How are decisions in real world organizations actually made? Essay

There are various decision making models in the real world. These decisions are made in different situations which can be stressful or normal business situations. Those who take decisions in an organization are individuals. There are various factors in any organization or group of people that have impact on their development and growths. One of such factors is conflict. This paper discusses various aspects of conflict management and negotiation at workplace. Conflict can be dues to various factors. These factors can be individual factors like attitude, perception, cultural and gender differences and it can be organizational factors like inappropriate allocation of resources, management styles, leadership and type of communication. Figure 2 Decision making processes Bounded Rationality There are various reasons to bounded rationality. These are as follows: common Biases and Errors, anchoring Bias, overconfidence bias, confirmation bias, availability bias, representative bias, escalation of commitment error, randomness error and hindsight bias. Intuition: Intuition can be defined as â€Å"Unconscious decision making process based on experience of the same job or industry. † Individual Differences: Individual differences contribute to individual decision making styles. Organization Constraints: There are various kinds of organizational constraints which are influenced by perception of an individual or group. These are as follows: Performance Evaluation Reward Systems System-imposed Time Constraints Historical Precedents Formal Regulation Cultural Differences This plays very important roles in multi-location or multinational environment. Every place on the earth has some kind of variety and difference attached to it. These differences grow stronger with the distances. These differences can be in appearance, social structure or behavior of an individual. This also contributes to decision making process. How can our perceptions shape ethical or moral decisions? Perceptions shape our ethical and moral decisions. An individual who perceives that dealing unfair with someone is unethical and not right thing to do will take decision in such a way that it benefits its employee. On the other hand a person with self centric approach will think about himself first and will justify it by saying himself a professional. Social capital in an economic sector is determined by the quality and frequency of the relationships between its members, which, some evidence indicates, can vary from region to region according to the socio-cultural evolution of each location. The quality of the relationships, in turn, is affected by the perception of the individuals about their capacity to establish good working relationships with others and perform adequately. Reference: Holloway, R. E. (1977) Perceptions of an innovation: Syracuse University Project Advance. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Syracuse University. Hutcheson, P. , Pearson, A. W. and Ball, D. F. (1996) Sources of technical innovation in the network of companies providing chemical process plant and equipment. Research Policy 25, No. 1, 25-41. Julie Gatlin, Allen Wysocki, and Karl Kepner2, Understanding Conflict in the Workplace1 retrieved on 21 June 2007 from http://edis. ifas. ufl. edu/HR024 Robbins, Stephen P, 2005 Organizational Behavior, Eleventh Edition, Prentice-Hall

Essay on Eating Locally

Why We Should Eat Locally It isn’t any secret that the United States is in a state of relatively bad health, but most Americans aren’t entirely aware of the overall global and personal impact of the way we eat. By corporatizing the distribution of almost all of our food resources, we are increasingly contributing to global destruction with every food item we purchase. Barbara Kingsolver, American author and expert in biology, asserts, â€Å"Each food item in a typical U. S. meal has traveled an average of 1,500 miles. If every U. S. itizen ate just one meal a week composed of locally and organically raised meats and produce, we would reduce our country's oil consumption by over 1. 1 million barrels of oil every week. † The impact of our eating habits is astounding. The way we distribute food lends itself to the destruction of our planet and resources, the widening gap between the rich and poor, uncertainty about food quality, and most importantly the health of ou r citizens. By consuming more local foods, we can stimulate our communities, conserve energy and achieve better health for our country as a whole.The safety of what we eat is the number one concern among those who worry about factory-produced food. In order to produce as much product as possible, factory animals are pumped full of hormones and antibiotics. Likewise, our fruits and vegetables are genetically modified and sprayed with insecticides. These chemicals have detrimental effects on our health and are ruining our food for no reason other than corporate profit. The only way to avoid our exposure to these things is to either buy organic food or buy it locally. Organic foods are the most rapidly growing segment of our food industry, doubling in growth every few years (Ikerd).Unfortunately, Organic food from supermarkets is just another big business which contributes to eliminating earth resources and often misleads consumers with its claims. If more people began eating locally, we would decrease the resources we use for transportation and completely eliminate our uncertainty about where our food comes from and what’s in it. Another reason to support local farms is that it would stimulate local economies and increase our personal responsibility in the world. Instead of shipping our jobs off to corporate farms, we could create jobs in our own ackyard. Not only would we be able to create jobs, but overall sustainability in our local communities. Today, farmers only get about 20% of the money for their products because the rest is spent on transportation and packaging (Muren). If we ate locally, farmers would begin to earn the true value of their products and eliminate the need for a middle man. John Ikerd, professor of Agriculture at the University of Missouri, argues that people who buy their food from local farms are also more likely to shop locally for other items, further stimulating local economy.Like all changes, the industrialization of our food came about one farmer at a time. In the same way, the road to change begins with each individual consumer (Ikerd). If Americans begin purchasing their fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products from local farms, our country can move toward better overall health, economic sustainability, and decrease our contribution to the destruction of the planet. If we want to begin solving the biggest problems in our society, a good way to start would be to focus on and perfect how we obtain of one of our most basic needs, food.

Grammatical differences between general american english and african Assignment

Grammatical differences between general american english and african american vernacular english (AAVE) - Assignment Example This report seeks to investigate the intricate grammatical features of the language and compare such with the General American English. In doing this, the research will analyses the lyrical contents of a number of songs created by such celebrated African American artists as Jay Z and Kanye West while comparing such with the songs composed with such American artists as John Legend. The report seeks to portray the differences between the two types of English languages and establish the role of arts, especially music in enhancing the spread of each. African American vernacular English is a common language in the United States whose structure comprises of a variety of dialects, sociolects and ethnolects. The language is common among bi-dialect African Americans and has a number of phonological and grammatical similarities with other American dialects of language spoken in the Southern in America. The difference between AAVE and general English spoken by other Americans is clear given the unique grammatical differences in the two types of English dialects. The use of the two different languages is distinct often depending on the cultural backgrounds of the various ethnicities in the country. Artists play a fundamental role in the use of language. Musicians in this context compose their lyrics systematically by using language to communicate. The pattern in the United States is distinct with most of the African American musicians using AAVE while other artists using standards general English. The musicians enhance the spread of the languages. Furthermore, they influence the structure of the languages with their artistic manipulation of language. American English and African American vernacular English (AAVE) and General American English have a number of grammatical differences as the discussion below portrays. The origin, development and spread of AAVE

Developmental Psychology Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Developmental Psychology - Case Study Example These issues will be tied to the Freudian theories addressing repression, defense mechanisms, and division of the mind. Since this project is of a scholarly nature, only academic-quality resources were used in putting it together. The works were from academic scholars and were located utilizing an online search engine. The idea was to first develop the questionnaire, interview the mother of the child at the topic of discussion, and then to relate what was learned in the survey to the academic literature, which reflected the works of Freud and his ideas. The first of Freud's theories that was analyzed was that of repression. According to Stevenson (1996, pg. 1), "Freud's conception of the mind is characterized by primarily by dynamism, seen in the distribution of psychic energy, the interplay between the different levels of consciousness, and the interaction between the various functions of the mind. The single function of the mind which brings together these various aspects is repression, the maintenance of what is and what isn't appropriately retained in the conscious mind." It is believed that the child of this discussion is experiencing the strong symptoms of repression, most likely due to the childhood loss of her little sister. Stevenson (1996, pg. ... fundamental, usually unconscious function of the ego, maintains equilibrium in the individual by repressing inappropriate, unfeasible, or guilt-causing urges, memories and wishes (all usually of the id) to the level of the unconscious, where they will be out of sight, if not out of mind. The ability to repress dangerous or unsettling thoughts turns out to be vital to the individual's ability to negotiate his way through life." Of course, a healthy level of repression is to be expected of a child. A child who cannot repress guilty urges is doomed to a life of crime and punishment. However, if a child is overly repressed, it can seriously interfere with his or her life. One way in which it can manifest itself is in the form of anxiety, and it can be seen on the questionnaire that the child in question is experiencing anxiety and panic attacks. It can also show up in the form of repressed anger, where the child holds a grudge against someone and then suddenly explodes or is irritable, and it can be seen on the questionnaire that the child in question is having issues regarding anger and irritability (Breger, 2000; Gay, 1996; and Petocz, 1999). The next level of Freudian theory that was examined was that of defense mechanisms. According to Stevenson (1996, pg. 1), "As a part of the never-ending interplay between the id, ego, and superego, the mind (in particular the ego) must constantly repress anxiety-causing impulses or memories. This repression, though, is often tenuous and difficult to maintain. In order to sustain this repression and fend off anxiety, often in the face of constant reminders of the repressed item, the ego additionally employs several defense mechanisms. These mechanisms help to maintain the stability and sanity of the individual, though they sap

The role of global warming in public health Research Paper

The role of global warming in public health - Research Paper Example The research paper makes an overview of climate change and also makes the suggestions on preventing global warming effects. Global warming is caused by increase in greenhouse gases that are emitted into the air, and it can cause extreme weather events such as drought, flooding, and rise in sea level among others. Another extreme weather event caused by global warming is heat-waves. Notably, global warming can be caused by natural or human activities, for instance, natural global warming happens as a result of factors such as volcanic eruption. On the other hand, human induced global warming is due to activities such as agricultural practices, burning of fossil, industrial processes, and deforestation among others. Human beings highly depend on fossil fuels as a source of energy and this has increased the atmospheric content of greenhouse gases. These gases contain excess heat within the atmosphere and the impacts of climatic change are disastrous. Ecological disruptions and any other form of disruptions can adversely affect public health. Due to changes in climate increases, existing health threats and creates new health threats. Health effects of global warming depend on factors such as age, economic resources and location. Generally, the health effects of global warming and climate changes include respiratory and cardiovascular disease, threats to mental health, injuries and premature deaths associated with extreme weather events, increased infectious diseases, and changes in the prevalence and distribution of food.

