Hofstede Cultural Dimension Essays

Hofstede Cultural Dimension Essays Hofstede Cultural Dimension Paper Hofstede Cultural Dimension Paper Hofstede Geert Hofstede’s five cultural dimensions are individualistic vs. collectivism, power distance, quality of life vs. quantity of life, uncertainty avoidance and time orientation. Power Distance The term of power distance in the Hofstede’s framework means measurement of power in an institution and organization being distributed where the society able to accept (Bergman et al. 2006, 141). Both Australia and Sweden has a low power distance in their society. Low power distance countries tend to work in a decentralization environment and have greater power in decision-making (Lere and Portz, 2005). With decentralization, managers are more independent in the development of a company with leadership quality instead of just position and status (Lere and Portz, 2005). Australia and Sweden organization tend to be flatter and team-oriented structure to have better communication between subordinates and their bosses (Business Culture, n. d). Therefore opinions and decision-making are encouraged to voice out and information are easier to be pass around in the company. Therefore in Sweden matrix organization is common when there are any projects coming up (Business Culture, n. d). Uncertainty Avoidance Uncertainty avoidance means a measurement of tolerance risk and behaviour where the society’s culture able to accept (Bergman et al. 2006, 141). Both Australia and Sweden has low uncertainty avoidance. Countries with low uncertainty avoidance will have less concern on uncertainty and ambiguity and focus more on tolerance with each other (Lere and Portz, 2005). There will be more risk taking and less unwanted arguments. In this society, there will be less rule-oriented and would be able to adapt to changes of environment (Lere and Portz, 2005). Swedish are more willing to take risk than any other countries (Business culture, n. ). When judging a person, their performance is the greater importance in a working place (Business culture, n. d). Therefore equal amount of men and women are normally seen in high position (Business culture, n. d). While in Australia, they have a more relax and laid-back culture, where they will not fear the future and walk towards it instead (Bassett, 2004). This shows Australia prefer to move forward rather than being stop by an obstacle. Moreover, Australians believe in their legal rights and documents are normally interpreted literally due to their loyalty towards British Common Law (Bassett, 2004). Time Orientation In Australia, a culture with a short term orientation values such as maintaining personal stability or happiness and living for the present which look in the short run. Australian people prefer to follow clear rules and procedures. They prefer to work on one task at a time and may feel frustrated when other competing tasks distract that focus. (Robert et al. 2004) Furthermore in short term, the old once is easily kicked off and the new once can easily come in no matter in what industry. Where as in Sweden, they are in the medium time orientation. (Clearly Cultural n. d. ) For example, in Australian if two officers agreed to meet at 2. 0pm, they really mean to be there by 2. 30pm sharp or even earlier. So promptness in personal habits is important to them. Individualism Individualism is â€Å"the degree to which people in a country prefers to act as individuals rather than as member of groups† (Robbins and Decenzo 2004, p. 48). Individualism refers to the â€Å"strength of the ties people have to others within the community† (Mind Tools, 2008). In a high individualism country, there is a loose connection with people and there is also a lack of interpersonal connection and little sharing of responsibilities, beyond family and perhaps a few close friends. Sweden and Australia scored highly under this category. â€Å"This individuality is reinforced in Australian’s daily lives and must be considered when traveling and doing business in their Country. Privacy is considered the cultural norm and attempts at personal ingratiating may meet with rebuff† (ITIM International, 2003). To communicate better in an individualistic culture, as an individual you are expected to work on your own and take initiatives. Business environment will be less reliant on relationship and personal contacts which will separate business and personal life. Coworkers or subordinates will expect to have a chance to work on projects or solve issues independently. It is common for people in this culture to try to stand out from the rest during meetings, presentations, or even during group work. As for Malaysian, they are less individualistic. They work more in groups to get the best outcome so that they can fulfill the mission that they want to achieve. Quantity Vs Quality of Life In Australia, most of the Australians are actually scored high in quantity of life compared to quality of life. They are characterized by assertiveness and materialism. For example, Australians tend to follow each other. This happens because of the stability of Australian institutions and the strong economy. For example, since the beginning of 2003 there has been a boom in the housing market, in every place everyone is talking about houses. So, this may happen to the car industry too. Australia is considered one of the most competitive nations on earth (Yes Australia n. d. ) Because of this stability, Australians tend to buy more by following the trend. But there is a partial place in Australia where quality of life is high where people are friendly and helpful. Recommendation As we are a Swedish base company trying to expand our business in Australia, employees and managers from Sweden should learn how to communicate better with Australians. In the power distance dimension, we know that both Australia and Sweden is rank low. The Swedish managers should try to introduce him or her self in an informal manner. Decision making should also involve others. Australians and Swedish are more towards individualism. Employees from Sweden should learn how to work on their own and take more initiatives. They should also be prepared that business environment are less reliant on relationship and personal contact. As for uncertainty avoidance, Australian and Swedish scored low. This means that Swedish should learn how to be more flexible or open in the approach to new ideas. Agreed plans should be realized quickly. Swedish employee should also learn how to execute their task on their own with only guidelines from superior. Swedish are more medium term oriented as Australians are more to short term oriented. Swedish should expect to live by the same standards and rules which we create. Swedish should also be respectful to others and should not hesitate to introduce necessary changes.

Medicine essays

Medicine essays Unquestionably, I gained an early taste for the field of medicine through the influence of my parents. While they never made an attempt to persuade my career endeavor, their experiences in the medical profession gave me an early exposure and interest in health care. While neither of my parents are doctors, their stories and knowledge from their medical experiences have always captivated my interest and left me wanting to know and understand more about the human body. After a conversation one night with my father, who has a license in medical technology, about the health effects of smoking, I decided to do my junior high science project on the effects of smoking on hemoglobin's binding capacity to oxygen. Even though I received first place for this project in the biochemistry category, and also was the only student who did a project in that category and yet didn't even know what biochemistry was then, that honor did not have a direct effect on my desire to become a doctor. Rather the impact of both my grandparents, whose blood samples I used for this experiment, decision to suddenly and successfully quit smoking after twenty plus years is what turned my career objectives toward the dream of becoming a doctor. I learned from this project that successful treatment takes more than just knowledge and technology, but a true sense of care through proper motivation. If my grandparents never knew how concerned I always was about their habit (and m y desire to convince them to quit) all the statistics and data would never have made such an impact. A few years after my junior high research project, the summer of my junior year in college, I had the opportunity to work in the same hospital lab where I conducted the research, with qualified guidance, for my junior high science project. This work experience played a significant role in shaping my idea of what is required to becoming a doctor. I learned that this opportunity d...

Analysis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 2

Analysis - Essay Example Hence a nation could be conducting a ‘legal’ operation upon another nation without a legitimate basis for it. The ongoing occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces is a case in point, where the concocted legality betrays the lack of legitimacy of the occupation. The same analogy could be applied to the American occupation of Iraq, where even legality could be questioned. ’Triumph of the Will’ is a term used by politicians when a policy action succeeds against all odds. The term is mostly employed in the context of a military venture or an economic crisis, where much tenacity, resoluteness and foresight was required to meet the goal. The term is sometimes used alongside ‘legitimacy’ as a way of justifying the efforts and expenditure that went toward the fulfillment of the goal. In other words, the ‘legitimacy’ of the cause allowed a whole-hearted approach to meeting the goal. The term was adapted as the title of the film on Nazi Germany because the rise of the Nazi party to power and its near-completion of world domination is symbolically captured by the words. Given that the Nazi party did not even have one fifth of total vote share in late 1920s, it’s meteoric rise to highest office is nothing short of a Triumph of the Will. In the context of the contents of the documentary, the term denotes the legal means with which the Nazi party was able to achieve its illegitimate goals. In the end it proved ironic that the Allied Forces, under the leadership of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin were able to fulfill their legitimate cause – namely to defend their sovereign nations from the sweep of the Third Reich. Both the terms in discussion are useful in comparative politics because they highlight the subtleties and shades of meaning that official rhetoric imply. Politics being as much an art as a it is grounded on theory and

