Paper discussing how Langston Hughes' poetry provides a critique of Essay

Paper discussing how Langston Hughes' poetry provides a critique of relations between blacks and whites in the U.S. Based on poems I will upload - Essay Example In his essay, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain," Hughes presents his views about writers and poets’ loss of racial pride stating that "no great poet has ever been afraid of being himself" (http://www.poemhunter.com/langston-hughes/biography). He continues to declare: There is an obvious distinction and a distance between the blacks and the whites in the poems of Hughes. For instance, in â€Å"The Negro Speaks of Rivers† (Meyer, 2002, p. 912), the persona speaks of his racial pride as part of humanity This significance to humanity and civilization is also reflected in â€Å"Negro† (p. 916). The very title itself is a proud affirmation of the persona’s dark skin. Stanzas 2-5 speak of the blacks as slave, worker, singer, and victim. As a slave, the black works for the whites in base positions as cleaner of the steps and boots. These are two terms that imply very low and humbling tasks. As a worker, he tells with pride that great structures and buildings could only be erected because of the blacks. As, a singer, he is allowed to voice out and express his misery. Finally, as a victim, he shows how he is tortured and killed by the whites. â€Å"Danse Africaine† (p. 917) talks of the rhythm of the beating of the tom-toms and the dancing of a veiled girl. This speaks of the African culture. Upon hearing the beat and the rhythm, the true blood of the blacks is stirred (lines 5 and 15). This stirring may speak of an awakening to get into action whether to fight or stand up for some important thing. This stirring may be alarming if the whites stay off-guard. Further, this may imply that too much discrimination may result to revolt. These lines imply being able to freely express one’s self in the open (â€Å"In the face of the sun†). This further illustrates how the blacks are hidden in the dark or are marginalized. Moreover, there is a positive description of the blacks in the following lines: Another

Employee Resistance to Organizational Change

Employee Resistance to Organizational Change Methodology/Approach The research for this study was conducted by using secondary research and primary research. The secondary research reviewed current literatures on the natural, symptoms and reasons of employees resistance to organizational change, followed by the factors affect employees resistance. The main focus of the factors reviewed on employee personal factors consists of age, gender, personality (locus of control) and educational level. The primary research was deployed though distribution of questionnaires to employees from the agribusiness organization. Findings   All of four factors including age, gender, personality and educational background shaped individual difference on the value, perception, adaptability towards organizational change. Research Limitations As the research is carried out though a big agribusiness organization which has been and are undertaking change plans, the research result may deviate due to sample size, respondents bias, past organizational change experience as well as the choice of questions. Implications The research urge the improved understanding and identification of factors effect employee resistance to change, and underlies the importance of managing workforce diversity in an organization. The research suggested management to develop a framework and theorize on how to create a climate, educate, persuade, communicate and reward employees to alter their fundamental mental psychology resistance, aim to direct and motivate them initially involve and commit to organizational change. An exploratory study on the factors of resistance to change from employees perspective Chapter 1- Introduction Change comes from anywhere, and is the only constant. Propelled by the driving force of technology and globalization, the economic landscape continuously transform in a way that has come to undermine the relevance of received wisdom on how a firm should be managed and what underlies its success (Gregory Prastacos, et al., 2002). In this new millennium, it is more challenging for an organization to sustain its competency or even survive in the diversity market. When an organization is threatened by environmental changes such as crisis or competition, it results in the increasing needs for communication as technology develops rapidly and higher customer demands will be foreseen. Organizational change is not an option; it constitutes a fundamental necessity for success within the new competitive landscape (Hamel and Prahalad, 1996). An organization need to evaluate its performance and review its business strategies, corporate structure, operational process and HR policies to identify th e areas that need transformation. To maintain its competitive advantages,  an organization must make effort to implement changes accordingly. Usually changes to be made in an organization is for the seeking of extending the ability of the organization to achieve the strategic goals but sometime changes do not necessarily contribute to the improvement of the organization (Stroh, 2001). The expected result of the change might vary due to other unexpected factors, such as resistance to change. Resistance is a phenomenon that affects the change process, delaying or slowing down its beginning, obstructing or hindering its implementation, and increasing its costs (Ansoff, 1990). Effect of resistance of changes in organization will cause distorted perception, interpretation barriers and vague strategic priorities, low motivation among the people and lack of creative response (Val, 2003). It is crucial for change initiators to deal with resistance for a successful change. Forasmuch as employees are the one who get the job done, and possess the knowledge, skills, tools and experiences, it is clear that organizational changes cannot be achieved without employees support and involvement. Employee acceptance and commitment are the key factors for successful changes. Effective change management should recognize the importance of its employees and the way to minimize the resistant from employees. Therefore, understand why it is caused, the forms of resistance and the factors determine employees reactions to change is significant. 