as being published in the United States in 1982. Writing in 1986, Bishop Richard Hanson said of it: This is no little volume of helpful hints about preaching but a profound study of the meaning and use of language in relation to theology and to faith, and one that will outlast all the ephemeral booklets about how to preach. (in Corbett, 1986: v) Just why this work has been so frequently referred to in a wide variety of Christian traditions will be considered later, but for the purposes of the present discussion the crucial point is the historical context of its writing and publication. Browne wrote the book whilst he was Rector of the parish of Saint Chrysostum, Victoria Park, Manchester in the 1950s. Ronald Preston, in a foreword to one edition of The Ministry of the Word, describes Victoria Park as having moved rapidly since the 1920s from the remains of enclosed and privileged nineteenth-century affluence to near disintegration (in Browne, 1976: 10). He notes also, however, that the St Chrysostums relative proximity to the university and the citys main teaching hospital made it a base from which Brownes influence spread widely. Hanson records that it was a parish where the personality and abilities alone of the incumbent cleric could attract worshippers (Corbett, 1986: iv). In other words, several aspects of the social world that historians like Hastings (1986), Welsby (1984), and Hylson-Smith (1998) have characterized as typical of the 1950s were clearly likely to have been there in Brownes experience of the ministerial life. For example, Welsby commenting on t he monthly journal Theology in the two immediately post-war decades notes how it was widely read by parish clergy and acted as a connecting bridge between the concerns of academia and local church life, and concludes: It is significant, however, that fundamental matters, such as belief in God or in Christ were seldom discussed in its pages, as though these theological foundations were secure and might be taken for granted. This could be a symbol of much of the theology of the forties and fifties. There was a self-confidence and security so that even those who did write about God, Christology, of the Church did so as though the basis of belief was unquestionably right. (Welsby, 1984: 67) Elsewhere in the same book Welsby notes that the seeds of radical change were present in the 1950s but went unperceived, and he describes the atmosphere in the Church of England as one of complacency and an apparent unawareness of trends already present which were to burst to the surface in the sixties (1984: 94). Browne most certainly did not share that unawareness and frankly acknowledged the difficulties of communicating the gospel despite the relatively secure social position of theological thought and institutional belief. Far from being in an unassailable authoritative position, he described preachers as living and preaching in an age when there is general perplexity and bewilderment about authority, and as all too unwittingly signifying that perplexity in the language and thought expressed in the pulpit (Browne, 1976: 33). Browne would probably have concurred with Adrian Hastings opinion that in the ebb and flow of the intellectual tide in the twentieth century, the 1950s marked a high water point of sympathy for the Christian faith in contrast to the high point for secularism immediately after World War I (Hastings, 1986: 491), but he nevertheless argued that effective preaching required new symbols because new human knowledge has disabled the old ones (Browne, 1976: 107). Hastings, looking back on the times in which Browne wrote, asserts: There was never a time since the middle of the nineteenth century when Christian faith was either taken so seriously by the generality of the more intelligent or could make such a good case for itself. (Hastings, 1986: 491) Browne himself is rather more querulous in his reflections and quotes approvingly from Emmanuel Mounier: There is a comfortable atheism, as there is a comfortable Christianity. They meet on the same swampy ground, and their collisions are the ruder for their awareness and irritable resentment of the weakening of their profound differences beneath the common kinship of their habits. The prospect of personal annihilation no more disturbs the contented sleep of the average radical-socialist than does horror of the divine transcendence or terror of reprobation disturb the spiritual digestion of the habituà ©s of the midday Mass. Forgetfulness of these truisms is the reason why so many discussions are still hampered by naà ¯ve susceptibilities. Emmanuel Mounier, The Spoil of the Violent, Harvill Press, 1955: 25 (as cited in Browne, 1976: 109) Browne was conscious that amongst the comforts of wide social acknowledgement and respect other more challenging forces were becoming apparent. Browne is wary of any intellectual triumphalism on the part of preachers and insists that in attempting to address the atheist, or the wholly religiously indifferent unperturbed post-atheist, it is always necessary to establish pastoral rapport first (1976: 110). Sometimes, he admits, such rapport will be impossible to establish (1976: 110). Paradoxically, as Hastings notes (1986: 492, 496), the 1950s were at one and the same time an era in which religion was considered seriously by a number of the great cultural and intellectual figures of the day (such as Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), Carl Jung (1875-1961), Graham Sutherland (1903-80), Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), to name just a few) and in which the radical agnosticism and secularism born of earlier times also flourished (for examples see the works of A.J. Ayer (1910-89), C.P. Snow (1905-80), A.J.P. Taylor (1906-90) and Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003)). Perhaps it was that Browne realized i n a way other preachers did not, that although these two worlds of thought existed side by side the competition between them was not in any way equal. As Hylson-Smith observes, by the end of World War II the environmental context of all cultural activity was essentially secular (1998: 212). That point was a matter of essential concern to a preacher like Browne who regarded sermons as an artistic activity requiring similar processes of social understanding and interaction as those necessary to the production of music, poetry or painting (Browne, 1976: 18). Browne writes rather ruefully: Christians have the naà ¯ve idea that the arts, specially drama, could and should be extensively used for the proclamation of the gospel. In the first place Christian artists cannot easily and quickly find a way of expressing Christian doctrine in a community which is not moved by Christian symbols. Indeed at present there is no common symbolism Christian or otherwise and Christian artists are found incomprehensible and disturbing by their fellow Christians who cannot justify the authority of new forms and somehow feel that old forms might be patched and brought up-to-date. In the second place whenever the church tries to use art as a method of propaganda her integrity and authority are severely questioned by just those whose conversion would be most significant. (1976: 35) There is here an early recognition of that social forgetfulness of Christian symbols that would a generation later become a commonplace assessment of religious traditions in contemporary Britain. For Browne the preachers purpose was to seek answers about the most profound aspects of human concern and experience with the single-mindedness and commitment of an honest artist. Easy answers to difficult questions, or formulaic responses to deep questioning, were to Browne a betrayal of preachings very purpose. For him nothing less than the artists earnest wrestling to express the inexpressible was good enough. It is hard to imagine that Browne was untroubled that the things of artistic expression, with one or two notable exceptions, seemed less and less concerned with religious ideas, and that the churches appeared indifferent to the fact (Hylson-Smith, 1998: 212). As favourable to inherited ideas of religious expression as the climate of the 1950s appears viewed from the beginning of the twenty-first century, Browne, as a preacher active during those years, offers an altogether less sanguine appraisal. That his book dwells extensively on the issue of meaning and the use of language in relationship to the expression of faith indicates that he did not share the easy certainties regarding the communication of religious ideas that were still prevalent within the institutional church of his day. Brownes commitment to preaching as a necessary part of Christian community life is absolute, but his insistence that its practice is most like the creation of a work of art or a poem makes plain its inherent limitations: the sermon can no more readily define the truth in absolute terms than can the artist or poet (1976: 18). Such an insistence shifts the authority given to preaching from one of power, described as six foot above contradiction, to the altoge ther different position implied in later years by terms such as Fords communicative expertise which is self-authenticating (Ford, 1979: 235), or Taylors fragile words (Taylor, 1998: 121). Like such later homileticians, Browne believed preachers should not claim too much for their efforts. That reserve, however, should not be mistaken for a hesitation about the necessity or value of preaching. In his work there is no hint of the thought of later theorists who sought to abandon preaching completely. Brownes reserve is a perceptive awareness that, to use the terminology of Adrian Hastings, although the comfortably traditionalist church of his times was undergoing a period of confident revival (1986: 504) it was in fact finding it harder and harder to connect with the generality of people in terms of shared symbols and meanings. Browne was ahead of his time in his recognition that the changing social context of ministry had direct ramifications for the power and authority of the preacher. He wrote: What ministers of the Word say may seem too little to live on, but they must not go beyond their authority in a mistaken attempt to make their authority strong and clear. That going beyond is always the outcome of an atheistic anxiety, or a sign that the man of God has succumbed to the temptation to speak as a god, to come in his own name and to be his own authority. (Browne, 1976: 40) Such sentiments are echoed in the more recent application of contemporary philosophy to preaching by the American scholar John S. McClure (2001). Nevertheless, in terms of homiletic theory in Britain in the twentieth-century, Brownes was a voice that offered a new appreciation of the actual communicative environment in which sermons were placed. His book demonstrates that the radical calling into question of the methodologies of preaching pre-dates both the crisis noted by such commentators as Ford (1979) or Jensen (1993) and the colloquial assumption that in the 1950s, before the widespread use of television, the place of the sermon was assured. This concern about preachings power to engage attention indicates that the shifts that will be analysed when this study returns to the consideration of collective memory must extend wide enough to include responses such as those of Browne. The unease with homiletic methodology that Brownes work expressed provides a justification for this review using his analysis as its historical starting point. Consequently, there now follows an overview of trends in preaching since Brownes book that aims to provide both general orientation and a framework within which works discussed later can be placed. 