Operational Management Essays (Examples)

Application to the Specified Measurable Learning Outcomes from Course Syllabus

The first topic applies to the course syllabus in that it distinguishes those aspects of professional leadership that are important to organizational success from those that may represent an excessively superficial focus on leadership over substantive issues in business management. The second topic applies to the course syllabus in that it outlines the definite correspondence of elements of organizational culture and of different approaches to organizational leadership to objective measures of employee satisfaction, motivation, and performance. Finally, the third topic applies to the course syllabus in that it outlines the manner and degree to which different types of industries, organizations, and strategic missions dictate the need for different types of leadership styles and different types of approaches to management within organizations.

Ultimately, the three concepts suggest that leadership does play an important role in organizations but that leadership cannot be…

References

Ismail, A., Zainuddin, N.F., and Ibrahim, Z. "Linking Participative and Consultative

Leadership Styles to Organizational

Commitment as an Antecedent of Job

Satisfaction." UNITAR E-JOURNAL, Vol. 6, No. 1 (January 2010): 11 -- 27.

Operational issues of IT Department NHS

Organization UK

The objective of this report is to provide a proposal to reduce the IT operational costs. National Health Service (NHS) is a biggest healthcare service provider in the UK, and the organization delivers both primary and secondary healthcare since its formation. The UK government major objective for forming NHS is to provide the affordable and quality healthcare delivery for all social class in the UK. To achieve its objective, the government has implemented the IT project to improve the service delivered by the organization. Despite the implementation of the IT project to deliver the quality healthcare delivery for the UK population, there is an operational issues within the IT department. The external service providers are still delivering the IT services, which has been translated into the high operations costs. The report provides several recommendations to decline the operation costs within the IT…

References

Boddy, D. King, G. Clark, J.S. et al. (2009).The influence of context and process when implementing e-health. BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. 9:9

Hackney, R.A. & McBride, N.K.(2003). The Efficacy of Information Systems in the Public Sector: Issues of Context and Culture. Research Paper Manchester Metropolitan University.

Hendy, J. Fulop, N. Reeves, B.C et al. (2007). Implementing the NHS information technology programme: qualitative study of progress in acute trusts. BMJ.

Hendy, J. Reeves, B.C. Fulop, N. et al. (2005). Challenges to implementing the national programme for information technology (NPfIT): a qualitative study.

The performance of each team member depends on the performance of all others, this being a team project. Constraints include time and financial resources; as such improvement requires permanent improvement effort.

isk Management. No risk has been identified related to the project's completion.

Monitoring and Controlling Mechanisms. The data analysts will develop a metric system to measure each member's performance on a weekly basis. This weekly performance will be submitted to the project manager for potential adjustments.

V. Operations management plan

Operations Strategy. An easy way to understand the meaning of operations strategy is to break the word into the two separate words: operations and strategy - these words being the opposite of each other (Slack & Lewis, 2002). 'Operations' is about the functions and procedures regarding the day-to-day processes, while 'strategy' is about the direction and scope of an organisation over a long period of time. The operations strategy…

References:

Aberdeen Group. 2008. Operational KPIs and Performance Management -- Are Your Daily Decisions Based on Fact?,  http://www.aberdeen.com/ 

Cooper, M. & Lambert D. 2000. Issues in Supply Chain Management. Industrial Marketing Management, vol. 29: pp. 65-83.

Johnson, J. C. And Wood, D.F. 1996. Contemporary Logistics, N.J.: Prentice Hall Upper Saddle Creek.

Keah C.R.K. And Handfield, R.B. 1998 .Supply Chain Management: Supplier Performance and Firm Performance. International Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management: pp.2-9.

The people belonging to the third corporate culture are from the engineering culture. This culture is personified by engineers and technical specialists, who believe on the awesome power of the technology in solving the organizational culture. These people believe on the power of the machines in solving human and organizational problems.

According to Schein, people involved with any of the above three cultures often fails to see the other side and the perspective of other culture, often resulting failure in organizational learning. Although people belonging to each of the culture do great service for the organization, yet they fail to see the holistic picture of the organization and fail to share the similar meaning of the organizational problems. The main reasons for these problems certainly occur because of the people inheriting different norms, educational experiences, expectations, and rewards structures in their professions.

Therefore, it is now wonder that an organization…

Reference

Schein, Edgar H. (1996) Three Cultures of Management: The Key to Organizational Learning. Sloan Management Review, fall. 9.

Given the fact that the entire organizational structure relies on performance, one needs to ensure that (1) performance levels are reasonably defined and (2) that these performance levels are known to all employees within the organization.

In this sense, an organization that will be implementing the respective framework needs to make sure that the performance levels are reasonably defined. Perhaps an external structure or organization can help defined reasonable levels for outcomes.

The problem we have previously discusses seems to have itself a counterpart in terms of the performance measurement and reporting systems. First of all, measuring performance means that there are specific performance criteria that can be used. These are, in part, related to the strategic planning details I have mentioned on the previous paragraphs.

Second of all, one needs to take into consideration the reasonability of the person who is making the assessments. Again I suggest here someone…

Operational Motivational Plan

Organization's Motivational Plan

I am President, and CEO of a small geneal contracting company. We are a medium size company for our market, with 20 employees. We operate in the residential, and commercial markets, specializing in higher end residential new construction and remodeling projects in neighborhoods which typically display homes of $250,000.00 or more. Tradesmen in this industry are independent, and perfectionistic. The craftsmen on our staff are some of the most talented carpenters, masons, and painters in their fields. The company has received recognition as "One of the Top 100 Residential Contractors in the Nation" three times out of the last 5 consecutive years.

However, in the past 16 to 24 months, company gross margin has been eroding, and staff moral has begun a consistent downward slide. The site managers are dealing with construction time overruns and wrong / not enough materials on the jobs. These…

Bibliography

Bishop, J.W., Dow, S.K., & Burroughs, S.M. (2000).

Support, Commitment, and Employee

Outcomes in a Team Environment.

Journal of Management, 26(6), 1113

Indeed, the control function will create a feedback mechanism that will allow the leader or manager (at all levels of the organization) to be constantly informed as to the way that benchmarks are reached, as well as to any potential problems that might appear along the way. This means that the control function is the first phase in actually correcting the potential errors that might appear in the organization.

In Jack Welch's case, the control function as he applied it allowed him to monitor his group of human resources so as to emphasize the most important and most productive 20% and the underperforming 10%. y monitoring and controlling this benchmark, he was able to induce and maintain an organizational culture based on performance as one of the fundamental and defining goals.

5) One of the strategies by which a healthy organizational culture can be maintained proposes to support a close…

Bibliography

1. Welch, Jack. 2005. Straight from the Gut. Warner Books.

2. Welch, Jack. 2005. Winning. Collins

At the same time, he then acts as an interface and communicates to the team the general directions in which the company is moving. However, the project manager also acts as an internal motivator within the team, a coordinator and organizer.

A similarly important role will be played by the project manager in his capacity to act as an interface between the different entities and shareholders involved in a certain project. In order to control scope, several documents should be used, such as, for example, the statement of work, as part of the requests for proposals, or scheduling and budget estimates. For these, the project manager will work with representatives from other departments (marketing and sales etc.), but also with the clients. At the same time, the project manager will have consulted previously with his own team, thus being able to carry to these meetings their own evaluations and estimates.…

In other words, he expects for his efforts to be accordingly remunerated or rewarded with a promotion, a full time job offer for a trainee and so on (Stuart-Kotze, 2008).

In implementing these individual needs, organizational managers have developed numerous incentive plans, such as the offering of increased wages, premiums, bonuses or promotions.

The four above presented theories are relevant in the context of driving the individual, which is then capable to influence the organizational behavior of his employing company. The responses generated by the economic entities relative to the motivational factors vary in terms of intensity, ability to implement or resources possessed, but fact remains that all organizations have attempted to integrate stimuli that increase the performances of the workers. The ultimate goal of each organization offering incentive plans to its staff members is that of best benefiting from their intense efforts.