1.1 Research Objective This research will study on the factors of resistance to change from employees prospective. The aim of this research is to review the factors by better understanding these which a shift in perception could occur, the paper hope to develop a framework to managers of how certain group of employees is the likely to react and behave to change that being unleashed by the value and perception, this knowledge will enable change initiators to design change plan and training programs which recognize the values of employees, and to interact with diverse others in order to optimize the expected change affect. The research attempt to explore the followings areas as a systematic way to rationalize the value of this project study: To identify the natural of employee resistance to change. To identify the symptoms of employee resistance to change. To identify the reasons of employee resistance to change To determine the various factors to effect employees resistance to changes. To evaluate the effect of these factors on organizations future development. 1.2 Chapter Summary Chapter 1 of Introduction has provided a background of the circumstances that force organization to change, and examined the inevitable resistance can undermined organizational change. By identifying the importance of employee in the organizational change, research objectives were generated to study on the resistance of change from employees perspectives and listed done the areas of the study to be explored on. The research was planned in a systematic way to rationalize the value of this project. Next chapter of this project will touch on a review of current literatures on the natural, symptoms and the reasons of employee resistance to change and factors affect employee resistance, followed by the research methodology, samples and limitation of the research. The subsequent chapter will be the questionnaire data analysis presentation and lastly the paper will conclude the findings and its implications for change initiators. The aim of this research is to review the factors that affect employee resistance and evaluate it thought the target samples. Chapter 2- Literature Review 2.1 Employee Resistance to Change 2.1.1 The nature Organizations can be confronted with incremental changes that focus on doing things better through a process of continuous tinkering, adaptation and modification or transformational changes that are regarded as revolutionary and break with the past.(John Hayes, 2010) Although the incremental changes rarely presented any abrupt challenges to the assumptions people make about how they related to the world (John Hayes, 2010), this is not always that case. People are not duplicate, the values, beliefs, assumption and knowledge of that person will be developed over the time, formed as a set of personal opinion, perceptions, views of the world to guide their behaviors (Hallie Preskill and Rosalie Torres, 1999). It is concerned with whether employees regards view change can bring present or future personal benefit and opportunities or change is a threat to their job, skills or any other interests. The implementation of changes inevitably involves the vital interests of various shareholders, and especially employees.Resistance occurs since most employees desire to be successful in their work environments due to they have basic needs which must be satisfied. To begin with, employees want to know their role and their responsibilities within the organization. In additional, employees want to be able to predict what they will face in the future (Appelbaum, S.H. et al, 1998). Even though old procedures that were initially regarded as cumbersome, costly or ineffective, after a prolonged recursive execution, employees become comfortable and are used to the ways things were done. Employee might fear in a changing organization, therefore change are frequently be seen as a threat to ones existence within an organization if upgrading or acquiring new skills are a problem because of time constraints , or the inability of the person to learn these new techniques. Change within an organizational setting usually poses several problems and challenged by the pressure in aspect of money , ego, and power for those who resist it. Employees resist change because the associated negative feelings since their basic needs may now be threatened (Mealiea, 1978). Thus it is human nature that employees look at Change negatively, resistance thereby coming into play. 2.1.2 The symptoms Resistance, described by Kilian M. Bennebroek Gravenhorst (2003) is commonly considered to be standard or even natural in reaction to organizational change. It is described as an most inevitable psychological and organizational response that seems to apply to any kind of change, ranging from rather modest improvement to far-reaching change and organizational transformation. Symptoms are the specific behaviors exhibited when employee resistance to change (Albert F. Bolognese, 2002) According to Bhutan (1995), it is important to distinguish between the symptoms of resistance to change and the causes behind them. Symptoms can be reflected in varies of forms, which Marc Maltz (2008) categorized it into the two varieties: overt and covert. Overt resistance is concern with obvious opposition, disagreement, arguing, debating, etc., to any change effort. While, covert resistance comes in two forms: one is conscious covert which employees are concerned about the consequences of their actions that they apparently agreed but actually not following though or withhold information and avoid implementation. Secondly is the unconscious covert resistance, which is the most difficult to see symptoms among employees as employees are unaware their resistance. 