Contract law in the 20th century Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Contract law in the 20th century - Case Study Example The case is connected with the situation when the parties were negotiating on the subject of Walford's buying the photography business belonging to Miles. They have come to a certain agreement as for the purchase, and Walford was going to provide Miles with the bank comfort letter with the purchase price; Miles in return was obliged and has agreed to terminate any other negotiations as for selling his business with any other third parties. Against previous agreement, Miles sold his business to the third party and thus Walford had to bring the case to the court for breaching the previous agreement. Traditionally, such kind of agreement would be called a 'lock-out' agreement, when one of the parties agrees not to perform negotiations for a certain period of time with any other third party; however, it was also concluded that the case lacked two essential components to be a 'lock-out' agreement: the period of time during which negotiations had to be stopped had not been defined, as well as any provision as for determining negotiations by Miles was absent. Despite the fact that Walford was insisting on the applicability of the good fait principle in the case, the Judge of the case, Lord Ackner, was sure that the principle of good faith was not applicable to negotiations, as it was contradicting the essence of negotiations as a notion. It was supposed that the principle of good faith is inconsistent with the notion of negotiations in the contract law, because it contradicts with the opposite opinions and positions the parties take in negotiations. However, the case should be viewed from another viewpoint: whether Lord Ackner was thorough in his research to state that the principles of good faith are

Future demographic change in the UK Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Future demographic change in the UK - Essay Example This paper explores the benefits associated with the demographic change to businesses in the UK. Wealth The older population is wealthier than present and former generations of retirees. Previous studies show that the increasing number of this population results to high rates of home ownership, investment and savings. This has positive impacts on the economy in general and the businesses enjoy increased stability (Davidson and Fielden, 2004:26). In addition to, there has been an increased grown in share prices and in the worth of superannuation. This provides increased disposable incomes that contribute positively to overall spending and investments (Hobbs, 2008:384). Older people have also been observed to make sound decisions while investing their money and this leads t increased economic growth and a better performing stock market. Work The UK is a difficult situation as the most populous age group is on the verge of retirement, wealthier and even healthier than other generations. The government has come up with policies to tap into the strength of this population to boost economic growth and allow their positive participation in the business sector. The current government policy is aimed at discouraging the trend of early retirement. This will lead to a stabilized tax revenue and productivity in companies (Davidson and Fielden, 2004:26). Most workers opting for early retirement find it difficult to fund a comfortable life for the remaining part of their life. This explains why the government and companies are coming up with incentives to make the older generation work for longer. Retaining or hiring mature age workers has numerous advantages to an entity. Allowing older people to work longer gives them the chance to share their vast experience and knowledge for the benefit of the business (Davidson and Fielden, 2004:26). Older people have a higher work experience and have been experienced a number of economic changes that have taken place over the years. Th ey can be instrumental in advising the company on how to deal with economic downturns crisis and any other challenges facing the company. However, for a long time older people have been undervalued and are deemed fit for the elderly homes instead of the current business environment. Companies in the modern times prefer hiring employees from the younger generation so as to give the company a positive public image. Additionally, the younger generation is techno savvy and owing to the increased use of modern technology, this is the appropriate work force to retain (Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Science and Technology Committee, 2005:67). However, with this demographic change, companies will have to have hire mature workers. Contrary to popular belief, mature workers belonged to the baby boomer generation that was highly educated and competitive. The older workers can quickly adjust to the use of the cutting edge technology being adopted by companies in the modern world. Ag e advocacy groups have constantly asserted that early retirement is wastage of experiences, skills and knowledge that are much needed in the current business environment (Great Britain: Parliament: House of Lords: Science and Technology Committee, 2005:67). Most companies argue that older people have declined physical capabilities. However, it has been found that age does not lead

Crime prevention through environmental design Essay

Crime prevention through environmental design - Essay Example Through CPTED, people's lives will improve since they will no longer fear for any vandalism that may occur ("CPTED Crime," para 1). CPTED theories state that in order to attain a crime-free environment, the community should not rely on the law enforcers alone. An interaction among law enforcement officers, architects, city planners, landscape and interior designers and resident volunteers is deemed necessary to stop vandalism. Through a 'built environment' that is obtained by this interaction among the major participants in building a community, the occurrence of crime will be averted. CPTED's 'built environment' is basically building a community such that its physical environment positively influences human behaviors wherein people who live in the area perceives it to be a safe environment where law offenders will find it too risky to commit any crime within the area ("CPTED Crime," para 9). For communities who have utilized the CPTED concepts, the results were impressive. Criminal activity were reported to have decreased for as much as 40% ("CPTED Crime," para 3). There are four main principles that cover crime prevention through environmental design. Natural access control is one strategy where it encourages the community to create a differentiation between public and private places. By selectively placing entrances and exits, fencing, lighting and landscape to limit access or control flow, natural access control occurs ("Crime prevention," para 26). Streets and sidewalks should be planned and designed in manners that would limit offenders an access to commit crimes ("CPTED Crime," para 6). Natural surveillance is another strategy adopted by CPTED that encourages maximum visibility of people and areas that may be potential spots for offenders to commit a crime. Architectural designs of buildings including residential edifices must obtain natural surveillance of the various areas that may provide access to lawbreakers and harm the community. Maximum visibility includes proper nighttime lightings along the sidewalks and residential buildings i n order to limit the escape routes for the criminals ("CPTED Crime," para 4 & "Crime prevention," para 23). Territorial reinforcement on the other hand is another concept of CPTED that promotes social control through increased definition of space and proprietary concern. Landscape designs are used in order to strengthen a sense of ownership of a certain property where intruders are easily identified. Fences and signs are most commonly used territorial designs that follows this CPTED strategy ("CPTED Crime," para 5 & "Crime prevention," para 29).Lastly, target hardening is the most popularly known strategy that prevents the occurrence of a criminal act. This concept basically refers to the different features that prohibit law offenders from entering any premises through locks and bolts that are found in windows and doors ("CPTED Crime," para 6). Furthermore, there are two other strategies that CPTED utilizes in preventing crimes. Maintenance and activity support are two other activit ies that CPTED promotes. ("Crime prevention," para 33) In Herkimer, New York's most recent crime statistics, larceny obtains to have one of the most offenses among other kinds of crimes. Thus, a more comprehensive program must be developed in order to prevent further increase in crime rates that does not alone involve

Family structure in the United States Essay Example for Free

Family structure in the United States Essay During WII nuclear families were the most common family type. Men were the main breadwinners and the women stayed at home, taking care of the children. This has now shifted to shared and even reversed roles, as dual-earner families are also on the rise. Since WWII, there has been a rise in types of families such as extended, single parent and step. â€Å"Of all the households in 2005, 57% were couple families compared with 70% in 1971. The biggest fall has been in couple families with three or more dependent children† (Fisher Et Al 2012) There are many reasons why family structures have changed since WWll. The biggest factor has been divorced, with a dramatic increase from only 339 divorces in 1971 to 2,360 in 2015 (nisra.gov.uk 14/09/17). There are now approximately 1.7 million lone-parent families in Britain making up about 25% of families. This was due to the Divorce Reform Act of 1969 taking force in 1971. The social stigma of divorce was no longer as big an issue and financial independence is now increasing for women, making it easier on women to leave their husbands (www.theguardian.com). This devalued marriage, with many choosing not to legally marry. 36% of adults in Northern Ireland remain single (NI Census, 2011). Cohabitation is on the increase, with almost 6 in 10 babies being born to either unmarried parents or a single mother. The numbers are greatest in Belfast and Derry (The Belfast Telegraph, 23/9/15). Cohabitation during and after WW2 would have been seen as unforgivable with hardly any couple doing so. Lots of factors have changed to make couples living together out of wedlock more relaxed. There has been a decrease in social stigma and a decreasing church influence, with only 1 in 10 people now regularly attending church (www.bbcnews.co.uk). However, Northern Ireland has the highest level of churchgoers in the UKwww.faithsurvey.co.uk. Only 36% of marriages take place in church comparing to 1960 when all marriages took place in a church (www.stp.pembrokeshire.sch.uk). The introduction and accessibility of contraception have had an influence on family structures. This has had a major effect on couples starting their families, especially if they are concentrating on building their career. According to BBC News (4/12/11) in Britain in the 1960’s, the pill was available only to married women who felt their families were complete. By 1974 all women, including those who were single could have the pill prescribed. When contraception was more widely used it affected the UK by couples having smaller families. They were able to plan if and when to start and family and how many children to have. The NI Census shows a reduction in the average household size from 2.65 in 2001 to 2.54 in 2011. Many couples are now childless. The Sunday Times magazine (Christina Patterson, 20/10/13) backs up this information stating that â€Å"It is estimated that, by 2018, 25% of British women of childbearing age will never have a baby†, and this increases to a th ird of women with degrees. The dependence of women working in WW2 and the suffragette movement meant that the roles of women changed significantly and by the 1960’s, 38% of women were employed (www.bbc.co.uk). The equal pay act was passed in 1970 giving women their rights, however, according to ONS statistics on average, women are paid over 19% less than men. Followed by the Sex Discrimination Act, then shortly after women finally won the right to 14 weeks’ maternity leave in 1993 and more in recent years. These acts allow women to work in within a working environment fairly and being paid the same as men which means that single parents have a better opportunity of coping on their own rather than being having the stress of finding a partner (www.bbc.co.uk). Statistics back this up by stating that there are now approximately 1.7million lone parent families in Britain this makes up about 25% of all families (Fisher et al 2012) There has also been an increase in families based on same-sex civil partners as a result of legislation in 2004. The first same-sex civil partnership took place in Belfast in December 2005. The number of same-sex marriages in Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2015 have gone up and down throughout the years due to media portrayals. In 2005 there were 12 same-sex marriages increasing to the highest number is ever been in 2010 at 116. The numbers have decreased since then to 89 in 2015.

