Free Essays on Fast Food

You Are What You Eat I feel as though I know a lot about McDonald’s, but I have never sat down in the restaurant and attentively observed the site as a cultural eating environment. I consume McDonald’s and other fast-food products about four times a week, but I always use the ‘drive-thru’ because of its convenience. On a typical Saturday afternoon I entered the McDonald’s restaurant located on Main Street in Binghamton. Immediately after I walked through the glass doors my stomach was rumbling and my taste buds were stimulated. The smell of the restaurant instantly activated my appetite to such proportions that I felt as though I had not eaten in days. I entered the line and I was impressed at the speed and efficiency which with the employees handled the customers’ orders at the register. The line was moving so fast that I did not have enough time to think about what I wanted to eat. When it was my turn to order, the cashier had an expression on her face th at said, â€Å"What is taking him so long to decide what to order?† I felt very rushed and hastily ordered the ‘Big-Mac Meal.’ She then politely asked me if I would like to ‘super-size’ my meal for a quarter more, and I did so because I would have felt guilty for being cheap or just plain rude to the cashier if I said no. My individually wrapped and packaged meal arrived within thirty seconds on a tray. I chose to sit at a table that gave me a wide view of the customers and of the employees working behind the counter. The cashiers were all females in their teenage years, mechanically receiving orders and serving food to keep the line moving at a consistent pace. When the lines became long, the assistant manager, a white male in his mid-20’s, was seen helping out the cashiers. â€Å"How may I help you?† and â€Å"Would you like to super-size your meal?† were questions I repeatedly heard with the same monotonous tone of voic e. I watched little chil... Free Essays on Fast Food Free Essays on Fast Food You Are What You Eat I feel as though I know a lot about McDonald’s, but I have never sat down in the restaurant and attentively observed the site as a cultural eating environment. I consume McDonald’s and other fast-food products about four times a week, but I always use the ‘drive-thru’ because of its convenience. On a typical Saturday afternoon I entered the McDonald’s restaurant located on Main Street in Binghamton. Immediately after I walked through the glass doors my stomach was rumbling and my taste buds were stimulated. The smell of the restaurant instantly activated my appetite to such proportions that I felt as though I had not eaten in days. I entered the line and I was impressed at the speed and efficiency which with the employees handled the customers’ orders at the register. The line was moving so fast that I did not have enough time to think about what I wanted to eat. When it was my turn to order, the cashier had an expression on her face th at said, â€Å"What is taking him so long to decide what to order?† I felt very rushed and hastily ordered the ‘Big-Mac Meal.’ She then politely asked me if I would like to ‘super-size’ my meal for a quarter more, and I did so because I would have felt guilty for being cheap or just plain rude to the cashier if I said no. My individually wrapped and packaged meal arrived within thirty seconds on a tray. I chose to sit at a table that gave me a wide view of the customers and of the employees working behind the counter. The cashiers were all females in their teenage years, mechanically receiving orders and serving food to keep the line moving at a consistent pace. When the lines became long, the assistant manager, a white male in his mid-20’s, was seen helping out the cashiers. â€Å"How may I help you?† and â€Å"Would you like to super-size your meal?† were questions I repeatedly heard with the same monotonous tone of voic e. I watched little chil...