2.1.3 The Reasons There are many causes attribute to employees resistance to change, such as Coch French (1948), studied the workers of a clothing manufacturer and find that lower employee participitation causing the mistrust of management and increase their resistance to change. Kotter and Schlesinger (1979) identify four common reasons why people resist organizational change: people focus on their own interest and fear of losing something of value, it can be power and status, autonomy and control, or specific skills; Misunderstanding the change will cost them more than they will gain and lack of trust to the person who initiating change; Different assessment of the necessity and benefit of change situations; Low tolerance for change, sometimes people just resist to change emotionally even they understand the need for change. Several studies have acknowledged what Kotter and Schlesingers publication and enhance these categories with further researches, according to Prosci- A business process reengin eering directory and resource companys study (2003) in past six years in 288 organizations from 51 countries, result shows the top reasons employee resist to change is because of corporate history and culture, which the organizations past performance of change project failed or did not make much sense, employees are less interested to take initiatives to support the current change, they are not in the flavor the month , thus employee expected it go away like what happened in the past. Lorenzo (2000) also acknowledge that one attribute to employees resistance is that past failures leaves negative image for future changes. Another reason added on in Prosci (2003)s research is that employee often opposes to change because of the added job responsibilities, new processes or technologies. Changes with lower motivation to get employees involved and less consideration of employees interest and their emotional and perceptual perspectives thereby eliminate their initiatives and level of comm itment. Pardo Del Val, Manuela and Martinez Fuentes, Clara (2005) conclude above sources to employees resistance are most likely happen in change formulation stage, they further identify some reason rise resistance that consist of: (a) organizational values in relation to change values that cause a strong implementation climate to determine whether employee to accept or oppose to change; (b) departmental politics that form employees resistance. 2.2 Factors affect employees resistance to change Literatures have identified variety of factors affect employee resistance to change, the most cited views of the factors fall on the organizational level, for instance the communication process, employee participation, change facilitation procedures in change process (Ricky Griffin ,2008) to improve organizational effectiveness. Moreover, employee motivation (David Clarence and McClelland, 1987) and quality of leadership (Ken W. Parry, 1999) have been widely acknowledged to have influence on employees work initiatives, involvement and commitment, so that it can argues to be a significant factor to affect employees willingness to change. Above factors virtually are the ways to deal with the subtext of organizational humanity on the stage of change process. However, one must understand the root factors played to affect employees perception towards organizational change. Fail to understand the intrinsic factors govern employees values and beliefs guided behavior in the context of the way they were doing and expected in the future, and all the necessities organization attempt or should to do to implement and facilitate change is crucial. Therefore, the research will mainly explore on the personal factors played to affect employee resistance to change including age, gender, personality traits (Locus of control) and employee educational level as follows: 2.2.1 Age Baby Boomers refer to people who are born between 1945-1964. This generation grew up in an era of unprecedented economic growth and stability, so as to be regarded as a generation that finds comfort with long term employment with one organization. This has provided them with a false sense of stability (Loomis, 2000).Their perceived working values emphasize on chain of command, teamwork, technically challenged, team work and loyal to employer As they born after War II, which they entered the economic boom era, Money and job security such as life time employment are definitely extremely important for them to sustain their living. In this regard, it is argued that Baby Boomers are easier to accept organizational change as their working value of chain of command which they tend to commit to the hierarchical order. Moreover, the inception of organization loyalty also attributes them to be more committed rather than resistant or any other negative reactions. (Hui-Chun, Yu and Peter Miller, 2003) Another neuropsychological research held by (Stanford University professor Laura L. Carstensen et al. 2000) on the relationship between age and emotional experiences found that the periods of highly positive emotional experience were more likely to endure among older people and periods of highly negative emotional experience were less stable. With age, older adults report relatively low levels of worrying (Sandra Hunt, Patricia Wisocki and Julianne Yanko, 2003), experience less anger (Schieman,1999), and have lower levels of emotional distress after natural disasters (Bolin Klenow, 1982-1983). The implication of these findings are older employees have better capability to regulate their negative emotions with organizational change and adjust themselves to adapt the environment.Employees adaptability has been seen a key attribute to a successful organizational change (Heslin , 2005). Compared with Baby Boomers, Generation X refers to those people who were born between 1965 to 1980. This generation of employee tend to more independent, self-motivated and self-sufficient (Loomis, 2000). This is because most X generations did not have enough of their family attention as children because their