That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded Essay - 4

That which is accepted as knowledge today is sometimes discarded tomorrow. Consider knowledge issues raised by this statement in two areas of knowledge - Essay Example For instance, as proven by Albert Einstein, it is known that the highest velocity that can be possible is the quickness of light, but it was observed that there is quicker velocity than the quickness of light. It is worth mentioning that whatever a person believes is based upon the authority as it decides what has to be accepted in the society. However, as there is a change in time accordingly there is a change in knowledge as well. Thesis Statement. Correspondingly, the objective of the essay is to discuss the issues relating to knowledge that have aroused and how the knowledge attained before can be discarded due to the changes occurred in today’s prevailing situation. Knowledge issues or problems associated with knowledge are terms which do not have a single definition as this definition might cause confusion. However, these issues are directly related to understanding the world. These issues are open to exploration and enquiry of strength along with problems relating to knowledge. These issues help in finding out how knowledge can be of assistance along with limitations of knowledge in collaboration with the approaches of explanation and confirmation in different aspects of knowledge. In a broader perspective, knowledge issues include an assortment of aspects which could be approached from the Theory of Knowledge (TOK) viewpoint wherein it allows exploration, discussion and development of the issues. For instance, most frequently raised questions by students, â€Å"Are the textbooks and questions provided by the teachers’ right?† is a knowledge issue when it is framed appropriately in TOK objectives along with aims context (Carroll , â€Å"Knowledge Issues†). Moreover, it can be expected that if the knowledge issue is treated properly then it would certainly deal with aspects that can be interlinked in different relevant ways. This is the reason because of which the knowledge issue is treated in