Aside the offering of a pleasant, yet…

References

Fabozzi, F.J., Peterson, P.P., 2003, Financial Management and Analysis, 2nd Edition, John Willey and Sons Inc.

Hariss, J.O., Hartman, S.J., 2001, Organizational Behavior, 1st Edition, Taylor & Francis Inc.

Stuart-Kotze, R., 2008, Motivation Theory,  http://www.goal-setting-guide.com/motivation-theory.htmllast  accessed on September 15, 2008

2008, Official Website of the Microsoft Corporation,  http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspxlast  accessed on September 15, 2008

"A well-written, widely publicized, strictly enforced fraternization policy won't prevent office romances from developing. It will, however, make life a lot easier, and less litigious, for you when you have to deal with it" (eh, 2010).

eferences:

Amble, B., 2007, Office politics the biggest cause of stress, Management Issues, http://www.management-issues.com/2007/1/18/research/office-politics-the-biggest-cause-of-stress.asp last accessed on October 29, 2010

Bailey, J., omantic and sexual relationship can cause workplace stress -- a word from the office, Ezine Articles, http://ezinearticles.com/?omantic-and-Sexual-elationships-Can-Cause-Workplace-Stress-A-Word-From-the-Office&id=1920949 last accessed on October 29, 2010

Bowers, T., 2007, Love (gone bad) in the office, Tech epublic, http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=152 last accessed on October 29, 2010

Fennel, A., 2003, omantic relationship at work: does privacy trump the dating police? All Business, http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/careers/1077844-1.html last accessed on October 29, 2010

Kernesten, D., 2000, Office romances can be risky, rewarding, Work elationships, http://www.workrelationships.com/site/articles/officeromancerisk.htm last accessed on October 29, 2010

eh, F.J., 2010, Office romance, About, http://management.about.com/cs/people/a/Officeomance.htm last accessed on October…

References:

Amble, B., 2007, Office politics the biggest cause of stress, Management Issues,  http://www.management-issues.com/2007/1/18/research/office-politics-the-biggest-cause-of-stress.asp  last accessed on October 29, 2010

Bailey, J., Romantic and sexual relationship can cause workplace stress -- a word from the office, Ezine Articles,  http://ezinearticles.com/?Romantic-and-Sexual-Relationships-Can-Cause-Workplace-Stress-A-Word-From-the-Office&id=1920949  last accessed on October 29, 2010

Bowers, T., 2007, Love (gone bad) in the office, Tech Republic,  http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/career/?p=152  last accessed on October 29, 2010

Fennel, A., 2003, Romantic relationship at work: does privacy trump the dating police? All Business,  http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/careers/1077844-1.html  last accessed on October 29, 2010

esearch Objectives and Scope

The main objective of the research then relates closely to the research problem. It is to research the problem of uncertainty as it manifests in the global business environment. Specific issues to be investigated include supply chain management and its related uncertainties, the production process itself and uncertainties related to it, as well as the post-production phase and market uncertainties that are related to it.

Time is also an important factor. Some industries require a long-term time frame in their planning process, which exacerbate uncertainties. The time factor should also be an important consideration in terms of creating a model that can effectively help businesses achieve their manufacturing and revenue goals.

To achieve these aims, the main objective of the research will then be to research industries and companies that operate on a global scale. They will be investigated for the models they have implemented to…

References

Alonso-Ayuso, A., Escudero, L.F., Garin, A., Ortuno, M.T. And Perez, G. An Approach for Strategic Supply Chain Planning under Uncertainty based on Stochastic 0-1 Programming. Journal of Global Optimization, No. 26, 2003. Retrieved from http://chentserver.uwaterloo.ca/aelkamel/che720/che720-methods-of-optimization-pse/stochastic_optimization/05100412180122714.pdf

Eppler, Martin J., Platts, Ken, and Kazancioglu, Emre. Visual Strategizing: the Systematic Use of Visualization in the Strategy Process. Institute for Corporate Communication, Dec. 2006. Retrieved from  http://doc.rero.ch/lm.php?url=1000,42,6,20061207091432-KB/wpca0607.pdf 

Gupta, Anshuman and Maranas, Costas D. Managing demand uncertainty in supply chain planning. Computers and Chemical Engineering, No. 27, 7 Feb. 2003. Retrieved from www.sciencedirect.com.

Kazaz, Burak, Dada, Maqbool and Moskowitz, Herbert. Global Production Planning Under Exchange-Rate Uncertainty. Management Science, Vol. 51, No. 7. July 2005. Retrieved from http://myweb.whitman.syr.edu/bkazaz/kazaz-MS-2005.pdf

Whereas the other functions of management focus on methods, and operations, and policies, and organizational structure, leadership pertains exclusively to people. Management also includes various functions that relate to personnel, such as the establishment of hierarchical structure, and supervisory policies and practices. However, even in these personnel-oriented functions, management and leadership are substantially different.

Leadership includes the use of specific styles (such as transactional, charismatic, transformational, and servant leadership). On one hand, certain leadership styles have proven to be more appropriate or likely to be successful in specific types of organizations and industries; on the other hand, leadership style is ultimately a matter of choice and any leadership style could (at least in principle) be used in any organization. However, management functions are largely determined by the nature of the industry and the processes required for organizations to function properly in given industries. Therefore, unlike leadership style, approaches to business…

Giving them the opportunity to participate in the product launch decisions from a marketing standpoint also highlighted an embarrassing point for marketing, and that was engineering often understood the competition and its true functionality better than anyone in marketing. The reason is that the engineers had taken great pride in working on their product features they were responsible for to make them the best in the industry, and it was clear some had taken great pains to make a statement in their work. Creating shared ownership of product outcomes strengthens morale of technical professionals and infuses an entire development team with more accountability (Voss, 1993) and willingness to internalize a strong commitment to the success of the product (Kochanski, Ledford, 2001).

The risk of recommending this strategy would be that the more dominant engineers would overrule marketing and turn the entire marketing strategy into more of a features discussion than…

References

David Baccarini, Geoff Salm, & Peter ED Love. (2004). Management of risks in information technology projects. Industrial Management + Data Systems, 104(3/4), 286-295.

Jain, S.. (2008). DECISION SCIENCES: A Story of Excellence at Hewlett-Packard. OR-MS Today, 35(2), 20

James Kochanski & Gerald Ledford. (2001). "How to keep me" -- retaining technical professionals. Research Technology Management, 44(3), 31-38.

Li, Y., & Zhu, K.. (2009). Information acquisition in new product introduction. European Journal of Operational Research, 198(2), 618.

He wished to build the happiest place on the planet and this message continues to be handed over to the new recruits who join the organization presently also. Disney exists to give a guarantee to the Americans that are there for real. Disneyland is not just unreal, rather it is hyper-real. As a result it is possible to express of the corporate culture of Disney as being created. ("eading Organizations from behavior and experience to representation and experience," n. d.)

4) Explain how the four functions of management support the creation and maintenance of a healthy organizational culture

The four functions of management support the creation and maintenance of a healthy organizational culture as it leads to planning, organizing, leading and coordinating of resources and it is these 4 activities which recur across the institution and are extremely unified. Present features relating to management cover claims leading are distinct from…

References

Arnold, Paul. V. (2002) "Fixing manufacturing" MRO Today Magazine, Retrieved at  http://www.progressivedistributor.com/mro/archives/mro%20coach/Lynch/FixingJJ02.htm 

Bryman, Alan. (1995) "Disney and His World"

Routledge.