parent may have been single or working parents. X generations therefore became adaptive at handling things on their own and in their own ways. Their work value is perceived more on personal satisfaction, and their attitudes towards work are focus on flexibility empowerment, loyal to skills. (Hui-Chun, Yu and Peter Miller, 2003). Hence, when the change conflict with their own interest such as against what they used to do , their skills, or leave less empowerment to them, they will feel unmotivated towards to commit to the change. However, David J. OConnell, Eileen McNeely and Douglas (2004) argue that since Xers entered the workforce under the employment of deal, in which career planning and development are largely individual responsibilities and where the average worker can expect to make several changes during their working lives. In this regards, it seems like Xers are more adaptive to change. However, there are also many scholars debate the relationship between the age and the personal adaptability to change, such as Mirvis and Hall, 1996. Recent research held by OConell, McNeely and Hall, 2008 also support this assertion, reporting that age is limited measured as a categorical variable namely the characteristics about an individual . 2.2.2 Gender Although many literatures have acknowledged the impact of gender difference on the management practice, there had been little systematic attention focus on identifying the gender roles on effective change management relatively. Feminist perspectives have tended to highlight not only the impact of organizational change on womens relatively marginalized position but also the role of women in the change management (Melissa Tyler, 2005). Jamie L, Michael G and Homer Tolson (2005) research findings suggest that there is a difference between male and female executive of their emotional expressiveness, and women are regarded to process better skill at encoding and decoding emotions (Laura K. Guerrero and Kory Floyd, 2008). Emotions are intensive feelings that are directed at someone or something (Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, 2010). Goleman-the founder of emotional intelligence theory also mentioned that women are good at reading others feelings than men averagely in his book pub lished in 1995. The skills to encode and decode emotions generally have advantage to develop and maintain relationships (Laura K. Guerrero and Kory Floyd, 2008), because skilled encoders have ability to express their internal emotional state so that other people can decode their emotions more easily and accurately (Burgoon and Bacue, 2003). In this regard, the chances such as misunderstanding and conflict due to implicit or unclear message delivered or received prone to be decreased, the communication becomes more easily and effective. In many literatures, communication has been widely acknowledged as a useful approach to eliminate resistance to change. Therefore, women are deems to be more successfully engaged in change circumstances. Maddock (1999) added that Women focus on relational aspect of how to do things,  while men tend to be expected to think what to do. It appears that women are emotionally discreet on how they are going to process the information, express and interpret their view points to react to change before making any decision. Combined with womens secondary position in labor market due to gender discrimination, especially in Confucian countries, in addition to their greater responsibilities in family and child care than men, which cause women are relatively powerless to challenge the situation (Melissa Tyler, 2005). Hence Melissa argues that women in change management appear to be positioned as performing an interpersonal function associated with safety; providing security in times of unexpected turbulence and anticipating. On the basis of these arguments, it seems that women tend to avoid conflict in working in this regard and to accept the change accordingly. 2.2.3 Personality Traits (Locus of Control) Some people are quiet and reserved, while others are aggressive and outgoing. Some people are trustworthy, some are not. People differ with each other in various dimensions as a result of different behavior and attitude towards things in personal life and working. The individuals differences are shaped by personalities (Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge, 2010) Personality refers to the traits and characteristics that make individuals unique (Greenberg and Baron, 2002). The most frequent used definition of personality was produced by Gordon Allport nearly 70 years ago which he commented that personality is the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment. Personality thus becomes an important reason mangers need to know to generate a view of employees likely behaviors and examine their coping reaction. Meselaar and Cozijnsen (1997) further highlighted the personality is a determinate of individ ual reaction to organizational change. Locus of control refers to the degree people believe their own behaviours determine what happens to them. People believes they have more control over their destiny are referred as internal, and people who believe they have less control over their life and the results are attributing to the will of God, or to the fortune of being born in the right social class or family are referred as external. At this point, it is suggested that people behave differently towards change. Wilson (1992) developed an approach referred as determinism to study change management portrays the manager and other organizational members as pawns affected by change rather than as agents who can initiate and secure change. Their ability to influence is limited because of the main determinates lie outside the organization. John Hayes (2010) argues that those who are overcommitted deterministic view of change may be inclined to believe that the locus of control is external to themselves and the organization and may therefore develop view that there is little they can do to influence events. Hence, people who think this way is less likely to attempt to adopt a proactive approach to the management of change than those who have more internal view about locus of control. 