RR communications Essay Example for Free

RR communications Essay At RR communications, it is obvious there is a problem that needs to be handled if they are to avoid losing customers. The problem lies with the decentralized operations where each business unit has a mandate to operate independently. The business units have the power to make and implement new projects and make decisions without having to involve the whole firm. This has led to many problems such as customers complaining of having receipts for each of the four products offered by the company and would prefer having one receipt for all their transactions. Due to the division among departments, the company has been unable to meet reporting requirements for the Sarbanes Oxley Act. It has proved obvious that a shared IT service, which is standardized among all the units, is needed to ensure everything goes well. The first problem we see at RR Communications is that there is a definite lack of centralized and concise IT governance. Currently all of the separate functions of the company have their own individual leadership with no central leadership. For this reason, each of the sections takes actions and makes decisions based only on how it affects their own particular departments. There is no coordination to ensure that the act of one area does not negatively affect the rest of the firm. This in turn has led to a significant lack of uniformity across the organization, which is hurting customer relations. There are unified databases and each section maintains their own set of records; this is causing great frustration among their customers who continually have issues when dealing with more than one area. Much of the division of departments has been caused by a lack of central leadership. The CEO of the firm has failed to unify the department or assert any control over the individual IT vice presidents. Even though they reported to him, each had acted entirely independently. This continuous failure of leadership has caused the department heads to develop a sense of isolation and self-survival. Even though a new executive VP of IT has been appointed to bring unity to the firm, there has been severe resistance as each department feels it will suffer. The lack of centralized management for so long has caused significant discord between the departments that will take considerable effort to overcome. In addition, this company attitude has filtered down from the VPs to the middle and lower management creating an overall atmosphere that is dangerously disjointed. Even the suggestion of bringing together the database systems and management has caused a near  mutinous uprising and rejection of leadership. The current managerial atmosphere has been around so long, the attitude of individualism has been deeply imbedded in the corporate culture. While, individual thinking is useful to foster innovation and creativity, when the entire organization acts to satisfy only its individual requirements, the firm overall will suffer. Unless this attitude can be overcome, any attempt at bringing unity to the company will fail. From the technical standpoint, RR Communications is suffering from a severely fractured information management system. Every section of the company maintains its own individual customer databases, which are in incompatible formats. If a customer maintains relationships with more then one division, they get bills from each individual area. Customer issues often fail to get resolved because the departments do not communicate or share information. This is causing problems with diminished customer satisfaction. In addition, without a centralized database, full customer information and statistics are impractical to collect. In addition to suffering by not being able to collect detailed records, the company is facing regulatory issues by not being able to provide complete information on the company’s activities, and significant resources are being wasted to assemble simple reports. Currently management and associates at RR Communications believe that a collective solution is impossible, and any attempt to do so will cause them to suffer. While it may be true that the initial implementation of such a system will require a significant collective effort, the end result will be well worth it. It is also clear that much of the perspective of management is extremely short sided; projects are selected only based on a very narrow and limited benefit view with no regard for their long-term viability. As more and more systems have been patched together to fulfill immediate gaps, the overall collection of programs has become a cumbersome, inefficient, and unmanageable mess. A truly efficient system would be one that is all-encompassing and communicates across all facets of the organization to deliver a unified and fully integrated information system that can add real value to the firm. One other major issue at RR Communications is the proliferation of rouge projects completed without oversight or regard for how they will affect the firm. In a large company every project should be examined to determine how it could provide value to the organization before being launched. At RR  Communication projects are being launched that benefit only select areas and may in fact be causing a significant negative impact to the rest of the firm. The company currently does not have a steering or operating committee to oversee and exert control over these projects. Without any form of centralized control and governance, these rouge projects will continue to sabotage the effectiveness of the organization. Lack of common information and enterprise IT strategy has caused several problems for the business and the IT departments of RR communications. Customer service has suffered and customer dissatisfaction has grown. Lack of common information has made it difficult for management to monitor the businesses as a whole. Business units are unable to exchange information and remain unaware of the other divisions’ work. There is little sense of how the divisions work together to meet the company’s overall goals. The accounting problems make it difficult to present shareholders with accurate financial information, and the system is not cost-effective in any case. Furthermore, each division working at individual level to attain its success makes them rigid and unable to adapt to changing requirements; under these circumstances even the implementation of new technology will be extremely difficult. The organization cannot operate efficiently as a whole or at division levels, and the costs are bound to keep increasing. Analysis: As many annoyed customers can probably agree, being transferred from one department of the company to another over and over again to resolve a simple issue is one of the main reasons many companies lose customers. This is certainly an issue at RR Communications. The main cause of the problem seems to be the division of the different business units. This lack of unity is caused by a faulty commission system that rewards individual performance over company profit. The fact that the four CIOs refuse to work together and resort to sabotaging the efforts of the others, serves to show that they are more interested in their own selfish financial goals. While the president of the company may have been a visionary and brilliant entrepreneur, he lacked the managerial skills to recognize the need to have a unified commission system which would foster participation in a common goal, and thus a common  commission which is interdependent on all four business units would be most beneficial to the company. Unifying IT Resources The most important problem for RR Communications to correct is a significant deficiency of successful information management, reflected by the confused state of their customer information databases. Currently customer data is disbursed in separate databases for each section of the company, so that data from one department is not available to another. Thus, customers are forced to maintain relationships with multiple departments and receive billing from each. This separation means that valuable information resources are not being effectively utilized, hurting the firm’s productivity and efficiency. To improve the state of information capital at RR Communications, a complete overhaul of the current systems will be necessary, from both an IT and business standpoint. Information represents a vital asset to any company. This can be in the form of customer accounts, sales records, research development, financial statements, etc. However, in order to realize full benefits, the same information must be readily accessible by all individual units, so that the company can leverage it in the most efficient manner. The first step to correct the issues at RR Communications is to create a unified data architecture that combines all information resources into a central database that is accessible to all sections of the firm. By providing a centralized database clients will be better served by allowing complete access to customer records throughout the company. This will also improve reporting abilities, lower administrative costs, and greatly increase the value of information resources. To achieve the greatest benefit to the company, RR Communications could consolidate its data from multiple silos into a unified enterprise data warehouse (EDW) (Smaltz, 2011). This architecture provides multiple benefits including a single location for all information storage reducing the amount of duplicated efforts. This also greatly improves the integrity of data by providing a ‘single version of the truth’ (Smaltz, 2011). When data is spread throughout multiple databases, invariable some of it will differ. For example, a customer’s address may have been changed in one department but not another. These differences can prove costly to a company. A centralized EDW means that only one record should exist for each customer and reduce  data discrepancies. Having such a centralized system would also satisfy customer needs in a more efficient manner and would help to cross-sell products, which in turn would result in higher profits and more profit for the company. By allowing customers to have a single point of contact, and sharing information by standardizing software and databases across the organization, information will flow more freely and readily available thus giving the employees the ability to communicate in real time with accurate data and maximizing customer contact to increase profits. Having a decentralized IT function is not conductive to achieve an enterprise vision because by keeping the separate business units separated, it keeps pertinent information out of reach of other business units, and thus allows missed opportunities to maximize profit. Also, the lack of communication among the units creates chaos and disorganization in the organization and gives precedence to individual goals above company goals, which in turn will end up hurting the overall enterprise vision and may even spell the end of the enterprise altogether. Finally, having a decentralized IT function creates customer frustration such as in the case of getting several bills for different products. This frustration may cause the company lost customers and lost profits. Information Stewardship Information Management Policy The difficulty in implementing this solution is the current state of the databases scattered about the firm; many are in incompatible formats, so that significant effort will need to be invested to bring together all of this data into a single, shared IT service system accessible to all. In addition, not all data is equally valuable to each unit. Efficiency necessitates allowing employees access to the information that is most pertinent without inundating the various departments with extraneous details. For this reason, whatever IT solution is implemented must be able to adapt dynamically to the storage and retrieval needs of each department. Another challenge to creating a centralized system is the role of information stewardship. Information stewardship involves the ownership and control of information to reduce discrepancies and redundancies. To maintain the consistency and accuracy of data, information stewards need to be appointed. â€Å"Information stewards are businesspeople. They should be responsible for determining the meaning of information ‘chunks’ and their  business rules and contextual use. They should be responsible for the accuracy, timeliness, consistency, validity, completeness, and redundancy of information† (McKeen Smith, 2009, p. 76). A serious challenge to the consolidation of data at RR Communication will be consolidating all of the disparate information from around the firm into a single enterprise data warehouse. It is very likely that there will be duplicate information, conflicting records, incompatible data formats, and other inconsistencies that will not lend themselves to easy integration. However, the reduction in duplicate and conflicting information will be vital to the success of RR Communication. Duplicate data means an increase in administrative work and overhead, a nd conflicting and inconsistent information means the company is not performing at optimum levels. The reduction of duplicate data, or data deduplication â€Å"can improve the performance of virtual systems, reduce network traffic and cut the costs associated with data protection. In addition, deduplication allows backup data to be replicated more efficiently to other sites for disaster recovery† (Symantec, 2011). Duplication increases the amount of data a corporate network must process, reducing efficiency and increasing costs. Storage costs increase as the same information may be stored and backed up across multiple databases, again wasting resources. Finally, duplication of data significantly increases the amount of labor required to utilize it in any useful manner. Clearly, RR Communication will need a significant amount of data deduplication to create a useful, consolidated enterprise data warehouse. To facilitate the proper stewardship of information, an information management policy needs to be created that addresses these issues in a way that prevents such confusion and disarray. An information management policy will dictate the rules and guidelines for how information is handled, who is responsible for maintaining and updating it, and outline the policies and practices to do so (McKeen Smith, 2009). To begin to unravel the data mess at RR Communications they should define an encompassing information management policy that will effectively address the issues of what information is retained, who is responsible for updating it, how it is to be maintained, and who should have access to it. Critical to the success of this policy will be the involvement of management from all functional areas of the company. Each should be given the opportunity to contribute to the policy,  and each individual needs should be addressed. In addition, the problem with this solution will be gaining acceptance from the different functional areas of the business. There will obviously be conflicts of ideas and differences of opinion in how the policy should be created and enforced. To improve the effectiveness of the policy it needs to be thoroughly enforced from top management down. This means to gain compliance, RR Communications’ CEO needs to set the example and pressure all levels of management below to do the same. Another strategy to encourage the support