2.4 Trends in the theory and practice of preaching since the mid 1950s. O.C. Edwards in his A History of Preaching notes that the 25 year period ending in 1955 turned out to be the high-point of the social standing and influence of traditional Protestant churches (2004: 665). Whilst that judgment may seem too effusive and unqualified when applied to the United Kingdom, it does, nevertheless, indicate the reality of the institutional confidence that was prevalent in churches on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. That confidence had direct ramifications for preaching: as Hastings puts it, in the immediate post-war years preaching as both art and edifying was still alive and cherished (1986: 462). The comment comes in a passage in A History of English Christianity 1920 1985 (1986: 436-472) that deals with the Free Churches, in which Hastings cites the influential preaching ministries of Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1975), W.E. Sangster (1900-1960), and Donald Soper (1903-1998)—all of whom drew large numbers to hear them preach. In the same section of his book, however, comes this stark conclusion: The mid-1950s can be dated pretty precisely as the end of the age of preaching: people suddenly ceased to think it worthwhile listening to a special preacher. Whether this was caused by the religious shift produced by the liturgical movement or by the spread of television or by some other alteration in human sensibility is not clear. But the change is clear. (1986: 465) Hastings is perhaps a little too hesitant in his judgement about what prompted this change. Although numerous theological and social factors were obviously significant, the turn towards television as a predominating pastime must surely have been the crucial prompter of change in the way people spent their time. That preaching, at the beginning of the 1950s at least, remained dominated by agendas and styles drawn from previous generations is evident in the fact that a number of books from those earlier times remained in frequent use. Bishop Phillips Brooks had delivered his eight lectures on preaching at Yale Divinity School in the Lyman Beecher Lectureship of January and February 1877, but his advice was still considered pertinent enough to warrant the publication of a British fifth edition in 1957. Similarly, Harry Emerson Fosdicks Lyman Beecher lectures of the winter of 1923-4, entitled The Modern Use of the Bible, were last re-issued in their published form as late as 1961; and Leslie Weatherheads Lyman Beecher lectures of 1948-9, although only published in part in his book Psychology, Religion and Healing in 1957, was re-issued in 1974. Two crucial points are suggested by the longevity of these works: first, although the 1950s do indeed mark a watershed in preachings social location, it is clear that the consequences of that change were not apparent with the same force, nor at the same rate, Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles Analysis of Contemporary British Preaching Styles The concept of preaching Chapter Two Contextual Literature Review 2.1 Establishing a starting point. Sermons are not a kind of discourse given much serious public attention in twenty-first century Britain. The very concept of preaching often brings with it negative connotations. To accuse any contemporary commentator of preaching is to suggest that unsubstantiated opinions are being delivered in a tedious manner. That in such common usage preaching is almost invariably a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet indicates something of the social standing of the practice of preaching. Preaching is not an activity that is generally thought of as either intellectually or emotionally engaging. It is, rather, something that is considered to be at best passà ©, and at worst wholly untrustworthy. If challenged, those who speak of preaching in such pejorative terms will often cite the cultural distance in practice and understanding between contemporary society and the sermon form as the basis of their judgment. Mention will be made of the social irrelevance of the content of typical sermons, the perceived authoritarian position of the preacher, and the strangeness of the environment in which sermons usually occur. It is also likely that the methodology employed will be judged anachronistic, static, long-winded, and overly didactic for people used to the methods and time-frames of electronic media. The implication is that preaching is somehow out of place in modern society and that, therefore, the negative attitudes displayed in the colloquial use of the term preaching is something new. It is fashionably contemporary to adopt a contemptuous or at best a jocular attitude towards preaching. I use the term fashionably to emphasize that preaching is not the only discourse to receiv e such widespread opprobrium: advertising is similarly widely scorned yet, given the vast sums of money spent on it, is evidently effective nonetheless (Kilbourne, 1999: 34). Voiced contempt of preaching as a worthwhile actively is not necessarily to be taken at face value. As has been stated in the introduction, this thesis seeks to present an analysis of contemporary British preaching as a practice of social mnemonics. As the idea of social practice in that terminology refers to the whole of society rather than an interest group or a few like-minded people gathered together, such a perspective may appear to be an oxymoron given that recent poling suggests only just over six per cent of the adult population of the UK are churchgoers (see Brierley, 2008). This literature review will, nevertheless, seek to establish that Christian preachers who have reflected in depth on their practice in recent generations have invariably assumed that homiletics is an aspect of public discourse rather than an institutionally confined and specialized type of communication. In recent times, justifying that assumption has become more and more difficult, as this review will demonstrate. It has to be admitted that preaching no longer has the place in society-wide awareness i t once enjoyed, despite the occasional headline making exceptions, such as Archbishop Robert Runcies sermon at the Falklands War Memorial Service on 26th June 1982 that reportedly so annoyed the then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher (Brown, 2000). Despite the decline in preachings social status, this study argues that there are always connections between homiletic theory and wider social discourse, and that discovering those connections is a mnemonic skill required of all preachers. That many studies (for example, Ford. (1979); Bausch, (1996); and Day, Astley and Francis, (2005)) have observed that since at least the 1960s the idea of preaching as a worthwhile arena of social discourse has been repeatedly and vigorously questioned is part of the contextualization with which this thesis is concerned. That the very word preaching brings with it negative connotations that touch even regular Christian worshippers, as N.T. Wright observes in his foreword to the Reader on Preaching (Day, 2005: ix), is part of the social understanding this study aims to examine. The colloquial usage that applies the word preaching to the expression of any unsubstantiated opinions, or any speech delivered in a tedious manner, is not a prejudice that serious homiletic theory can simply ignore. That usage is widespread and is, for example, represented in the 1995 edition of the Oxford English Reference Dictionary where the second definition of preach is give moral advice in an obtrusive w ay. Similarly, the use of the word preaching as a highly critical or even condemnatory epithet is too frequent in newspapers to need much supporting elaboration. Andrew Rawnsley writing in The Observer on 13th July 2008 is but one example of a continuing journalistic convention. Rawnsley cited the drawbacks for politicians who preach in their campaigning via a long catalogue of negatives about the idea of preaching which included delivering patronising lectures from a position of immense privilege, wringing their hands about the sins of the world without offering any practical answers to improve society, and simplified to the point of parody. These kinds of associations related to the idea of preaching cannot be simply dismissed if it is to be argued that the practice of preaching within the churches is closely related to wider social trends. Instead, the contemporary bias that associates preaching with that which is intellectually lazy, emotionally sterile, untrustworthy, or simply passà ©, must be treated as a factor that needs to be addressed in considering the mechanisms of collective memory. That said, it must also be acknowledged that the assertion that preachings low social esteem is a modern phenomenon is not wholly true. Like the contemporary negative connotations of preaching, the characterization of preaching as formerly being held in great social esteem, is a generalization that obscures as much as it discloses. In the famous passage concerning preaching in Anthony Trollopes novel Barchester Towers the negativity usually judged as modern is apparent even at the so-called high-point of Victorian religious practice. Written between April 1855 and November 1856, Trollopes words contain the same kind of criticisms and sense of hostility encountered colloquially nowadays. He wrote: There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilized and free countries, than the necessity of listening to sermons. No one but a preaching clergyman has, in these realms, the power of compelling an audience to sit silent, and be tormented. No one but a preaching clergyman can revel in platitudes, truisms, and untruisms, and yet receive, as his undisputed privilege, the same respectful demeanour as though words of impassioned eloquence, or persuasive logic, fell from his lips. No one can rid himself of the preaching clergyman. He is the bore of the age, the old man whom we Sinbads cannot shake off, the nightmare that disturbs our Sundays rest, the incubus that overloads our religion and makes Gods service distasteful. We are not forced into church! No: but we desire more than that. We desire not to be forced to stay away. We desire, nay, we are resolute, to enjoy the comfort of public worship; but we desire also that we may do so without an amount of tedium which ordinary human nature cannot endure with patience; that we may be able to leave the house of God, without that anxious longing for escape, which is the common consequence of common sermons. (Trollope, 1995: 43-44) Only the assumption that Sunday worship is the norm and the invariable gender of the preacher signifies Trollopes diatribe as of another age. The notion of a static audience enduring a platitudinous and boring verbal presentation has an altogether familiar ring about it. As Colin Morris (1996: xi) points out, it is significant that the first series of the Lyman-Beecher Lectures on Preaching established at Yale University in the 1870s ended with a lecture entitled, Is Preaching Finished? Needless to say, the lecture firmly declared that preaching had a future; but, put alongside Trollopes criticisms, it demonstrates that negativity about sermons predates the age of mass electronic communication. In recent years, numerous influential homileticians have described preaching as being in crisis (for example, Jensen, (1993); Wilson, (1988); Morris, (1996)), but too often such worried analysis has overstated the contemporaneity of the problem. 