2.2.4 Educational Level Although there were not many literatures specifically emphasize the employees educational level to their resistance to organizational change, it is widely acknowledged (e.g.: George H. McCall, Karl E. Ristow and Daniel J. Cimini, 2004) that higher education improves employees personal management, time management, communication skills and problem solving skills. Higher education defined by Roberg (1987) refers to the instruction that was obtained at university or colleague. According to Thomas Kent Gaylor (2001)s research on 286 police officer from two North Texas Police department in 2001, result shows no significance relationship between the educational level and employees openness to change. However the limitation of his research was lack of variation in respondents education level. Nevertheless, the author believe that higher education of employees will be more likely to support and commit organization change with more positive thinking of why the change is needed, hence the resea rch intend to do further evaluation with different samples on the relationship of educational level to employee resistance to change since it is a logic factor that higher education equipped with employees more knowledge and broader thinking and believe, which reduce the tendency to be dogmatic and to be more creative. 2.3 Chapter Summary Chapter 2 of Literature Review has explored on the current literatures on employee resistance to change in terms of the natural, symptoms and reasons. The inevitable resistances from employee impulse the research to further find out the factors that affect employee resistance to change. The research noted many factors including communication process, employee participations, change facilitation process, employee motivation and quality of leadership, and lastly mainly reviewed the personal factors played consist of age, gender, personality traits (locus of control) and employee educational level influence various aspects from values and beliefs and emotions as a result of different behavior and levels of adaptability reacted to change After exposit the literature review of factors affect employees resistance to change, the paper will tackle the main objectives of this research. Starting with the description of research methodology, samples and limitation of the research, then paper will touch on the analysis part of the questionnaire, to examine the reflected results against with the literatures reviewed earlier on, so as to evaluate its universality of the factors in the sampling organization. Chapter 3- Research Methodology 3.1 Secondary Research The research was carried out at the beginning though a secondary research to review the current literatures on the areas of the study, which contains of the nature, symptoms and the reasons of employee resistance to change and the factors affect employee resistance to change from a more intrinsic view by looking at employee personal factors. The factors focus on the employees adaptability to change determined by age and gender, one dimension of personality traits -locus of control, and employee educational level. The information is collected from textbooks, journals and articles from reliable and creditable online Journal Publications, National Library and Campus Library. 3.2 Primary Research In order to evaluate the factors been presented in literature review, the research will primarily employ questionnaires as the main methodologies for information gathering. The questionnaire will be carried out with various employees working in a large organization. The methods allow directly and original information to be gathered from participants. Questionnaire results are to be consolidated, and will be analyzed using various questionnaire analyze techniques, to interpret the data. The main reason of using questionnaire and interview is because data is collected directly from specific target respondents. Interviewers have the ability to ask extra intensive questions of the respondent concerning survey responses. 3.2.1 Research Samples The research was conducted using data collected from a large size agribusiness organization located in Singapore, mainly doing palm oil plantation and trading. The reason of choosing this organization is because it is currently undergoing turbulence and change on merger with one small size palm oil trading company and one ship chartering company. And it also has experienced many merger and change in the past. Therefore the target samples of the questionnaire participants in the organization must have many varies views on organizational change to enable the research generate more practical reflections from employees perspective on organizational change and change effect on them, aims to evaluate the universality application of all those factors on employee resistance to change presented in literature on the target sampling. The questionnaire attempt to invite 150 employees in this organization from four departments who are affected by the merger plan, respectively 25 employee from IT department, 35 employees from logistic department, 25 employee from finance department and 65 employees from operation department. 3.2.2 Limitation of This Research During the research, data collected could be deviated due to limitation in the research methodology as follows: Data may not represent the entire population due to the limitation of sampling size As the four department employees may experience different kinds of minor changes in their department respectively, whether the change offend their interest or not might bring subjective bias towards their response to the questionnaire, hence the accuracy of data collected will be deviated. Respondent who experience the past organizational change may bring different perceptions towards new change. The choice of the question may limited respondents response. 