of the divisional presidents for the shared customer service is by creating awareness that the free information flow would be beneficial for all and would simplify business processes, thus allowing then to increase their bottom line, and thus their bonuses. Finding opportunities to demonstrate small success would help show the support being given to the divisions. To aid in compliance, a large corporate training program should be initiated to ensure the policy is well known by all associates. Gaining compliance by all of the business areas will be the most difficult part of this solution; the ingrained attitude of self-preservation that exists at RR Communication will be difficult to overcome. However, change is not impossible, but only by dedication of management. The initial implementation period will be the most difficult, and if enforcement waivers the policy may fail. Creating Useful Information from Raw Data One characteristic of an enterprise system is ensuring seamless integration of a company’s information among all divisions, including financial and accounting Markus, M.L., Tanis, C. (n.d.). Hence, to achieve a successful enterprise system, a company must have its IT systems centralized to ensure information runs smoothly and is relevant among all divisions, especially the financial and accounting information. Considering the accounting problems brought up at the final meeting, the company obviously needs to implement a centralized IT function. Moreover, it will be far more expensive to have an enterprise system with a decentralized IT function, which is contrary to the aim of achieving an enterprise system. While a centralized information management system will indeed offer benefits at RR Communication, if there is no way to utilize and interpret that data, it is useless; this is analogous to being data rich and information poor. Just  because a company has loads of data does not mean that is fully informed. A company such as RR Communication collects vast quantities of data, but having the resources to convert that into useful information can be an extreme challenge. At RR Communication, they are facing a double-sided problem; they have neither a collective data warehouse, nor do they have any effective information management. Once the problem of centralization has been addressed, information management can be. One potential way to improve the use of massive amounts of data is using a metadata repository. A metadata repository functions much like the card catalog of a library; while it does not specifically contain the information, it provides an index of what is available, including the relevant points on what it contains, as well as a pointer to locate the information (Moss Brodie, 2002). This index provides an extremely valuable resource tool to quickly locate pertinent information. In addition, the metadata repository should be designed with the ability to hook into other systems that are developed to provide information to mother systems as necessary. Establishing this framework now will offer increased benefits as more systems are built off the central repository. Addressing Corporate Culture As seen in RR Communications, lack of common information and enterprise IM strategy can cause several problems to the business and the IT department. RR Communications has encountered serious customer service problems, due to lack of common information and enterprise strategy. In addition, lack of common information makes it hard for the overall management to monitor the businesses. Business units are unable to exchange information, and none is aware of the other divisions’ work. The company is not in a position to strengthen its brand since no divisions work together. To remedy this, a unification of the firm needs to take place from more than just an IT standpoint. The disjointed nature of the firm’s information assets reflects a deeper separation of the personnel at RR Communications. Departments work for their own ends with naught but passing concern for their effects on the company as a whole. This lack of cohesion manifests itself in the behavior of the CIOs, divi sional managers, and even the employees, and has resulted in the severe fragmentation of corporate culture. The fragmented IT systems are only a symptom of a much larger problem. Before addressing the IT  problems at RR Communications, the underlying culture of the business needs to be transformed. This begins at the very top, with the president of the company and the highest leaders; they need to be the first to set the example, and it is clear their current attitudes have set the company on the disastrous course it is on. Removing the CIO team which has hampered the company’s efforts at unification up until now was a good step, but serious considerations now need to be taken to prevent things from getting worse. Other associates could easily see firing the CIOs as a usurping of departmental sovereignty; however, they need to use this as an opportunity to show that the company can be brought together without sacrificing any of their needs. To capitalize on this opportunity the president and vice president should bring together the next level of management into a council of members to set the direction and culture of the firm in a way that promotes unity and mutual respect. This council should be responsible for creating and fostering an atmosphere that shows the benefits of the firm functioning as one. They need to prove to the management and associates that their departments will have a say in decisions, and their needs will not be overlooked. To improve the odds of acceptance, the council should be selected from leaders that have proven themselves as examples of good leadership and who are respected in the firm. Key to the success of this council will be keeping everyone on equal footing and ensuring that no one area is given preference over another, especially in the beginning. It is obvious that certain departments will have greater needs then others, and sometimes priority will need to be given to one area; however, if this behavior is present from the outset they will receive much resistance from the firm, as this will reinforce existing fears. Once a unity of the firm has been established, people will be more flexible to accept changes after they see the benefits. It will be up to the president and vice president as leaders to maintain these policies and be the example. As demonstrated in previous cases, the president has been lax in demonstrating himself as a leader and this could prove damaging to any such plans to unify the firm. Leadership must begin at the top, and the success or failure of a company often reflects the abilities of its leadership. Implementation Challenges The advantages of a shared IT system eliminate some of the above-mentioned  problems. A single centralized and standardized IT operating system will enhance quick decisions across all the departments, since all units will be looking at the same data. Furthermore, with a shared service, customers will not have to visit different databases for the same company; rather, all their queries and purchases can be done from one site that will serve them with all that they need from the company. Another advantage will be easy monitoring of the divisional units—their individual performances as well as their contributions to the whole company. Another advantage for the company will be the ability to monitor financial operations, since all operations will be reflected on one database centrally (Amces, 2010). To implement the shared service strategy, it will be important to seek support of the divisional presidents, considering they will be in charge of the units, which are the moneymaking branches. Their willingness to participate in the construction of the shared service will benefit the whole company. The first step to the implementation of this strategy will require assurances that it will benefit the whole company far more than the current system that is facing opposition from not only the customers but also other stakeholders such as the suppliers. In turn, since employees’ remuneration is awarded on performance, improved performance for the whole firm will be an added advantage. Since the divisional heads are used to being in control, it is important to remind them that having a shared service will not mean the imposition of decisions from above. Rather, the shared service will make the operations of the whole organization work in harmony for the purpose of easy monitoring customer convenience. They should be included as part of the implementation team, so they can offer input on what they may not want to change. For instance, many are worried they will have to do away with specific projects. Ensuring them that these projects will continue after implementation of the shared service would increase their support, as would helping them understand that the new, shared system will enhance the harmony and efficiency of whole organization; eventually they will come to see that their roles will remain mostly the same. Another way to improve the odds of success to a centralized data structure is by appointing a team to oversee the maintenance of the data warehouse fr om an enterprise level. Ideally the members of this team should be comprised of analysts from the important functional areas of the company. This can help gain buy-in from the company  due to the fact that the members of this team have already proven themselves to be knowledgeable and capable in their previous environments (Smaltz, 2011). In addition the benefit of incorporating these individuals is that individual departments will feel that they have representation in the new system, and that their interests are protected. This will increase the potential for global acceptance in the program. Another way to increase compliance with the new systems is to implement an incentive program that would drive associates to achieve the best results. Incentive programs drive people to reach specific targets by offering them tangible rewards beyond their current compensation. At RR Communications, an incentive program could be implemented to increase compliance and adoption of a new centralized system. For example, the company could offer monetary bonuses to departments that lower their operating costs using the new system the most. Another more abstract idea would be to have a small bonus program for departments that offer ideas to enhance the productivity of the system. Many of the departments have complained that a shared system would cause them to be overlooked; however, offering this type of inventive would both encourage them to make enhancements of the system while simultaneously demonstrating that their opinions count. Positive reinforcement, such as an inventive program, help gain the compliance of the workforce in a much more efficient way then punishment or negative reinforcement. There are governance mechanisms and metrics that can be used to encourage the implementation and use of a shared enterprise data system. The governance that needs to be put in place is the alignment of divisional units with the IT department. The metrics must be aligned with transparency to ensure that IT is in congruence with business operations. The governance mechanism should involve all departments focusing on regulatory issues, risk alleviation and opportunity enhancement. The metrics used should be concerned with making divisional data fit into an enterprise system. These metrics will identify areas of weakness and avenues of improvement. To quote an analogy, â€Å"Rome wasn’t built in a day;† and it will take significant time and effort to remedy all the problems at RR Communications. Close governance and metrics will aid in any improvement plan. Recommendation: It is evident that RR Communications need an intervention in its customer  service center. The lack of a centralized customer care center is making it hard to provide unified services to customers. More so, a lot of time is wasted by customers who have to be referred to different department for billing. Customers are forced to have several accounts with the company for each division since each division is held with its independent operations including billing (Smith McKeen, 2007). This makes it hard for customer care provision. Considering consumer service is very crucial for any business, RR Communications need a centralized customer service center. A centralized service center will have many benefits to the whole organization such as cost reduction, time saving, good management of customers’ data or information, and customer satisfaction. I recommend a centralized customer service center for RR communications for its advantages as predetermined below. The divisional IT service means having separate audits for every division. Having each division with an individual audit is expensive for the company since several auditors will be needed. Eliminating the divisions will save some costs that would otherwise be used for the services of the auditors at every division. With a single it department, data can be fed there and only one audit team will be required for the whole company. This also means reduced time for audits since with divisions audits have to be put together after each department has completed its audit (Smith McKeen, 2007). Coordination among the auditors will be efficient since information is collected from one point where all information concerning company accounts is stored. Therefore, having a centralized service center will enhance such operations across the whole organization. In addition, with a centralized customer service center as well as IT, it will ensure information is collected at one point making it easy to access information concerning any department from any point within the company without having to refer to the division in charge. Hence, for the auditors, complying with the set Sarbanes Oxley act will be easy since information about customer billing and accounts of the whole firm will be centralized ensuring accuracy. Having the customer service centralized enhances business operations and processes, ensuring best practices such as timely audits are realized. With data consolidated in one central place, information can be exploited to breed new opportunities for the company. When data is at one place for all the divisions, it is easier to have a broader picture  concerning how the divisions can create a new opportunities. Exploiting these opportunities jointly among the divisions is better than going individually. Moreover, security can be more enhanced with a shared service center since monitoring will be done by one entity. This will further reduce costs associated with having each division taking responsibility of storing and maintaining its own data. Considering that RR communications is currently having several softwares, consolidating information together for the whole company is hard. Smooth flow of information across departments to ensure easy sharing is vital; not only for the whole com pany, but for divisions too, considering information consolidation is a fundamental instrument for doing business. Consolidating the IT services to one centralized structure will require removing of service center hardware from each division to one central department that will mitigate risks and have a common structural design as well as policies that are easily reviewable for updating. A common security procedure will reduce risks associated with information breech. Through the same