SAT Historical Percentiles for 2005, 2004, 2003

SAT Historical Percentiles for 2005, 2004, 2003 SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips If you took the SAT in 2003, 2004, or 2005, you may be wondering what your percentile score is on the SAT. Is a 1400 on the SAT in 2005 the same percentile score as a 1400 in 2003? Do percentile scores change over time? 2005 was a big year in SAT history; the maximum score for the SAT changed from a 1600 to a 2400 in March of 2005. In March of 2016, the SAT will be going back to the 1600 maximum score. For this post, I will be focusing on percentile scores from before the SAT changed its format in 2005. In this article, I will explain SAT percentile scores, how they change, and I'll provide the percentile scores for SAT composite and section scores for 2005 and 2004. What Are Percentile Scores? Percentile scores reveal how well you did on the test in relation to other people.If you scored in the 90th percentile, you did better than 90% of test-takers. If you got a 40th percentile score, you did better than 40% of the people who took the test. The College Board determines SAT percentile scores annually from the scores of college-bound high school seniors who took the SAT. The higher your percentile score, the better you did relative to other college-bound high school seniors from that year. Do Percentile Scores Change? Typically, percentile scores for equivalent SAT scores stay roughly the same from year to year.For example, a 1400 was the 96th percentile in both 2005 and 2004.However, percentile scores can change very slightly.In 2005, a 1260 was the 85th percentile, but in 2004, it was the 86th percentile. (That's equivalent to about an 1860 on the current SAT.) The SAT does try to use its scoring system so that equivalent SAT scores are indicative of the same skill level and percentile scores regardless of when the test was taken.A 1300 in 2004 should be equivalent to an 1300 in 1984. How Should You Use This Data? Why Is It Important? Your percentile score is the most straightforward way to determine if you got a good or bad score.If you did better than the majority of test-takers, then you did well.However, when you apply to a college, you’re being compared with the other applicants to that school.Most schools publicize their 25th and 75th percentile SAT scores. If you want to be competitive for admission, your target score should be the school’s 75th percentile score. Keep in mind that if you took the SAT in 2003-2005, you probably won’t need your SAT score for college since scores are usually only valid for 5 years. However, a futureemployer may want to know your SAT score. Percentile scores help put your scores in context. A small composite score increase can have a huge impact on your percentile score if you received a middle score. A 1010 is roughly the 46th percentile, but a 1230 is the 82nd. 2003 Percentile Scores I was unable to obtain percentile scores from 2003, but as you’ll see, there is very little variation from year to year. I was able to determine that theaverage Verbal score for 2003 was 507 and the average Math score was 519. Composite Score Percentiles Score 2005 Percentile 2004 Percentile 1600 99+ 99+ 1590 99+ 99+ 1580 99+ 99+ 1570 99+ 99+ 1560 99+ 99+ 1550 99+ 99+ 1540 99 99+ 1530 99 99 1520 99 99 1510 99 99 1500 99 99 1490 99 99 1480 98 99 1470 98 98 1460 98 98 1450 98 98 1440 97 97 1430 97 97 1420 97 97 1410 96 96 1400 96 96 1390 95 95 1380 95 95 1370 94 94 1360 93 94 1350 93 93 1340 92 93 1330 91 92 1320 91 91 1310 90 90 1300 89 89 1290 88 88 1280 87 88 1270 86 87 1260 85 86 1250 84 84 1240 83 83 1230 82 82 1220 80 81 1210 79 80 1200 78 78 1190 76 77 1180 75 75 1170 74 74 1160 72 73 1150 71 71 1140 69 69 1130 67 68 1120 66 66 1110 64 64 1100 62 63 1090 61 61 1080 59 59 1070 57 58 1060 55 56 1050 54 54 1040 52 52 1030 50 50 1020 48 48 1010 46 46 1000 44 45 990 42 43 980 41 41 970 39 39 960 37 37 950 35 36 940 34 34 930 32 32 920 30 30 910 29 29 900 27 27 890 26 26 880 24 24 870 23 23 860 21 21 850 20 20 840 19 19 830 17 17 820 16 16 810 15 15 800 14 14 790 13 13 780 12 12 770 11 11 760 10 10 750 9 9 740 8 8 730 8 8 720 7 7 710 6 6 700 6 6 690 