3.3 Chapter Summary Chapter 3 presented the methodology of this research which employed on secondary research to review the current literatures on the area of the study, and also the primary research using questionnaires to collect data. Research Samples chosen was a large agribusiness organization who is experiencing turbulence and undergoing merger and work structural change. The limitations of the research were also discussed including the sample size, respondents bias, past organizational change experience as well as the choice of questions may also affect the accuracy of the survey result. Next chapter will touch on the research result analysis and discussion. Chapter 4- Result Analysis and Discussion The questionnaires were distributed to 150 employees in IT, Logistic, Finance and Operation department respectively as planned in Chapter 3, the responding rate is about 76%, namely 114 employees attend the questionnaire. Following are the result of each factors being tested. 4.1 Age The research finding on age factors shows that respondents in different age group perceived change differently and appears with different level of resistance. The result shows that in the age group of 20 to 65+, employees are more resistant to change as they age; an interesting finding is that for employees aged below 20, whom were surprisingly scored higher marks on resistance. Figure 4.1.2 shows details of scores on resistance in each age group. This is in contrary with literatures presented earlier on which Laura L. Carstensen et al. (2000) found that the periods of highly positive emotional experience were more likely to endure among older people. While elder people emphasize working value on the obedience of chain of command and organizational loyalty to commit the work instead of resisting and challenging hierarchical order (Hui-Chun, Yu and Peter Miller, 2003). All the earlier findings demonstrated elder people are more adaptable and emotional stable to organization change, yet this research findings reflect an even more complicated relationship between age and resistance level. The possible causes lead to this result might because when younger people firstly enter the workforce with no experience and lower educational background, they are uncertain about their skills and abilities. They may behave self-concerned and less flexible dealing with working matters, and not mature enough to regulate their emotions as they are undergoing a transition from childhood to adult, school life to working life with increased responsibilities, time is needed to help them accept such big changes and adapt themselves in the new environment. As they age and become more mature, they seek for competence, career movement and relationship, they are more flexible and motivated to change themselves in the organization to achieve their objectives. As time goes on, they feel tired and queried about what supposed to be. They are loyalty to their skills and fear losing it in the future. Stability, job security and sense of seniority may become the main values after they age 46. Hence th ey might act more resisting to change as demonstrated in below figure. Super (1980)s Life Stage Theory displayed some common characteristics against to the above analysis and assumptions, which the author would like to research further. 4.2 Gender Out of total 114 respondents, 78 are women, and 36 are men, most of men respond strongly agree that organizational change is necessary and beneficial, and express t

Essay --

Smoking Smoking is an addicting habit on the rise worldwide. Smoking across the globe has many different forms from cigarettes and cigars to pipes and shisha’s. There are many different reasons for smoking whether it is for medicinal reasons or recreational use. Smoking has been around for a very long time and in this essay I will discuss the origins of smoking, the serious health risks, economical burdens, the addicting materials as well smoking among teenagers. Despite efforts from governments and organizations to bring awareness to people across the globe of the serious dangers and implications of smoking, the number of smokers worldwide generally remains on the rise. Brief History Of Smoking Smoking in one form dates back to as early as 5000 BC. It was used in shamanistic rituals to allow the users to achieve a state of trance and connect with the spirit world. Cannabis smoking quickly spread through Africa and the Middle East almost 3000 years ago. Smoking was sighted in England as far back as 1556 and then spread to France in 1560. Tobacco was then brought into Africa by French traders in the early 1600’s. Tobacco at that time was chewed or smoked. Around that time many religious leaders banned smoking and considered it immoral and even blasphemous. The first machine made to produce cigarettes was made by James Bonsack in 1881 after the civil war. The negative effects of smoking were brought to public attention in 1929 by the paper published linking cancer and smoking. During the Great Depression and in Nazi Germany, Hitler viewed smoking as unnecessary and a waste of money and also that woman who smoked as unsuitable to be mothers and wives. After the Second World War, anti-smoking groups lost popularity and smoking increas... ...lic places including universities, shopping centers, cafes and restaurants. This bans includes shisha’s (Kuwait Bans Smoking, 2012). Also many governments have set up a â€Å"quit smoking† number and website to assist in quitting smoking.                   Conclusion Smoking has been prevalent worldwide for thousands of years and according to the World Health Organization looks to increase even more. Currently over 1 out of 7 people are smokers. There are many health risks associated with smoking and deaths due to smoking are more than 5 million people every year and has a large economic impact globally. This is more than double the deaths due to natural causes. Smoking is more and more prevalent in teenagers in today’s world due to advertising through the internet and peer pressure. Many anti-smoking organizations were set up to help people quit smoking and to raise awareness.