Define empowerment, capacity building and participation

Define empowerment, capacity building and participation in the context of your research. Describe the dependent and independent variables in your research and justify the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. The understanding of the concept of empowerment varies among disciplines. It is a cross-disciplinary term, mainly used in fields of Education, Psychology, Community Development, Economics, among others. Based on this many meanings of the term, it has been seen as a construct easy to define by its absence but difficult to define in action, based on the fact that it takes different forms in different people and contexts (Rappoport, cited in Page Czuba, 1999). Therefore, how we define empowerment within our projects and programs will depend upon the specific people and context involved. In the context of community development, a general definition of empowerment was proffered by Page Czuba (1999) as follows: Empowerment is a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their own lives. It is a process that fosters power (that is, the capacity to implement) in people, for use in their own lives, their communities, and in their society, by acting on issues that they define as important. From the above definition, three basic components are necessary to any understanding of empowerment, namely multi-dimensional, social, and a process. By multi-dimensional, empowerment is frequently connected to the four development dimensions of equity, capacity building, participation and self-reliance. According to Adams (2002) these four dimensions are regarded as the common denominators in most definitions of empowerment and debates regarding the role of empowerment in the development process. It also occurs at various levels, such as individual, group, and community. And it is a social process because it occurs in relationship to others. Embedded in this definition of empowerment is that the individual and community are fundamentally connected. The importance of individual empowerment is such that it is a prerequisite for community and social change and empowerment (Speer Hughey, 1995), and a bridge to community connectedness and social change (Wilson, 1996). With specific reference to the current study which looks at Youth development as a strategy for Poverty reduction, empowerment in this case entails the acquisition of power and the ability to give it effect (Swanepoel, 1997). Theron (2005) buttresses this view by looking at empowerment in terms of dual perspectives, namely empowerment as a process of skills and abilities development; and secondly, empowerment as a process that equips people to decide on and take action regarding the issues of concern to them. In the same vein, Burkly (1993) states that empowerment is a process that releases power to the people which they can use to access resources in order to achieve desirable goals. Although empowerment as a concept can be examined in the context of both individual and collective aspects, the concept as used here is operative at the individual level, rather than collective or organizational. While individual empowerment relates to the way people think about themselves, as well as the knowledge, capacities, skills, and mastery they actually possess (Staples, 1990, p. 32), collective empowerment refers to processes by which individuals join together to break their solitude and silence, help one another, learn together, and develop skills for collective action (Boehm Staples, 2004). For the purpose of this study, empowerment is defined as a process whereby individuals develop the skills and capacity for gaining some reasonable control over their lives. From the foregoing, empowerment in the context of this study does not only imply capacity building, by which is meant the building up of peoples knowledge, skills, and ability to enable them take actions correctly, it (empowerment) is also an effect of this process of capacity building where the individual participants of the capacity building process overcome their poverty situation and attain self-determination. Self-determination is consistent with notions of personal control (Greenberg Strasser, 1991); and it refers to an individuals sense of control over his or her own work (Wagner, 1995). As a major component of individual empowerment, self-determination is most frequently reported in the literature (Sprague Hayes, 2000). Fetterman (1996, p.92) believes that self-determination, defined as the ability to chart ones own course in life, forms the theoretical foundations of the components of individual empowerment. Against this background, the individual participants, who have become self employed and are economically empowered, having acquired skills via capacity building, are enabled to be in control of their lives. Therefore, empowerment here is an outcome of the process of capacity building. Individual empowerment is a development that involves many changes whereby an individual is able to strengthen and exercise the ability to act to gain control over his or her life. Hence, the goal of individual empowerment is to achieve a state of emancipation strong enough to impact ones power in life. Capacity Building As with the concepts of globalization, development, and sustainability, the term capacity building is an ambiguous concept that means different things to different people, groups and organizations. Although many people use these terms, their definitions do not conform to the same, as each puts emphasis on a certain aspect of capacity development (James, 2001). However, definitions of capacity building emphasize that capacity building is a tool to build and improve the skills, resources and ability of people to implement, monitor and assess a project. The United Nations (UNDP, 1997) sees capacity building as a process by which individuals, groups and organizations, institutions and societies increase their abilities to perform core functions, solve problems and define and achieve objectives; to understand and deal with their development needs in a broad context and in a sustainable manner. Eade (1997) sees capacity building as an approach to development which encompasses all the fields that influence the development sphere. In this approach to development, capacity building identifies the weaknesses that people experience in achieving their basic rights, and finding proper means through which to increase their ability to overcome the causes of their exclusion and suffering. In the context of this study, capacity building comprises the skills acquisition that the youth undergo in the process of their empowerment. Capacity building here is an intervening variable, which by its nature surfaces between the time the independent variable (participation) starts operating to influence the dependent variable (empowerment). It helps to explain the relationship between the IV DV. Thus, by participating in the development programmes, youth are equipped with the capacity, skills, knowledge that will enable them become economically empowered, employable and self-employed, thereby reducing unemployment and poverty among them. Capacity building as used in the study is not concerned about implementing a project or enhancing a particular aspect of life; it is a comprehensive empowerment process which builds the capability of people with relevant skills needed to find meaning in their lives. Consequently, the concept of capacity building as used in the study is a process where people are developed in order to manage themselves. To this end, empowerment of the participants becomes the ultimate output of capacity building process. On this understanding of capacity building as a process, Eade and Williams (1995) elaborate the concept as: Men and women becoming empowered to bring about positive changes in their lives; about personal growth together with public action; about both the process and the outcome of challenging poverty, oppression and discrimination; and about the realization of human potential through social and economic justice. Above all, it is about the process of transforming lives, and transforming societies. In this process of capacity building, people acquire the skills, which in turn create an avenue for them as individuals and as members of the community to achieve their development objectives and improve the quality of their lives. Hence, capacity building is a response to community development needs. Participation Participation is one of the essential aspects of community development associated with empowerment. It is a people-oriented approach to development, where people play an important role by feeling a high degree of ownership; and are subjects rather than objects in the process of their development. According to De Beer and Swanepoel (1998), participation leads to empowerment and empowerment results in vulnerable people or oppressed groups achieving sufficient power or authority to be able to influence decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods, so that they can attain ownership of their lives. Participation in this study is the input variable or independent variable, where, through involvement in youth development programmes like auto mechanics, electrical work, and welding, the participants acquire the capacity (skills, knowledge and training) that enable them to become self-employed and employable. By participating in the programmes, youth have enhanced their capacity to alleviate poverty. They have also built partnership with others by widening their employment opportunities. As marginalized members of the society, being involved in their development programmes enabled them to voice their concerns, hopes, and grievances. Adams (2008) asserts that participants are able to contribute to their development by giving feedback on programmes that are aimed at them. With empowerment in mind, the youth are able to collaborate with the project providers, thereby paving way for a more active role, having greater choice, exercising more power, and contributing in decision-making and management (Adams, 2008, p.17). Their participation has also broadened their support network, resulting in opening up new opportunities through programme development and social action. By participating in their development process, youth not only gain skills and knowledge, but also gain self-confidence, pride, initiative, responsibility and cooperation which without such development components in people all efforts to alleviate poverty will be difficult. An important attribute of participation is community empowerment, which requires a people-centered approach that culminates in self-reliance. Chambers and Freire (1996, p. 77) envisage that participation and empowerment can enable the poor to express and analyze both their individual and shared multiple realities. According to the World Health Organization (2002), community members should participate in their development because they have a right to have a say about decisions that affect their lives; and will also lead to better decisions being made, which are more appropriate and more sustainable because they are owned by the people themselves. Dependent and Independent variables of the study The conceptual framework below illustrates the variables of the study Youth empowerment as a strategy for poverty reduction in Niger Delta, Nigeria. In a nutshell, participation is the independent variable, where youth, through their involvements in skills acquisition programmes in auto mechanics, electrical work and welding develop/acquire the capacity in skills, training, knowledge and competence that led to their empowerment (DV); hence, becoming economically empowered, self-empowered and having a reduction in poverty. Empowerment Economic Empowerment Self-employment Individual Empowerment Unemployment reduction Poverty reduction Participation Involvement in youth development programmes Capacity Building Skills Knowledge Awareness Competence * Sense of community Input Auto mechanics Electrical work Welding a. Independent variable: Participation Based on the definitions and framework given above, the concept of participation will be the independent variable (IV) of the study, which will be manipulated in order to determine its influence or effect on the dependent variable (DV). As an input variable which influences the dependent variable, participation of the youth in development programmes will constitute the IV of the study, to see their relationship with the dependent variable. In other words, the youth participation in such programmes as auto mechanics, electrical work and welding will be operated to see how they lead to empowerment, which is the DV. Participation as employed in the study therefore is the social element whose characteristics or variations shape and determine the dependent variable. In other words, it is through the participants involvement in the development programmes that they are eventually empowered. Thus, participation causes the outcome of involvement in development programme which is empowerment (the DV). Economic empowerment b. Dependent variable: Empowerment Self-employment Unemployment reduction The dependent variable (DV) is a variable of primary interest to the researcher, whose task is to understand and describe it (the DV). And it is through the analysis of the dependent variable that the researcher is likely to find answers or solutions to the issues under study which is done by measuring the dependent variable as well as the other variables that influence this variable. In this study, empowerment is the dependent variable (DV) because it is a response to the action of participation (the IV). The DV depends and responds to the action of the IV. Empowerment in this study is the variable that reflects the influence of the independent variable. As illustrated in the framework above, economic empowerment, self-reliance (self-employed), unemployment reduction and poverty reduction are the effects or outcome of participation of youth in development programmes. These outcomes are necessitated by the skills, knowledge, training and competence which the participants have acquired in the process of their capacity building via the development programmes. Capacity building therefore becomes the intervening variable that brings about the effect of the independent variable (participation) on the dependent variable (empowerment). Justification of the relationship of variables The independent and dependent variables are related based on the dependency relationship, where one variable, the dependent variable depends on the independent variable. It is a cause and effect relationship where the DV is an effect of the IV. In this study, empowerment resulted as an effect of participation. Participation (the IV) causes the change (effect) that resulted in the empowerment of the youth. To elaborate further, the relationship of participation (IV) and empowerment (DV) is such that the variation of the IV influences the DV. The dependent variable changes when the independent variable changes the dependent variable depends on the outcome of the independent variable. Further, capacity building relates to both the IV and the DV as an intervening variable by linking the independent and dependent variables. In this study, capacity building resulted as a function or operation of the IV (Participation) and helps to explain the influence of the IV on the DV. Capacity building here explains the relationship that exists between the action of the IV and the DV. As the diagram shows, the participants involvement in the skills development programmes equipped them with the enabling capacity (capacity building skills, knowledge, and training) that led or transformed them into empowered members of the community. 