procedures and practices, the company can reduce file systems redundancy within the organization and enhance efficient document retention as well as reduce costs. Another reason to have one service center is to match the technical capacity of the company with its vision. At the current divisional independence, the divisions exploit their own visions that are not in congruence with the organization’s vision and mission. Considering the company’s vision is to have a consistent brand across all the divisions, it is necessary to have cross-shared services across all divisions to achieve this vision. The vision can be achieved through cross- sales of all the company services to its customers, as opposed to each department having its selling strategy. Having a shared sales service will serve to reduce the costs incurred when divisions do it individually hence creating a better chance for profit across all departments. Having a central service center will ensure that the overall vision of the company is followed since the central service center will be inclined towards the vision of the whole company. This way, each division can have a chance of benefiting form other divisions, hence the company as a whole (Smith McKeen, 2007). Having a single service center will allow easy outsourcing for the organization. Currently, businesses are outsourcing majority of their operations to other professional companies for reductions  of costs. With independent divisions and IT strategies for each individual division, outsourcing will be quite complicated. Having a central service center to oversee all requests will enhance efficiency as well as value. More so, through the consolidation of IT services and information at one common place will reduce security risks associated with outsourcing services. This will further ensure reliability and security of information. A consolidation of information and IT services will enhance cross-services for customers such as billing (McKeen Smith, 2011). The company divisions at current circumstance hold their information secret from each other, making it a competition within the divisions that raise the problem of billing where customers have to be referred to other divisions for other services. With the consolidated information, customers will only need to visit one department from which other information concerning other divisions can be met. This will improve the perception of their whole company as a brand and the standing of the company can be improved as well as customer satisfaction. There is need for the company to realize that in the current world information is one of the drivers of businesses, which all businesses need to survive. Having each division with its own information center reduces the chances of the company improving in the future since the harmonious climate needed among the divisions for this achievement is minimal. Having stipulated the advantages bound to arise or reasons why a central service center should be achieved, it is important to consider how RR can be able to implement this recommendation with ease and least resistance from the divisions. This is the first most likely problem to arise during implementation. Hence, the first step should be generating support form all divisions, which has been quite hard up to now especially from the managers who are self centered and concerned with their earnings that depend on their performance. The managers also have a negative attitude towards merging of information and data among the divisions through one central service. A three-point strategy can be used to gain their support. It includes financial strategy, mitigation of risks associated and compliance to regulation. Financial point can emphasize the advantages the shared service is bound to raise, which will for the benefit of all the divisions and organization as a whole. Risk mitigation will arise from security of information through monitoring by one entity in a standardized  way, while regulatory will be concerned with abiding to set accounting rules of the Sarbanes Oxley act which the company has been having problems with (Schwartz, 2007). The next step would be to lay out the vision of the company and show why it cannot be achieved with division of operations among the divisions. This will impart some reasoning among the leaders, and support fore all divisions should be ensured. The main aim is to make everybody in the divisions aware of the role they will play and their stake to ensure thee is compliance and acceptance of the strategy to build a one services center (McKeen Smith, 2011). One of the problems that could arise after implementation of a shared service center is ease of adoption. Some employees who have been used to the old system will require to be trained how to work harmoniously with a single service center. Many will be required to handle more information concerning not only their divisions, but also other divisions. Hence, there will be need to have them trained to provide a central service to the customers. Another problem would arise for the culture set by the independent divisions prior to the implementation of a single service center. The current culture is of rivalry among the divisions considering they have been competing among themselves. Killing the culture will be a little hard. To deal with the problem the company will have to sta rt early through brining people together and coming up with tasks that can be incorporated in all divisions that allows all members to interact. The shared tasks will enhance cooperation among the different divisions. Conclusion RR is having problems because of lack of a common service center. All divisions are held with their own operations that aim at achieving divisional goals at the expense of corporate goals. The company is lacking a strong unified brand to sell to customers since all divisions are accounted for independently. This has made it obvious that a shared service will be the best for solving these issues. RR needs to put in place an alignment of their IT services with the business units. Transparency must be encouraged and joint responsibilities of IT ad businesses to achieve shared service center (smith McKeen, 2007). The company should also have a common enterprise vision for their systems. All the departments should be included with emphasis on joint business opportunities and risk mitigation. The top  management should be in forefront to creating an atmosphere of improvement continuously with a key focus on customer service to ensure the shared service center is successful. References McKeen, J. D., Smith, H. A. (2009). IT Strategy; Issues and Practices (2nd Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. McKeen, J. D., Smith, H. A. (2011). IT Strategy; International edition (2nd Edition ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc. Moss, L., Brodie, M. (2002, July). Data Rich, but Information Poor? Retrieved October 26, 2011, from Information Management: http://www.information-management.com/issues/20020701/5341-1.html Schwartz, K/D. (2007). IT Governance Definition and Solutions. Retrieved from http://www.cio.com/article/111700/IT_Governance_Definition_and_Solutions#what Smaltz, D. H. (2011, July/August). Are You Leveraging Your Data or Is Your Data Leveraging You? HIT Exchange , pp. 8-9. Smith, H. A., McKeen, J. D. (2007). Shared Services at RR Communications. Queens School of Business. Symantec. (2011, May 2). Deduplication and Efficient Data Storage. Retrieved October 26, 2011, from PR Newswire 1. List the advantages A single customer service center will yield both financial and human resource savings for RR Communications by eliminating the allocation of duplicated resources to the multiple divisional and regional customer service centers. With valuable resources freed from these multiple customer service centers, the company will be able to allocate more resources to its value added activities and improve operational efficiency. RR Communications run four divisions, each with a distinct but a complimentary product. They are internet, mobile, landline, and cable TV service. There is a deregulation in the telecommunications industry and its becoming a norm for competitors to offer multiple services like RR Communications. RR Communications’ customers  have been complaining about double billing because the four divisions have no working collaboration and thus, no way of knowing when the other division may already have sent the bill. A single customer service center will consolidate the da ta of the customers of all divisions and by addressing the problem of inaccurate billing, it will potential save the loss of dissatisfied customers to the competitors. A single service center will also yield growth opportunities by marketing the company’s other services to customers that they may not already have and offer discount incentives on the purchase of multiple products. A single customer service center will allow comparison among the company’s divisions in terms of product quality, customer satisfaction, and retention rates so that more resources could be allocated to troubled areas. A single customer service center will also make it easy to gather data about the company’s divisions and store them in standard formats for management analysis. By having access to all the relevant information about the customers, the customer service center will be better able to address customers’ questions and market company’s products which would not have been possible with separate customer service centers. It will also be convenient for the customers to call only one place for all their questions and thus, will increas e goodwill for RR Communications. 1. Is it possible to achieve an enterprise vision with a decentralized IT function? The answer to this question really depends on what the meaning or intention is behind the idea of an enterprise vision. If this simply means of having certain departments existing and able to complete their tasks and accomplish their goals, basically that the enterprise is functioning, than the answer is certainly. As demonstrated in the case study, there were multiple divisions for IT that were each doing their own thing, and while it wasnt pretty, compatible or optimal, everything did, technically, work allowing each department to function. As soon as the vision of an enterprise expands to a desire to work more efficiently, unify tools and platforms, have stronger compatibility or be one company a decentralized IT function becomes a massive hindrance. Turning to the case study again, each department was replicating the efforts of the other departments by finding their own software/data vendors, creating unique database systems and having their own support staff. This not only made it difficult for clients who  needed assistance, but meant there was excessive spending, and an inability for multiple departments to come together to function as a a single entity within the enterprise. 2. What business and IT problems can be caused by lack of common information and an enterprise IM strategy? There are numerous business and IT problems that can arise from the lack of common strategy. In terms of IT there can be duplication of efforts, systems and tools leading to not only multiple expenditures to yield the same results, but this may mean there is no strong outline of how systems are set up or designed, there may be no map detailing the hardware and software in place, which makes it far more difficult to not only run inventory, but ensure that new expenditures are needed and not (again) duplicating tools that have already been purchased or implemented. When different software and hardware solutions are used across departments, this also leads to difficulties in compatibility. When the organization wants to implement something new, it would be difficult if not impossible to determine if it can be integrated into the existing tools, or this may result in unanticipated technical errors arising from compatibility issues. Business problems stem primarily from an inability of data to be effectively shared across groups, thus limiting the ability of various departments to work together. Not only could this cause rifts to form between various groups, but it also means that there could be issues with data consistency. This is especially troubling for client data, as a change in one department may not be updated elsewhere due to data being stored in different databases, the inability for data to be updated across databases, and even opens up the potential for technical errors causing data that is normally consistent to suddenly become dispar ate from similar data elsewhere. Additionally, when the business requires technical assistance it is likely to be difficult to find the correct person with the knowledge needed to resolve a particular issue if that department is using specialized systems that are not consistent across the organization. 3. What governance mechanisms need to be put in place to ensure common customer data and a shared customer service center? What metrics might be useful (think service level agreements, etc.)? Common customer data will require a standardized database, as well as regular auditing procedures to ensure that data is only being modified/updated by those individuals who are supposed to have access, as well as verifying  accuracy for these modifications. Customer service really depends on the objectives of the company. I worked on an inbound phone line at a call center for 3 years while this was technically brokerage service, arguably it was a cutomer service center. Training had to be farily comprehensive so we could assist clients with almost any issues they had, and on top of that reps have to know what departments specialize in certain topics in case they need help figuring out what happened or resolving a complicated problem. On top of that, there is regular review and QA of random c alls to ensure representatives are giving correct informaton and assisting the client based on the standards and expectations set by the organization. Call reviews are measured on a scale where there are certain objective actions that are required on every call, then measured more subjective terms such as professionalism. I work with a tremendous amount of shared customer data, and everything is monitored, recorded and subject to audit procedures. There is always the abilty to find out who did what, when, and every phone call is recorded and maintained for a period of time. This of course protects the client as much as it helps protect the firm. As far as data is concerned, I dont know if there are specific service level agreements in place, but I do know that there is regular testing of what is referred to as host fallback where all the primary systems are taken down for a period of time, then brought back up. While this is frustrating for reps and clients who need access to the data, the very small number of times I experienced an unscheduled outage the backup systems performed well, all reps knew how best to work within the confines of the backup system, and the discussion with clients about why certain things could not be done went far more smoothly than if regular testing was not performed. The case study this week describes the classic example of an organization which is heavily decentralized into distinct lines of business (each with its own IT group) that realizes their need for a flexible and responsible IT function, a common view of the customer, and the elimination of redundant systems