Balanced Scorecard: Management Control System Essay

â€Å"Balanced scorecard† means different things to different people. At one extreme, measurement-based balanced scorecards are simple dashboards of performance measures grouped into categories that are of interest primarily to an organization’s managers and executives. Typical categories include financial measures, and customer, process, and organization capacity measures. Measurement-based scorecards almost always report on operational performance measures, and offer little strategic insight into the way an organization creates value for its customers and other stakeholders. At the other extreme, a strategic performance scorecard system is an organization-wide integrated strategic planning, management and measurement system. Strategy-based scorecards align the work people do with corporate vision and strategy, and communicate strategic intent throughout the organization. In other words, these systems incorporate the culture of the organization into the management system. In strategy-based scorecards, performance measures are only one of several important components, and the measures are used to better inform decision making at all levels in the rganization. In strategy-based balanced scorecard systems, performance measures are the result of thinking about business strategy first, to measure progress toward goals. In strategy-based systems, the first question to answer is the strategic question: â€Å"Are we doing the right things? † The operations, process, and tactical questions come later: â€Å"Are we doing things right†. Over the past decade balanced scorecards have evolved from systems that simply measure performance to holistic strategic planning and management systems that help manage and track strategy execution. Despite this evolution, the majority of balanced scorecards that we have seen over the past 10 years use a â€Å"just give me the measures† philosophy. These measure-centric dashboard scorecards are interesting, but not very robust and not nearly as helpful as they could be. These scorecards remind me of the old Wendy’s commercial: â€Å"Where’s the beef? † Strategy-based scorecard systems, on the other hand, create a â€Å"strategic thinking† mentality in an organization, and can help lift the organization and its workforce to a higher, more performance-oriented way to think and work. Each organization is unique, and there is no â€Å"one scorecard fits all† solution. This article describes how to develop a strategy-based balanced scorecard system for technology companies. We’ll share some lessons learned from developing strategic performance scorecard systems in dozens of businesses and industries over the past 10 years. The Balanced Scorecard as a Technology Company’s Strategic Planning and Management System Technology company management teams are challenged by: †¢ Rapidly shrinking product cycles †¢ Recruiting, retaining and rewarding technology talent Making and communicating critical product development decisions †¢ Tracking the evolution of customer feature demands and use models †¢ Disruptive, enabling technologies that can invalidate products or entire business models In addition, executives rarely communicate the strategic manner in which the business is being directed. The typical result is disagreement and misalignment in how these challenges are perceived and addressed throughout the company. Any technology company strategy needs to embrace these challenges. Strategy is a company’s approach to achieving its vision–it’s the organization’s â€Å"game plan† for success. One thing the technology company’s strategy needs to define is how it will measure product planning and development success. Strategy needs to define how ideas are advanced into opportunities. Passionate technology workers need to know why their ideas and views were embraced, delayed, or discarded. Strategy must describe the timing of such considerations, so that investments in programs underway are protected from an ill-timed innovation capturing the minds of employees. Similarly, programs that are off track need to sound alarms so that corrective action can be taken. Strategy needs to guide when and how to sound those alarms and ensure necessary corrections are taken. Strategy needs to dictate tracking customer feature evolution, and if the company wields the core technology its products need to be successful in the marketplace. Using a balanced scorecard as the strategic planning and management framework allows a company to deal with these and other issues that matter to creating value for customers and stakeholders, such as process efficiency, financial performance, and organizational capacity and readiness. Starting with a strategic view of how the organization creates value for customers, a scorecard system links strategy to what must be done operationally to be successful. Good scorecard systems focus on the critical few performance measures that provide real business intelligence and contribute to the achievement of operational excellence, employee excellence, and business success. But more important, these systems focus on the elements of strategy that can be made actionable – strategic objectives that are the building blocks of strategy. Developing a Technology Company Balanced Scorecard System The logic of building a scorecard system and using the system as the organization’s strategic planning and management framework starts with an understanding of the organization’s customers and stakeholders, and their needs. The management team then develops and validates the strategic components of the management system. The components include mission, vision, core values, strategic perspectives (i. e. , performance dimensions), strategic themes and desired strategic results, strategic objectives, an organization-wide strategy map, performance measures and targets, and strategic initiatives aligned with the objectives. Strategy is the common thread through the scorecard system and forms the basis for communicating the organization’s approach for gaining competitive advantage (for a business), or in the case of a public or non-profit organization, for improving mission effectiveness for stakeholders. The finished strategy-based balanced scorecard system translates customer needs, mission, and values into organization goals, strategy, objectives, performance measures, and new initiatives. In a strategy-based scorecard system, strategy is analyzed through four performance dimensions (perspectives): financial (stewardship for government and non-profits), customer/stakeholder, business processes, and organization capacity. A key strategy development step is the creation of several high-level strategies (i. e. , strategic themes), associated strategic results, and strategic objectives for each theme. Strategic themes are aligned with the organization’s vision and mission, and the theme’s strategic result describes a high-level outcome of successfully implementing the strategic theme. Usually three or four themes define the business strategy of the organization at a high level. Examples of strategic themes include Customer-Focused Operational Excellence, Market Driven Technological Excellence, Strategic Partnering, and Growth Through Innovation. Many other themes are possible, and the selection of vision and aligned strategic themes and results make for unique performance scorecard systems for different organizations. Another key development step is the creation of strategic objectives — the â€Å"DNA† of strategy. Objectives are expressed as continuous improvement actions that can be documented, measured, and made actionable through initiatives and projects. Once developed, objectives are linked to form a â€Å"strategy map. † A strategy map shows graphically how the organization creates value for customers, stakeholders, and employees. The strategy map is constructed by linking strategic objectives using cause and effect relationships. A strategy map is one of the most effective communication tools an organization can use to build transparency, alignment, and a focus on results.