N.A. (2007) "Disney Institute Homepage" Retrieved at  http://www.disneyinstitute.com/index.cfm

.. every employee must become an operational strategist.... Strategic planning must no longer be considered an elitist activity that happens behind closed doors.... Rather, planning must be viewed as a continuous, interactive, and democratic process that empowers managers and employees together to create the future of the firm." (Purser & Cabana)

Lear (1992) blames the downfall of General Motors and IM in the early 1990s to their reliance on hierarchical management. He recommends banishing the dinosaur. General Motors did just that and transformed its organization into a matrix (Prewitt, 2003). Today the company is on the brink of bankruptcy indicating that the company's performance can't be totally related to its organizational structure.

5. Give a clear and convincing logical argument why this structure is best for Hybrid

Motors. In this argument, you need to also argue that other possible structures are not as good. It is absolutely essential that you…

Bibliography

Heiss, M, Stoeckl, S, and Hausknotz, C. (2004, October 18-21). The bottom-up/top-down pattern: an organizational pattern for a balanced management system. Engineering Management Conference, 2004. Proceedings.2004 IEEE International. Vol. 1, pp 317-323

Lear, R.W. (1992, April). Going, going, gone - changing nature of business management - Speaking Out. The Chief Executive.  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m4070/is_n75/ai_12289893 

Prewitt, E. (2003, September 1). GM's Matrix Reloads. CIO.  http://www.cio.com/archive/090103/hs_reload.html 

Purser, R.E. And Cabana, S. (1997, May). Involve employees at every level of strategic planning. Quality Progress.

In my opinion, valuable organizational change is a process. It is nothing that comes from one day to the other. It requires the combined efforts of the organization as a whole: Skilled managers and the commitment of an organization's workforce alike.

Discussion of the paper's results: What are the key findings? What does it add to the body of knowledge?

The key findings of the paper are threefold.

First, the current management of organizational change tends to be reactive in its response to the pace of change that has never been greater than today. Second, successful management of change within organizations is a highly required skill. Third, further research into the nature of change management needs to be conducted and a new and pragmatic framework for change management is needed as a critical success factor for the management of change. It adds to the body of knowledge, that managerial skills…

Management - Is it an Art or a Science?

Management is Art

Management has a lot more closely attached to art than it is to science. usiness management is about working with, as well as influencing other people to fulfill the goals of both the corporations and its associates (2).

Managing in the New Era

Quick transformations that are far-reaching all through each and every feature of business today prompts the corporations to reorganize the method they do things. Even though the customary management replica has developed quite a bit, it is still geared to an unbending composition and command -- and manage state of mind (3). This replica is well modified to an atmosphere where transformation is sluggish and evolutionary rather than fast and radical. It helps put in order procedures and promote a sense of responsibility, order, and discipline (4).

What it is short of is elasticity making…

Bibliography

1) Bjrn Bjerke. Business Leadership and Culture: National Management Styles in the Global. Edward Elgar, 1999.

2) Floyd Norris. A Climb to Riches, One Merger at a Time. New York Times. 2003.

3) Hal R. Varian. Can markets be used to help people make nonmarket decisions? New York Times. 2003.

4) Jeff Madrick. Looking beyond free trade as a solution to helping the developing world. New York Times. 2003.

Management

As organizations become larger in both scope and scale, the need for both management and leadership compounds. Many organization problems today, correlate heavily to a lack of true management. Aspects such as fraud, high employee turnover, product recalls, and strikes, all have origins with management. To better combat many of these negative influences, companies must hire, attract and retain talented management. In order to do so, many companies use the administrative management theory of management. This theory emphasizes the use of planned procedures, job specialization, and merit pay to help facilitate business objectives. I believe this theory to be the most useful in regards to managing an organization. For one, specialization of labor helps increase operational efficiencies with a business. In addition, planned procedures allow both employees and management to have clearly defined goals and job expectations. Finally pay based on merit provides incentive for employee and management to…

References:

1) Manfred F.R. Kets de Vries The Dark Side of Leadership - Business Strategy Review 14(3), Autumn Page 26 (2003).

2) Stroh, L.K., Northcraft, G.B., & Neale, M.A. (2002). Organizational behavior: A management challenge. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

3) Paul C. Dinsmore et al. (2005) The right projects done right! John Wiley and Sons, 2005. ISBN 0-7879-7113-8. p.35-42

4) Lewis R. Ireland (2006) Project Management. McGraw-Hill Professional, 2006. ISBN 0-07-147160-X p.110- 116

Managing Across Cultures

Internationalization of the economy has influenced companies to operate their business globally. The global operation has impact managers with several challenges. Market, product, and production plans must be coordinated on a worldwide basis. The global operation necessitates organization structure to balance centralized home-office control with adequate local autonomy. As companies have started their business operation on the international front, the number of their employees has increased. Increase in the employee's abroad management is faced with new global challenges. The three broad international business management challenges were identified by the management gurus as follows (obert, Kossek & Ozeki, 1998):

a) Deployment: To get the right skills where it is required in an organization regardless of the geographical location.

b) Knowledge and creativity distribution: Spreading the knowledge and practices throughout the organization regardless of where they have actually originated.

c) Talent identification and development on global basis: To identify…

References

Drucker, P. (1988) The Coming of the New Organization. Harvard Business Review issue

January-February 1988

Fadel, J. & Petti, M (1997). International HR policy basics.

Global workforce issue April 1997, pp. 29-30

Maintaining professionalism, when communicating the physical security, ensures its adoption by the stakeholders. In addition, providing a cost estimate for the whole process makes the management team understand the need for the adoption of the physical security in the business/organization (Chapter 7 of Broder, & Tucker, 2011).

Cost benefit/benefit analysis enables the business to assess the risks and advantages associated with the security option. This entails evaluating the efficiency of the security program with the perceived operational costs and implications on organizational performance. This ensures proper development of security design for ensuring effective management operations management. Some of the risk management options that ensure physical security include the development of effective policies, procedures, hardware, and labor that promote utilization of security programs. ecovery can be achieved by ensuring developing the desired hardware that stores data related to operations management in the organization. Evaluating the effectiveness of a security program is…

References

Chapter 5 of Broder, JF. & Tucker, G. (2011). Risk Analysis and the Security Survey. Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Elsevier

Chapter 7 of Broder, JF. & Tucker, G. (2011). Risk Analysis and the Security Survey. Upper Saddle River,

NJ: Elsevier

Another trait of leadership Zinni and Klotz (2009) explore is the ability of a leader to communicate clearly and articulately with the organization and the public. He can no longer afford to be the faceless top of a chain of command. It behooves the modern leader to develop a variety of decision making skills, such as honing his intuition, learning to quickly recognize developing patterns and trends, and quickly communicating his directions and intentions. This also means that today's leader must be able to show the way through times of crisis and change. A leader's ability to calmly steer a course in times of turmoil is crucial to the survival of any enterprise. Finally, a modern leader needs to think and act strategically. He must plan out the future course of action and guide the organization toward achieving the vision he has articulated. He must be able to hold fast…

Bibliography

Cooper, I.D., (2007, May/June). The impotence of importance -- reflections on leadership. Annals of family medicine, 5:261-262. Retrieved June 28, 2010, from www.annfammed.org (25)

Li, C., (2010). Open Leadership: How social technology can transform the way you lead. San Fransico, CA: Jossey-Bass Wiley.

Shulstad, R.A., (2009, summer). Perspectives on leadership and management. Air & space power journal, 11-17. Superintendent of Documents. Retrived June 28,2010, from http://www.airpower.au.af.mil (24)

Spurgeon, P., & Cragg, R., (2007). Is it leadership or management? Clinician in management. 15: 123-125. In R. Chambers, K. Mohanna, P. Spurgeon, & D. Wall, (Eds.). How to succeed as a leader. Oxford, U.K.: Radcliffe Publishing. (21)

As our CEO is known for being technology-savvy when he started using the new CM in pilot mode on his laptop and started giving presentations based on the analytics applications still in testing, it suddenly became commonplace for see Vice Presidents, Directors and managers all doing briefings using analytics from the new CM system. The CEO had been able to squelch negative politics by making use of the analytics data ground-breaking. Our CEO also praised people and departments he found feely sharing data to make the new CM system function more efficiently. In this regard he was using a positive reinforcement strategy to unify potentially conflicting teams (Lui, Chan, 2008). This was very effective as soon Vice Presidents sent out e-mails telling everyone to look for opportunities to collaborate with other divisions, and discuss how the data they had could help other divisions. This made the task of system analysis…

References

Bernoff, J., & Li, C.. (2008). Harnessing the Power of the Oh-So-Social Web. MIT Sloan Management Review, 49(3), 36-42.