Emotion to the Screen with Composition and Shot Variation In A Raisin i

Translating Emotion to the Screen with Composition and Shot Variation In A Raisin in the Sun Filmmaking and cinematography are art forms completely open to interpretation in a myriad ways: frame composition, lighting, casting, camera angles, shot length, etc. The truly talented filmmaker employs every tool available to make a film communicate to the viewer on different levels, including social and emotional. When a filmmaker chooses to undertake an adaptation of a literary classic, the choices become somewhat more limited. In order to be true to the integrity of the piece of literature, the artistic team making the adaptation must be careful to communicate what is believed was intended by the writer. When the literature being adapted is a play originally intended for the stage, the task is perhaps simplified. Playwrights, unlike novelists, include some stage direction and other instructions regarding the visual aspect of the story. In this sense, the filmmaker has a strong basis for adapting a play to the big screen. Despite the provision of stage directions, however, a play is not simple to adapt to a cinematic form. Plays rely heavily on dialogue to communicate emotion to the reader whereas film allows for close visual representation. Filmmakers can explore creativity in adaptation in many ways unavailable and impractical in the theater. In order to maximize the emotional impact of a dramatic work, the filmmaking team can make use of several simple yet effective tools, such as the composition of frames and the variations of the camera shot. In the 1961 film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Daniel Petrie, the filmmakers use these techniques in creative ways to communica... ...stival) starring one of America's most acclaimed actors, Sidney Poitier. Despite the necessity of the brilliant and groundbreaking writing of Hansberry, credit must be given to the filmmakers for translating the stirring emotion of the play into something visually moving. A theater production lacks the creative license for close-up shots of actors' faces, and the composition of the stage comes off as contrived and stilted at times. Although carefully planned and choreographed, the frame composition of the film is a subtle and creative exploration of the emotional message of this play. Works Cited A Raisin in the Sun. By Lorraine Hansberry. Dir. Lloyd Richards. Perf. Sidney Poitier. Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York. 11 Mar. 1959. A Raisin in the Sun. Dir. Daniel Petrie. Perf. Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee and John Fiedler. Columbia Pictures, 1961. Emotion to the Screen with Composition and Shot Variation In A Raisin i Translating Emotion to the Screen with Composition and Shot Variation In A Raisin in the Sun Filmmaking and cinematography are art forms completely open to interpretation in a myriad ways: frame composition, lighting, casting, camera angles, shot length, etc. The truly talented filmmaker employs every tool available to make a film communicate to the viewer on different levels, including social and emotional. When a filmmaker chooses to undertake an adaptation of a literary classic, the choices become somewhat more limited. In order to be true to the integrity of the piece of literature, the artistic team making the adaptation must be careful to communicate what is believed was intended by the writer. When the literature being adapted is a play originally intended for the stage, the task is perhaps simplified. Playwrights, unlike novelists, include some stage direction and other instructions regarding the visual aspect of the story. In this sense, the filmmaker has a strong basis for adapting a play to the big screen. Despite the provision of stage directions, however, a play is not simple to adapt to a cinematic form. Plays rely heavily on dialogue to communicate emotion to the reader whereas film allows for close visual representation. Filmmakers can explore creativity in adaptation in many ways unavailable and impractical in the theater. In order to maximize the emotional impact of a dramatic work, the filmmaking team can make use of several simple yet effective tools, such as the composition of frames and the variations of the camera shot. In the 1961 film adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's groundbreaking play A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Daniel Petrie, the filmmakers use these techniques in creative ways to communica... ...stival) starring one of America's most acclaimed actors, Sidney Poitier. Despite the necessity of the brilliant and groundbreaking writing of Hansberry, credit must be given to the filmmakers for translating the stirring emotion of the play into something visually moving. A theater production lacks the creative license for close-up shots of actors' faces, and the composition of the stage comes off as contrived and stilted at times. Although carefully planned and choreographed, the frame composition of the film is a subtle and creative exploration of the emotional message of this play. Works Cited A Raisin in the Sun. By Lorraine Hansberry. Dir. Lloyd Richards. Perf. Sidney Poitier. Ethel Barrymore Theatre, New York. 11 Mar. 1959. A Raisin in the Sun. Dir. Daniel Petrie. Perf. Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, Ruby Dee and John Fiedler. Columbia Pictures, 1961.

Advertisement Analysis: American Beauty

Ever since civilization began, trends have socialized groups on how to dress, think, and act; it becomes an absolute necessity to support whatever is in vogue or risk ostracization. Modern businesses create advertising in American media by following these cultural trends. Whether it is through periodicals, radio, or the all powerful television these companies use effective methods to psychologically convince their intended audience to buy either a product or service. These advertisements perfectly reflect how Americans perceive sex, social status, and gender roles. A prime example of this concept is a television commercial by Old Spice soliciting scented body wash to women with boyfriends or husbands. The sales pitch begins with an attractive black male in a bathroom egotistically claiming superiority over every woman’s significant other adding that men make a mistake in their body wash which is actually buying anything other than Old Spice. The setting spontaneously changes to a yacht at sea where the actor woos his female audience with show tickets and diamonds. The actor then confidently promises that if their men smell like Old Spice as well then anything is possible. As a final note, he randomly confesses that he is on a horse as a catchy jingle plays in the background. This commercial is extremely effective in selling to women by creating a stereotypical romantic man to serve as a salesman. The advertisement conveys the notion that women will only be satisfied if their men are not only very attractive but can provide a lifestyle of infinite luxury using humor, subconscious promises of success, and the Old Spice man himself. Humor is the most explicit tool this advertisement uses in appealing to the audience being over the top to produce positive emotions within each viewer. The most apparent example is how cocky the Old Spice man is in his presentation of the product. It is amusing how he arrogantly degrades other men for their use of â€Å"lady scented body wash† and how they unfortunately cannot be him. The Old Spice man’s presentation is so egotistical yet suave one cannot help but be amused. Spontaneous scene changes from a bathroom to a yacht to on a horse are also ridiculously hilarious because they are random. The positive emotions evoked by humor are pivotal in order to sell a product. After watching the funny commercial positive feelings resurface whenever someone sees the same product inside a store; the odds that they will buy Old Spice body wash over another brand become very high. This concept brings to light that in American culture people enjoy humor. Humor can provide variations to a monotonous lifestyle as well as make people happy. Most people do not actively seek to be depressed so if humor can lead to amusement then people will actively seek for positive reinforcement. The writers of the Old Spice commercial understand the importance of humor and incorporate it with selling their personal hygiene product so that people will psychologically associate the two together. The association of an emotional response with a tangible object is not uncommon with advertisements because it is an effective way to sell on a subconscious level. By incorporating images of materialistic wealth such as a yacht, diamonds, and horseback riding on a beach Old Spice appeals to the American desire to possess limitless wealth. On the advertisement, the Old Spice man falsely claims that â€Å"anything is possible if your man smells like Old Spice† as he possesses excellent physique and is surrounded by various forms of materialistic wealth. To women the advertisement subconsciously implies that if they buy Old Spice body wash it is possible for their men to own a yacht, diamonds, and horseback ride on a tropical beach. The commercial wants to invoke feelings of desire and associate them with their product so that people will buy it. For middle class Americans, the demographic group whom the advertisement primarily targets, it is very possible to achieve a comfortable standard of wealth being able to eventually retire and live a lifestyle the way they please. Most people do not actively seek to become destitute therefore advertisements wisely do not portray the Old Spice man as homeless in a gutter using body wash to smell clean. The association of their product with negative imagery would result in poor product sales because feelings evoked by imagery like humor attach to a product in the minds of viewers. Understanding human psychology is pivotal in soliciting a product. The advertisement’s most powerful tool in attracting attention toward Old Spice body wash is sexual appeal because within American culture sex is a sensitive topic often considered taboo in conservative social circles. The Old Spice man exudes enough confidence to be considered arrogant, has irresistible charm, and has a sexy body in the eyes of women; he is the archetype of a romantic lover. The Old Spice man is deliberately placed in the advertisement to distract women from making a completely rational decision in buying the personal hygiene product. The real message the commercial makes is to specifically buy Old Spice body wash but the product is not even introduced until a full ten seconds after the advertisement begins with the attractive man commanding women to â€Å"look at your man, now back to me† three times. What women really observe is a romantic fantasy with the man their man can smell like on a boat showered with luxury gifts. The advertisement reflects the cultural belief that women lust for an attractive and wealthy man; it also plays on the racial stereotype that men of African descent are sexually well endowed being that the Old Spice man is black. For men specifically Old Spice implies that it will make them more desirable in the eyes of women smelling no longer like a lady but a man. This concept demonstrates how powerful sex appeal is in the advertisement epitomized by the Old Spice man himself. Old Spice wants to make their product sexually desirable so it will sell. Without the element of sex many products would not sell as well as they presently do because there is no explicit desire attached. People like sex. More specifically, people long to become sexually attractive and if a product can make a promise to do so people will buy it. It is well understood that companies make advertisements to sell their product to make a profit. In order to stand out among the competition advertisements play on the psychology of targeted viewers by making references to humor, misleading information, and sex. In American culture sex is the most powerful because of how sex is socially perceived as indecent or lewd while being very much ingrained within society. It is to retailer’s advantage that a product carries an additional label beyond its intended use because of how people like to think they are getting more with what they pay for. It can be very easy for consumers to fall for ploys by advertisements; they are Venus fly traps set to catch their next prey.

