ShantanuT01/DACTYL-Pretraining huggingface dataset:
Introduction The case of Fred Maiorino as presented is mainly an issue of poor employee motivation and an inappropriate management style. Fred had once been the top sale person for his company but through a series of events, he found himself without an income or a job. Fred had joined Schering-Plough in 1956. He made his way to the top by completing a variety of successful assignments mainly in western New Jersey. In 1984, Fred was assigned a new area in South Jersey responsible for promoting the company’s asthmatic products. Fred succeeded in this area also. A medical profession noted that unlike other salesmen, Fred was able to quite effective in his job “he could enter an office and conclude his business in minutes while other sales rep would be sitting in the waiting room for hours on end” (Buller & Schuler, 2003, p. 237). Despite the dynamic nature of the drug industry’s environment, Fred was not only effective but very successful. In 1987, Fred was the best sales representative in his district and was quite successful until he was assigned James Reed as his manager some months later. Reed instituted various management tools that were meant to improve the overall effectiveness of the sales representative. He implemented a new performance rating system and a coaching system that was meant to motivate the employees. This management changes, however, hurt Fred’s ability to produce results. Major Issues The major issue, in this case, is Fred’s lack of motivation which was as a result of several issues that include: Reid’s poor coaching attempts, inappropriate techniques of motivation older workers, the impacts of instituting a performance evaluation system, resistance to change, negative response to pressure, the issue of equity and procedural justice and finally the violation of the psychological contract. Poor Performance Appraisal System and incentives After Reed was made the general sales manager in Fred District, his first order of business was to institute a new performance appraisal system quota system previously used. This new system used two different measures to evaluate the employees’ performance. The first measure was quantitatively objective while the second utilized critical incidents of the sales representative actions as behavioral benchmarks (Buller & Schuler, 2003, p. 241). The company’s rationale for using the behavior anchored rating system was that it was more accurate in evaluating the employee’s performance. It was argued that the bottom line approach of using only the sales results did not take full consideration of other factors important to performance. The BARS system was meant to provide feedback on the strengths and weaknesses of the employees. Under the new system, Fred performance on job competency was high but on the behavioral component, he received a lower rating of good. During the application of this new performance rating system, Fred appeared to be performing very poorly. Under reeds new system, performance goals were set based on historical records. One main problem of the BARS system is that the system is more activity-oriented rathe
Introduction Euro Disney chose variety of appealing themes to its parks and other business entities, the choice encompasses variety of tastes and interests. Disney market opportunity in Europe is considered ripe because of the vast population present, favorable per capita spending and long vacation periods. The complex extension of Disney requires wise choice of markets within various European countries. Their movies represent symbol of American culture which are accepted worldwide without any discrimination (Price, 2000). Disney Corporation is planning to move its operations to other parts of the world because of its diverse services. For the company to compete favourably in these markets it has to come up with workable marketing strategies. The targeted market is in the far- east and Europe specifically Tokyo and Paris. Disney has a burning desire to serve as many cultures as possible all over the world. The Company’s unique sense of creativity and imagination can be well utilized to conform to the culture of both Asia and Europe communities (Burgoyne, 1995). Compare Disney’s Approach in the Japanese and French Markets Disney has been considered successful in Japan as far as international marketing is concerned. This is because it provides the real extension of services from America, the quality of guest service and imagination. It is a pure replica of the American Disney service delivery systems. However, the difference in culture makes it tricky for the penetration of Disney brand of entertainment into Japanese lifestyle. Also the per capita spending in Japan is a bit high since there is clear trend towards leisure and recreation. This is contrary to the French market where leisure is considered a lifestyle and vocational practice. The French market has received support from the well built and connected infrastructure put in place by the French government and further boosted Disney by providing tax incentive. The government built new railway line for the purposes of helping Disney land transport tourists to the Park. Disney built a complex in France that was reflecting more of western American culture; this was contrary to the original idea which was meant to accommodate the preferences of visitors of European origin and certain French cultural requirements (Cateora & Graham, 2006). The approach Disney used in France was meant to target the visitors that had been to United States Disneyland who currently leaves in Europe. The design of the theme