2.2 The perception of a crisis in preaching. Three recurring emphases are common to the arguments of those who see the crisis in preaching as something of recent origin, namely: a widespread loss of confidence in institutions; a change in socially learnt communicative skills; and the all-pervasive influence of television and associated vehicles of mass communication. So, to amplify those three aspects, the argument is usually made in the following kinds of terms. First, not only has the severe decline in commitment to religious institutions in recent times resulted in far fewer people actually hearing sermons, even those who do experience preaching at firsthand are much less likely to treat sermons as being particularly significant than did their immediate forebears. Scepticism, and a questioning outlook that constantly raises issues of credibility, is part of the very air of social intercourse, and preaching has no social independence from such an atmosphere. Like every other voice, the preaching voice is one voice amongst a myriad of other voices, and is just as harried by questions of authenticity, doubt and competition as any other voice. Contemporary European society, it is said, has a fundamentally anti-authoritarian aspect to it that will not allow any single voice ultimate authority. Preaching, therefore, which is usually considered to require special and very particular authority being attributed to the preacher, is especially suspec t. This, in turn, has ramifications for those who preach, since as individuals they are just as much influenced by these contextual pressures as anyone else. This means that preachers, whatever they claim in public, almost inevitably have less confidence in the preaching task than even their recent predecessors. Second, in what the Italian philosopher Gianni Vattimo (2001: 230) has termed a society of generalized communication, the very nature of communication itself has profoundly shifted. It is as if everything in human experience has become an object of communication. This shift is often associated with consumerism because, it is argued, such a process of ever widening objects of communication allows more and more events, things, and relationships to become marketable commodities. This expansion, however, brings with it three difficult consequences: it vastly increases the number and range of communication events each person encounters day by day, with a resulting loss in focus, concentration, and time spent on each one; it so stimulates the psychological and physical experience of each person that peoples boredom thresholds have decreased dramatically; and it makes communication itself part of the constantly changing, consumption dominated, arena of style and fashion. These things are pa rticularly problematic for preaching since they mean hearers have ever shortening attention spans, feel they need to be stimulated by what they hear, and employ fashion-like judgments to both their readiness to listen and their willingness to respond (Rogness, 1994: 27-29). Coupled with these changes comes an emphasis on technique in communication, and a preference for labelling unacceptable ideas or challenges as a failure in communication. As a result preachers face intense pressures to conform, both in terms of the content of sermons and the techniques of presentation, to what is socially acceptable simply to gain a hearing. Accordingly, it is argued that the requirement to attract attention and engagement is of a wholly more onerous intensity than it ever was in past times. In the distracted age that is contemporary society the static commitment and attention required of sermon audiences is so counter-cultural as to be almost unachievable. Third, the argument gives prominence to the absolute dominance of television as the popular medium, and characterizes contemporary culture as televisual and post-literate. It is said that through television, for the first time in the history of humanity, children are being socialized into image use prior to word use (see Warren, 1997). Consequently, the use of words is likely to no longer occupy the pole position in social discourse, but rather to occupy an inherently second order, commentary position. In other words, our culture has shifted from a reading-formed preference towards the ear over the eye, to an image-formed favouring of the eye over the ear, with an obviously detrimental effect on a word dominated form like preaching. Television also appears to be an open and democratized form of communication that offers the prospect of an absolutely free flow of information. It tantalizes with the notion that anything that happens will be almost instantaneously communicable; an impre ssion further reinforced by the Internet. Of course there are serious criticisms to be made of these judgments, but they are nevertheless widely persuasive, at least at face value, both because of the sensory immediacy of the medium and because of the entertainment factors closely allied with it. In comparison preaching seems a highly subjectivized personal choice in which the preacher demands of an audience assent without prior consent and justification, and in which the factor of entertainment does not figure at all. In a televisual world of a seemingly infinite number of stories, preachings insistence, as it is perceived, on the one story of Gods relationship with humanity in Jesus Christ seems partial and even tedious. Those who lived before the development of electronic media lived lives in which stories, colour, and pictures were rare and precious events; people of the televisual age inhabit a world alive with an ever changing array of images, colours and narratives. Is it any wonder then that preaching that developed as a communication technique in that pre-television world is thought of as having become outmoded? Such are the usual parameters of the argument—broadly stated, no doubt, and perhaps caricatured a little—of recent scholarly analysis of the social location of the practice of preaching in contemporary European society. Interestingly, it is apparent that the scholarly commentary not only echoes colloquial opinion about the recentness of the relative decline of the authority afforded preaching, but also the reasons given for that decline. One of questions which this thesis seeks to address is whether such judgments adequately represent what is actually going on in the act of preaching, and whether by an all too easy assumption of preaching as an essentially distinctive activity somehow distanced from other forms of discourse such analysis does not fall prey to the very forces it is trying to counter. After the hiatus caused by World War II, the BBC resumed television broadcasting in 1946, and the commencement of broadcasting by commercial stations in 1955 accelerated the use of the medium. By 1958 the number of British households with a TV exceeded those with only a radio (Mathias, 2006). Given the above discussion of the widely perceived influence of new electronic media and TVs escalating use, the 1950s seem an appropriate starting point for the consideration of publications dealing with preaching. Quite apart from this more commonplace sense of a shift having taking place, scholarly analysis of both Church history and homiletics tends to support the idea that very significant changes relevant to the thesis topic did in fact occur at this period. Those changes were not necessarily recognized at the time; perhaps an indication of the lag that occurs as the memories of one generation gives way to those of a succeeding one. One British preacher, however, was alert to the possibili ty that something profound was happening. That preacher was a R. E. C. Charlie Browne, a Manchester vicar, whose 1950s reflections on the preaching task turned out to be amazingly prescient of things that would become major concerns years later. Browne serves as a marker of change. It is sensible, therefore, to examine Browne in some detail before returning to the more general overview. 2.3 R. E. C. Browne as a marker of the changing social location of preaching. R.E.C. Brownes The Ministry of the Word was first published in 1958 in a series of short works entitled Studies in Ministry and Worship under the overall editorship of Professor Geoffrey Lampe. Lampes editorship lent theological credibility to a series that was notable on two counts. First, it was decidedly ecumenical (for example, two of the studies were by Max Thurian, who later became internationally known as the theological expositor of the ecumenical Taizà © community); and second, it was written from a perspective that only later would be widely termed applied or practical theology. Brownes book is the acknowledged masterpiece of the series and has been reissued three times since its first publication (1976, 1984 and 1994), as well as being published in the United States in 1982. Writing in 1986, Bishop Richard Hanson said of it: This is no little volume of helpful hints about preaching but a profound study of the meaning and use of language in relation to theology and to faith, and one that will outlast all the ephemeral booklets about how to preach. (in Corbett, 1986: v) Just why this work has been so frequently referred to in a wide variety of Christian traditions will be considered later, but for the purposes of the present discussion the crucial point is the historical context of its writing and publication. Browne wrote the book whilst he was Rector of the parish of Saint Chrysostum, Victoria Park, Manchester in the 1950s. Ronald Preston, in a foreword to one edition of The Ministry of the Word, describes Victoria Park as having moved rapidly since the 1920s from the remains of enclosed and privileged nineteenth-century affluence to near disintegration (in Browne, 1976: 10). He notes also, however, that the St Chrysostums relative proximity to the university and the citys main teaching hospital made it a base from which Brownes influence spread widely. Hanson records that it was a parish where the personality and abilities alone of the incumbent cleric could attract worshippers (Corbett, 1986: iv). In other words, several aspects of the social world that historians like Hastings (1986), Welsby (1984), and Hylson-Smith (1998) have characterized as typical of the 1950s were clearly likely to have been there in Brownes experience of the ministerial life. For example, Welsby commenting on t he monthly journal Theology in the two immediately post-war decades notes how it was widely read by parish clergy and acted as a connecting bridge between the concerns of academia and local church life, and concludes: It is significant, however, that fundamental matters, such as belief in God or in Christ were seldom discussed in its pages, as though these theological foundations were secure and might be taken for granted. This could be a symbol of much of the theology of the forties and fifties. There was a self-confidence and security so that even those who did write about God, Christology, of the Church did so as though the basis of belief was unquestionably right. (Welsby, 1984: 67) Elsewhere in the same book Welsby notes that the seeds of radical change were present in the 1950s but went unperceived, and he describes the atmosphere in the Church of England as one of complacency and an apparent unawareness of trends already present which were to burst to the surface in the sixties (1984: 94). Browne most certainly did not share that unawareness and frankly acknowledged the difficulties of communicating the gospel despite the relatively secure social position of theological thought and institutional belief. Far from being in an unassailable authoritative position, he described preachers as living and preaching in an age when there is general perplexity and bewilderment about authority, and as all too unwittingly signifying that perplexity in the language and thought expressed in the pulpit (Browne, 1976: 33). Browne would probably have concurred with Adrian Hastings opinion that in the ebb and flow of the intellectual tide in the twentieth century, the 1950s marked a high water point of sympathy for the Christian faith in contrast to the high point for secularism immediately after World War I (Hastings, 1986: 491), but he nevertheless argued that effective preaching required new symbols because new human knowledge has disabled the old ones (Browne, 1976: 107). Hastings, looking back on the times in which Browne wrote, asserts: There was never a time since the middle of the nineteenth century when Christian faith was either taken so seriously by the generality of the more intelligent or could make such a good case for itself. (Hastings, 1986: 491) Browne himself is rather more querulous in his reflections and quotes approvingly from Emmanuel Mounier: There is a comfortable atheism, as there is a comfortable Christianity. They meet on the same swampy ground, and their collisions are the ruder for their awareness and irritable resentment of the weakening of their profound differences beneath the common kinship of their habits. The prospect of personal annihilation no more disturbs the contented sleep of the average radical-socialist than does horror of the divine transcendence or terror of reprobation disturb the spiritual digestion of the habituà ©s of the midday Mass. Forgetfulness of these truisms is the reason why so many discussions are still hampered by naà ¯ve susceptibilities. Emmanuel Mounier, The Spoil of the Violent, Harvill Press, 1955: 25 (as cited in Browne, 1976: 109) Browne was conscious that amongst the comforts of wide social acknowledgement and respect other more challenging forces were becoming apparent. Browne is wary of any intellectual triumphalism on the part of preachers and insists that in attempting to address the atheist, or the wholly religiously indifferent unperturbed post-atheist, it is always necessary to establish pastoral rapport first (1976: 110). Sometimes, he admits, such rapport will be impossible to establish (1976: 110). Paradoxically, as Hastings notes (1986: 492, 496), the 1950s were at one and the same time an era in which religion was considered seriously by a number of the great cultural and intellectual figures of the