Craine, K. (2007). Managing the Cycle of Change. Information Management Journal, 41(5), 44-46, 48, 50.

Lui, K., & Chan, K. (2008). Rescuing Troubled Software Projects by Team Transformation: A Case Study With an ERP Project. IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 55(1), 171.

Maurer, R. (2009). Get Your Team Involved. The Journal for Quality and Participation, 32(1), 28-31.

The importance of training is as such crucial for all professional individuals, but even more so for those who intend to launch a new venture on their own. At a generic level, the training programs would generate the same benefits for the entrepreneur as well as for the average organizational managers. As a parenthesis, the average organizational manager is understood as the individual occupying a managerial position within a company or even a corporation, and being paid by the respective entity to assume the role and responsibility of organizational manager.

Nevertheless, aside from the traditional aspect and importance of training the manager, the individual who launches a new venture is in a more imperative need of training. And this situation is the result of various particularities of the new entrepreneur, such as the following:

The new entrepreneur is often confronted with more severe resource limitations than the corporate manager.

The…

References:

Bloom, E.P., 2009, Manager mechanics: tips and advice for first-time managers, iUniverse, ISBN 1440133506

Charney, C., Conway, K., 2005, the trainer's tool kit, AMACOM, ISBN 0814472680

Meek, H., Meek, R., Nicholson, F., Sherratt, 2009, CIM coursebook: managing marketing, Butterworth-Heinneman, ISBN 9711202514

Silos, L.R., 2003, the power of the leader: mind and meaning in leadership, Goodwill Trading Co., ISBN 9711202514

5. Concerns Associated with the System

The legal concerns associated with the system are relatively reduced and are included in the same category as all the legal concerns faced by companies all over the world. In other words, the system must focus on being objective and fair; otherwise, the company stands the risks of being sued for discrimination and unfair treatment of the staff members.

The objectivity and fairness of the system is not only a matter for legal concerns, but also for ethical ones. If the employees come into contact with information of biased evaluations, they will lose their trust in the entity. This will lead to reduced performances, low employee morale or even high employee turnover rates, generating additional expenditure. Foremost, all these will negatively impact the company's image and perception on the market.

6. Possible Challenges in a Multicultural Workforce

Generally speaking, the appraisal system is objective…

References

Bowman, J.S., 1999, Performance Appraisal: Verisimilitude Trumps Veracity, Public Personnel Management, Vol. 28

Kovach, R.C., 1994, Matching Assumptions to Environment in the Transfer of Management Practices: Performance Appraisal in Hungary, International Studies of Management and Organization, Vol. 24

Lonsdale, a., 1998, Performance Appraisal, Performance Management and Quality in Higher Education: Contradictions, Issues and Guiding Principles for the Future, Australian Journal of Education, Vol. 42

Management

Managers hold the key to successfully implementing changes in their corporate environments or their installations. How people react to change always depend on how managers present the change. Despite the manager's best efforts in anticipating reactions to change, there is always resistance from 70% of the staff. Leading and implementing change successfully, whether as a team or an organization is a core to achievement in managerial or professional practice (Daft, 2012). It is a difficult, fearful task which does not occur by chance; change should be thought through and well coordinated by the manager.

ole of managers in implementation

Manager's work is to sell the information, motivating resistors while hoping that some logic will encourage those in action to internalize the change and, therefore, change their behaviors (Thames, 2012). They think of innovative ways of how to handle products and services and how to improve technology. Mangers come up…

References

Daft, R.M. (2012). Understanding Management. London: Cengage Learning.

Karen, K.A. (2011). Generalist Practice With Organizations and Communities. London: Cengage Learning.

Richard, D.M. (2010). Organization Theory and Design. London: Cengage Learning.

Thames, B.D. (2012). Chasing Change. New York: Willey and Sons.

Managing the Effectiveness of the Audit Process

Mission and Objectives of the International Audit Department

Stakeholders

The IAD stakeholder power-interest grid

The Audit Process

Objectives, Scope and Approach of the Research

Purpose and Mandate

Resourcing

Competency Development

Sustaining People Excellence

Tools and Technology

Knowledge Management

Operations

Quality

Governance

People

Infrastructure and Operations

Japan Tobacco International (JTI) is an international tobacco business that is operated by Japan Tobacco Inc. Japan Tobacco Inc. is the third largest player in the international tobacco industry with a market capitalization of 32 billion USD and a market share of 11%. JTI was established in the year 1999 when Japan Tobacco Inc. purchased the operations of United States multinational R.J. Reynolds, for 8 billion USD.

The Internal Audit Department (IAD) of the organization is accountable to the board of directors. The department is headed by the Global Internal Audit Vice President. He took his position in…

Works cited

Anupindi, Ravi. 2006. Managing Business Process Flows. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Leseure, Michel. 2010. Key Concepts in Operations Management. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Mahadevan, B. 2009. Operations Management. New Delhi: Published by Dorling Kindersley (India), licensees of Pearson Education in South Asia.

Slack, Nigel. 2009. Operations and Process Management. Harlow, England: Prentice Hall/Financial Times.

Managing Human Resources

In order to complete this evaluation and to determine the degree to which the human resource helps in addressing the hospital's mission and objectives, one should first start with a brief enumeration of these. The hospital proposes to offer the best possible services to its patients, which means that many of the objectives of the human resource department are directed towards this mission. These include recruiting and retaining the very best employees that the organization can afford and creating a proper environment for the employees' success and their development in time. Among other operational goals, the hospital proposes to maximize employee retention and develop training programs that will help in the evolution of the human resource.

The analysis will show that the organization has only partially fulfilled its objectives on the human resource side. Some of the worrying aspects include the fact that employees seem to commit…

Bibliography

1. Jensen, Jerry. 1997. Employee Evaluation. The Grantsmanship Center. On the Internet at  http://www.tgci.com/magazine/Employee%20Evaluation.pdf . Last retrieved on February 3, 2012

2. Delpo, Amy. How to Conduct Employee Evaluations. On the Internet at  http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/employee-evaluations-how-to-conduct-29547.html . Last retrieved on February 3, 2012

3. O'Brien, Michael. 2009. HR's Take on The Office. Human Resource Executive Online. On the Internet at www.hrexecutive.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=266686219, Last retrieved on February 3, 2012

4. Ulrich, Dave. 1996. Human Resource Champions. The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press

Most audit managers assign supervisory tasks to senior auditors and, in general, consistently encourage more senior auditors to fulfill a mentor role within the audit team.

The dual benefit of this practice is that it fosters greater team unity and a healthier organizational culture, in addition to enabling junior auditors to learn technical skills from their more senior associates. Very often, the types of relationships maintained by senior auditors within their audit teams is one of the most important criteria considered in conjunction with possible recommendations for future promotion of senior (GS-13) auditors to management at the GS-14 level. By the time auditors reach the GS-13 level, they are not readily distinguishable from one another in technical skill (or they would not have risen above the GS-12 level).