Introduction Robin Chase is known for her business model of Zipcar development. This company was created together with her partner Antje Danielson. Zipcar is considered to be a complex form of car sharing developed by two entrepreneurs, who wanted to help people in owning a car for some occasional purposes, not for constant usage or every day work. Chase and Danielson strived to provide people with “freedom to travel” without any limitations. Main Text Chase started the development of her project with the presentation of the business plan aimed at the attraction of the investors. In September 2000 Chase reached marvelous results in the promotion of her idea among investors and managed to increase funding in many US cities. She had to appoint a person to be the leader of the team and bring credibility to it. They found a man to be the president in order to bring expertise to the team. Zipcar faced great difficulties connected with:   * A great sum of money was spent for too detailed tasks, lunches and parking;   * The president put down to work only on the later-stage company putting no procedures to place. Steps taken by Chase ran like following:   * She decided to cut losses with the help of the advisors meetings and legal counsels;   * Chase had to fire the president of the project who was unable to promote strategies and develop right analytical data. In October 2000 the number of vehicles was completely increased and the cars were widely distributed which allowed to develop new technologies and get additional funding for the company. The potential ventures and the progress made by Chase brought success to Zipcar. Chase managed to raise more than $1 million and began to promote her car sharing on the major markets. She collected all the necessary financial and business data which helped her to understand parameters and principles of company running and business success. Her venture forum was wid
Without doubt, Paul Hendrickson, Bernice McNair Barnett and Danielle L. McGuire assert that Black women made noteworthy contributions to the Civil Rights Movement. As Barnett (163) notes, Black women were at the forefront of formulating tactics and strategies, initiating protests and securing resources such as communication networks, money and personnel that necessitated the success of collective action. These included distinctive women such as Aurelia Browder, Jo Ann Gibson and Viola White among others. Such women formulated strategies and tactics such as declining to ride buses to work to boycott against the segregation laws, “I had stopped riding because I wanted better treatment” (Hendrickson 290). They also refused to give seats to White passengers in buses, “I am not going to move out of my seat…I got the privilege to sit here like anybody” (Hendrickson 294) as a way of initiating protests. In addition, Black women with fair skin also used the sneering strategy; reminding the Whites who thought and treated them as Whites that they were not different from Blacks, “was a member of the darker race” (Hendrickson 293). Conspicuously, Black women such as Mrs. Gilmore formed clubs that sought money to finance the movement (Barnett 168). In addition, they sought after the personnel that the movement required. For instance, the Albany Movement had a woman leader who organized young people to attend demonstrations and meetings (Barnett 168). However, despite their paramount contributions, sometimes more than men “and it was women more than men” (Hendrickson 289), Black women remained invisible in reference to their recognition as leaders in the movement, except for a few such as Rosa Parks. Evidently, Black women were not under any male leaders’ directives, including the most influential male, Martin Luther King, a clear indication that they deserved recognition on their own. The Black women took their own initiatives. This is because they “shared a common desire for freedom from oppression” (Barnet 163) that made them have the courage to start their initiatives without relying on men directives. They were angered by the unjust segregation laws that made them victims of racialism, and unjust treatment by officers and in the public (McGuire 59). Hence, they took their own initiatives because they “wanted better treatment” (290) which they would get if they cooperated with the Black people in the movement. The key factors that left the Black women unrecognized or led to recognition of just a few of them as leaders are class, race and gender biases (Barnet 163). In terms of gender bias, focus on Civil Rights Movement research was on the elite Black male professionals such as Martin Luther King and ministers, not the women. In addition, women were negatively stereotyped as poor, illegitimate and female-headed, thus making them unworthy of recognition as leaders. In reference to race, Feminist scholarship’s focus was on White women activism. In terms of class, there was a middle-class orientation ignoring an
To begin with, upon seeing the title, I immediately thought of the Star Wars movie. The content is very far from the movie though. In general the book is a very helpful and clearly articulated accumulation of the main issues and problems in post-colonial scholarship. Although some scholars call it outdated and too academic, I think it has its historical value and will be used to teach postcolonial literatures for a long time. In this paper I was trying to concentrate on the issues of revision. The notion of revision and the term “reversionary” have been discussed widely, although not theorized, by many feminists and postcolonial critics over the past few years. Harold Bloom is a pioneering critic who has theorized the nature of revisionism by describing it as anxiety, an “anxious expectation” in the Freudian sense (Agon Viii). Revision in the Blooomian model suggests a mediated vision whose agonistic spirit “［contests］ for supremacy, with other spirits, with anteriority, and finally with every earlier vision of itself” (Agon ViiI). However the agonistic fighting that Bloom proposes represents more of “a loving conflict” with previous works than one with the world. Bloom stresses agonistic revisions of texts, not of contexts. Revision is given a pivotal emphasis in the influential work of Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin, The Empire Writes Back, in which they remark that the “ ‘revisioning’ of received tropes and modes…and the rereading of ‘canonical’ texts possess a powerfully subversive textuality, which emerges as the major post-colonial discursive practice” (Empire 194). They argue that revision in a periodic modality has become the preeminent genre for writers of the colonial arena. Allusions to the Western classics and the borrowing of the Western model are not accidental. Those who grow up in colonial cultures are encouraged to imitate their Western fathers (Key 139). Admittedly, the notion of mimicry, in the form of imitation, is effectively combined with the notion of revision of colonial terms. As Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin note, “When colonial discourse encourages the colonized subject to ‘mimic’ the colonizer, by adopting the colonizer’s cultural habits, assumptions, institutions and values, the result is never a simple reproduction of those traits” (Key 139). The result, rather than a mere copy or mockery, is the “blurred copy”, ambivalent and menacing. Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin argue that mimicry is the overt goal of the postcolonial projects. They take V.S. Naipaul’s novel The Mimic Man as an example to illustrate that mimicry is implicit in postcolonial conditions (Empire 88). According to Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffi
Introduction Human resource is the group of individuals who build up the work force of a company, a business or an organization. This is the team that helps steer an organization to success. The human resource department is the division charged with the responsibility of seeing to it that this team is fully effective. It is also expected to maintain a good relationship among employee. Issues causing tension between leaders of an organization and employees are also handled by this department. The department is also charged with other responsibilities such as interviewing, attracting, selecting, training, assessing and hiring employees. This is so as to ensure stable work flow in an organization and also avoid unnecessary delays in line of duty. Workers’ welfare and grievances are also looked into by the department and necessary recommendations made to the management. The human resource department is vital to a business regardless of how big or small the business is (Merkle 2006). This paper seeks to analyze factors affecting the human resource department. The paper will take as its case study human resource departments in New Zealand, a country that was hit by the Christchurch earthquake. This had devastating effects on the native businesses and to the economy at large. The human resource sector was not spared. This is largely due to the massive displacement of population. Recommendations will also be made on possible measures to mitigate these effects. Government efforts in trying to control the situation will also be discussed. Challenges Facing the Human Resource Department Despite its importance to an organization, the department faces numerous challenges. The major problem facing the department is talent shrink (Guyton 2009). As explained earlier, human resource is the actual workforce that drives a company or business. Without talent and skills, dismal performance is likely to be recorded by a business (Mayo 2008). Lack of talent also lowers the level of expertise exhibited by workers in an organization. The Christchurch earthquake forced many people to migrate from their homes and places of work. This caused brain drain with many businesses and companies left with few workers. Work negativity among employees is also a major challenge facing the human resource departments in many companies. Lack of job satisfaction among workers creates negativity. This may also be as a result of unfavourable environmental conditions. Natural disasters such as the Christchurch earthquake instil fear among workers and kill their morale. This fear leads to unfavourable working conditions. This trauma greatly reduces the efficiency of the workers and the businesses’ output. Workers also lose faith in the business’ success since they feel all their hard work would be in vain in case a future disaster destroys the business. Managing demographics has also proved to be a difficult task in the human resource department. This is the inability to balance the population of both young and old in the workforce. The young
Introduction When the fight for freedom had been fought and won, the Americans were finally free from the control of Great Britain. This however came with a new necessity; a new system of governance. The need was informed by the experience of colonization with the biggest concern being wiping out tyrannical leadership. Prior to this, the different states were governed and interconnected with The Articles of Confederation. The articles of Confederation however gave no power to the central government. This autonomous nature of the different states was recipe for confusion and disunity. It was this that made it a necessity to have a document geared towards strengthening central government without compromising the freedom and safety of the states. This led to the drafting of the constitution. This process brought a sharp division of the Americans into two broad categories; those who were for the constitution and those who were opposed to the constitution. The ones supporting the document were referred to as federalist while those who opposed the document were referred to as ant federalist. The federalist believed the document was good while the ant federalists believed the document would not safeguard the interests of the states and of the people therein. Main body There is one thing that the two groups agreed on. The two different groups agreed on the fact that power was being abused. All of them had experienced the war and saw how Britain had violated their freedom. They were both conscious of the fact that there was looming threat for misuse of power unless a solution was realized. The federalists view was that the only sure way to have a lasting solution is through having the new constitution ratified. A constitution that would empower the central government to make it a watchdog for the other states would solve the situation. Wilson argued that it would not be in the best interests of the public to allow power to be in the hands of the legislature unless it was first put down in a legal binding document. This, he said, was the surest way to guard against the abuse of power. The anti-federalists did not subscribe to this school of thought.While they had many concerns that they consistently raised; the major concern for the anti-federalists was the absolute power that had been vested in the central government as proposed in the new constitution. It is this point of view that fueled most subsequent debates before the ratification of the document. They held the view that the giving of power to the congress was dangerous as it would live the states as toothless dogs. Their fear was that the citizens would not be fairly represented by their own government. This was especially so because of the vastness of the land of America. The main idea of having one representative per state did not go well with the anti-