day (such as Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957), Carl Jung (1875-1961), Graham Sutherland (1903-80), Arnold Joseph Toynbee (1889-1975) and Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), to name just a few) and in which the radical agnosticism and secularism born of earlier times also flourished (for examples see the works of A.J. Ayer (1910-89), C.P. Snow (1905-80), A.J.P. Taylor (1906-90) and Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003)). Perhaps it was that Browne realized i n a way other preachers did not, that although these two worlds of thought existed side by side the competition between them was not in any way equal. As Hylson-Smith observes, by the end of World War II the environmental context of all cultural activity was essentially secular (1998: 212). That point was a matter of essential concern to a preacher like Browne who regarded sermons as an artistic activity requiring similar processes of social understanding and interaction as those necessary to the production of music, poetry or painting (Browne, 1976: 18). Browne writes rather ruefully: Christians have the naà ¯ve idea that the arts, specially drama, could and should be extensively used for the proclamation of the gospel. In the first place Christian artists cannot easily and quickly find a way of expressing Christian doctrine in a community which is not moved by Christian symbols. Indeed at present there is no common symbolism Christian or otherwise and Christian artists are found incomprehensible and disturbing by their fellow Christians who cannot justify the authority of new forms and somehow feel that old forms might be patched and brought up-to-date. In the second place whenever the church tries to use art as a method of propaganda her integrity and authority are severely questioned by just those whose conversion would be most significant. (1976: 35) There is here an early recognition of that social forgetfulness of Christian symbols that would a generation later become a commonplace assessment of religious traditions in contemporary Britain. For Browne the preachers purpose was to seek answers about the most profound aspects of human concern and experience with the single-mindedness and commitment of an honest artist. Easy answers to difficult questions, or formulaic responses to deep questioning, were to Browne a betrayal of preachings very purpose. For him nothing less than the artists earnest wrestling to express the inexpressible was good enough. It is hard to imagine that Browne was untroubled that the things of artistic expression, with one or two notable exceptions, seemed less and less concerned with religious ideas, and that the churches appeared indifferent to the fact (Hylson-Smith, 1998: 212). As favourable to inherited ideas of religious expression as the climate of the 1950s appears viewed from the beginning of the twenty-first century, Browne, as a preacher active during those years, offers an altogether less sanguine appraisal. That his book dwells extensively on the issue of meaning and the use of language in relationship to the expression of faith indicates that he did not share the easy certainties regarding the communication of religious ideas that were still prevalent within the institutional church of his day. Brownes commitment to preaching as a necessary part of Christian community life is absolute, but his insistence that its practice is most like the creation of a work of art or a poem makes plain its inherent limitations: the sermon can no more readily define the truth in absolute terms than can the artist or poet (1976: 18). Such an insistence shifts the authority given to preaching from one of power, described as six foot above contradiction, to the altoge ther different position implied in later years by terms such as Fords communicative expertise which is self-authenticating (Ford, 1979: 235), or Taylors fragile words (Taylor, 1998: 121). Like such later homileticians, Browne believed preachers should not claim too much for their efforts. That reserve, however, should not be mistaken for a hesitation about the necessity or value of preaching. In his work there is no hint of the thought of later theorists who sought to abandon preaching completely. Brownes reserve is a perceptive awareness that, to use the terminology of Adrian Hastings, although the comfortably traditionalist church of his times was undergoing a period of confident revival (1986: 504) it was in fact finding it harder and harder to connect with the generality of people in terms of shared symbols and meanings. Browne was ahead of his time in his recognition that the changing social context of ministry had direct ramifications for the power and authority of the preacher. He wrote: What ministers of the Word say may seem too little to live on, but they must not go beyond their authority in a mistaken attempt to make their authority strong and clear. That going beyond is always the outcome of an atheistic anxiety, or a sign that the man of God has succumbed to the temptation to speak as a god, to come in his own name and to be his own authority. (Browne, 1976: 40) Such sentiments are echoed in the more recent application of contemporary philosophy to preaching by the American scholar John S. McClure (2001). Nevertheless, in terms of homiletic theory in Britain in the twentieth-century, Brownes was a voice that offered a new appreciation of the actual communicative environment in which sermons were placed. His book demonstrates that the radical calling into question of the methodologies of preaching pre-dates both the crisis noted by such commentators as Ford (1979) or Jensen (1993) and the colloquial assumption that in the 1950s, before the widespread use of television, the place of the sermon was assured. This concern about preachings power to engage attention indicates that the shifts that will be analysed when this study returns to the consideration of collective memory must extend wide enough to include responses such as those of Browne. The unease with homiletic methodology that Brownes work expressed provides a justification for this review using his analysis as its historical starting point. Consequently, there now follows an overview of trends in preaching since Brownes book that aims to provide both general orientation and a framework within which works discussed later can be placed. 2.4 Trends in the theory and practice of preaching since the mid 1950s. O.C. Edwards in his A History of Preaching notes that the 25 year period ending in 1955 turned out to be the high-point of the social standing and influence of traditional Protestant churches (2004: 665). Whilst that judgment may seem too effusive and unqualified when applied to the United Kingdom, it does, nevertheless, indicate the reality of the institutional confidence that was prevalent in churches on both sides of the Atlantic at the time. That confidence had direct ramifications for preaching: as Hastings puts it, in the immediate post-war years preaching as both art and edifying was still alive and cherished (1986: 462). The comment comes in a passage in A History of English Christianity 1920 1985 (1986: 436-472) that deals with the Free Churches, in which Hastings cites the influential preaching ministries of Leslie Weatherhead (1893-1975), W.E. Sangster (1900-1960), and Donald Soper (1903-1998)—all of whom drew large numbers to hear them preach. In the same section of his book, however, comes this stark conclusion: The mid-1950s can be dated pretty precisely as the end of the age of preaching: people suddenly ceased to think it worthwhile listening to a special preacher. Whether this was caused by the religious shift produced by the liturgical movement or by the spread of television or by some other alteration in human sensibility is not clear. But the change is clear. (1986: 465) Hastings is perhaps a little too hesitant in his judgement about what prompted this change. Although numerous theological and social factors were obviously significant, the turn towards television as a predominating pastime must surely have been the crucial prompter of change in the way people spent their time. That preaching, at the beginning of the 1950s at least, remained dominated by agendas and styles drawn from previous generations is evident in the fact that a number of books from those earlier times remained in frequent use. Bishop Phillips Brooks had delivered his eight lectures on preaching at Yale Divinity School in the Lyman Beecher Lectureship of January and February 1877, but his advice was still considered pertinent enough to warrant the publication of a British fifth edition in 1957. Similarly, Harry Emerson Fosdicks Lyman Beecher lectures of the winter of 1923-4, entitled The Modern Use of the Bible, were last re-issued in their published form as late as 1961; and Leslie Weatherheads Lyman Beecher lectures of 1948-9, although only published in part in his book Psychology, Religion and Healing in 1957, was re-issued in 1974. Two crucial points are suggested by the longevity of these works: first, although the 1950s do indeed mark a watershed in preachings social location, it is clear that the consequences of that change were not apparent with the same force, nor at the same rate,

Sexual Curiosity

Sexual Curiosity Taken from Growing Concerns — A parenting question-and-answer column with Dr. Martha Erickson Question: I've recently started doing child care in my home for several young children and I've observed some sexual curiosity that I'm not quite sure what to make of. Can you provide some guidelines about what is normal for young children and any problem signs that I ought to be aware of? Answer: Sexual curiosity is a natural phenomenon in children of all ages, but it does demand a careful response so that children develop a healthy respect for themselves and others. In general, this is what you might expect for children from infancy through the early school years. Birth to 2 years Babies explore their bodies with their hands, with no shame or sexual meaning attached to the behavior. In little boys, erections are a natural reflex, especially during diapering. Preschool years Young preschoolers are openly curious–asking, looking, touching. They figure out, â€Å"I'm a girl, you're a boy,† and wonder about the similarities and differences. As they begin to discover the shock value with adults, they may use sex words and bathroom humor, often with little or no understanding of the meaning. It is not unusual for preschoolers to use masturbation for self-comfort when they are alone. Elementary school years As sexuality takes on new meaning, elementary aged children become more secretive about exploration (playing doctor with a friend, for example) and gradually become more modest about their bodies. They are curious about romantic and sexual fantasies, but often are vague or confused about details. Although it is normal and healthy to express an interest in sexual things, there are red flags that caregivers should be aware of: Preoccupation with sexual things (e. g. , the child can't seem to stop talking about sexual things). Acting out sexual behavior that involves force or violence. These behaviors suggest the possibility that the child either has been sexually abused or has witnessed explicit sexual behavior or sexual violence at home or elsewhere. Even seeing media images of sex can be very disturbing to children. And when children act out what they see in films or TV, it can set up a dangerous domino effect on other children. As with all aspects of child rearing, it is important that you work in partnership with the parents of children in your care. With regard to sexual curiosity, you and the parents would do well to agree on clear limits about the sexual language and behavior that are acceptable, monitor and regulate the children's exposure to inappropriate television programs and give clear messages about respectful, loving sexuality. And if you suspect that a child in your care has a problem, talk with the parents right away so that they can seek advice from their pediatrician or other professional. Editor's note: Dr. Martha Farrell Erickson, director of the University of Minnesota's Children, Youth and Family Consortium, invites your questions on child rearing for possible inclusion in this column. You may fax them to (612) 624-6369 or send them to Growing Concerns, University of Minnesota News Service, 6 Morrill Hall, 100 Church St. S. E. , Minneapolis, MN 55455.