Therefore, it is precisely their performance in the unofficial role of "supervisory" auditor that is most often considered the difference between auditors…

REFERENCES

Kinicki, a., Williams, B. (2005) Management: A Practical Approach. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Nowalinski, G. (2001) a Brief History of the HHS Office of Inspector General USDHHS Office of Inspections and Evaluations. Washington, DC: GAO

U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General Public Website, Retrieved March 24, 2008, at http://oig.hhs.gov/organization/OAS/index.html

As a consequence, information
can become redundant, it may not be received by the desired receiver, or it
may be distorted.
All these affect the well-functioning of the company's operations. As
a consequence, a series of malfunctions start to emerge, they determine
other problems, which result in not reaching the company's objectives,
decreasing quality of products and services, and increased costs.
The same situation happens in the case of the supermarket's branches.
Each of these branches is run by a general manager and they establish their
own sets of goals and objectives that must be aligned with the general
strategy and objectives established at the headquarters of the company.
This way, each branch activates like a profit center. However, it is
difficult to control the branches. Although they establish their own
objectives also in accordance with the customer targets of each branch, the
demographics and the characteristics of the market…

Reference list:
1. Operational Analysis Guidance (2007). Retrieved November 6,
2009 from
http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:F0mNb63mCRQJ:fasteditapp.f
aa.gov/ams/doaction%3Fdoaction%3DViewSection%26contentUID%3D2
5%26isFullDownload%3DYES%26contentVersionUID%3Dnull+operational
+analysis+process&cd=1&hl=ro&ct=clnk&gl=ro.
2. Jones, C. A. (2000). Extraordinary Customer Service
Management: The Critical Success Factors. Business

.....operational and marketing capabilities on firm performance: Evidence from economic growth and downturns," Ahmed, Kristal & Pagell (2014) show how marketing and especially operational marketing capabilities in an organization can directly improve firm performance overall, with operational marketing being especially critical during slow times or externalities like economic downturns. The results of the Ahmed, Kristal & Pagell (2014) article show the importance of operational marketing and strategic brand positioning, especially as described in chapter 8 of the text. For example, the text lists the seven steps in the positioning process, starting with the identification of the relevant sets of competitive products that serve the target market. Ahmed, Kristal & Pagell (2014) indicate the same, using case studies of firms like L'Oreal using diversified approaches in identifying core products, target market, and competitor analyses to gain strategic competitive advantage and market leadership.

Similarly, Ahmed, Kristal & Pagell (2014) discuss the attributes…

Operational isk

An organization's "operational risk" is not something that can be avoided. It arises simply because the organization is in operation (i.e. doing business). Despite the fact that the risk cannot be removed, there are ways in which it can be minimized or mitigated (Alexander & Sheedy, 2005). These ways generally come from establishing controls that work well with the organization and its operations. The key is to avoid being too restrictive while still ensuring that the most important areas of the organization are protected and cared for properly (Alexander & Sheedy, 2005). One of the best ways to mitigate risk is through a good plan for business continuity. There are so many different types of operations risks that a business continuity plan must be very comprehensive. It should consider fraud, legal risks, environmental risks, and physical risks (Gorrod, 2004). By addressing all of them, the plan will be…

References

Alexander, C. & Sheedy, E. (2005). The professional risk managers' handbook: A comprehensive guide to current theory and best practices. PRMIA Publications.

Gorrod, M. (2004). Risk management systems: Technology trends (finance and capital markets). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Operational Plan and Correlating Budget

Project Description

The 4 West is an organization that delivers health care for the community. ecently, the organization has decided to replace the existing medical-surgical unit into a new acute care oncology unit. The oncology is a specialty in medicine that deals with cancer. The CNO (Chief Nursing Officer) has informed the nurse director that 4 west is to become a specialized oncology unit. Since the hospital is planning the transition from the medical-surgical unit to the oncology unit, the hospital will need a new operational plan and correlating budget to assist the hospital to deliver high quality healthcare at lower costs.

Objective of this project is to develop an operational plan and correlating budget for the hospital to assist in effective transition from the medical-surgical unit to the oncology unit,

Project Details and Data

To start the budget plan, it is critical to use…

Reference

Bureau of Labor Statistics.(2014). Healthcare Occupations. Occupational Outlook Handbook. USA.

Clarke, S.P. & Donaldson, N.E. (2010). Chapter 25. Nurse Staffing and Patient Care Quality

and Safety.

Goodman, A.(2012). Oncology Nurse Staffing Is Variable and Multifactorial. Nursing News.

Operational Plan

Operation Plan

Production

Explain how and where are your products or services produced?

The subway shop located in a busy strip mall consisting of a Chinese takeout restaurant, a flower shop, a beauty parlour, and a FedEx/Kinko's store will focus on the production of quality sandwiches and drinks. The subway shop will be called McLarens' shop. The production of the products and services will be within the rental premises in the mall. In order to achieve objective, our company will purchase, on a daily basis, fresh fruits (not bruised or damaged), meat, poultry, and seafood for the production process. The organization will focus on hiring qualified expertise in order to address the needs and preferences of the consumers. This approach will enhance the image and reputation of the developing business entity within and across the mall for the purposes of generation of revenues and profits at the end…

References

Tighe, K., & Choi, K. (2012). CHOOSE YOUR Path. Benefits Canada, 36(10), 29-34.

Barata, R. (2004). Managing Operational Change with a Master Plan. Industrial Management, 46(5), 26-31.

Friend, G., & Zehle, S. (2004). CHAPTER 13: The operational plan. In, Guide to Business

Planning (pp. 137-143).

While additional sales might be classified as a relatively 'happy' change in circumstances, budget overruns are a more common unexpected occurrence. Budget overruns can occur for a number of reasons -- unforeseen technological or weather problems, bureaucratic red tape and delays, or a sudden rise in input costs. To ensure that such excesses are allowed for, it is a good idea to have as realistic a view as possible of the overall project, and plan for the possibility of cost overruns. For example, budget overruns are endemic to certain professions, such as the defense industry and construction, and it would be unrealistic to assume that every project will meet its budget target in these industries.

When forecasting, the likelihood of overruns should be assessed, using similar projects in the past as a point of comparison. Approval of overruns is more likely if the excesses are planned for and shown to…

References

Balanced budget sheet. (2010). Accounting Dictionary. Retrieved April 12, 2010 at  http://www.answers.com/topic/budgeted-balance-sheet 

Different types of budgets. (2009, May 1). Types of budgets.

Retrieved April 12, 2010 at  http://kutenk2000.blogspot.com/2009/05/different-types-of-budgets-master.html 

Financial budget. (2010). Accounting Dictionary. Retrieved April 12, 2010 at  http://www.answers.com/topic/financial-budget

In October 2005, EXXON had to pay a $8.7 million civil penalty, while at the same time spending $9.7 million on community environmental projects. In my opinion, these are unnecessary costs that can be eliminated in the future with an adequate financing for research and development in environmental protection and pollution reduction.

The marketing segment also needs an increased attention in 2006. For example, on the gasoline market, EXXON brands such as Mobil or Esso are already well-known throughout the world. Nevertheless, the specificity of the industry brings about the necessity to constantly promote these brands. How is an Esso gas station different from a Shell or Texaco one? EXXON needs to think out marketing campaigns deemed to bring out the main competitive advantages over other companies on the market: excellent service, better quality gasoline (going hand in hand with the spending in research and development in this segment, previously…

Bibliography

1. Exxon Mobil to spend $571m upgrading refineries. Reuters. October 2005. On the Internet at  http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=105423 

2. Blum, Justin. Exxon Mobil's first quarter earnings shoot up. Mail Tribune. April 2005. On the Internet at  http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/0429/biz/stories/04biz.htm 

 http://www.exxonmobil.com/corporate

Second, there is a natural hierarchy and opportunity for promotion within the field that career advancement and qualification for advanced duties and roles provides a transactional incentive for high performance. Third, nursing is a field in which it is absolutely essential to address inadequate performance and management by exception is an efficient method of ensuring that poor performance is identified and addressed. Naturally, mediocrity is also undesirable in nursing, but far outweighed by the importance of redressing poor performance in particular (Taylor, Lillis, & LeMone, 2005).

