Leadership
Essays

Over the last several years, the issue of employee motivation has been increasingly brought to forefront. Part of the reason for this, is because wide variety of organizations have been reporting that the majority of…

Both sides fought hard in the Civil War, and the Union victory was far from being a foregone conclusion. Several decisive Confederate victories, including the Battle of the Seven Pines and the Second Battle of Bull Run,…

The entirety of the Salem witchcraft hysteria centered upon the needs of the males to both assert and maintain their dominance within every element of their community. For the Puritans, evil and the evidence of evil was…

Apple Inc. has created a truly impressive brand that is not only immediately recognized throughout the world, but enjoys a cult-like following that has been seen only with short-term fad products and, certainly, never…

This work provides a non-specialist scientific explanation of neuroplasticity. The work stresses new research and literature that supports the idea that the neural networks of the body continue to be adaptable as we…

Ruth Pohlman, the principal of Rush Strong Elementary in Jefferson County, Tennessee, brings several decades of experience as an educator and an administrator with her every day to her job at the kindergarten through…

Using the scientific method, then, we begin with a theory, and then collect data that supports or refutes that theory, then revises the theory and retests data. The interpretive approach seeks more to understand the meaning of individual issues (members, organizations, etc.) within the situation. It assumes that there is validity in subjective interpretation and are focused on how individuals understand and actualize events and settings (Whittington, 2011). This also contributes to the graphic representation of leadership theory as a way to express concepts for different types of learners. POC is an epistemological method or strategy – a way that organizations can gain knowledge and improve retention. Much like the Six Sigma models of quality control, the use of POB to prevent the "shadow" and encourage creativity forms the basis of a usable theoretical maxim firmly rooted in ontology (Fitzgerald and Oliver).

Best Buy began its operations in 1966 by founder Richard M. Shulze. The company started its operations by a single radio shop called "The Sound of Music." By 1970, Sound of music was already successful and earning annual revenues exceeding one million dollars. The company was selling asa radio and Hi-Fi stereo and maintained a good status, until 1981 when a tornado hit one of the original stores. Tornodo damages its inventory. Inventory was sold from piles in the wrecked stores, it is known as the "Tornado sale," which became an annual event. Intrigued by the idea of selling things in a more non-traditional way, Shulze decided to change the company's name to Best Buy Co. and simply put product out on the shelf for customers to buy instead of behind a glass counter. This idea would find huge success and in a few decades time Best Buy Co. would become the electronics retail giant it is today.

Of the many trends in outsourcing, the most dominant are those that are directly aligned to the strengthening and streamlining organizations' supply chains, pace and depth of innovation, and adding greater agility to their value chains. Inherent in the trends most impacting organizations are a myriad of career opportunities and potential for personal development. The intent of this analysis is to define those most dominant trends affecting outsourcing today and provide insights into three strategies for each trend which will allow students to fully capitalize on outsourcing in their careers. The pace and depth of innovation is quickening, and for many organizations their ability to sustain this level of activity and development is being challenged by the many distractions of running their less profitable operations. At the center of this challenge is the need to offload the least-valuable administrative work and activity so the most valuable strategies and tactics contributing to innovation and new product development can be undertaken (McIvor, et. al.). Outsourcing the most mundane, easily transferred activities including record keeping, accounting and payroll can lead to higher levels of profitability and long-term performance as products are developed more efficiently and completely (Jiang, Frazier, Prater, pp. 1281, 1282). This offloading of the more mundane and easily-taught tasks can free up both dollars and time to pursue the next major distribution for any company. Of all nations participating in outsourcing today, Indian outsourcers have a commanding lead in this area (Hansen, pp. 210 – 29). Their leadership in this area is attributable to the gains their leading outsourcing providers including HCL, Infosys, Tata and others have made in streamlining these operations of many of the world's largest and leading corporations. Their legacy of expertise in Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) work from the last decade has also helped companies in the Indian outsourcing market to excel at accounting and financial outsourcing support. The implications for students of this first dominant outsourcing trend of companies offloading the more mundane tasks so they can concentrate on more strategic projects are many. The top three ways students can benefit from this trend in their careers is to first focus on project management skills, as many of these outsourcing partnerships require very tight time and resource management. Project management skills will also open up entirely new opportunities to manage the entire financial management systems of companies who choose to outsource this part of their company so they can focus dollars and time on new product development. A second approach students can take to capitalize on this trend is to minor in accounting and finance to understand the core functional areas so well that they can jump directly into engagements and excel in their role as an outsourcing project manager. A third approach students can take in terms of capitalizing on this trend of outsourcing mundane and routine work is to study Business Process Management (BPM) and Business Process Reengineering (BPR). Studying this area will give the students the ability to see problems their clients have from a more systemic, broader perspective instead of just focusing on the immediate tasks overall. This system-level thinking is a critical success factor for any student going into outsourcing management as a career; studying BPM and BPR techniques will have multiplicative effects throughout many other areas of their career.

Military historians study how being a commander in the armed forces prepares an individual for future positions of leadership. Dwight David Eisenhower, General of the Army and the thirty-fourth President of the United…