Email vs. Snail Mail

Throughout history people have communicated with each other in various ways. For instance, some used birds to transfer their messages while others used the smoke of fire to signal their friend who were far from them. Lately postal mail was used as a mean for correspondence, which was referred to as snail mail afterword. And with the invention of telegraph and development of civilization a new tool came in known as e-mail. There are significant discrepancies between snail mail and e-mail along with some common points.First of all, both tools are uses for communication in society, and they are both under risk in terms of confidentiality, but for different reasons. For instance, you cannot be secure that all post offices are safe enough to send your messages that are too personal or contain secret information about your work†¦ etc. E-mails suffer from the same problem but for different reasons. For example your computer can become a victim of hacking and a hacker can get your whole archive in a few seconds. Finally, once they are delivered to the wanted place there is no way going back.Although they share some common points, snail mail and e-mail are tremendously different in many ways. Firstly, e-mail is way a lot faster than snail mail, it enables you to delivers your message in the blink of an eye, whereas it might take days for a snail mail to receive the place you want. Secondly, for sending an e-mail all you need is an internet connection and you can send it to hundreds of people at once, nonetheless, you can send a snail mail once at a time and you have to pay for it respectively.Moreover, there are many options for editing an e-mail and sending different types of media files along with it, in contrast to snail mail with which you can only send text messages. In addition, nowadays people are very busy to memorize the address of all of their acquaintance, e-mail solves this too, you can save all of those confusing addresses in your account without any e ffort, for snail mail this option is not present.The last and most important difference is that using snail mail we actually use up our natural resources like paper and ink, yet e-mail is a tool the encourages sustainability because you neither use resources nor throw it away after using it. As a conclusion, we can say that although both e-mail and snail are similar to each other to some extent it’s clear that all ways lead to using e-mail and regarding snail mail as an obsolete way for communication.

Review About Entrepreneurship And Risk Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 23 Words: 6921 Downloads: 10 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Finance Essay Type Narrative essay Did you like this example? The aim of this chapter is to develop the knowledge and understanding on the subject matter as well as providing the theoretical background for the study. Therefore, it was essential that a desk review be made on previous studies focusing on the topic of the risk taking propensity among entrepreneurs. The literature review included some relevant studies that were done in the past particularly those related to the issue of this study. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Review About Entrepreneurship And Risk Finance Essay" essay for you Create order In addition, studies related to the general issues of entrepreneurship were also reviewed to shed additional insight on the subject matter. The chapter starts with the discussion on the concept of entrepreneurship with special reference to the entrepreneurial process and how entrepreneurs play their role in the process. It is then followed by discussion on the micro and small business sector in Malaysia in terms of the working definition and its importance to the national economy. Next, the definition of risk and its variants are discussed in greater detail. The chapter ends with the discussion of the literature related to risk taking propensity. Entrepreneurship is a process universally connected with the founding of business ventures, acquiring or expanding an existing business. Entrepreneurs have been considered as bearers for risks and uncertainties in making business choices (Knight, 1921), and make innovations for new goods, new methods of production, new markets, and new types of industrial organization (Schumpeter, 1934). Hull, Bosley, and Udell (1980) concurred that entrepreneurs assumed risks with the intention to expand the businesses. Meanwhile, Brockhaus (1980) recognized an entrepreneur as a manager or owner of a business who is not employed elsewhere. However, Cooper and Dundleberg (1987) defined entrepreneur as a person who either own or manage a business. While McClelland (1961) described an entrepreneur as a business manager who has the responsibility as a decision maker and takes responsibility for the decision made. From the above definitions, it can be concluded that an entrepreneur is the owner or manager of an MSME, in which he or she may not be a founder but has a responsibility to make decision and take the risk and responsibility for the decision made. Entrepreneurship endeavours involve gathering of productive resources in an attempt to begin a business enterprise with the expectation of providing a reasonable income to the e ntrepreneur or small business operator. These resources include manpower, equipment and tools, money, time and basic raw materials which may entail some risks in procuring them. For example, the risk of not getting basic raw materials as needed to produce the product or damage to the equipment and tools means losses to the entrepreneur. These resources, along with their associated risk, should be recognized and managed to minimize losses and to increase profits. Hereditary risk exists in all the processes starting from the ideation, conceptualization, enterprise creation, commercialization and ending with the growth of the enterprise. The entrepreneurial process remains the same and the roles and nature of the entrepreneur are universal, regardless of industries.  ­Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ­Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ­ Moreover, all businesses in the world face risk regardless of its size, thus they have to identify, assess, manage and monitor the organizations business opportunities and risks. The current b usiness disappointments are usually caused by entrepreneurs misjudgements, mismanagement of risk and changes in corporate governance requirements. There are also increasing stakeholder expectations for entrepreneurs to effectively manage all risks exist within an organization. 2.3 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) are and will continue to be the backbone of Malaysian economic growth. Undoubtedly, MSMEs contributes greatly to the economic strength in Malaysia. With the New Economic Policy introduced by government in 1971, Malaysian MSMEs were given the important task of hoisting new breed of Bumiputra entrepreneurs who would eventually grow into large business community in accordance with the social restructuring objectives of the policy. The policy has been able to create MSMEs whereby 30% of the businesses are owned by bumiputras. As of Mac 2005, a total of 518,996 MSMEs were registered in Malaysia (Census of Establishments and Enterprises, 2005, Department of Statistics Malaysia). Most of the MSMEs were found in the service sector, accounting for 86.5%. They contributed 27.3 percent of total manufacturing output, 25.8 percent to value-added production, owned 27.6 percent of fixed assets and employed 38.9 percent of the country workforce (SMIDEC, 2002). There were 192,527 establishments in the services sector and 186,728 (96.7%) of these are made up of MSMEs in Malaysia. Yusoff (2004) noted higher consumer spending and a record level of tourist arrival caused the services sector to grow by 6.8% in 2004. Strong expansion in all sub-sectors with transport and communication emanated the growth in the lead at 8.4% followed by wholesale and retail trade, hotels and restaurants (7.1%) and finance, insurance, real estate and business services (6.5%). MSMEs had become one of the main drivers of economic growth as the industries contribute 32% to Malaysias gross domestic product (GDP), account for 56% of total employment and 19% of total exports of the nation in 2007 (SME Annual Report, 2007). The definition of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises is classified within the context of the country in which they operate, as typically, the concept varies according to country (Gunasekaran, Forker and Kobu, 2000). In the past, there was no common definition of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in Malaysia. Many agencies defined MSMEs differently according to their own criteria based on annual sales turnover, number of employees or shareholder. The criteria should include paid-up capital, shareholders funds, sales turnover, and number of employees or a combination of these. In Malaysia, National Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council (NSDC), (2005), defined micro, small and medium enterprises as firms employing 150 full-time employees with sales turnover less than RM 25 million. This definition covers the manufacturing sector including agro-based, services, primary agriculture and ICT. Bank Negara Malaysia defined MSMEs as enterprises with shareholders funds of less than RM10 million. Meanwhile, the Small and Medium Industries Development Corporation (SMECorp) defined MSMEs as enterprises based on the annual sales turnover not exceeding RM25 million and number of full-time employees not ex ceeding 150. The criteria used in defining MSMEs are based on annual sales turnover and number of the MSMEs as postulated in Table 2.1 below. Table 2.1: Definitions of MSMEs in Malaysia Category Micro-enterprise Small enterprise Medium enterprise Manufacturing (including agro-based) and MRS No. of full-time employees: Less than 5 Annual Sales Turnover: Less than RM250,000 No. of full-time employees: Between 5 and 50 Annual Sales Turnover: Between RM250,000 and less than RM10 million No. of full-time employees: Between 51 and 150 Annual Sales Turnover: Between RM10 million and RM25 million. Services, primary agriculture and information and communication Technology (ICT) No. of full-time employees: Less than 5 Annual Sales Turnover: Less than RM200,000 No. of full-time employees: Between 5 and 19 Annual Sales Turnover: Between RM200,000 and less than RM1 million No. of full-time employees: Between 20 and 50 Annual Sales Turnover: Between RM1 million and RM5 million Sources: National Small and Medium Enterprise Development Council (NSDC), (2005) 2.4 Risk Risk become popular in the economics field in the 1920s and started to be the main focus in the academic discipline. Thus, the definition of risk has been extended within the area of decision making by various field of literature in management, environmental, insurance and psychology. Risk and its elements definition is complicated and multifaceted as it is viewed and considered differently depending upon the taxonomy that an individual utilizes it. Generally, risk refers to uncertainty concerning the occurrence of a loss (Redja 2005). Yates and Stone (1992) defined risk as the degree of uncertainty and potential loss which may follow from a given behaviour. Risk is also defined by Greene (1962) as the uncertainty as to the occurrence of an economic loss and, measurable uncertainty (Knight, 1921) or objectified uncertainty regarding the occurrence of an undesirable event (Willett, 1951). Apart from the dissimilarities in defining risk, two common themes are about uncertainty and loss. According to Crowe Horn, (1957), the term probability may have the connotation of likelihood to specific persons as compared to probability to others. This feeling of unpredictability of the actual results of a method contrary the possible expected outcomes introduces objectives suspicion about the outcome in given circumstances (Williams Heins, 1964). Once the event occurred, the differences can be measured in the actual versus expected outcome of an action but differs from the incidence of an unwelcome contingency (Althearn, 1962). Consequently, there is variability in the connotative definitions of risk between persons, society and ethos despite several general academic accords concerning the fundamental of risk. In addition to the facets of uncertainty and loss, there is the constituent of the future time component in the likelihood, predictive, possibility of risk. The multitude of descriptions of risk is due to the lack of agreement