Elements of transformational leadership provide a natural motivation that is appropriate within healthcare professions. Whereas in industrial or corporate environments, employee commitment to organizational values is the direct source of employee motivational orientation (Daft, 2005; ussell-Whalling, 2005), in nursing, the safety, health, and welfare of patients provides the predominant value in connection with motivation. However, unlike sales-oriented responsibilities, the technical aspects of proficiency in…

References

Blair G. (2003). Groups that Work. Washington, DC: IEEE Press.

Conger, J.A., Kanungo, R.N. (1998) Charismatic leadership in Organizations.

Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Daft, R. (2005) Management. 7th Edition. Mason: Thomson South Western.

These are contained in the Enterprise Operations Center framework. The center has reach to the group of specialized telecommunication commercial and federally concentrated focused professionals within the CSC. These groups of individuals have thousands of certifications for operating Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Nortel, Ayaya and many other types of equipment that assists any networking or telecommunication requirements of clients who are working with the Center. (Enterprise Network Managed Services Center of Excellence)

In order to entail the network-wide maintenance at the fingertips, Aglient's Network Troubleshooting Center -- NTC indicates a great leap ahead in the management of enterprise-wide networks. NCT includes a centralized view of network health achieved from various sources, including MON and SNMP and from the same console, centralized expert troubleshooting of remote problems applying distributed network analysis tools. The primary advantages are increasingly lesser respond and fix times and greatly lessened operational costs from both declined engineer travel…

References

Centralized Troubleshooting of Distributed Networks" Retrieved at  http://www.phoenixdatacom.com/ntc.html . Accessed 28 August, 2005

Control your network: Why You Need IP Address Management" (July, 2002) Retrieved at  http://www.checkpoint.com/products/downloads/Control_Your_Network.pdf?offer=wiwptAccessed  28 August, 2005

Enterprise Network Managed Services Center of Excellence" Retrieved at  http://www.csc.com/aboutus/lef/mds68_off/enterprisenetwork.shtml . Accessed 28 August, 2005

Enterprise wide security on the Internet" Retrieved at http://www.newsviews.info/techbytes03.html. Accessed 28 August, 2005

Because unresolved conflict within teams can undermine the talents and efforts of even the most dedicated individuals, conflict resolution is an essential component of modern business management. Specific approaches to conflict resolution generally consist of strategies intended to prevent conflict preemptively and strategies intended to resolve conflicts after they arise. As a rule, eliminating conflict prospectively is more effective and more efficient than resolving conflict after it emerges. Generally, once conflicts erupt within a working group, more time must be dedicated to their resolution than would have been required to avoid the conflict prospectively. Likewise, conflicts that require resolution waste the time dedicated to the conflict, even before any efforts at resolution. However, the primary reason that conflict resolution strategy should emphasize prevention ahead of time is that the mechanisms for resolution are essentially the same, but preventing conflicts in advance spares the organization the lost productivity associated directly with…

References

Bass, B. (1985) Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations.

New York: Free Press

Kinicki, a., Williams, B. (2005) Management: A Practical Approach.

New York: McGraw-Hill.

Partnership Management

As the workplace and management techniques have developed over the decades, employees have enjoyed an increasingly powerful position in their companies. According to Eisler and Montuori (2001), the changes in both business and its surrounding environment in terms of society, the economy and the environment have necessitated new paradigms of the employer-employee relationship. It is no longer sufficient to mindlessly follow traditional methods such as marionette management. Instead, the workplace needs to be assessed in terms of which management styles will most efficiently drive the specific business.

Partnership management is one of these new paradigms. In partnership management, it is acknowledged that employees are more than entities to perform specific functions for a specific time during the day. In this management style, employees are recognized as an important part of business growth and success. As such, they are expected to provide input that would be valuable for the…

Sources

Eisler, Riane and Montuori, Alfonso. (2001). The Partnership Organization: A systems approach. OD Practitioner, vol. 33, no. 2. http://www.partnershipway.org/html/subpages/articles/organization.htm

Eisler, Riane. (1991). Women, Men and Management; Redesigning Our Future. Futures, January/February. http://www.partnershipway.org/html/subpages/articles/management.htm

Heller, Robert. (2007). Business Enterprise: Entrepreneurship and spotting business opportunities. Thinking Manager's Blog.  http://www.thinkingmanagers.com/management/business-enterprise.php 

Nowicki, Michael & Summers, Jim. (2003, Oct). "The benevolent autocrat: is it the right fit for the times?." Heatlhcare Financial Management. Online database: FindArticles.com

The vision Oracle has is one of unifying all of their enterprise applications into their Fusion architecture and creating a single unifying Service oriented Architecture (SOA) was first announced in 2006 (Krill, 13). Since that time Oracle has continually strived to create an SOA in Fusion that would appeal to its corporate customers. The proposed Fusion SOA platform has been designed to be robust and scalable enough to encompass enterprise-level applications including Enterprise esource Planning (EP) applications while also being flexible enough to provide for individualized application development. There are critics of SOA in general and Fusion specifically, with industry analysts considering it too difficult to create a process-centric model that allows for pervasive, in-depth applications necessary for mission-critical business while at the same time allowing for significant scalability (Handy, 2005). Despite these concerns however Fusion continues to gain market acceptance and provide Oracle with a path to the fulfillment…

References

Oracle

Alex Handy. 2005. Oracle Fusion: The 'Frankenstein' of SOA? Software Development Times, October 15, 6

Paul Krill. 2006. Oracle Does SOA. InfoWorld, August 14, 11-13

Security

The content language adopted for white collar workers will be a simple, plain one as the goal is for the message to be understood best and used by the employees in their interaction with the customers. In global communication campaigns, the language will be the same for white and blue collar workers and therefore a simple and plain one for everyone. In specific communications, the language can increase in complexity if the auditorium that needs to receive the message had a higher education level.

The content will take under consideration the cultural differences between the corporate headquarters country (e.g. UK) and the local offices (e.g. Korea) and adapt global campaigns to the local requirements. Additionally, the content will be designed to match company objectives and how these objectives can be understood by personnel. Therefore, a specialized team will be dedicated to understanding the personnel, the company values the personnel needs…

Reference List

Acosta, C., Leon, V.J., Conrad, C., Gonzalez-Cervantes, R. And Malave, C.O. 2004. Case Study on Culture and the Implementation of Manufacturing Strategy in Mexico. Journal of Manufacturing Systems, vol. 23(3): pp. 173-181.

Davis, Alison. 2005. Applying Employee Demographics. Strategic Communications Management. August 1st,  http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-software-management/943392-1.html 

Hofstede, G. 1984. Cultural Dimensions in Management and Planning, Asia Pacific Journal: pp.84-99.

Internal Comms. 2006. The Top Seven Macro-Trends in Internal Communications. April edition, www.internalcommshub.com

1 billion and operating ratio improving to 71.1%, both being all-time annual records" (CSX 10-K Filing. 2010).

Perhaps most critical in the MD&A section is the dissection and explication of the financial condition of the company. Management speaks to investors on all aspects of financial performance covered by the disclosure in the 10-K of financial statements including: balance sheet, income statement, statement of cash flows, and statement of stockholder's equity. This detailed explanation of financial performance allows management to discuss company operations in terms of financial condition and health both in the present and in future reporting periods. For CSX the management cites improving economic conditions, cost controls, and infrastructure development as crucial to increases in operating income.

While it is crucial for investors to understand that the "MD&A section is unaudited" (Investopedia. N.D.), it is also an investor's best tool for digging into the fundamentals of the company's operations…

References

CSX 10-K Annual Filing. (2010). CSX. CNBC. Retrieved June 27, 2011 from  http://apps.cnbc.com/resources/asp/getReportPdf.asp?docKey=169-11623193-7SOUFPJJC7GS3DFL664UC89PI7&docType=PDF 

Investopedia. (N.D.). Management Discussion and Analysis. Investopedia. Retrieved June 27, 2011 from  http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mdanalysis.asp#axzz1QUPRUHax

This also includes making sure that bias is not an influence in the decision making process.