2. Based on the main concepts of your research, provide a theoretical framework that can best explain the research that you will be undertaking. What are the theory/ies that can be used to support your research? Discuss the rationale for choosing the theory/ies and the strengths and weaknesses of the theory/ies. With regard to the main concepts of the research, Keiffers theory of empowerment as a process was considered relevant and suitable for handling the study. The theory illustrates the elements and stages of empowerment as well as the phases that the individuals undergo in the process of acquiring skills, which translate into full realization of empowerment. The theory was considered appropriate for the study as it has been extensively used in several related study. Keiffers theory of empowerment as a process The theory applies to individuals in the process of empowerment; where the (empowerment) process passes through several phases in the participants. It shows the patterns and processes of the participants transition from a state powerlessness to empowerment. The theory is suitable to this research, which focuses on empowering the youth of the Niger Delta, who are ravaged by poverty and unemployment, coupled with what Keiffer (1984) referred to as a feeling of alienation from resources for social influence, an experience of disenfranchisement and economic vulnerability, and a sense of hopelessness in socio-political struggle. Understanding empowerment in the light of Keiffers theory starts by examining the concepts of power and powerlessness (Moscovitch Drover, 1981). Power is conceived as a multi-dimensional social process that helps people gain control over their lives (Page Czuba, 1999, p. 25). The Cornell Empowerment Group (1989, p.2) define power as the capacity of some persons and organizations to produce intended, foreseen and unforeseen effects on others. Underscoring the need to produce these expectations or effects on others, some sources of power were identified as a panacea. Moscovitch and Drover (1981), for instance believe that the class-dominated nature of our society indicates that a small proportion of the people have enormous economic and political power as opposed to the greater number of the people that have little or none. Therefore, power is required to influence the outcome of life events. On the other hand, powerlessness is seen as an objective phenomenon, where people with little or no political and economic power lack the means to gain greater control and resources in their lives (Albee, 1981). Keiffer sees powerlessness at the individual level as the expectation of the individual that his or her own actions will be ineffective in influencing the outcome of life events (Keiffer, 1984). Lerner (1986) distinguished between real and surplus powerlessness. While real powerlessness emanates from economic inequities and oppressive control exercised by systems and other people, surplus powerlessness derives from an internalized belief that change cannot occur a belief which results in apathy and an unwillingness of the person to struggle for more control and influence. Keiffers (1984) effort on individual empowerment is one of the prominent studies which examine individual empowerment as a process. He conceives empowerment as a developmental process which consists of four stages: entry, advancement, incorporation, and commitment. These stages are: era of entry (characteristics: powerlessness, sense of integrity, rootedlessness, sense of attachment, and support within a caring community of peers, experience of injustice); era of advancement (centrality of mentoring relationships, more critical understanding of social and political relations); era of incorporation (developed self concept, increased strategic ability, and matured critical comprehension, improved organizing and leadership skills, and constructed survival skills); and era of commitment (application of new abilities to the reality and structure of everyday life worlds, commitment to adapting recent empowerment to continuing proactive community mobilization and leadership) (Keiffer, 1984). From the above, the individual is prompted at the entry level by his or her experience of certain disturbing self or family situation, which Keiffer refers to as an act of provocation. The advancement stage possesses three important characteristics that are necessary to the progress of continuing the empowerment process, namely, a mentoring relationship; supportive peer relationships with a collective organization; and the development of a more critical understanding of social and political relations. While the focal point of the third stage is the development of a growing political consciousness, the era of commitment, which is the fourth stage is such that the acquired participatory competence is applied by participants to ever expanding areas of their lives. Consequently, Keiffer believes that empowerment at the individual level is the experience of gaining increasing control and influence in daily life and community participation (Keiffer, 1984). A major strength of this theory is that the author worked on the premise that the existence of powerlessness or alienation is a given at the very first step of individual empowerment; and this underscores the need for participation in view of acquiring skills. As with the area under study which requires a source of power to alleviate their poverty and unemployment, the author confirms that such a state of powerlessness becomes evident prompting a group of empowerment agents recognizing the alienated and oppressed. In this first stage of empowerment, both the alienated and the empowerment agents have come to true knowledge of the formers powerlessness, coupled with such social pathologies as disadvantages, oppression, alienation, and stratification. The process of participation, thus, was both empowering and advanced in the process of empowerment for the participants. As participants got involved in development programmes, they see it as a process towards the reduction of their povert y. It is in this way that participation advanced the process of individual empowerment (Keiffer, 1984). On capacity building, the theory underscores the fact that the transition towards individual empowerment was an exceptionally ongoing process towards skills acquisition. And that the skills which the participants acquired will function as catalysts for the empowerment process, making them become aware of their own capacities and developing new directions for themselves while in the process of emancipating from the experience of powerlessness. Here participants have to gain the skills and the potential to change their circumstance. As participants gain mastery over their lives and learn and utilize skills, which are the skills (capacity) for gaining some reasonable control over their lives, they become empowered. With the foregoing, individuals become empowered when they develop capabilities to overcome their social obstacles and attain self-determination. Self-determination, defined as the ability to chart ones own course in life (Fetterman, 1996) is repeatedly presented in the literature and considered as a sole and vital component of individual empowerment (Sprague Hayes, 2000). Boehm and Staples (2004) advocated mastery and self-determination as the components of individual empowerment. Mastery is understood as: full control over someone or something, and through in-depth understanding or greater skills, can be a variety of types, such as physical mastery, mastery of emotion and behavior, mastery of information and decision making, mastery of social system, efficient mastery of time, mastery as connected to autonomy and individual freedom, and planning mastery, thus enabling consumers to prevent negative situations and to actualize positive ones (Boehm Staples, 2004). As components of individual empowerment, self-determination is associated with the power that enables individuals to meet the challenges of different life situations; mastery on the hand is concerned with increased levels of the individuals ability to understand reality and the capacity to make decisions that impact the conditions and quality of life. Conversely, one of the limitations of Keiffers theory is the fact that it did not elaborate how the individuals impact their community with their acquired participatory competence. He limited individual empowerment as the experience of gaining increasing control and influence in daily life and community participation. It was earlier noted that sustaining involvement in participation deepens the competence and control of the participants leading to the advancement of the process of personal empowerment (Keiffer, 1984). Although empowerment can exist at the individual level, yet one would have expected that the theory incorporated how the participatory competence can impact the larger community bearing in mind that community development entails improving the community life in its wider sense. Another weakness of the theory emanates from a theme which the theorist identified as underlying the movement through all phases of the empowerment process: the view that conflicts and growth are inextricably intertwined (Keiffer, 1984). The suggested dynamics of praxis advocated by the theorist for resolving these conflicts may, after all, be time-consuming and ineffective in the empowering process. Praxis, for him: refers to the circular relationship of experience and reflection through which actions evoke new understandings, which then provokes new actionsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ The building up of skills only progresses through repetitive cycles of action and reflection. In other words, crucial for the building of empowerment is time and practice (Keiffer). There is a likelihood that conflict may degenerate and also prove irresolvable by the praxis within a given period of empowerment process; thereby hampering the skills developing process of participants which should have a time frame. 3. Compare and contrast 2 different research methods (qualitative and quantitative) that might be used in your study. For each approach, discuss: how the research question are formulated/arrived at (what kind of questions are posed) the approach to data collection; the approach to data analysis; how the findings might be triangulated; and how the findings might be presented and discussed. There are two broad approaches in the collection of information for research purposes, namely quantitative and qualitative methods. A basic understanding of both methods will be highlighted to show their differences. First quantitative data: It is an objective, formal, systematic process in which the enquiry is based on numerical data findings. It derives from the scientific method used in the physical sciences (Cormack, 1991). Quantitative method describes, tests, and examines cause and effect relationships (Burns Grove, 1987), using a deductive process of knowledge attainment (Duffy, 1985). In other words, it tests theories deductively from existing knowledge, through developing hypothesized relationships. On the other hand, qualitative research differs from quantitative approach as it develops theory inductively. Qualitative researchers are guided by certain ideas or perspectives regarding the subject to be investigated (Cormack, 1991). It is used as a vehicle for studying the empirical world from the perspective of the subject, not the researcher. Benoliel (1985) buttressed this aspect, describing qualitative research as modes of systematic enquiry concerned with understanding human beings and the nature of their transactions with themselves and with their understandings. The aim of qualitative research is to describe certain aspects of a phenomenon, with a view to explaining the subject of study. Unlike the quantitative method, qualitative research derives from the social sciences such as sociology, anthropology, psychology and philosophy, (Cormack, 1991). For sampling, both research approaches require a sample to be identified which is representative of a larger population of people or objects. Quantitative research employs random selection of the sample from the study population and the random assignment of the sample to the various study groups. Results obtained from random sampling have an advantage, which is an increased likelihood of the findings being generalizable. Its disadvantage stems from the fact that random selection is time-consuming, with the result that many studies use more easily obtained opportunistic sample (Duffy, 1985). This hampers the possibilities of generalization, especially if the sample is too small. Qualitative research uses non-random sampling, which is a selective sample, because of the in-depth nature of studies and the analysis of the data required. Hinton (1987) confirms that the strength of this approach is seen when the sample is well defined, for then it can be generalized to a population at large. A disadvantage of this approach can be suspicion that the researcher could have been influenced by a particular predisposition; hence having a tendency of affecting the generalizability of the study. a. how the research questions are formulated/arrived at (what kind of questions are posed) Based on the statement of the problem, the research questions were formulated with a focus on what the researcher expects to achieve in the study. They show close relationship to the statement of the problem and arise from issues raised in both literature and on the ground, not deviating from the objectives of the study. The questions were arrived at to establish a clear purpose for the research in relation to the chosen field. The issue of manageability was considered in formulating the questions. This relates to the researchers ability to tackle the scope and scale of the project. For instance, the ability to access people and documents from which to collect the data required to answer the questions fully; and whether the data can be accessed within the limited time and resources available to me. b. the approach to data collection This study will adopt both quantitative and qualitative methodologies to collect data, through questionnaire survey and in-depth interview. The study will be primarily quantitative, while the qualitative aspect will complement it in order to increase understanding of the study, and to generate richer and deeper research findings. Both approaches will be concurrently undertaken. The research design therefore relies on a mixed-method approach to investigate the topic under study. The primary method of data collection will be through questionnaires. A Likert scale questionnaire survey will be the major instrument for quantitative data collection; and the questions will be formulated based on the research objectives, as a means of exploring respondents views on the topic under study. Likert scale provides researchers a way of measuring the degree of agreement or disagreement of the respondents to a question. It is also very convenient for the respondents due to the non-ambiguous nature of the format of the questions. The research variable will be measured on a 5-point Likert scale, with a score of 1 representing strongly disagree, and a score of 5 representing strongly agree. A pre-test will be conducted with a convenience sample to ensure the clarity and validity of the questions. Respondents will also be asked to comment on any difficulties encountered in completing the ques