by scholars and the nature of ri sk itself. The word of uncertainty may be unique to a particular actor if the word of uncertainty refers to the component of risk and uncertainty as a state of mind of the individual processing the risk. Besides uncertainty, risk involves loss, or something that is undesirable. Loss may be more than financial or economic. Crowe and Horn (1957) defined loss as an involuntary reduction in the capacity of an entity to satisfy its wants. Therefore, it looks that scholars have disagreements in separating an individuals awareness, perception and attitude from the general concept of risk. Entrepreneurial Risk An entrepreneur is a risk taker and is prone to assume business risks. Any error in making business decision is a probable source of threat or opportunity in assuring the success of the business. The distinctiveness of entrepreneur businesses, rivalries and tight economic situations has obligated the entrepreneurs capability on predicting the business risks. Busenitz (1999) noted the basis of risk is that ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦the dominant theme running throughout the entrepreneurship literature is risk and how entrepreneurs are predisposed towards risky alternatives or how the should manage risk (p. 325). However, this statement contradicts with McCarthys (2000) statement on the risk that ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒâ€šÃ‚ ¦the risk construct dominates the literature on entrepreneurship and the ability to bear risk has been identified as the primary challenge facing entrepreneurs (p.563). Furthermore, Klein (1977) had summarized that the capacity to take risk as being an inherent attribute of the entrepreneurial venture as stated that if an entrepreneur is to profit from an unexploited potential, he must also inevitably deal with a greater degree of uncertainty. Business risks occur due to uncertainty about the future and the effect of current judgements.Therefore, business choices need to consist of an assessment of their outcomes and the possibility that the outcome may differ from expectation. Entrepreneurs confront the problem that the sum of tolerable risk is based on likelihood of unconstructive outcomes and reward is often comparative to the amount of risk taken. Bird (1989) differentiates risks to five types which four of them are clearly pertinent to any potential entrepreneurs such as economic risk, risk in social relations, risks in career development, psychological and health risk. The general concept of risk has been broken into several dimensions by several authors (see for example, Assael, 1981; MacCrimmon and Wehrung, 1986; Minkow ick, 1964; Mowen, 1987; and Robertson, Zielinski and Ward, 1984). These include financial risk, physical risk, social risk, professional risk, performance risk, opportunity cost risk and time risk. Meanwhile, Carroll, Siridhara and Finchman (1986) used the Atkinsons model (consumer model of risk perception) which resulted in a six dimensions to define risk among entrepreneurs as the decision to become an entrepreneur involves consumer risk. The dimensions included in the model are financial risk, social risk, psychological risk, performance risk, safety risk and convenience risk. However, Harrington and Niehaus, (2004) noted that in business several types of risks are present and can be applied to entrepreneur business decision making such as price risks, credit risks and pure risks. Price risks include market risks associated to the victory of the business plan, demand for the product, and issues of cost and price which include output price and input price risks. Romano et al, ( 2001) includes price risk to business-related financial risks involving credit, cash flow, foreign currency and working capital. Every business risks are not monetary, yet, a good deal of risk is inherent in companies and operations itself. It can be concluded that many of these risks resulted from pressures related to company growth, company culture and information management. Other type of business risks is credit risk. Credit risk is a chance and magnitude of financial loss involved in the spending of money. To quote Harrington and Niehaus, (2004), on the credit risk of the business risk: The risk that a firms customers and the parties to which it has lent money will delay or fail to make promised payments is known as credit risk. Most firms face some credit risk for account receivables. The exposure to credit risk is particularly large for financial institutions, such as commercial banks, that routinely make loans that are subject to risk of default by the borrower. When f irms borrow money, they in turn expose lenders to credit risk (i.e., the risk that the firm will default on its promised payments). As a consequence, borrowing exposes the firms owners to the risk that the firm will be unable to pay its debt and thus be forced into bankruptcy, and the firm generally will have to pay more to borrow money as credit risk increases (p.5). Raghavan, (2005) noted that Probability Default (PD) and Loss Given Default (LGD) were used to measure credit risk and default percentage is quite high in SME sectors as compared to the large corporate or entity. Finally, pure risk is another type of business risks. These risks affect business due to reduction in value of business assets such as wreck or demolition of construction, equipment, inventory, business records, or other property; recovery and replacement costs after fires, flooding, typhoon or other disaster; and loss of income during recovery. Pure risks also involve company losses due to shipping dama ges or losses occurring because of crimes such as misappropriation or robbery. Entrepreneurs face a range of pure risks that must be controlled and managed lest they endanger the future of the firms. This pure risk also includes legal liability for damages for harm to customers, suppliers, shareholders and also injury to employees resulting from accidents, harm product, professional malpractice, inappropriate business practices and mistakes or omission. Another type of pure risk is the risk which associated with paying benefits to injured workers under workers compensation laws including the risk of legal liability for injuries or other harms to employees that are not governed by workers compensation laws. Finally, the risk that the businesses agreed to make payments under employee benefits plans due to death, illness and disability to employees (Harrington and Niehaus, 2004). The figure below shows the major types of business risk. Figure 1: The Major Types of Business Risk Source: Harrington and Niehaus, 2004 Liles, (1974) recommended that new venture entrepreneurs, involved financial status, career opportunities and psychosocial health. The new venture also will face strain and loss of family and social relations. The private monetary risk that the entrepreneur perpetrates from a failed business can affect the major losses to the entrepreneurs, resulting in a lower standard of living. Liles (1974) also suggested that the potential entrepreneur is well counselled to analyze carefully the risks associated with his specific business proposal and then make a decision to undertake them because the financial and emotional consequences of failure could be devastating. Liles then concluded that the decision depends to a great extent upon the potential entrepreneurs perception of the risk involved. Raghvan, (2005), specify the risks to SME sectors include the following: 1. Constitution of business entity involves the constitution to be risky due to lack of professionalism and overdependence on one or two key person in deciding the important part in running the business. The decisions made will affect the success or failure in establishment and advancement of the business. 2. Leverage on financial structure occurs when the business entity limits the funds mobilisation efforts that a small and medium business enterprise can raise capital and borrow. 3 Tough competition and inadequate margin resulted from competition with bigger business, whereby a small and medium business enterprise face the pressure on the margin as they have to absorb according to bigger enterprise price as they cannot raise their price. 4. Low collection in account receivable gives effects to the strain on the liquidity position of the SME sector and may be the result of bank restricted their exposure to the sector. 5. Incapacity to go for technology advancement to help the sector optimized their available resources in the best way is because of little financial resources and poor ability for leveraging the financial structure. 6. High employee turnover in the small and medium business enterprise because of limited of growth prospects includes the possible loss of manpower and additional costs in the form of training and knowledge update that will results the operation continuity and lowering the productivity. 7. Micro finance which provided credits to small enterprise as to improve the standard of living will covered them under social entrepreneurial activities. Doubtfully, the risk of the lenders will be spreading under the sector. The approach of micro enterprise finance is through repayment incentive structure, streamlined administration and market based pricing adopting profit which leads to great transform in a cumulative causation triggered by credit to MSMEs. 8. Collateral Security exists when dealing with lenders and borrower particularly to banks. Banks would not on detailed investigation and analysis of borrowers business as they already have the protection which will reflect of credit-worthiness to lenders. 9. Bank lending to MSMEs is considered as the primary source of external finance to support the sectors growth in the country. Business owners have knowledge on the prospects of venture and risk facing their business than lenders that will set in the information asymmetry. The existence of information asymmetry makes the lenders respond by increasing lending margins to levels in excess of that which the inherent risks would require. Besides, banks also curtail the extent of lending and resort to what is known as Credit Rationing, notwithstanding the fact that MSMEs would be willing to pay a fair Risk Adjusted Cost of Capital. 2.6 Risk Taking Propensity The study of decision making behaviour categorizes the risk into three elements: risk perception, risk propensity and preparedness to take risk (Brindley, 2005). Brockhaus (1980) defined risk propensity: The perceived probability of receiving the rewards associated with success of a proposed situation, which is required by an individual before he will subject himself to consequence associated with failure, the alternative situation providing less reward as well as less severe consequences than the proposed situation. (p. 513) Risk taking can also be defined as one of the three dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation of a company and refers to the readiness of the organization to consign significant resources to opportunities that might be uncertain (Junehed and Davidsson 1998). Sitkin and Weingart (1995) defined risk perception as a subjective interpretation of expected loss which affected by individuals view of the uncertainty of the decision and the consequence of the dec ision. Meanwhile, risk propensity is usually defined as an individuals general tendency toward either taking or avoiding risk within a particular kind of decision context (Sitkin and Pablo, 1992). Risk propensity is a common tendency to accept or avert risks (Sitkin and Weigart, 1995). Summary of past trend of the selected research in risk propensity have produced mixed conclusions is tabulated in Table 2.1 (p. 23). Some studies have indicated no significant differences in risk taking propensities among entrepreneurs. Risk propensity and risk perception influence risk taking. Risky decisions will be made when the situations are of high risk propensity and low risk perception. Therefore, risk-taking initiatives should be more necessary in order to achieve good results in hostile markets. In other words, business owners or managers who dare to take more risks take actions that are more suitable and perform better. Abby and Slater (1989) noted that an organization which has an international vision, favorable perception and attitudes towards international business, is willing to take risk and has the capacity to engage positively in international business activities is likely to lead the company to business success. In order to minimize risks, entrepreneurs are required to identify which variables influence their business performance. If they have a higher risk-taking propensity, they positively affect the business performance. Begley (1995) defined risk-taking propensity as the willingness to take moderate risks. This means that when entrepreneurs are faced with different situations, they would probably show different risk propensities. At the same time, different entrepreneurs faced with the same situation may present different risk propensities. Entrepreneurs are willing to accept the uncertainty. They are distinctively able to start and orchestrate events that have risk consequences (Mitton. 