Introduction Nowadays, it became a commonplace practice among many people to refer to the problem of drug-addiction, as one of the most pressing social issues in today’s America. This state of affairs appears thoroughly justified. After all, it does not represent much of a secret that, as of today, just about every large American city features the so-called ‘bad areas’ (believed to be swarmed with drug-addicts), where socially upstanding residents try not to venture, unless absolutely necessary – just as it is being shown in the HBO miniseries The Corner (2000). What adds to the sheer acuteness of the issue in question is that the currently deployed anti-drug policies, mostly concerned with the functioning of America’s justice system, can hardly be deemed very effective. One the reasons for this is that most of these policies do not take into account the provisions of the Ecological Systems Theory EST (developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner), which stresses out the importance of environmental factors of influence, within the context of how people go about constructing their sense of self-identity and choosing in favor one or another behavioral pattern. As Duerden and Witt defined it: “EST proposes that individuals exist within a variety of settings, starting at the individual level and extending outward (e.g., family, work, society, etc.)… (deems) development as a process that involves interactions both within and across contexts” (2010, p. 109). In my paper, I will explore the validity of this suggestion at length, in regards to the themes and motifs, contained in The Corner , while promoting the idea that the realities of a post-industrial living in America call for the reassessment of the very methodological approach to conducting the ‘war on drugs’. Body of the Paper Probably the main reason why The Corner does deserve to be considered utterly insightful, in the sense of how it treats the theme of drug-addiction, is that it exposes the fallaciousness of the assumption that one’s addiction is best discussed within the context of what happened to be the addicted person’s ethno-cultural/racial affiliation. After all, even though most of African
Inditex (Industria de Diseño Textil) Inditex, a global retail specialty, manufactured and sold accessories, footwear and apparel for men, women and children. These products were distributed and sold through Zara and other five chains linked to it in other parts of the world. Inditex was located in Spain and was the owner of Zara and other five apparel retailing chains and was founded by Amancio Ortega Gaona. In 2001, as it was coming to the end of its fiscal year, it had accomplished much. For instance, it had acquired a selling space around the world including Spain, an area of about 659,400 square meters and on it operated 1284 stores. In addition, it generated 54% of total revenue of € 3,250 million in the 515 stores it had outside Spain and showed a continued trajectory of rapid and profitable growth from Zara and its other chains with a net income amounting to €340 million (Ghemawat & Nueno, 2003). Inditex had many employers who worked both in Spain and in other retailing chains outside Spain. Its total number of employees was 26,784 and out this number, 10,919 employees worked in the retail chains located outside Spain. Over 76% of Inditex employees were women and put together with men, they had an average year of 26. Additionally, the company had split its employees to work in different departments and sections. For instance, 8.5% of the employees worked in the distribution, logistics, design and manufacturing departments while over 80% were doing retail sales in the stores. The remaining activities were carried out by the small group that worked in the headquarters. To maintain its operations, Inditex split its capital expenditure giving 80% to new store openings, 10% on maintenance or logistics and another 10% on refurbishing (Ghemawat & Nueno, 2003). Its working capital was higher in some season in the year and lower in others. Therefore, to deal with these issues, it had to come up with plans to tightly manage its working capital and its capital expenditure which was €50-510 million. Also, it ensured that it had opened 230-275 new stores with the capital across all chains. It is important to note that in 2001, Inditex operating economics had involved operating margins of 22%, operating expenses with a revenue equivalence of 30%, of which one half of the 30% were related to personnel, and a gross margin of 52% (Ghemawat & Nueno, 2003). Moreover, Inditex operated six retailing chains at the beginning of 2002. The retail chains were Zara, Oysho, Stradivarius, Bershka, Pull & Bear and Massimo Dutti. These retailing chains formed 60 companies consolidated into Inditex at the group level. The remaining chains were involved in finance, real estates, logistics, manufacturing, and textile purchasing. The net income of Inditex generated 82% from internal transfer pricing and other policies. The six retailing chains were organized as separate business units together with six support areas dealing with raw materials, logistics, manufacturing plant, real estate and so on. In addition to th