5 5 680 5 5 670 4 4 660 4 4 650 3 3 640 3 3 630 3 3 620 2 2 610 2 2 600 2 2 590 2 2 580 1 1 570 1 1 560 1 1 550 1 1 540 1 1 530 1 1 520 1 1 510 1- 1- 500 1- 1- 490 1- 1- 480 1- 1- 470 1- 1- 460 1- 1- 450 1- 1- 440 1- 1- 430 1- 1- 420 1- 1- 410 1- 1- 400 Section Score Percentiles Before the SAT changed its format in March 2005, the Critical Reading section was known as the Verbal section. The Verbal section included analogies. There were no iPads. Times were different. Critical Reading (Verbal) Score 2005 Percentile 2004 Percentile 800 99+ 99+ 790 99 99 780 99 99 770 99 99 760 98 99 750 98 98 740 98 98 730 97 97 720 96 97 710 96 96 700 95 95 690 94 94 680 93 93 670 91 92 660 90 90 650 88 89 640 87 87 630 84 85 620 82 83 610 80 81 600 78 78 590 75 76 580 72 73 570 69 69 560 66 67 550 63 64 540 60 60 530 56 56 520 52 53 510 49 49 500 46 46 490 42 43 480 39 39 470 35 35 460 32 32 450 29 29 440 26 26 430 23 23 420 20 21 410 18 18 400 15 15 390 13 13 380 12 11 370 10 10 360 8 8 350 7 7 340 6 6 330 5 5 320 4 4 310 3 3 300 3 3 290 2 2 280 2 2 270 2 2 260 1 1 250 1 1 240 1 1 230 1 1 220 1 1 210 1- 1- 200 Math Score 2005 Percentile 2004 Percentile 800 99 99 790 99 99 780 99 99 770 98 99 760 98 98 750 98 98 740 97 97 730 97 97 720 96 96 710 94 95 700 93 93 690 92 92 680 91 91 670 89 90 660 87 87 650 85 85 640 83 84 630 81 82 620 79 79 610 76 77 600 73 74 590 71 72 580 69 69 570 65 66 560 62 62 550 59 60 540 56 56 530 53 53 520 49 50 510 46 46 500 42 43 490 39 40 480 36 36 470 33 33 460 29 30 450 27 27 440 24 24 430 21 21 420 19 19 410 16 16 400 14 14 390 12 12 380 11 11 370 9 9 360 7 8 350 6 6 340 5 5 330 4 4 320 3 3 310 3 3 300 3 2 290 2 2 280 2 1 270 1 1 260 1 1 250 1 1 240 1 1 230 1 1 220 1 1- 210 1 1- 200 What's Next? If you're interested in looking at more recent percentile scores, check out SAT historical percentiles from 2014, 2013, 2012, and 2011. Also, find out if the SAT predicts success and who uses SAT scores. Disappointed with your scores? Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points?We've written a guide about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Employee Assistance Program Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Employee Assistance Program - Essay Example The EAP can be the place where a grieved employee could approach and seek advice on family issues that nag him or her. Also find ways to set right their own thoughts on the happenings in the company; whether these are for the good or the bad. As a matter of fact, the supervisors in the company should encourage EAP and resorting to EAP when behavior of a person is not in line with his usual performances. Since the advice given is from professionals in the trade and they do not cost to the company or to the employee, the EAP will stabilize and produce the expected results over a period of time (Dept of Employee Relations, 2004). One, EAP will be a place where people could go for any of their not so obvious problems. Many times, men and women are bogged down by problems that come out of mental stress. This created either by an event or sometimes by presumptions. One of my friends, who was married for nearly two years, had a kid out of the marriage, suddenly found herself at a loss when her husband died suddenly in an accident. She used to be young and agile. She was a qualified computer programmer but mentally she was shocked at the turn of events. Her own working performance shattered in face of this personal calamity. To make matters worse, the company could not appreciate the reason behind her lack of performance and found that she was not worthy of what they were paying her. She was shunted out of the company nine months after her husband’s death. Jobless and with no heart to hunt for one, kid to take care, she was really in a soup. Good that some of her friends could spend time with her, counsel her and put her slowly back to normalcy. It took almost another year for her to get back to work in full swing and produce results in a different company. Another incident of importance happened with one of my friends. He became an addict; I am not sure what drugs he employed. But it was certainly spoiling his high flying career.