1989). Some entrepreneurial studies conducted propose tha t successful entrepreneurs are moderate risk-takers (Bridge, ONeil, Cromie, 1998). Douglas and Shepherd (2002) found that those with a greater risk acceptance had stronger levels of entrepreneurial intention. McClelland (1961) found that individuals would have moderate propensities to take risk if they have high achievement needs. However, Liles (1974) argued that entrepreneurs frequently have to adopt uncertainty with respect to financial well-being, psychic well-being, career security and family relations. Groups risk propensity could be influenced by various variables. Among them was characteristic of the group as suggested by Sitkin and Pablo (1992) that outcomes associated with prior risky decisions can influence risk propensity with more positive outcomes leading to greater risk propensity. Prediction by people that groups with higher levels of collective efficacy (Gibson, McKeon and Ostrom, 2000) could have greater risk propensity because they feel more capable of handling problems that arise. Similarly, groups with more ambitious goals or groups that compete closely with other groups may have greater risk propensity because risk taking is necessary for their success. The environment was another variable that may also play a role in the risk propensity of groups. For example, the group may have greater risk propensity if risk is valued in a groups social environment (Stine-Cheyne, 2002). According to Moreland Levine, (1992), a group may have a greater risk propensity because it has less fear of failure if the group expects outsiders to provide help when it is needed. When the consequences of failure are smaller, a group may be more willing to take more risks. This relationship may be moderated, however, by the availability and value of outside help. Table 2.1: Selected Empirical Research of Risk Taking Propensity and Entrepreneurs Researcher(s) Sample Place Instrument(s) Results Brockhaus and Nord (1979) New founders (N=31), newly promoted managers (N=31), and newly hired managers (N=31) United States Choice Dilemmas Questionnaire (CDQ) No significant differences in risk taking propensity of the three groups. Brockhaus (1980a) New founders (N=31), newly promoted managers (N=31), and newly hired managers (N=31) United States CDQ No significant differences in risk taking propensity of the three groups. Sexton and Bowman (1983) Entrepreneurship majors (N=61) and non business majors (N= 113) United States Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) Personality Research Form E (PRF-E) CDQ Entrepreneurship majors higher in risk taking Sexton and Bowman (1984) Entrepreneurship majors (N=45) , business majors (N=75) and non business majors (N= 98) United States JPI PRF-E Entrepreneurship majors higher in risk taking Schwer and Yucelt (1984) Owners and small business managers (N=71) CDQ No differences in personal risk; other risks mitigated by age and education Masters Meier (1988) Male and Female owners/owner-managers and managers (N=50) United States CDQ No significant differences in risk taking propensity neither between owners and managers nor between males and females owners. Table 2.1: Selected Empirical Research of Risk Taking Propensity and Entrepreneurs (Continued) Researcher(s) Sample Instrument(s) Results MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1990) Business owners and Executives Canada CDQ -The greater success was related to greater risk taking. -Education was also found to be related to risk taking. -Age, seniority, number of dependents was inversely related to risk taking. Carland, J.W., III, Carland, J.W., Carland, J.A Pearce, J.W. (1995) Entrepreneurs (N=114), Small Business Owners (N=347) and Managers (N=387) South Eastern United States JPI Older respondents explained a lower of risk taking propensity than the younger. Respondents with higher level of education had higher propensities for risk taking, Female exhibited a lower level of risk taking propensity compared to male. Begley (1995), Business executive (N=239) New England JPI failed to identify whether the level of entrepreneurial risk taking was low, moderate, or high. Koiranen, Hyrsky and Tuunanen (1997) Entrepreneurs, Small business owners and managers (N=1000) In dia, Turkey and United States JPI -Americans were more inclined to assume risks. -Finnish entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers were more risk averse than Americans. -Americans males have a higher scores than Finnish males -No significant difference between female US entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers and their Finnish female counterparts Table 2.1: Selected Empirical Research of Risk Taking Propensity and Entrepreneurs (Continued) Researcher(s) Sample Place Instrument(s) Results Stewart, Watson, Carland and Carland (1998), Students (N=206) United States and Rusia JPI and CDQ CDQ failed to measure the construct of risk taking in the investigation. JPI was more successful; however, it has components which may not be well matched for measuring entrepreneurial risk taking. Hyrsky and Tuunanen (1999) Entrepreneurs, Small business owners and managers (N=1000) Finland and United States Carland Entrepreneurship index (CEI) American had greater risk taking propensity. Forlani and Mullins (2000) CEO of the firms (N=540) United States Risk Style Scale Differences in risk propensities among entrepreneurs on their new venture choices. Petrakis (2005), Small Businessmen of SMEs (N=120) Greek 13 risk measures by author. Risk propensity affects the way entrepreneurs decide to finance their venture and also affects the first performance principal component which includes the risk undertaken and the profit rate. Leko-Simic and Horvat (2006), Croatian exporters (N=300) Croatia 5 point Likert scale There is significant difference between risk taking and non-risk taking but do not have a very high risk-taking propensity when doing business internationally. Shivani, Mukherjee and Sharan (2006) Small Entrepreneurs (N=200) India Risk Attitudes Inventory designed by Gene Calvert (1993) -A substantial proportion of respondents have low level of risk taking propensity. -No differences between male and female respondents. Table 2.1: Selected Empirical Research of Risk Taking Propensity and Entrepreneurs (Continued) Researcher(s) Sample Place Instrument(s) Results Ozturk and Hancer (2006) Middle level hotel managers (N=106) Turkey Zalaskiewicz (2001) risk scale There was no significant relationship between the risk items and corporate entrepreneurship. Walker, Geddes and Webster (2006) Small business owners (N=1600) Western Australia Measures by author -Some gender differences with women being more emotionally risk averse than their male counterparts. -Younger people, irrespective of gender were more emotionally and financially risk averse compared to older people. There were differences between gender and age cohorts in regard to initial business start-up motivation. Nieuwenhuizen and Groenewald (2006), Owners of SMEs (N=50) South Africa Neethling Brain Instrument (NBI) -The majority of the identified successful, established entrepreneurs did have a strong tendency towards creativity and propensity for calculated risk taking. Naldi, Nordqvist, Sjoberg, Wiklund, (2007) CEOs of the SMEs f irms (N=2455) Sweden Entrepreneurial Orientation. -Risk taking is a distinct dimension of entrepreneurial orientation in family firms and that is positively associated with proactive ness and innovation. -Family firms do take risks while engaged in entrepreneurial activities; they take risk to a lesser extent than non-family firms. -Risk taking in family firms is negatively related to performance. G. Thamizharasi and N. Panchanatham (2010) Small and medium enterprise (N=120) India Not mentioned Risk taking propensity is very much influenced by age, income, marital status and type of ownership. Brockhaus and Nord (1979) found no significant differences in risk taking propensity among three sample groups that they studied. The sample group consists of 31 entrepreneurs who had initiated a new venture within the past three months, 31 managers who had been transferred to another organization and 31 managers who had been promoted in their organizations during the same period of time. Risk taking was measured using the Kogan-Wallach Choice Dilemma Questionnaires (CDQ). In another study, Brockhaus (1980) defined propensity for risk-taking as the perceived probability of receiving the rewards associated with success before the potential entrepreneur actually subjects himself/herself to the consequences associated with failures. Brockhaus examined the risk taking propensity among entrepreneurs using CDQ by Wallach Kogan (1959, 1961). The study tested three categories of individuals: business owner who has started their business for three months prior to the study, managers who had changed positions in their companies within three months prior to the study and managers who had changed employers within three months prior to the study. The researchers rationale using entrepreneurs close to the starting point of business enterprise would involve those that would finally fail, thereby eliminating bias from investigating only successful en trepreneurs. However, the study found no differences between the respondents scores and the normative Kogan-Wallach data which means that the distribution of risk taking propensities of entrepreneurs and managers were the same that they are moderate risk takers. A series of researches by Sexton and Bowman (1983, 1984, and 1985) concluded that higher propensity for risk taking was a characteristic which differentiate entrepreneurs from managers. The studies used instruments that researchers developed themselves by modifying test instruments based on Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) which included measurement of those traits which had previously been found to be significant higher in risk taking among entrepreneurship majors than business administration majors and non-business majors. A study by Ray (1986) had discovered a higher propensity for risk taking among entrepreneurs, particularly when confronted with business risk. Meanwhile, (Schwer and Yucelt, (1984) found that risk taking is moderated by business experience, age, education and type of business. A similar survey conducted by Masters and Meier (1988) examined a group of managers or small business owners who had attended management development workshops using Kogan and Wallachs Choice Dilemma Questionnaires (CDQ). The study also compared the mean scores of all respondents to the CDQ norms, the scores for male and female to each other, and the scores for small business owners for managers. The study found no significant differences in risk taking propensity among male and female entrepreneurs and concluded that the womens involvement and womens entry into business had bridged the gap between the difference in male and female scores on the CDQ. MacCrimmon and Wehrung (1990) studied the risk taking propensity among executives in Canada and United States. The results showed that the degree of success among business owners and executives was related to the degree of risk taking propensity. Educa tion was also found to be related to risk taking showing that business owners and executives who are less educated were less willing to take risk. However, the study found that age, seniority, number of dependents was inversely related to risk taking. The results concluded that those business owners and managers were not willing to take risks in business were not likely to succeed. Meanwhile a study by Carland, Carland and Carland (1995) investigated the risk taking propensity using the Risk Taking scale of the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) by Jackson (1976). There were 848 respondents consisting of 114 entrepreneurs, 347 small business owners and 387 managers which were located in 20 states in the South-eastern United States using convenience sampling method. The study