An Analysis Of The Asian Financial Crisis

An Analysis Of The Asian Financial Crisis The miracle that was East Asia came to a sudden halt in 1997.  After growing by an annual average of more than 8%, Asian economies not only shifted to lower gear, they even reversed course.  The collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997 sparked off a massive financial and economic maelstrom in the region.  As exchange rates and stock markets plunged, foreign debt denominated in foreign currencies soared.  Many domestic firms became insolvent, interest rates skyrocketed and credits dried up as panic by domestic and international investors ensued.  Meanwhile ethnic tensions, erstwhile contained by strong economic growth, flared up again, particularly in Indonesia.  This, in a nutshell, was the 1997-1998 Asian financial crisis. Despite prompt and concerted attempts by developing countries, industrial countries and international organization to contain it, the Asian Crisis of 1997 spread to other Asian, Latin and Eastern European economies to varying degrees. In fact, this crisis put one third of the globe into recession in 1998. The crisis raised various questions regarding, not only the future of the regions economy but also about the impact of the crisis on various multinational companies and the world. Reasons Although explanations differ, most accounts now agree that the weakness of Asian financial systems was pivotal. One scenario was that, the liberalization of capital accounts and financial systems in Asia interacted with poor and inadequate regulatory structures.  This led to rapid domestic expansion, as reflected in asset price bubbles, which in turn fuelled more borrowing.  As a result, the economy was held hostage to shocks like changing investor expectations.  When external events pricked the bubble, the spiraling increase in asset inflation became a downward spiral of asset collapses. Another scenario highlights the role of short-term maturity debt and the term structure mismatch between assets and liabilities that made these economies extremely sensitive to investor expectations.  The short-term liabilities of Asian ec`onomies were very high, with someparticularly Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, and Malaysia far exceeding their liquid reserves prior to the crisis.  This made them extremely vulnerable to sudden calls for repayments. Yet another scenario emphasizes the policies of fixed exchange rates followed by Asian governments, which encouraged over borrowing and contributed to the fragility of the financial sector.  When the US dollar appreciated against major industrial currencies, the Asian economies whose currencies were pegged to the dollar also appreciated, thus worsening their export competitiveness.  Poor export performance due to lower competitiveness was compounded by weak domestic demand from Japan, and low cyclical demand for semiconductors worldwide.  This, combined with the vulnerability of Asian financial systems, changed the overly optimistic outlook on Asia.  The stage was thus set for the currency attack and financial crisis. The question still being debated, however, is what made these economies pursue policies that rendered them vulnerable to external shocks, and what economic incentives or disincentives led to the weakening of the Asian financial structure, apparently to its very core? Although much has been written about the Asian financial crisis, two competing explanations dominate the debate over the root cause of the crisis.  One story is that the Asian financial crisis was caused by a panic-induced illiquidity of capital markets, the panic hypothesis or illiquidity hypothesis.  The other story maintains that the Asian financial crisis stemmed from latent structural defects, induced by adverse incentives, which then encouraged excessive risk taking, the so-called moral hazard hypothesis. Panic Illiquidity The panic view, simply told, is that the frenzied haste to divest out of the region resulted in costly asset liquidations, asset price collapses, domestic bank runs and the drying up of credit.  According to those in this camp, economic fundamentals, including government policies in crisis countries may have been unsatisfactory, but did not warrant a crisis.  Real exchange rates, for instance, were only slightly overvalued.  Instead, the crisis occurred because of adverse shifts in market expectations.  These shifts can generally be precipitated by almost anything like the collapse of a big bank, political turmoil or lackluster export performance.  Once panic prevails, however, sound fundamentals become irrelevant.  Market expectations are therefore the key to understanding crises. What the panic hypothesis highlights is the inherent instability of international financial markets.   Structural Defects Moral Hazards The moral hazard view attempts to explain why economies like Thailand, Korea, and Indonesia reached such a level of vulnerability that they were like disasters waiting to happen.  This view maintains that the root cause of the crisis lays in the wrong economic incentivesinduced by implicit or explicit government guarantees, connections with the powers-that-be or interlocking ownership structures-which then led to over borrowing, over lending, and over-investment. In other words, the moral hazard view places bad government policies at the heart of the crisis, even though these very policies were once lauded for achieving fast growth and material improvement for so many people.  The point, however, that the moral hazard camp tries to drive home is that the vulnerability of the Asian economies resulted from the accumulation of many years of bad habits, glossed over while the going was good.  Some of these bad habits were actually residues of the industrial policies and winner-pick ing that, ironically, was thought to have propelled these economies to tiger hood. Policy Implications from the Lessons Learnt The divide between the two views extends to policy implications for a post-crisis, global financial environment.  On the one hand, the panic camps main policy focus was on reform of the international financial system, the inherent instability of which was spotlighted in the Asian crisis.  Grand proposals like the need for an international lender-of-last-resort, an international bankruptcy court, burden sharing between private creditor and borrower alike in the event of a systemic crisis, and better provision of information to minimize uncertainty, were the major policy prescriptions of panic view adherents. The moral hazard camp, on the other hand, was more concerned with removing the incentives that gave rise to economic vulnerability.  It proposed an arms length relationship between banks, instead of the old cozy relationships.  It also advocated increased transparency and improved corporate governance, as well as the strengthening of banking supervision and regulation. Most of the policy recommendations for strengthening the international financial system focused on the following: Improving Corporate Governance Improving corporate governance means addressing the bad incentives or moral hazards stemming from certain ownership structures.  In Asia, these structures include interlocking directorships between banks and firms; family-dominated, corporate ownership; ineffective legal and regulatory frameworks; and a lack of transparency and adequate disclosure rules.  These all contributed to the overleveraged characteristics of Asian corporations.  For this reason, an effective legal and regulatory framework, coupled with strict rules of transparency and disclosure, is fundamental for sound corporate governance and efforts are going on in this direction. Financial Restructuring Closely connected to corporate governance reforms is the supervision of banks and the financial sector.  In contrast to governance issues, however, this is more straightforward.  Bank restructuring, for instance, has had a slow start but has nevertheless advanced.  Solvent firms have been closed, some banks have been recapitalized, mergers are taking place, and Asian governments have established appropriate agencies to take care of foreclosed assets.  Rules on the foreign ownership of banks and financial institutions have also become more liberal, non-performing loans are finally being tackled, and securitization attempted. Financial restructuring must go hand in hand with better corporate governance and an improved regulatory and supervisory structure.  Supervision needs to be tight and strong, professional and arms length.   Regional Cooperation The imperative for maintaining the momentum of systemic and institutional restructuring lies with national governments, but there is some scope for support at the regional and international levels.  Opportunities exist, at a regional level, for East Asian governments to engage in policy consultation and to share their experiences in reforming the corporate and banking sectors.  The formation of the ASEAN Surveillance process is a significant development along these lines.  Its main purpose is to set up a monitoring and early warning system for the region, but it also provides the institutional setting where a frank exchange of views on policy directions in ASEAN can take place and where joint action, if appropriate, can be forged.   Performance of East Asian Economies and Financial Markets since the Crisis After the outburst of the crisis, East Asia recovered at an impressive pace. For those countries most affected by this financial crunch (e.g., Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and South Korea), their real GDP growth rates turned from negative in 1998 to positive in 1999 and 2000, and their currency and stock markets also largely recovered. Moreover, interest rates remained below pre-crisis levels, and inflation was well controlled for some time. In addition to the favorable domestic environment for these countries, the international economy also showed an unusually strong performance, giving East Asias economy a lift. The world GDP growth rate surpassed 4.1% in 2000, more than twice the rate of 1998; and the international trade growth rate reached 11% in 2000, more than twice the rate of 1999. Two major factors appeared to explain this fast recovery: Strong U.S. economic growth and currency value. Net cash inflows in foreign direct investment and current account surplus of crisis-hit countries. Factors Contributing to Recovery Following factors appeared to contribute towards the recovery from the crisis: Strong economic growth and solid currency value of the U.S.: The economic growth and the rising import demand of the U.S. generated a positive shock and exerted a strong influence on East Asian emerging economies. We note that the U.S. recorded a strong GDP expansion after the crisis, with growth rates of 4.5% in 1997, 4.3% in 1998, and 3.8% in 1999, and the value of U.S. dollar exhibited an upward trend in those three years. Stimulated by an expanding economy and currency appreciation, the domestic demand for import went up strongly in the U.S. throughout the post-crisis period, creating tremendous export opportunities for East Asian economies. Net cash inflows in FDI and current account: In 1996, the net direct investment and other capital accounts were in surplus, while the current account was in deficit. After the crisis, massive foreign capital fled East Asia. The deficit of capital account was large, which further contributed to the instability in this region. How-ever, the net direct investment remained in surplus and the outflow in capital account slowed down considerably in 1999. In addition, the current account reversed from deficit to surplus after the crisis largely due to increasing ex-ports to the U.S. The overall cash flow balance turned from negative to positive in 1998 because of the sizable surplus in current account and the net inflows in capital account. Hence, the net cash inflows in 1998, 1999, and 2000 have helped the crisis-hit countries build up substantial foreign reserves. Conclusion The Asian crisis was an eye-opener.  The Achilles heel of the Asian economies, their financial systems finally gave in after years of excess.  What caused the financial systems to give way is still a matter of academic debate. A pragmatic reading of the crisis suggests that the bulk of the policy responses had to be carried out on the home front.  It is imperative that domestic reforms focus on both systemic and institutional restructuring.  Asia clearly needed and needs to change continuously.  It needs to be open to the West and the Western style of business, from the provision of information to business relationships.  Domestic efforts should also be supported by regional and international mechanisms.

consumerism :: essays research papers fc

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is enough food for every person on earth to consume 2500 calories a day, not including fruit or roots. It is odd that despite this fact there is still an overwhelming level of poverty in the world. The wealthiest 20% of the world receive most of the food in the world and spend huge amounts of money to purchase all this food. In order for the elite to live at the standard it does, the majority of the world must go without. Millions starve because the elite prefer death of the hungry to their own inconvenience. This situation is not easily remedied. First, people must begin to understand that they must eat only as much food as they need. Many would argue that they never have any leftovers and that all the food in their house gets eaten with little thrown away. This is good in the sense that food itself is not being wasted, but every American doesn’t need to eat as much food as they do. When a high percentage of people in this country are overweight and most people in third world countries are ghastly underweight and undernourished, then it is apparent that the citizens of this country must consume much less food. After understanding the issue at hand, Americans must then stop eating three to four meals a day and stop stuffing themselves at every meal. This would be hard to accomplish because this would mean making a sacrifice, which the rich already have big problems with, but also because the food-producing corporations would do everything in their power to stop this from happening. There is no market for these corporations in small third-world countries where they may have to sell their products at lower prices and no longer make astronomical profits.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On an anti-consumerism website, these chilling statistics are given to show that America and the world’s richest are destroying our planet rapidly. â€Å"The United States, which has 6% of the world's population, uses 30% of the world's energy supply. 20% of the worlds population, (in other words its wealthy consumer class), is responsible for over 50% of its 'greenhouse effect' atmospheric pollutants, 90% of its ozone-depleting CFC gases, 96% of its radioactive waste... and so on â€Å"(enviroweb.org). Many may say that the reason for these embarrassing statistics is because the United States is the largest industrialized nation in the world. consumerism :: essays research papers fc   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is enough food for every person on earth to consume 2500 calories a day, not including fruit or roots. It is odd that despite this fact there is still an overwhelming level of poverty in the world. The wealthiest 20% of the world receive most of the food in the world and spend huge amounts of money to purchase all this food. In order for the elite to live at the standard it does, the majority of the world must go without. Millions starve because the elite prefer death of the hungry to their own inconvenience. This situation is not easily remedied. First, people must begin to understand that they must eat only as much food as they need. Many would argue that they never have any leftovers and that all the food in their house gets eaten with little thrown away. This is good in the sense that food itself is not being wasted, but every American doesn’t need to eat as much food as they do. When a high percentage of people in this country are overweight and most people in third world countries are ghastly underweight and undernourished, then it is apparent that the citizens of this country must consume much less food. After understanding the issue at hand, Americans must then stop eating three to four meals a day and stop stuffing themselves at every meal. This would be hard to accomplish because this would mean making a sacrifice, which the rich already have big problems with, but also because the food-producing corporations would do everything in their power to stop this from happening. There is no market for these corporations in small third-world countries where they may have to sell their products at lower prices and no longer make astronomical profits.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  On an anti-consumerism website, these chilling statistics are given to show that America and the world’s richest are destroying our planet rapidly. â€Å"The United States, which has 6% of the world's population, uses 30% of the world's energy supply. 20% of the worlds population, (in other words its wealthy consumer class), is responsible for over 50% of its 'greenhouse effect' atmospheric pollutants, 90% of its ozone-depleting CFC gases, 96% of its radioactive waste... and so on â€Å"(enviroweb.org). Many may say that the reason for these embarrassing statistics is because the United States is the largest industrialized nation in the world.