Aviation Safety Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Aviation Safety - Essay Example now and ice plan is in place; adopting new HAMZAT handling/storage and ARFF regulations; proper emergency plan, traffic/wind indicators, self-inspection, and ground vehicle operations management; assuring public protection, NAVAIDS, obstruction, construction and unserviceable; undergoing airport reporting and wildlife hazard management (FAA, 2009). 1. Contracted Airports: The issue of some cash strapped cities selling their airports to private businesses has been in practice for many decades. However, this arrangement won’t hinder an airport from being certified (Wolfe & NewMyer, 1985). That is, a privately managed airport can still receive its certification if all safety precautions and FAA’s requirements have been satisfactorily put in place. Normally, the FAA officials often conduct elaborate inspections on airport facilities before recommending it for certification. For the fact that an airport is being managed by privates businesses doesn’t indicate that the operational safety at the airport would improve more than natural or deteriorate. However, examples in recent years have shown that private owners of airports have invested so much in the airports with hope to make them attractive to passengers, and then make more money from other airport-related services (Wolfe & NewMyer, 1985). 2. Public Safety: Public safety can be simply defined as the processes undertaken by public and private establishments to protect the lives and property of ordinary people. At the airports, there are fire equipment, emergency medical aids staff and information staff to quickly help ordinary people that use the airport every time (Wells & Young, 2004). It is a good idea to have public safety procedures implemented at the airports because this practice would reduce the exposure of passengers to hazards and dangers. 3. Safety versus Security: It may true that there is sometimes an overlap between public safety and security at the airport. However, in a well-planned airport,

Tennessee Williams Essay Example for Free

Tennessee Williams Essay Thomas Lanier, also known as Tennessee Williams, was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American Theatre. Also he wrote essays, short stories, poetry, screenplays, and novels with also a volume of memoirs. Tennessee’s professional career lasted about 45 years until his death in 1983. Williams saw the birth of hundreds of plays that are considered to be classics on the American stage. Tennessee Williams was an important American playwright who tied in his personal life into his writings, and used women over men in his play, and comparing his work to the other authors. Tennessee Williams used events that happened in his personal life to help him with his writings. He used this in his writings by having the characters getting hurt in the plays just like he did. For example in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Maggie becomes increasingly more self-conscious as she is again and again refused by her husband. â€Å"Williams’s objective was to create humane freedom out of the ashes of experience† (Skloot). This is saying that Tennessee Williams is trying to create freedom for everybody through his works, because he does not want people to have to go through what he had to. Another character that gets hurt to show how his life was is Blanche Dubois from A Streetcar Named Desire. She is so opposed of her past that she chooses to invent a history for herself with the intention of subverting reality. â€Å"That of climbing out of an abyss is appropriate in its description of his view of the human condition† (Skloot). Tennessee describes his own situation as a life of clawing and scratching along a sheer surface and holding on tight with raw fingers to every inch of rock higher than the one caught hold of before, but it was a good life because it was the sort of life for which the human organism is created. This is a perfect comparison between the life of Tennessee Williams and Blanche because of Blanche’s past and how she wanted to go back and change it. Williams would tie in his writings about his family life and personal experiences into the works. His sister, Rose, illness may have contributed to his alcoholism and his dependence on various combinations of amphetamines and barbiturates. â€Å"Everything in his life is in his plays, and everything in his plays is in his life† (Loney). In the Glass Menagerie there is a resemblance between Tennessee and the main character, Tom. And he had a disabled sister name Laura and they had a controlling mother named Amanda. This is a mirror image of Tennessee Williams life. William’s father was a heavy drinker and his loudly turbulent behavior caused them to move numerous times around the city. â€Å"Cornelius Williams was a man with a violent tempers, and was prone to use his fist† (Adler). Tennessee Williams used the play Glass Menagerie to show how his father was. The father in the play was very violent and was a drunk. He was mean to his children and his wife. This is also a mirror image of how Tennessee Williams tied used real life events to tie into his writings. Williams loved to