revealed that the owners displayed a higher level of risk taking compared to the managers. The study also looked at the differences among entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers which showed that a mong the three groups, entrepreneurs had the highest risk taking propensity, followed by small business owners and managers. Another part of the study was to examine the demographic differences of risk taking propensity such as gender, age and education. The findings indicated that older respondents exhibited a lower of risk taking propensity than the young ones. Respondents with higher level of education had higher propensities for risk taking and finally, female exhibited a lower level of risk taking propensity as compared to male. So, via the JPI, the research resulted in differentiation on demographic, as well as among entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers. Other study by Begley (1995), who conducted the research on 239 New England business executive found that risk taking propensity was the only trait on which founders and non-founders differed but failed to identify whether the level of entrepreneurial risk taking was low, moderate or high. Koiranen, Hyrsky and Tunnanen (1997) conducted a study to find out whether there was any difference on risk taking propensity between American and Finnish entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers. The study revealed that U.S entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers were more inclined to risk taking than their Finnish counterparts. The samples for this study were 1000 U.S entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers and 1000 Finnish entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers. The instrument used to measure risk taking propensity was the JPI. The result showed there were no significant difference between female US entrepreneurs, small business owners and managers and their Finnish female counterparts. Stewart, Watson, Carland and Carland (1998), examined the risk taking propensity of students using JPI and CDQ for the purpose of measurement comparison and validity assessment. The study used two samples of 138 students and 68 students from two universities using convenience sampling method to examine the differences in JPI and CDQ. The study found that the CDQ failed to measure the construct of risk taking in the investigation. Even though JPI was more successful, however, it has components which may not be well matched for measuring entrepreneurial risk taking. The researchers suggested entrepreneurship researchers should be more careful when trying to measure business risk taking propensity, and must not rely too heavily on a generic substitute. Hyrsky and Tuunanen (1999) measured the varying degrees of innovativeness and risk-taking propensity by Finnish and U.S entrepreneurs and small business owners found that the Americans (N=456) had greater risk-taking propensity than the Finns (N=434) who tended to be more conservative and risk-averse. The study used the Risk Taking scale of the Jackson Personality Inventory (JPI) by Jackson (1976) to measure the risk-taking propensities which includes 320 True-False statements consisting of 16 scales, eac h comprising 20 statements, and the scores of each scale ranging from 0 to 20. In elements of risk, risk perceptions and entrepreneurs propensities to take risk influence choices among potentially risky entrepreneurial venture survey by Forlani and Mullins (2000), respondents were CEO of the 540 firms listed in INC, Fortune and Business Week magazines of the fastest growing public companies in the United States. The respondents were contacted by fax to request their participation in the study and 210 agreed to participate in the study. The instruments were then mailed and asked to return via U.S mail to ensure confidentiality. The study found an effect of differences in risk propensities among entrepreneurs on their new venture choices. Das and Teng (2001) proposed a temporal framework of strategic risk behaviour in which the two temporalities were integrated with risk propensity and perceived decision context. The study also suggested individual risk propensity can manifest i tself with different saliencies in decisions involving different time horizons. The result showed a fairly clear divide the short-range side was dominated by situational factors (perceived decision context), while the longer-range side was influenced more by the dispositional risk propensity. Balabanis and Katiskea (2003) noted that risk taking propensity directly influenced by company size because larger companies have a greater pool of resources that gives more space to take risks and spread them among different products and markets. In addition, larger companies are unable to tolerate losses from unsuccessful entrepreneurial efforts. Therefore, level of risk taking propensity among larger companies was expected to be higher as compared with smaller companies. Petrakis (2005) investigated the risk propensity among 120 businessmen of MSMEs who own capital smaller than 10,000,000 Euros (EU definitions of MSMEs). The study found that risk propensity affected the way entreprene urs decide to finance their venture and also affected the first performance principal component which includes the risk undertaken and the profit rate. Leko-Simic and Horvat (2006) analyzed companys age, size and types of business as determinants of risk taking propensity on 300 Croatian exporters. They were randomly drawn from Croatian Chamber of Commerce database as 10% of active exporters. The samples were clustered into risk-taking and non-risk taking segments. The two clusters were analyzed with statistical inferential analysis against different aspects such as objective and subjective of export performance. The study found that there was significant difference between risk taking and non-risk taking but they did not have a very high risk-taking propensity when doing business internationally. Past studies by Shivani, Mukherjee and Sharan (2006) had used Risk Attitudes Inventory designed by Gene Calvert (1993) to measure risk taking propensity. The maximum score was 15 whi ch showed the higher the total score the more the risk taking propensity. The scores from 0-5 were categorized as having low risk taking propensity, scores from 6-10 as having moderate risk taking propensity and 11-15 as high risk taking propensity. The study found that a substantial proportion of respondents had low level of risk taking propensity. However, the study found no differences between male and female respondents. Ozturk and Hancer (2006) analysed the relationship between middle level hotel managers risk taking propensity and corporate entrepreneurship. To analyse the relationship, 106 middle level hotel managers in Didim, Turkey were surveyed for their risk taking propensity. In addition, corporate entrepreneurship scale was also used to identify if the hotels have corporate entrepreneurship activities. The study showed that there was no significant relationship between the risk items and corporate entrepreneurship. Walker, Geddes and Webster (2006), studied the ri sk taking propensities among women business owners and how age affects such activities. The questionnaires were distributed to 1600 small business owners in regional and metropolitan Western Australian and the response rate was 30% (486 questionnaires returned). The study found that there were some gender differences with women being more emotionally risk averse than their male counterparts. With regard to age, younger people, irrespective of gender, were more emotionally and financially risk averse compared to older people. There were also differences between gender and age cohorts in regard to initial business start-up motivation. The study concluded that self-employment might be a viable alternative to mainstream employment for women in general; it may not be the best alternative for all younger women, given that many of them still have to balance between work and family. Nieuwenhuizen and Groenewald (2006) investigated methods or instruments that determine an individuals crea tivity and risk propensity identified that Scheins Career Anchor Instruments and the Neethling Brain Instrument (NBI) as two appropriate instruments to determine creativity and evaluate risk propensity. The results proved that the majority of the identified successful, established entrepreneurs did have a strong tendency towards creativity and propensity for calculated risk taking. Naldi, Nordqvist, Sjoberg and Wiklund (2007) focused on risk taking as one important dimension of entrepreneurial orientation and its impact on family firms. The respondents were the CEOs of the 2455 MSMEs firms obtained from Statistics Sweden (the Bureau of Census) using stratified sampling method. The data was collected using telephone and mail surveys. The study found that risk taking is a distinct dimension of entrepreneurial orientation in family firms and that is positively associated with proactiveness and innovation. Another finding from this study was, even if family firms do take risks while engaged in entrepreneurial activities, they take risk to a lesser extent than non-family firms. Finally, the study also found that risk taking in family firms is negatively related to performance. Tamizharasi and Panchanatham (2010) studied the demographic factors of the small and medium enterprise attitudes in Cuddalore district of Tamilnadu, India. They stated that entrepreneurial attitudes can make the entrepreneurs stronger and more successful in their business. They also found that age and ownership were related significantly to risk taking. The study concluded that entrepreneurial attitudes increased with the increase of the age, income, change in marital status and type of ownership. Summary This chapter presents a review of previous researchers on the risk taking propensity of entrepreneurs. In summary, this chapter has attempted to organize the previous research findings to develop an understanding with regards to the topic under investigation. It summarizes the empirical evidence of those in order to address the main issues for the focus of this study. From the literature, the discussion on entrepreneurs risk taking propensity centred on the two variables that influence the risk taking propensity demographic and business characteristics. The influence of these predictors variables on entrepreneurs risk taking propensity has also been reviewed briefly. From the discussion, it can be summarize that demographic and business characteristics are the most important components of risk taking propensity. Studies on demographic characteristics revealed that certain variables are more likely to have positive influence and contribute to development of entrepreneurs risk taking propensity. For example, age has been shown to have significantly positive relation with risk taking propensity. Marital status also seems to be related positively with risk taking propensity. Meanwhile, gender has been found to show inconsistent results. Business ownership and owners business experience have also indicated positive relationship with risk taking propensity. For this study, the researcher selected only these four demographic characteristics due to limited time and resources available for this research. Furthermore, demographic characteristics only form a subset of the numerous independent variable to be examined in this present study. Selection of a few appropriate demographic variables is therefore essential. Another pressing need for research appears to be investigating on how business characteristics of entrepreneurs will relate to their risk taking propensity. It seems that business characteristics measured by size, length of business, type of business , amount of start-up financing, sources of start-up financing, location and number of employees has produced supportive evidence for such relationship. Therefore, for the present study, business characteristics were utilized where business characteristics were measured by size, length of business, type of business, amount of start-up financing, sources of start-up financing, location and number of employees. Finally, considering the lack of empirical research for MSMEs risk taking propensity in Malaysia, especially in the two east coast states, and further research to address these issues is apparently warranted. In the next chapter, will gives insight into research design employed to interrogate the research problem with specific reference to sampling, data collection methods and the statistical techniques utilised.