Globalization and Localization Essay -- Globalization vs Localization

The world is a constantly changing place and the relationships, or lack there of, of the people in it are the primary source of the change. Growing partnerships and the creation of a "global community" are being encouraged and defined by the term known as globalization. At the same time, the need for tradition and individual culture has perpetuated localization. Events that happen everyday around the world prove that both of these phenomena do have a prominent role in our society, and by studying these occurrences, we can better explain the benefits and consequences of the circumstances. Globalization can best be seen in the political and economic realms of society. In general, globalization is an "open door" type of policy in which different nations "feed" off of each other. In the political arena, they can learn from one another. What has proven to be inefficient by one, can be assumed so by the other. Following this train of thought, one can see a globalizing effect happening with democracy. This form of government has proven its longevity and usefulness in more than one area of the world, and in more than one culture. Economically, globalization encourages international trade and the exchange of ideas. Countries can share their resources and advancements in technologies. This should not only enhance the trade and thus economies of countries, it should also increase the possibilities of quicker technological change. In a sense, two minds are better than one. When nation’s work together to create a stronger united force, they can also try to convince a nation to act in accordance with a global idea of what is right and what is wrong. In "NATO, Serb Forces Prepare for War" (Syracuse Post Standard, October 6, 1998), it demon... ...overcome one another. Localization is taking a back-burner these days, as countries are needing help financially from one another. At the same time, there is a greater concern for political stability, and therefore there is a need for advice from other nations. Putting up boundaries will only hurt these nations in the long run. They will not progress at the same speed and they will have a tendency to alienate themselves from the rest of the world. There is constantly changing trend as to what is the best stance to take. When the World as a whole is doing well , many people may want to take the chance that they can advance themselves and leave everyone else in the dust. When recovering from some turmoil, such as a war or financial instability, the world may want to work together to make sure that everyone doesn’t fall down in a large scale trickle down effect.