Alexander Chabanyuk

Any form of exchanging information between people or groups of people is referred to as communication. For any cooperate to achieve effective organizational change, internal communication is very important. Research indicates that employees in lower levels are usually ignored while making organization’s decisions. It was also found out that the employees become alienated especially when the decision is aimed at initiating a change in the organization. As a way of fostering employee productivity, effective internal communication is therefore very important.This does not downplay the vital role of external communication in an organization but both must be balanced. The up and down or horizontal internal communication- as in the case of Vodafone- helps the employees in understanding what they are expected of them and taking the necessary steps in ensuring their work is completed on time. (http://www. thetimes100. co. uk/downloads/vodafone/vodafone_12_full. pdf ) Internal communic ation can also be verbal or written. The vital role of internal communication involves explaining organization’s values, culture as well as visions to employees for them to make informed decisions.It will also strengthen employee relationship and enhance their sense of belonging. For example; ‘eVelopers internal communication system was developed and implemented to ensure that all employees are informed about all corporate policies, strategies, decisions, updates, news, changes, etc. and properly apply them, increasing the efficacy of company performance. ’ http://www. evelopers. com/qm5 This paper examines cooperate meetings as one of the internal communication processes in an organization. Participant selectionCooperate meetings have proofed to be very successful especially where the organization succeeds to invite the right participants. This can be done by conducting extensive consultations with the employees from different departments in an organization. Thi s will however depend on the reason as to why the meeting should be held. After making a decision about whom to invite, it is very important for them to be briefed on the purpose of the meeting. They should also be informed on where, when, the expected participants and where to make further enquiries if they needed to do so.It was found out that the conditions or the environment surrounding the meeting’s venue highly determines whether the meeting will be a success or not. The venue should be comfortable enough to win the concentration of the participants. When setting the date and time care should be taken to ensure that every participant is comfortable. Religious, gender and cultural diversity among the employees should be considered, failure to which the participants may pay little or no attention to the proceedings of the meeting.True representation of the organization in the meeting should be demonstrated by including employees or their representatives from all departmen ts. (http://www. managementhelp. org/misc/mtgmgmnt. htm ; Quirke B, 2000, pp. 25-61) Agenda development The meetings agenda should be made known to all expected participants. Research indicates that no effective meetings agenda can be developed without adequate consultations among all the concerned parties. The key participants should help in identifying feasible outcomes and what ought to be done to ensure the identified target outcomes are reached.It is very important for every meeting to have an overall outcome. For instance, increasing sales, improving quality of products or service, conflict resolution, management and transformation, and introducing change among others. The agenda should clearly indicate how the participants should be kept busy especially those who arrive earlier than stated. It is very important to ensure that all topics are listed together with their respective action or expected output. Opening meetings Punctuality is always very important in any meeting.Mee tings should therefore start on the scheduled time. Acknowledging the presence of participants who dedicate their time to attend the meeting encourages them and enhances the sense of meaning in whatever goes on in the meeting. It is also very important to review the meeting’s agenda in order to consider any possibility of making any amendments. Meeting participation and evaluation Every one should be given an opportunity to participate actively. This can be done through use of questions, opinions, votes, demonstrations and individual presentations.Discursions should revolve around the agenda items. The meetings should be made as lively as possible to help the participants to open up and give their views without fear or favor. The appropriate momentum should be maintained. Participants should be asked to evaluate the progress of the meeting from time to time in order to ensure the correct pace is maintained. An effective meeting must be successfully concluded. Participant conf identiality must be guaranteed. Soon after conclusion, the overall evaluation must be done.This will help in setting a date for another meeting if need be and decide on its agendas. Proceedings of the meetings should be recorded and every participant should get a copy at the end of the meeting. Further development Even though cooperate meetings have been held by many organizations over the past, there is still need to improve them in order to reap their full benefits. It is very unfortunate that the physically challenged have been neglected during cooperates meetings.The deaf and the dump should not be ignored. Sign language should be introduced in order to enable such people with special needs to follow what the other participants are doing. Departmental meetings should be held before the actual meetings in order to bring the employees from a particular department together. This will save time and ensure that a true reflection of the status of the organization is portrayed. Meeting s involving many participants should be held in a room with adequate facilities but not in the open air.Some organizations address their employees in open-air meetings and their intention is not met due to disruptions from external factors. Audiovisual gadgets should be introduced to enable people to participate even from their offices. This will ensure that incase some senior officers are not able to attend -simply because they are out for other cooperate duties –they can participate in the meeting and provide appropriate responses when asked to. Since meetings are expensive, such a decision will reduce the number of meetings held especially when an urgent problem solution is required.This can be made possible by the use intranet. (Klein A, 2004, pp. 59) Depending on the purpose of the meeting, thorough consultations should be carried out from every department to ensure all underlying issues are tabled before the meeting. It is also good to invite at least one representative from those departments that are thought to be less concerned because an issue affecting a particular department affects the organization at large and needs cooperation in seeking for a long-lasting solution.It is expected that, in the future, cooperate meetings may take another dimensions and be transformed into be Parliamentary Procedures, which will involve the use of parliamentary laws. (http://www. jimslaughter. com/corporate. htm ) These parliamentary laws can be defined as; â€Å"the best method yet devised to enable assemblies of any size, with due regard for every member’s opinion, to arrive at the general will on the maximum number of questions of varying complexity in a minimum amount of time and under all kinds of internal climate ranging from total harmony to hardened or impassioned division of opinion.† http://www. jimslaughter. com/corporate. htm Conclusion Internal communication must however include all the other forms of internal communication processe s in order to ensure smooth running of the organization. These processes may be used interchangeably in order to ensure that information reaches the intended person at the correct time to enable proper action to be taken. References Slaughter, J. (1998). Better, More Legal Corporate Meetings. [Retrieved] 24th July, 2008, [From] http://www. jimslaughter. com/corporate. htm McNamara, C.(1997). Basic Guide to Conducting Effective Meetings. [Retrieved] 23rd July, 2008, [From] http://www. managementhelp. org/misc/mtgmgmnt. htm Communications. [Retrieved] 23rd July, 2008, [From] http://www. thetimes100. co. uk/downloads/vodafone/vodafone_12_full. pdf Evelopers, Quality manual: Internal Communication. [Retrieved] 24th July, 2008, [From] http://www. evelopers. com/qm5 Klein A, 2004, Adoption von electronic meeting systems, DUV Accessed from Amazon. com Quirke B, 2000, Making the connections, Gower Publishing, Ltd

New Deal Relief Projects Essays - New Deal Agencies, Free Essays

New Deal Relief Projects Essays - New Deal Agencies, Free Essays New Deal Relief Projects After the major crisis of the banking situation had slightly blown over, President F.D.R. faced a new and much more prominent problem; and that was to provide relief and other charities for the unemployed and now many homeless families, along with struggling businesses and facilities. He quickly designed many new programs that would surely help these families that were in desperate need of it. The Public Works Administration (PWA) was designed to provide the public with certain necessities, without providing the politicians with the opportunity of corruption, Roosevelt watched over these proceedings carefully. The plans that were implemented at this time included huge public buildings, dams, irrigation and other flood- control projects. Another relief plan that helped businesses in particular was the National recovery Administration, (NRA) along with the National Industrial Recovery Act, (NIRA). These were designed to help businesses by eliminating unfair competition through a series of codes and newly established laws. The laws against combinations of large businesses were suspended as long as workers were guaranteed specific minimum wages, maximum hours, and the right to bargain as an organization. A very successful relief operation that was specifically designed for young men was the Civilian Conservation Corps, (CCC). This organization provided work for and unemployed and unmarried men. They received food and shelter and were paid about $30 a month for their services, and $25 of that monthly sum was intended on providing for their families. Over 250,000 men joined this group, living together in army-type camps. They performed outdoor work such as digging ditches, fighting fires, also restoration and construction of homes. They benefited from the workout, and their families