Conclusion

Change is often brought about by internal and external factors. The desired change in any organization cannot be brought about without implementing organizational change strategies. The entire process requires assessing, planning, implementing, benchmarking and keeping an eye on the goals and objectives of the organization. To bring about the preferred changes a strong, secure and motivated leader is necessary. In this fast paced world where each and every company fights to survive and grow, the leader must be able to expand vision and unite the organization. Adjusting to new competitive and market demands is a significant instrument for both organizational and personal survival. To bring about a desired change in an organization careful formulation of organization change strategy in order to address the key variables that affect the change outcome is required (Strategies…

References

Allwood, C, & Salo, I 2012, 'Decision-making styles and stress', International Journal of Stress Management, 19, 1, pp. 34-47, viewed 21 March 2012.

By, R 2005, 'Organisational Change Management: A Critical Review', Journal of Change Management, 5, 4, pp. 369-380, viewed 21 March 2012.

Decision Making Confidence. 2012. A Variety of Rational Decision Making Models. [ONLINE] Available at:  http://www.decision-making-confidence.com/rational-decision-making-models.html . [Accessed 21 March 12].

National Defense University. n.d. Strategic Leadership and Decision Making. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt1ch4.html. [Accessed 21 March 12].

Management Styles

Fool-proofing a service operation.

In the banking industry, a significant service industry in any country, optimized operations are essential to ensure that the public has maximum confidence in the operators of this industry. ank of America and its operations have been selected for discussion in this study. The bank has grown tremendously in the past few years. CEO, Ken Lewis realized that the bank could gain a wider market share and customer base if it was able to streamline its operations and the level of service. Incorporating concepts of process management was considered essential to the improvement process. (Cox and ossert, 2005) Some of the tools such as six-sigma were used to ensure that a high level of quality was maintained in the service that the provided to the customer.

ank of America recognized that customer satisfaction was paramount in ensuring that the customer was loyal and would…

Bibliography

Anonymous. "Starbucks - Taking on the World." Strategic Direction 20.7 (2004): 13-15.

Coffeeresearch.org. Starbucks and Transfair USA Enter into Breakthrough Alliance to Promote Fair Trade Certified Coffee. 2000. August 5, 2005.

Cohen, Don. "Managing Knowledge in the New Economy." Conference on organizational Learning. Chicago: The Conference Board, LLC, 1998.

Cox, Daniel, and James Bossert. "Driving Organic Growth at Bank of America." Quality Progress 38.2 (2005): 23-28.

Management Action and Productivity

usinesses in developed countries tend to think of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as a characteristic that is centered in their own businesses or, failing that, situated in the industries of wealthier nations. The CSR movement is substantively skewed in the direction of the developed world where the motivation for adopting a CSR initiative is driven more by altruism -- or "enlightened self-interest" (Vogel 2006: 18) -- than profit margins. It is unusual to find a perspective that considers CSR from the perspective of a sourcing company. In the centrically-oriented corporate arena of the developed world, CSR is seen as originating with the company that establishes a supply chain with a multinational company -- not the other way around. In order to manage and control ethical issues arising from doing business with overseas markets, many corporations rely on a social compliance model (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2007).

The social compliance…

Bibliography

Buying your way into trouble? The challenge of responsible supply chain management. 2004. Insight Investment, HBOS. London, UK: Acona Investment Consulting. Retrieved  http://www.acona.co.uk/reports/Buying+your+way+into+trouble.pdf 

Cooper, D.R. And Schindler, P.S. 2008. Business Research Methods, 10th Ed. Edition, McGraw-Hill.

Environics International 3rd Annual CSR Monitor. 2002. (In November of 2003, Environics became GlobeScan Incorporated. [Press release] Retrieved  http://www.globescan.com/news_archives/csr02_press_release.html 

Eslenshade, J. 2004. Monitoring Sweatshops: Workers, Consumers, & the Global Apparel Industry. Temple University Press.

There are some disadvantages to the transactional leadership style, however. This style is often considered to be inferior in times of crisis when strong transformation of the business is required. Should FedEx's core business move beyond the "cash cow" stage of maturity, the company may lack the vision to radically transform itself (for example, if jet fuel costs become too high to offer overnight courier service profitably). The company has succeeded thus far with its leadership style in part because it has had the same leader for its entire history -- the ability of FedEx to develop transformational leaders has not yet been tested. In addition, the company has been able to utilize their current business model profitably since the years following its inception, and there has been no crisis that threatened this cash flow significantly.

That said, FedEx does have within its leadership style the ability to make changes…

Works Cited:

Smith, F. (2010). What the Marine Corps taught me can be seen every day in FedEx. Military.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from  http://www.military.com/veterans-day/famous-veterans/frederick-smith.htm 

Epstein, M. (1998). Hiring veterans: A cost-effective staffing solution. HR Magazine. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from  http://www.allbusiness.com/human-resources/workforce-management-hiring-recruitment/708916-1.html 

Row, H. (1998). The 9 faces of leadership. Fast Company. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from  http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/13/9faces.html 

MindTools.com. (2010). Leadership styles. MindTools.com. Retrieved August 30, 2010 from  http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_84.htm#transactional

By monitoring these results, the company's managers can control and determine whether the company has achieved its objectives, and whether the company's efforts are justified.

Problems that arise during the production process outsourced to India as also caused by individual workers. Such problems include fluctuations in the degree of quality and of craftsmanship of Indian workers. As a consequence, it is necessary to implement an operational control system that would better monitor the activity and the results of each employee.

Conclusions

Production outsourcing has become one of the solutions implemented by small or large manufacturers as a response to increased production costs on national level. India has become one of the most targeted production outsourcing destinations, especially for small companies.

The advantages provided by the country justify the efforts made by companies in order to overcome the numerous barriers that India also presents. The cheap workforce in India seems to…

Reference list:

1. Kotler, Ph. (1986). Principles of Marketing. Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. Third Edition. Retrieved January 6, 2010.

2. Stoner, J. Management. Prentice-Hall, Inc., London. Retrieved January 6, 2010.

3. Kotler, Ph. (1997). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control. Prentice-Hall International. Ninth Edition. Retrieved January 6, 2010.

4. Waddell, D. et al. (2004). Contemporary Management. McGraw-Hill, Sydney. Retrieved January 6, 2010.

It is essential fo company manages, safety pactitiones and manufactuing enginees to be infomed of and gain sufficient knowledge about cuent eseach developments in this field and implement safety stategies as well as systems to minimize occupational health and safety isks. (Bie; Kuneuthe; Phimiste, 103); (Stellman, 17)

Active and pocedual isk management stategies ae impotant elements in any manufactuing unit. Active isk management efes to implementing intelocks, alams and mitigation systems that can detect a hazad and immediately shut down o set the system into a safe position. Pocedual isk management efes to implementing safety checklists, opeato taining, standad opeating pocedues and seveal such people dependent management systems. Ceating "inheently safe design stategies" in a manufactuing unit would involve fou key stategies. These ae minimizing, modeating, substituting and simplifying systems. (Bie; Kuneuthe; Phimiste, 103); (Stellman, 17)

Despite all safety guidelines, accidents still occu mainly as a esult of human complacence…

references and further reading you must purchase this article.

Ellacott, Michael V; Reed, Sue. Review: Development of Robust Indoor Air Quality Models for the Estimation of Volatile Organic Compound Concentrations in Buildings. Indoor and Built Environment, vol. 8, no. 6, 1999. pp: 345-360.