Organizational Development †Executing Change in a Hostile Environment Essay

Introduction If we analyzed then we come to know that the pace and degree of change in the modern working environment over the past decade have been enormously high, and they show no signs of slowing down. Every year, latest challenges and threats to America’s national safety appear from all corners of the earth. In response to these changes, many organizations leadership unveiled the company’s Vision by the Transformation Campaign Plan. Today, the organization’s transformation attempt has produced a number of temporary successes. It has also conventional a good deal of censure, both from inside and exterior the force (Dennis L. Johnson, 2004). Transformation, by it’s extremely nature, is a multifaceted procedure. Simply defining the phrase presents a challenge. What, precisely, have to change for â€Å"transformation† to take place? How much transform is â€Å"enough† to meet the criteria? Does the change have to be long long-lasting and, if, so, how long is long sufficient? And how can these deliberations are clearly converse to members of the organization to create a common understanding of what transformation â€Å"is?† While each of those questions lends itself to supplementary research and thought, for the purposes of this paper â€Å"transformation† is defined as a set of lasting main changes inside an organization implemented by organizational leaders in order to modify not only the way the organization does business, but the way people inside the organization believe and act in carrying out their roles as a member of the organization (Pollitt 1993). Reorganizations are magnificent for creating the delusion of growth as ensuring that nothing essentially changes. It is an effort to get something for nothing a feeling of the enjoyment of growth with no having to go through any of the pain connected with real change. Reorganizations are so intimately connected by means of organizational change that those charged with such changes are tempted to achieve for the organization chart first thing. In fact, reorganization is almost certainly the last step in any change procedure, a step taken to harden changes previously in place It is far more effectual to eschew aggressive the organization chart and instead begin by formative what needs to be done to expand real change in organizations. Moreover, you can get any change procedure off to a good create by assembling a group of people who desire to change, having them reveal how the change is good for the organization, and then working to have this change adopted during the organization. We call this the â€Å"Quaker† approach to organizational change. The victorious movement to expand project offices will ultimately lead to essential change in organization practices. As with any essential change procedure, those in the precursor the people implementing the offices will frequently feel like missionaries introducing new practices into a hostile environment. Early missionaries found it hard to get further people to change their ways, and a few of them suffered tremendously from the wrath of people they were trying to change. Legends tell us how quiet, no t hreatening Quakers originate an improved way. Work teams symbolize a leap forward in joint potential for numerous organizations. The problem is that mainly teams fail mainly since they survive in neither what can be termed a hostile environment an environment that neither demands nor authorize association. Literature Review Throughout the past twenty-five years, organizational change both inside the military and in private industry has been the subject of countless speeches, articles, and books. Given the technological, economic, military threat and additional changes impacting on organizations today, transformation will certainly be a much-studied topic for years to come. This research sought to decide the significance of an exact business alter model to the transformation of the United States Army. In determining this significance, literature was collected and grouped into three general areas: organizational transform and leadership theory, historical case studies of past Army transform efforts, and present Army transformation challenges. This literature review deals by means of sources in each of these three areas in order to set up a common baseline for further discussion on the research questions and analysis of the resulting information. Organizational Change and Leadership Theory No doubt, organizational change, transformation, leadership, and management have become tremendously popular subjects of study inside the business community as business executives, scholars, and theorists attempt to come to terms with the ever-increasing and challenging demands of today’s profitable world. Many experts work, Leadership, dealt chiefly by means of leadership at the political-strategic level, but is pertinent to transformation in the sense that experts sought to show that â€Å"leadership is not anything if not associated to collective purpose . . . leaders must be judged . . . by actual social change . . .† (MacGregor 1978, 3). The 1990s saw the publication of innumerable works on managerial change, transformation, leadership, and management in response to changing technologies and the worldwide economy, and their impact on businesses. The enormous bulk of these writings, though, were eventually seen inside business and academic circles as â€Å"flavor o f the month† solutions, stressing new but unverified management techniques that unsuccessful to last. Perhaps as a result of both this focus on â€Å"management† (rather than â€Å"leadership†) and various educational differences flanked by the business world and the military, much less has been written concerning the actual procedure of transformation and organizational transform inside the United States Army. This lack of literature on applying transform theory to Army transformation is to some extent surprising, given the fact that this organization has undergone, and continues to experience, as much or more modify as its counterparts in the business world. At the same time, though, it is precisely this lack of published literature that highlights the need for more. It may also have been this lack of literature that led retired General Gordon R. Sullivan in 1996 to publish his book Hope is Not a Method. No doubt, having just retired as CSA, Sullivan touched upon precedent Army transformations all through his book, but focused first and foremost on the period among 1991 and 1995, and wrote from the viewpoint of what modern business leaders could learn from the Army’s transform initiatives. That similar year, famous Harvard Business School professor John P. Kotter published Leading Change. Writing from knowledge, having individually observed and studied dozens of main corporations over a twenty-year period, Kotter’s work was right away highly praised in both the educational and business communities, staying close to the peak of Business Week’s smash hit for months. Since its periodical, Kotter’s labor has also entered the Army organization as recommended reading for leaders, and is now incorporated as part of the set of courses at the Service’s premier enlightening institutions the Command. Kotter’s Leading Change Kotter opens Leading Change by means of the now-common declaration that the amount of important change faced by organizations grew extremely throughout the previous two decades, and that this upward trend would only increase in the predictable future. As acknowledging that a hardly any businesses had undertaken changes and materialize improved prepared for the future, far too lots of others had failed to attain success in their transformation efforts. Kotter lists eight ordinary errors that time after time helped derail change initiatives, then turns those mistakes approximately and provides an eight-stage procedure for leading organizations during winning transformations. Kotter defines his eight stages as: Establishing a logic of importance identifying and removing (or at least minimizing) sources of satisfaction inside the organization, taking advantage of (or even creating) a disaster to catch people’s notice, and providing enough independence for those mid- and lower-level managers who are so significant to the change procedure. Creating the guiding coalition building an excellence team of people who trust every other and who, focused on the similar objective, can expand enhanced ideas and make improved decisions more professionally and rapidly than a single person. Developing a visualization and policy labeling vision as a â€Å"central part of all great leadership,† Kotter states that a high-quality vision provides an conceivable picture of the prospect and has three significant purposes: clarifying the universal way for change, motivating people to take deed in that right course, and helping organize the actions of dissimilar people, aligning them in the right direction. Associated plan provides the â€Å"logic and a first level of detail to show how a vision can be accomplished† (Kotter 1996, 75). Communicating the transform vision generate and incessantly stating, using a diversity of forums and media, a without fail clear change message in order to offer personnel with an ordinary understanding of the transformation’s goals and way. Kotter believes this phase is between the hardest to â€Å"get right† because of the sheer scale of related rational questions that must be answered and the moving ties to the status quo that must be severed mutually by the guiding coalition and those personnel the coalition is working to convince. Particularly throughout this stage, excellence listening and leading by instance are just as significant as actually talking concerning the message. Empowering employees for broad-based deed removing barriers (Kotter focuses on four: structures, skills, systems, and supervisors) to put into practice the alter vision so that a wide base of people inside the organization can take action toward the transformation objective. Generating short-term wins providing extremely noticeable, unmistakable proof that sacrifices involved by the transformation are value it, in order to build impetus, undermine cynics, keep bosses on board, and repayment change agents early. Consolidating gains and produce more change maintaining the impetus and gains made throughout the first six stages, sustaining the intelligence of importance regarding transformation, and using augmented leader reliability to alter every system, process, and policy that fails to fit together with others inside the overall transformation vision. Anchoring original approaches in the civilization â€Å"grafting new practices onto the old cultural roots of the organization while killing off the inconsistent pieces† (Kotter 1996, 151). Contrary to the usually conventional model of â€Å"change norms and values first; everything else will follow,† Kotter believes that altering an organizational civilization really comes last not first in the procedure, and is only possible after a lot of talk and hard work, as well as optimistic results which show people that the transformation approaches really labor and are better than â€Å"the old way.† Fundamental these eight-stage models are two key basics: first, that the series of stages is relatively significant and unchanging; second, that â€Å"leadership† (as opposed to â€Å"management†) is the most dangerous feature of the modify effort. Additional Organizational Change Theory Any transformation or main organizational transform usually begins by means of a leader’s understanding that there is in reality a need for alter. This understanding may be outwardly driven, as in period of war, or it may be the consequence of the leader’s appraisal of the organization and the environment in which it operates. Many experts describe this feature of change theory as a key part of the first of what she sees as five states in which businesses operate throughout a alter movement: stagnation, preparation, completion, determination, and completion. These realizations concerning the need for change have to come from someone in a position of authority, and must lead to a powerful demand for alter in order to set the procedure in motion. Organizational Transformation and Hostile Environment Let’s take a quick tour of hostile environment in organization. No doubt. From our early twenty-first-century vantage point, there is abundant proof that women in the military face a hostile office environment. The military or any organization is both a place of work and a literary institution. As many men and women work helpfully in military settings, the institutional culture of the military has been beached in supporting maleness and in defining women as the feminine â€Å"other,† in affirming men as the Protectors and women as the secluded.   Linda Bird Francke defines military culture as â€Å"driven by collection dynamic centered approximately male perceptions and sensibilities, male psychology and power, male anxieties and the confirmation of masculinity.† (Michael H. Schuster, 2006, PP. 45) Historically, as Cynthia Enloe be reminiscent us, â€Å"Military strategists have tried to use women for military purposes only in those ways that will not unsettle the military’s masculinized status.† (Druckman, D., 1997) Moreover, as womanly workers in the typically male military, women have frequently met a hostile workplace environment. No doubt, feminist legal philosopher Vicki Schultz suggests that such workplace favoritism based on sex â€Å"has the form and function of denigrating women’s competence for the purpose of keeping them away from male-dominated jobs or incorporating them as inferior, less capable workers.† (Patricia A. Mclagan, 2002, PP. 26) Over the route of this campaign for rank, military nurses themselves added a latest measurement to the discussion. A lot of them saw military rank as a tool to stop the hostile working environments they knowledgeable in period of war nursing. Nurses were in the midst of the lots of women workers who experienced surplus sexual advances and a hostile environment from male coworkers and manager before the war and military service in remote units far from hold up networks and with only some constraints on the power of male officers meant that nurses practiced a heightened susceptibility to methodical workplace hostility throughout wartime. The answer, for lots of nurses, was the attainment of military rank as a way to make sure a safe place of work for women nurses in wartime and beyond. To some extent, the sexual desire-dominance example represented growth. It was significant for courts to be familiar with that gender favoritism can take the form of sexual proposal. But the example also foreshadows problems. By highlight sexual abuse, the paradigm endangered to eclipse other, evenly damaging forms of gender-based antagonism. Disaggregation incomprehensible a full view of the conditions of the place of work and makes together the hostile work environment and dissimilar treatment claims look trivial. When detached from a larger pattern of biased conduct, sexual advances or mockery can appear inadequately severe or all-encompassing to be actionable. By the similar token, when detached from sexual overtures, companionable forms of harassment may come into view to be gender-neutral hazing that has nothing to do by the victims’ womanhood. Certainly, when women are deprived of the training or hold up to do well on the job, they can easily be made to come into view (or even become) less than fully capable at their jobs. This lack of ability then becomes the good reason for the very maltreatment that has destabilized their performance (Vicki Schultz, 1998, PP. 1683-1805). The courts’ customary breakdown to understand the scale of women’s masculinity troubles at work, in fact, has only been make worse by the prevailing paradigm’s importance on sexual forms of harassment. Singling out sexual advances as the spirit of workplace harassment has allowable courts to feel enlightened concerning protecting women from sexual infringement, as at the similar time relieving judges of the blame to redress other, broader gender-based evils in the workplace. It is not sufficient to focus on the damage to women as sexual beings; the law has to also address women’s systematic difficulty and make easy women’s equal empowerment as original, committed workers. We need an account of hostile work environment pestering that highlights its lively relationship to better forms of gender pecking order at work. Moreover, in England, individual capitalism slowly gave way to decision-making capitalism. One indication of this development was the shift to a multidivisional organizational form. Here, decision-making power was comprehensive to company divisions, which even although they were controlled and synchronized by headquarters were distinct on product or local lines. Such a system made business governance by a person or a family virtually not possible. Let’s take an example of the American consult firm McKinsey & Company played an important role in this organizational transformation. As a scientific matter, it may be probable to square the Tenth Circuit’s psychoanalysis in Ramsey with its previous acceptance of the McKinney rule in Hicks. No doubt, the Ramsey view suggests that the plaintiff may have failed to plead the companionable incidents as part of her pestering claim. Thus, the court did not specifically rule, opposing to Hicks and McKinney those incidents could not count toward set up a hostile work environment. However, there is nothing that would have banned the court of appeals from bearing in mind the nonsexual conduct for purposes of assess the hostile work environment claim on appeal or at least straight the trial court to do as a result on remand. At a smallest amount, it seems clear that the director’s biased comments should have been careful proof of a hostile work environment. More lately, a number of additional courts of appeals have begun to weaken McKinney as purporting to follow it from side to side a new way. These courts of petition (and district courts in these routes) cite McKinney positively for the proposal that nonsexual behavior may be incorporated in a hostile work environment claim. Casually, though, these courts carry on to single out sexual go forward and other sexually open actions as the â€Å"real† harassment, concluding that the companionable pestering did not occur because of the plaintiff’s sex. Thus, in adding up to the harshness or occurrence element, causation has become a key constituent on which plaintiffs lose hostile labor environment claims. Also, some cases apply a sharp causation standard: Rather than requiring plaintiffs to show easy but for causation that the pestering happens because of sex–some courts demand a presentation that the pestering was motivated by â€Å"gender animus.† (Franco Amatori, 1999, PP 78) Though proof of nonsexual bad behavior sometimes meets the causation hurdle–particularly, behavior that on its face reveals a disparaging approach toward women on the job–other nonsexual conduct of the kind that is so usually directed at women by their male coworkers fails to list as gender-based. Motivation for Change in Development Strategies If you asked this executive to name the single most important factor in change, he would undoubtedly give you the same answer as most managers: people. Business books, seminars, and workshops all reinforce the same message today. Whether you’re rightsizing, restructuring, reengineering, or retooling, you must focus on the people side of change. Without the support and participation of a highly motivated workforce, organizational change is simply much too difficult to carry out successfully. Yet despite the widespread acceptance of this management precept, people problems still abound whenever organizations undertake change. Studies show conclusively, for example, that any time a restructuring is announced, turnover increases, on-the-job accidents rise, mistakes and errors multiply, and absenteeism skyrockets. No matter how well managers explain the business imperatives behind change, or how much effort they invest in formulating a new vision and communicating new corporate objectives, people react to change in negative ways and often resist it. Even when organizations are able to effectively mobilize their people in the early stages of a change effort, it’s not uncommon for people problems to surface somewhere down the road. In a recent guide to reengineering, for example, the consultants who authored the book describe a common syndrome that they call the â€Å"Terrible Twos.