Good Man Is Hard to Find Essay

According to Shakespere, â€Å"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players†. Some people, in their daily lives, do more intentional acting, or decieveing, than others. The terms â€Å"Friday Muslim† or â€Å"Sunday Christian† have been coined to describe people who appear to be devout to their religion when they attend their weekly religious gathering, but otherwise do not display any moral connections to it. These people put more importance on appearing as a good and richous person rather than actually thinkning, speaking, and acting according to the religious documents they claim to follow. Living this sort of life proved to be fatal for the Grandmother in Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The Grandmother’s religious hypocracy caused her to corrupt the thoughts of her grandchildren, manipulate events onto a negative path, and ultimately cause the death of her and her family. Studies done by the National Child Study indicate that children’s views are larely shaped by â€Å"caregiver/child interactions throught childhood†(â€Å"Measuring†). John Wesley and June Star’s mother and father seem to be very passive and quiet with thier views. In comparison, the Grandmother is outspoken, opinionated, and presents herself as a religiously knowledgable, and there for trustworthy, person. The children seem to have picked up on her racist views as their normally argumentitive resopnses are absent when she makes condesending comments about an ovbiously poor â€Å"Negro child standing in the door of a shack†(O’connor) they pass on their trip. The impression of the grandmother’s views into the children is also aparent when, rather than being appalled at her racist story about a suitor bringing her watermelon, â€Å"this story tickled John Wesley’s funny bone and he giggled and giggled†(O’connor). Also, June Star shows signs of the same materialistic shelfishness of the Grandmother when she states that she â€Å"wouldn’t marry a man that just brought her a watermelon on Saturday†(O’connor). The grandmother replies that she wishes she would have married him because he â€Å"had died only a few years ago, a very wealthy man† (O’connor), as if wealth is the most important factor in deciding whom to marry. Nearly everytime the chirdren speak their comments reak of the condescending, corrupt influence of their grandmother. Had the Grandmother put more emphasis on actually practicing Christian values than just appearing to be a godly person she would not have had the relaxed attitutte towards lying which led her to her death. Fearing her cat ,Pitty Sing , â€Å"might brush against one of her gas burners and accidentally asphyxiate himself†(O’connor), she sneaks the cat into the car. She knows that her son Bailey has good reason for not wanting the cat to accompany them on the trip and would not allow it, but this does not stop her. The Grandmother later tells a story to the children about a plantation she used to visit when she was younger. She believes he house to be a little way down a dirt road they passed on the highway. She begins to have a burning, almost childish, desire to revisit this landmark and so lies to the children. Knowing it will manipulate the children into helping her persuade their parents to visit the house, she tells them â€Å"there was a secret:-panel in this house†(O’connor) which â€Å"all the family silver was hidden in†(O’connor). As expected, the children begin whining untill their father, Bailey, agrees to make a â€Å"one and only time†(O’connor) exception to the trip itenerary and visit the plantation. The Grandmother’s deception leads to Bailey wrecking the car. The cat becomes statled leaps onto his neck, causing him to jerk the wheel in firght and lead the car into a ditch. Due to the Grandmother’s lack of morals, the family is left helpless and injured on the side of a near abandoned road. As exzibited in devout priests, nuns, and missionaries, selflessness is highly valued in Christianity. The Grandmother would like for people to think of her as a selfless christian role model, but her actions prove her to be quite the opposite. Before the family sets out on the trip she attempts to manupulate them into going to Tennessee instead of Florida. She actually wants to go visit some old friends in her former home state, but she attempts to scare the family into changing their destionation. Had she not been so selfish, she would not have so clearly noted and remembered that â€Å"The Misfit is aloose from the Federal Pen and headed toward Florida†(O’connor), and therefor would not have clearly recognized him when he stops to help the family later in the story. The Misfit made the decision to kill the family in order to cover his tracks only after the grandmother verbalized that she identified him. Her selfish attitude kept her from realizing that it was likely not in her families best interest to blurt out this realizatioin. It clearly shows that even in the most dire of situatioins no one else’s well being was even close to the forfront of her toughts. The Gandmother’s pattern of selfishness is not cohearent with her claimed Christian ties, and unwittingly led her and her family to be massacred. The politition who claims everyone should be â€Å"green† in order to save the planet but continues to travel in a private jet, The religious leader who preaches meantal purity and is found to have a drug habit, or even the parent who tells their child â€Å"do as I say, not as I do†; hypocracy in all forms has its victims. O’Connor was known to be a devout Roman Cathloic and likely resented people who, like the Grandmother in this story, were good at pretending to be religious but had no actual commitment. Unfortuantly for the Grandmother her first selfless act came to late.