Falzon, Pierre. Enabling safety: issues in design and continuous design. Cognition, Technology & Work, vol.10, no. 1, Jan 2008, pp: 7-14.

Fleming, Mary Louise; Parker, Elizabeth. 2007. Health promotion: principles and practice in the Australian context. Ligare Book Printer, Sydney.

International Labour Organization. Occupational safety & health. 2009. Retrieved 12 November, 2009 from  http://www.ilo.org/public/english/dialogue/sector/sectors/mee/safety.htm

Management Style of Brian Driscoll

The blame for the demise of Hostess has been squarely put at the union's feet and their contracts. After conducting a close examination on the company, I have realized that free labor would have led to the death of Hostess; the striking employees only enhanced the inevitable. In this situation, people on the right track have pointed fingers at greedy unions. However, we must acknowledge that the two sides must reach a realistic agreement in a collective bargaining setting. Unions reflect the demands and wishes of employees and are natural to engage in negotiations in order for their demands to be fulfilled. Companies must communicate accurate company data with the union and companies should provide clear answers when they cannot meet the demands of employees. A positive relationship with workforce cannot be built by asking employees to give significant amounts of benefits back and pay…

References

Grossbauer, S. (2010). Managing foodservice operations: a systems approach for healthcare and institutions. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co

Longenecker, J.G. (2006). Small business management: An entrepreneurial emphasis. Mason,

OH: Thomson/South-Western.

Stout, R. (2008). Under the Andes. Auckland: Floating Press.

Managing the elationship Between Customer and E-Banking

Banking

E banking or the Electronic banking is an Electronic method of money transfer or the EFT. This is a means whereby, an individual transfers money directly from different accounts by use of an Electronic system. This service allows clients to make use of computers or electronic gadgets to access the accounts information and conduct the various transactions involved. The service is beneficial for customers working in remote locations or a workplace. Its biggest advantage is that the service is convenient to customers. A customer can access a transaction at any given time of the day whether at night or during the day. Other advantages of E-Banking include; lower operating system in that, the general operating costs for the E-banking system is usually lower for the banks. A customer registered for the Electronic banking system is guaranteed few errors during the transaction. The…

References

Alessandrini, P., Fratianni, M., & Zazzaro, A. (2009). The changing geography of banking and finance. Dordrecht, Springer Verlag.

Amin, H 2009, 'AN ANALYSIS OF ONLINE BANKING USAGE INTENTIONS: AN EXTENSION OF THE TECHNOLOGY ACCEPTANCE MODEL', International Journal Of Business & Society, 10, 1, pp. 27-40, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 May 2012.

Computer Crime research Center. Fears over e-banking in the UK, Research. Retrieved From:

Darsow, M, & Listwan, L 2012, 'Corporate practitioners moving to mobile banking: Key factors driving adoption', Journal Of Payments Strategy & Systems, 5, 4, pp. 360-372, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 6 May 2012.

Management of Casinos

The history of gambling in the United States consists of three periods, called waves. During these periods, laws and social standards vacillated from prohibition to regulation and vice-versa (Dunstan 1997).

The first wave was during the colonial era from the 1600s to the middle of the 1800s when early colonists had a vastly different attitude towards gambling. These colonists were the Puritans and the English who established their individual communities, where their distinct values were observed and lived. The Puritans, prominently in the Massachusetts ay Colony, prohibited gambling, the possession of gambling items (cards, dice, gaming tables) and even dancing and singing. This rigid behavior, however, relaxed the following year to allow innocent gaming as recreation, but not as a trade or profession. The English, in contrast, not only allowed it but indulged in gambling as a harmless and popular diversion (Dunstan). Gambling was further enhanced by…

Bibliography

Best Gambling Games. Beginning Gambling History.  http://www.best-gambling-games.com/gambling_history.html 

Dunstan, Roger. History of Gambling in the United States. California Research Bureau: California State Library, Jan 1997.  http://www.library.ca.gov/CRB/97/03/chapter2.html 

Irwin, Arthur E. Your Casino's Chief Financial Officer, an Important Regulatory Ally. Gaming Regulation News, Winter 1997-98

KPMG. The New Imperative: Customer Centric Management, a real estate report. Ideas and Trends, KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, 1998

A competitive advantage can be founded on expenditure or separation. Michael Porter recognized three industry independent general strategies from which the company can choose (the Strategic Planning Process, 2010).

The chosen strategy is put into practice by way of programs, budgets, and measures. Execution entails organization of the company's capital and inspiration of the employees to attain goals. The manner in which the strategy is put into practice can have an important impact on whether it will be victorious. In a big corporation, those who put into practice the strategy likely will be dissimilar individuals from those who devised it. Therefore, concern must be taken to speak about the strategy and the motive behind it. If not, the execution might not do well if the strategy is not understood or if lower-level supervisors resist its execution because they do not understand why the particular strategy was chosen (the Strategic Planning…

References

Basic Description of Strategic Planning. (n.d.) Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Web site:

 http://managementhelp.org/plan_dec/str_plan/basics.htm 

Shapiro, Janet. (n.d.). Strategic Planning Toolkit. Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Web site:

http://www.civicus.org/new/media/Strategic%20Planning.pdf

Research will be useful to companies of all sizes and in all sectors of the market. Everyone is affected by diversity, whether they realize it or not. Companies that do not have a diverse workforce internally still come into contact with suppliers, customers, and others outside of the company who are from differing backgrounds. The research will benefit public and private companies of all sizes by allowing them to gain a greater understanding of diversity and the benefits of understanding those with a different outlook.

The study will also benefit other researchers in the fields of diversity, workforce management and other related topics. It will provide a solid foundation for future research into the area by providing a consistent definition that reflects today's changing workforce. This research will benefit many areas of study in the future and will play an important role in shaping diversity research in the future.

Research…

Akiyama (2008) synthesizes and supports the need for an organizational level campaign that will put current theories about diversity into practice. This article also touches on the topic of extending the meaning of diversity to include religious differences. Like many studies, the topic of extending the definition of diversity is presented in numerous studies. There is an unstated consensus in the literature that the definition of diversity needs to be extended to include other differences than race or national origin. However, although the topic was mentioned in numerous studies, no coordinated effort was made to form a consensus. This is a key gap in the literature that will be fulfilled by the proposed research study.

Another key gap lies in the ability to apply diversity to the workforce in a way that can take present theory and apply it in a manner that produces measurable results. The literature review highlights the need to apply the research to local settings, rather than relying on national averages and statistics. The purpose of this research is to encourage individual companies to apply the techniques that result from this study to the work environment within their organization. This need was echoed throughout the literature examined.

The key gap found in the literature review was

"What Katrina showed us was how we can use our size and resources to do something very good." Inspired by its role in helping Katrina victims, Wal-Mart looked at the impact a company its size could have throughout the world on a daily basis if it embraced corporate social responsibility (CS)" (Ferdinand, 2007). But despite of this, a certain level of accommodation continues to exist.

Defense

The accusations brought to the supermarket chain are endless and they are likely to continue in the future as well. But the company has fought hard to counteract the harmful effects. Their best defense has been built on arguments such as:

Wal-Mart associate (employee) makes $17,000 per year and he is free to look for another job if he is dissatisfied

The company offers low prices, allowing as such the population to increase its savings and live a better life

The company obeys by…

References

Anderson, J.W. Jr., 1989, Corporate Social Responsibility: Guidelines for Top Management, Quorum Books

Berkhout, T., January-February 2005, Corporate Gains: Corporate Social Responsibility Can Be the Strategic Engine for Long-Term Corporate Profits and Responsible Social Development, Alternatives Journal, Vol. 31

Cahiles-Magkilat, B., January 9, 2001, Wal-Mart in Talks with Uniwide on Possible Tie-Up, Manila Bulletin

Gary, D., Summer 2004, Imperial Design: Theological Ethics and the Ideologies of International Politics, Cross Currents, Vol. 54