† After an initial period of improvement that may last up to two years, they say, performance indicators in organizations that reengineer often show movement in the opposite direction: morale slumps, turnover goes up, and productivity and quality gains disappear. In some cases, these organizations actually end up worse off than they started because they lose many of the people in whose retraining they invested so much. If the managers who lead change are really focusing on their people, why does this happen? Why do people problems consistently undermine the effectiveness of change efforts? There are two possible explanations. One is that managers pay lip service to the people side of change but in reality ignores it. This may be the case in organizations where managers lack the skills or inclination to deal with difficult people problems. In these companies, managers concentrate on the aspects of change that they feel most competent to handle namely; structural, technical, or strategic change issues while sidestepping people problems or delegating them downward, thereby forever establishing them as a lower management priority. Though the number of these managers may be considerable, there are also plenty of managers who do focus on the people side of change and still experience motivation and performance problems. What are they doing wrong? Though many of them work proactively to prevent people problems during change, what they do in most cases is insufficient to deal with the motivation and performance problems that change can cause (Daniel Denison, 2001, PP 37). Additional training, increased communication, and greater participation are a few of the standard approaches that are used to manage the people side of change. But while these strategies may be beneficial in helping people adjust to new work environments (and may even send the welcome message that managers are concerned about their people), they fail to address the one aspect of change that is consistently overlooked: how people react to change emotionally. And it is the emotions of change that are the key to motivation and performance whenever organizations attempt to change. How Emotions Impact Change Organizational change is not just about work processes, information systems, corporate structures, or business strategies. It’s also about what people feel and believe: their fears and anxieties, their dreams and ambitions, their hopes and expectations. And these feelings and beliefs are so strong that they can make or break a change effort. All too often, however, managers remain unaware of what their people really feel during organizational change. And it’s not because they’re bad managers. Even in the best companies, where managers are expected to demonstrate strong interpersonal skills and understand what makes their people tick, it’s difficult for managers to accurately gauge the new emotional climate that change creates. Why are the emotions of change so difficult to read? Part of the reason is that change makes people react in complex, unpredictable, and sometimes contradictory ways. To please their managers, for example, employees will often demonstrate enthusiasm and excitement when a change is announced and may even feel those emotions. But what they fail to disclose are the negative feelings they experience at exactly the same time: skepticism about the need for change, sadness over the loss of established work relationships, anger at the way the change is handled, or self-doubts so severe that they interfere with the ability to work. When one of the best account representatives in BCS later recalled his initial reaction to the change, he surprised us with this frank admission: â€Å"When they announced the change, my basic feeling was, Can I really pull this off? Even though I’m a high achiever and it looked like a great opportunity, I felt insecure and wasn’t sure I could do it.† In another interview conducted during the same period, a manager remembered having similar emotions: â€Å"I felt a lot of anxiety about not having enough structure in my new job,† he confessed. â€Å"My greatest fear was that I wouldn’t succeed, that I wouldn’t reach quota, or that I’d fall to the bottom 25 percent of the pile.† (Daniel Denison, 2001. PP. 37) The Emotional Climate of Change †¢ Anger †¢ Fear †¢ Anxiety †¢ Hope †¢ Confusion †¢ Insecurity †¢ Disappointment †¢ Sadness †¢ Discomfort †¢ Self-doubt †¢ Excitement †¢ Skepticism Another characteristic response, we found, is that employees will approach a change attempt by a positive state of mind but then expand negative feelings as time goes on, experience an moving transformation that their managers stay unaware of. A year into the BCS reorganization, for instance, one sales manager made this comment throughout an interview: â€Å"The announcement of a new organization created a lot of excitement around here, and there was enthusiasm about starting†. Managing this â€Å"soft† side of change may be the hardest part of it and the area where managers most often fail. Though most managers are trained to deal with the â€Å"hard† stuff that change involves, few of them have the background, skills, or experience to manage the emotions of their people during times of change. As consultants Robert Shaw and A. Elise Walton state in the book Discontinuous Change, â€Å"Changing the soft part of organizational life requires a different set of change management techniques and greater sophistication on the part of change agents.† (Ashford, S.J., 1984, PP.370-398) Competitive Advantage The majority leading strategic management example in new years is known as the competitive strategies model. Moreover, demonstrate by Porter’s work, this approach addresses the subject of how firms fight inside their product markets. Porter recognized two competitive advantages that give a firm with a justifiable position: lower cost and separation. The lower cost advantage is distinct as the aptitude to more professionally design, manufacture, and deal out a similar product than the competition. Products by unique and superior value in terms of quality, features, and after-sales service are examples of the separation competitive advantage. Furthermore, pursuing one of these advantages will make a firm’s product or service sole, and is powerfully not compulsory so the firm is not â€Å"stuck in the middle† (Porter, 1991: 40), where, by pursuing together competitive advantages, neither is attain. Thus, there is an obvious disagreement among WCM and the competitive strategies example. The competitive strategies approach recognizes two competitive advantages, either of which can be winning, but only independently. Attempting to pursue concurrent competitive advantages will consequence in â€Å"strategic mediocrity,† except for firms in strange industry niches (Porter, 1991: 40). This appears to disagree with WCM’s intentional goal of at the same time achieving fineness on more than a few product attributes, or potential competitive advantages, to make a position that is especially hard to challenge. There is diverse theoretical, empirical, and anecdotal support in both the operations management and strategic management literatures that it is possible to simultaneously achieve lower cost and differentiation competitive advantages. However, these literatures have not acknowledged the contributions of each other. For example, the strategic management critics of Porter who have described simultaneous competitive advantages have not incorporated the contributions from the WCM approach. Also, the proponents of WCM have focused on operations issues and seldom described their advantages in a directly competitive context. Combined, these literature streams integrate knowledge of firm skills and practices with how the product competes, making a compelling argument for combining them in theory, teaching, and practice. The Relationship between Diversity and Organizational Change Given this association flanked by diversity and organizational change, the following assumptions direct the authors’ task of initiating a alter effort directed at enhancing variety at TRANWAY: The conceptualization of a alter effort, and even the meeting of data to expand a change procedure, does not guarantee a winning change result. Change is both perceptual and behavioral. It is a compass reading to a new way of thinking and the performance of a set of behaviors matching with that way of thinking. Organizational alter affects the manifold roles people assume: for instance, that of an individual by personal interests and goals; that of a member of a labor group with task obligations to complete; and that of a stakeholder of the community who is exaggerated by organizational decisions. Consequently, sensing an ensuing loss of control over their jobs, their routines, and their lives, the majority humans tend to react unenthusiastically to organizational change. This may be particularly true of non-minority individuals who regard labor force diversification as a form of change that is a threat to their power and/or progression in an organization. A change effort urbanized to get better an organization, including an effort heading for toward fostering variety, should focus on the person, not the group. It should give the individual with challenges, support, and credit in short, individualized thought. No doubt, any kind of organization, as one link in a network, is linked to additional organizational entities and subject to outside influences. Hence, studying endogenous organizational alter requires an attendant look at exogenous ecological forces. Communication is the procedure on which the start and preservation of an organizational change depends. Successful strategies are those that draw out cooperative communication between people as individuals, work group members, and community stakeholders. Such strategies endorse mutual and united change efforts all through all levels of the organization. Eventually, the achievement of any change attempt depends on how efficiently the strategy for and matter of the change is communicated to those who are the targets of change. The Role of Framing in Organizational Change Efforts No doubt, in organization development the change agents use words and actions to generate images and meanings that will center notice on the need for alter, to establish an environment receptive to the change attempt, and to encourage contribution in the strategies designed to attain it. As such, formative how a change attempt will be framed, or the symbolic acts used to communicate the change, becomes vital to the process of organizational change. Framing is basically a communication procedure a series of rhetorical strategies from side to side which interpretive schemes or frames of reference internal to individuals or organizations are obvious outwardly. Organizational members understand messages based on the organizational realism in which those messages are communicated. Organizations, though, consist of multiple, and frequently conflicting, frames of reference. Consequently, the framing or meanings of the mainly influential organizational actors become institutionalized as the organization’s reality during metaphors, structures, stories, rituals, policies, and other symbolic acts (Hamza Ates, 2004. PP. 33). However, organizational change is probable since new meanings can emerge during the development of communication strategies designed to give option frames or meanings. A focus on the use of communication to manage meaning becomes chiefly significant when attempting to conquer dissimilar frames of reference, dissimilar life experiences, and dissimilar personal and professional backgrounds, such as those found amongst individuals in an more and more diverse workforce. Framing organizational alter, then, is a communication process needy on the effectual use of language and actions. A General Aspect of Coercive Modes to Force Evolution A changing view of change Change is intrinsic in life and nature. Yet, we have only lately begun to study modify in our institutions with the intention of influencing its crash. Organization development, the regulation of focusing on organizational change, is still an up-and-coming science regardless of how long the term has been around. Fads and trial-and-error seem to control our labors to deal with the significant and enveloping phenomenon of OD (Frohman, A., 2002). We’re almost certainly more conscious of organizational change now than in the past since many of our benchmarks show a go faster rate of change. Take organizational long life. An organization listed by Srandard&Poor’s in 1920 could wait for to still be listed 65 years later. Nowadays, a company will be on the list a usual of 10 years. A young person inflowing the workforce today can anticipate to have an average of 12 dissimilar jobs by the time he or she is 40 years old (Raymond T. Butkus, 2001. PP. 68). Organization Transformation today an Assessment For many years into the present transformation campaign the Army or any organization has made extraordinary development toward realizing expert’s vision. This growth is due in great part to the information that campaign leaders have usually followed the stages laid out in the Leading Change model. Mechanisms of Kotter’s first six stages are obviously noticeable in the words and deeds of additional senior leaders. The Army Vision is extensively available for review; these leaders communicate its main message in nearly each talk they give or article they write. News releases frequently explain the latest advances and achievement by the SBCT and inside additional areas of the Transformation procedure. And yet, Transformation has not been with no its share of critics, challenges, and setbacks. Just as the optimistic results can be traced to devotion to the model, the reasons for these criticisms and setbacks can also be traced to failures to adhere intimately sufficient to Kotter’s principles (Frohman, A., 2002). As other senior leaders have effort hard to establish a sense of importance regarding Transformation all through the Force, they have not been totally effectual at removing sources of satisfaction. Certain senior leaders, both inside the Army or any organization and elsewhere inside the Department of Defense, agree in principle with the need for â€Å"transformation,† but not the exact â€Å"Army Transformation† at present underway. Meanwhile, too many mid-grade officers (Major through Colonel) continue to question the real necessity for such change in the first place. In both cases, people appear to be waiting only for Shinseki’s departure for the Transformation wheels to start coming off (Raymond T. Butkus, 2001. PP. 68). Recommendations for Further Research Throughout the behavior of this research, a number of extra areas commendable of additional study emerged. Detailed reading concerning the attitudes of field-grade officers in the direction of the existing Transformation campaign would likely shed extra light on existing cynicism in the middle of this population and offer improved recommendations for how to most excellent communicate the Transformation dream to this audience. Historical study regarding the impact of â€Å"crisis† on main change proposal might permit a more detailed appraisal of beginning this Transformation in a time of relative harmony and calm, rather than crisis and chaos. Do winning transformations need a constituent of crisis? (Collins, 2000) A further area of study would engage analyzing the leadership training offer to SBCT leaders and determining how to best be relevant that training to leaders all through the field, as well as how to further improve the existing training in order to meet extra requirements expected of purpose Force leaders(Morris, J., 2001). Conclusion This research try attempted to border Army or any organization transformation in terms of an conventional business transform model by using historical case study instance from previous Army modify efforts to show how Kotter’s model can be practical. After rising a series of relevant research questions and demeanor an widespread literature review into the areas of organizational change and leadership, historical Army transformation labors, and today’s Army transformation proposal, the researcher contrast past and current practices to the hypothetical model in order to review significance and applicability. The final section of the thesis outlines conclusions based on this contrast and offers suggestion regarding how the transform model can be applied to additional improve the Army’s organizational change attempt. In attempting to decide the merits of applying a precise organizational transform model to the Army’s continuing Transformation movement, the researcher required to comprehend that change model both in its original business organization background and against the backdrop of manifold military case studies. Having experiential frequent parallels among the Kotter model and winning military transformations in the past, the researcher then effort to assess the present Transformation proposal in light of Kotter’s model and present recommendations for how to further get better Army Transformation. Noting an additional resemblance among certain elements of the model and the doctrinal idea of â€Å"Mission Command,† the researcher tinted the importance of continued and expanded education regarding Transformation, along with a require to review, purify, and re-emphasize the existing vision and sense of importance associated with it. The researcher also noted the existing challenges inherent in Transformation given that the essential guiding and supporting coalitions are still not completely in place. Conceptualizing, preparation, and acting in ways that mainly parallel Kotter’s model for Leading Change has certainly add to the important success of the Transformation movement so far. The true test of achievement, though, has not yet occurred; nor will it be fully assess for years to come. With its own history and a pertinent theoretical model as guides, though, and excellence leaders and people to interpret concepts into realism, the Service has all the right tools to pass that test. Can the Army get better on its Transformation movement and finally anchor long-term transform in its culture, in the middle of its people? The answer, certainly, is yes by adopting an attuned version of the Kotter model and ongoing to focus on preparing its leaders of all levels for the hard but in the end satisfying work that is â€Å"Leading Change.†   (Whittington, R., 2004).    References Articles Joseph A. Kinney, Dennis L. Johnson, John B. Kiehlbauch, 2004, Break the Cycle of Violence. Magazine Title: Security Management. Volume: 38. Issue: 2. Publication Date: February 2004. Page Number: 24. Michael H. Schuster, Steve Weidman, 2006, Organizational Change in Union Settings: Labor-Management Partnerships the Past and the Future. Journal Title: Human Resource Planning. Volume: 29. 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