The McMansion Is the Big Mac of Suburbia

The McMansion Is the Big Mac of Suburbia McMansion is a derogatory term for a large, showy neo-eclectic architectural style home, usually built by a developer without the guidance of an architects custom design. The word McMansion was coined in the 1980s by architects and architecture critics in response to the many over-sized, poorly designed, expensive homes being built in American suburbs. The word McMansion is cleverly derived from the name McDonalds, the fast food chain restaurant. Think about what is offered under the golden arches of McDonalds  - big, fast, tasteless food. McDonalds is known for mass producing super-sized everything in huge quantities.  So, a McMansion is the Big Mac hamburger of architecture - mass produced, quickly built, generic, bland, and unnecessarily large. The McMansion is part of the McDonaldization of Society. Features of a McMansion A McMansion has many of these characteristics: (1) over-sized in proportion to the building lot, which is usually a defined space in a suburban neighborhood; (2) poorly proportioned placement of windows, doors, and porches; (3) excessive use of gabled roofs or a bizarre mixture of roof styles; (4) poorly planned mixture of architectural details and ornamentation borrowed from a variety of historical periods; (5) abundant use of vinyl (e.g., siding, windows) and artificial stone; (6) unpleasing combinations of many different siding materials; (7) atria, great rooms, and other grand open spaces that are rarely used; and (8) quickly constructed using mix-and-match details from a builders catalog. McMansion is a snarky word used to describe a certain type of house, for which there is no absolute definition. Some people use the word to describe an entire neighborhood of overly large houses. Other people use the word to describe an individual house of new construction, more than 3,000 square feet, that has replaced a more modest house on the same lot. A very large house in a neighborhood of mid-century modest homes would look disproportional. A Symbol of Economic Status Is the McMansion anything new? Well, yes, sort of. McMansions are unlike the mansions of yesteryear. In the Gilded Age of America, many people became very wealthy and built opulent homes - usually a city dwelling and a country house, or cottage as the Newport, Rhode Island mansions are called. In the early 20th century, large, rambling homes were built in Southern California for people in the movie industry. No doubt, these homes are objects of excess. Generally, however, they are not considered McMansions because they were individually built by people who really could afford them. For example, Biltmore Estate, often called the largest private home in the United States, was never a McMansion because it was designed by a well-known architect and built by moneyed people on many, many acres of land. Hearst Castle,  William Randolph Hearsts estate in  San Simeon, California, and Bill and Melinda Gates 66,000 square foot house, Xanadu 2.0, are not McMansions for similar reasons. These are mansions, plain and simple. McMansions are a type of wannabe mansion, built by upper-middle class people with enough down payment money to show off their economic status. These homes are usually highly mortgaged to people who can afford the monthly interest payment, but who have obvious disregard for architectural aesthetics. They are trophy homes. The leveraged McMansion becomes a status symbol, then - a business tool that depends on property appreciation (i.e., natural price increase) to make money. McMansions are real estate investments instead of architecture. Reaction to McMansions Many people love McMansions. Likewise, many people love McDonalds Big Macs. That doesnt mean theyre good for you, your neighborhood, or society. Historically, Americans have rebuilt their communities every 50 to 60 years. In the book Suburban Nation, Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Jeff Speck tell us that its not too late to untangle the mess.  The authors are pioneers in the rapidly growing movement known as New Urbanism. Duany and Plater-Zyberk launched the groundbreaking Congress for the New Urbanism which strives to promote the creation of pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods. Jeff Speck is the director of town planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk Co. The firm is noted for designing pristine communities such as Seaside, Florida, and Kentlands, Maryland. McMansions are not in their visions for America. Old-fashioned neighborhoods with walkable roads and corner shops may seem idyllic, but New Urbanist philosophies are not universally embraced. Critics say that pretty communities like Kentlands, Maryland, and Seaside, Florida, are as isolated as the suburbs they try to replace. Moreover, many New Urbanist communities are considered pricey and exclusive, even when they arent filled with McMansions. Architect Sarah Susanka, FAIA, became famous by rejecting McMansions and the notion of what she calls starter castles. She has created a cottage industry by preaching that space should be designed to nurture the body and soul and not to impress the neighbors. Her book, The Not So Big House, has become a textbook for 21st-century living. More rooms, bigger spaces, and vaulted ceilings do not necessarily give us what we need in a home, writes Susanka. And when the impulse for big spaces is combined with outdated patterns of home design and building, the result is more often than not a house that doesnt work. Kate Wagner has become the go-to critic of the McMansion form. Her commentary website called McMansion Hell is a clever, snarky personal assessment of the house style. In a local TED talk, Wagner rationalizes her animosity by suggesting that in order to avoid bad design, one must recognize bad design - and McMansions have a plethora of opportunities to hone ones critical thinking skills. Before the economic downturn of 2007, McMansions proliferated like mushrooms in a field. In 2017 Kate Wagner was writing about The Rise of the McModern -  McMansions persist.  Perhaps its a byproduct of a capitalistic society. Perhaps its the notion that you get what you pay for - small houses can cost as much to build as larger houses, so how do we rationalize living in tiny homes?   I believe, concludes Sarah Susanka, that the more people put their money where their hearts are, the more others will realize the validity of building for comfort, and not prestige. Source The Not So Big House by Sarah Susanka with Kira Obolensky, Taunton, 1998, pp. 3, 194

The major challenges for China, Why the past successful export led Term Paper

The major challenges for China, Why the past successful export led growth model cannot continue - Term Paper Example Over a period of three decades, China has established a market-based economy but, however, the establishment of market institutions remains unfinished (Naughton, 2007). The export-led growth was greatly assisted by channeling savings and labor into large scale physical and human labor investments. Further, the shift to markets from planning brought about efficiency in the allocation of resources while taking advantage of the industrial experience acquired during the socialist era. According to Norton (2007), the present economic period has exploited a long entrepreneurship and commercialization history both inside and outside the country, which has eased access to capital and savings. With an emphasis on economy, this paper will discuss the major challenges that China is facing and the reasons why its past successes based on growth that was fueled by exports cannot continue. It will further suggest how the Chinese economy should further be transformed. The key concern facing Chinaâ⠂¬â„¢s economy is the improbability of the continuation of the conditions that facilitated the 7% economic growth in the past 30 years, save for the slowly but steadily improving human capital (Garnaut & Song, 2005). However, the improving human capital may be negated by the rapidly aging professionals that will put a strain on the government’s capacity of healthcare and pensions. ... Although the changeover has resulted in improved standards of living, it has also led to higher economic risk and uncertainty. This is manifested by the worsening distribution of income, unemployment, unstable education, insufficient infrastructure and a badly structured health insurance framework (Zhang, 2008). The economy is in a state of imbalance because of overdependence on exports, with relatively low shares of GDP realized from domestic consumption in comparison to the status in majority of the developed countries. This has led to a never-ending overcapacity, aggravating the trade imbalance between China and its significant partners in trade, the result of which has been recurrent apprehension in mutual relationships with trading partners and, more critically, the United States (Liu, 2007). From the economic point of view, China may be said to be a victim of its own success (Garnaut & Song, 2005). None of its trading partners is enjoying the exponential growth rates that China has experienced, and their imports from China cannot remain the same, or at least in a way that can lead China to continued stability. Viewed in another way, the trading partners may maintain their level of imports, but, from the perspective of China, they would not sustain the growth rates they have seen in past years. After going through a period of humble monthly gains, the country was faced by unexpected drops in September in exports (Silk, 2013). This occurrence renewed the indications of weak points within the emerging markets that China has been trading with as significant partners. More importantly, it signals the restrictions of heavy dependence on more export growth to

EGBC report Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

EGBC report - Essay Example Researches and extensive studies have shown a direct linkage between energy and population growth. Due to this reason, Egyptian government and other officials have decided to look for different ways which can reduce the GHG emission and power consumption. For the accomplishment of this goal, developing energy efficient building is the first step in identifying the alternative methods of efficient energy. There have been many proposals forwarded for improved performance but manpower and interest is absent here. Many people are experiencing this dilemma however some other people are looking for alternative systems in order to deal with this issue and increase awareness to other people about its importance. In subsequent paragraphs, there are some initiatives taken for the bridging the gap between code compliance and code design. In 2009, a major step was taken by Egyptian government in establishing Egyptian Green Building Council-EGBC. There are many international and national personalities who have become member of this council; they include NGO officers, government officials, ministers, labour leaders, contractors and prominent businessman. The objective of developing this council is to satisfy environmental conservations and energy efficiency by providing opportunities to investors to adopt BEECs and other existing codes. The purpose of focusing on new constructions is that by focusing on it, EGBC can utilize its leverage as an organization to persuade and educate builders, engineers, owners and contractors about the advantages of establishing green constructions on people, community and most significantly, to the nation. In this way, green construction can be a required objective for buildings, construction work and other projects as energy efficiency codes would be tools, material and road map to attai n that desired objective. The imperative motivation is to eradicate the clichà ©d perspectives related to the green