have the presence of women over men in his works. The presence of women over men in his works helped him make remarkable plays because he could relate to the women and their life. One of the ways he could relate to them was how women struggled to make relationships with men who are unable or unwilling to make lasting relationships. â€Å"In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Maggie and Brick presumably had a satisfactory sexual relationship early in their marriage. Problems began to develop, however, when Maggie decided that Bricks close friendship with Skipper indicated homosexual tendencies† (Blackwell). this relates to Tennessee because he thought he had found the right partner for him and in the end problems would develop and it would end. This happened a lot in Tennessee Williams relationships. It started from the time he was with one of his first partners, Fred Melton, till the day he died. So Williams did this so he could relate to his personal life. Another reason Tennessee Williams choose to have the presence of women over men in his works was because women who have known happiness, but who have lost their mates and who try to overcome the loss. â€Å"The Princess Kosmonopolis in Sweet Bird of Youth (1959) is an aging actress who has known happiness with a lover and popularity with audiences. After losing both, she failed in a come- back effort as actress and embarked upon a search for another lover who could return her to reality† (Blackwell). This happened to Tennessee Williams almost every time he ended a relationship with his partner. He would fail at a comeback for his lover, and it would fail, and then would go out and find another partner to be with. Women were used more because of the unusual perception of women has let Williams display his talent. Women who have learned to be maladjusted through adjustment to abnormal family relationships which have strived to break through their bondage in order to find a mate. â€Å"Blanche DuBois of A Streetcar Named Desire (1947) was a dutiful child, remaining with her aged parents long beyond the marrying age for most women and later staying behind to try to save the family estate, while her sister, Stella, went out to find her place in the world. Since Blanche had adjusted to an abnormal family life, she was unable, when she had the opportunity, to relate to the so-called normal world of her sister† (Blackwell). Tennessee Williams was like this because he was so caught up in trying to pursue his career as a writer and would always end out of place and couldn’t find hid place in the world. This also happened when he would split from his partner because he was so into the pers on and would be lost when they would split. The last reason why Tennessee Williams choose to use women in his works more than men was because women who have subordinated themselves to a domineering and often inferior person in an effort to attain reality and meaning through communication with another person. â€Å"In Period of Adjustment (1960), Dotty Bates will tolerate insult and abuse from her husband Ralph, so long as their sexual relationship is satisfying† (Blackwell). Tennessee Williams life as a young man was like this. His father was very abusive and insulting to him. But he would be happy if his sexual relationship was satisfying with his partner. Williams’s father abused him for most of his life, and he would talk about that in his writings because he could relate to how if felt and make the audience feel his pain. Tennessee Williams was always listening to what the critics were saying and then would make sure to make his work better. â€Å"His writing had taken a new direction, that he had been developing a new kind of dramaturgy† (Loney). Even though the critics and audience failed to appreciate his new works and the style they were written. After all of this happened he fell into deep depression and had to be hospitalized. And when he was being hospitalized, that caused him to start becoming addicted to amphetamines. But this did not hurt his reputation for being the best American playwright. When he listened to the critics, this placed him up on a pedestal for being a talented playwright, screenwriter, short story writer and a novelist. â€Å"A Streetcar Named Desire, in 1947, secured his reputation as a great playwright† (Loney). This wasn’t the only play he writes that put him to the top of the list for playwrights. Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof also helped him get there. Because of the way the critics reviewed him only helped Tennessee Williams produce better plays. If the critics didn’t do what they did, we might not have the Tennessee Williams that we know today. Tennessee Williams was great at building friendships with other authors. They would help each other with their works. Adrienne Kennedy chose to be a playwright after seeing one of Tennessee Williams works, Glass Menagerie. â€Å"Kennedys fascination with Williams continued, especially with Streetcar† (Kolin). At the time her and Tennessee met, she had become fascinated with his work and ended up basing her work off his. Before they had a relationship with each other, she admits that she was intimidated of him and of his works. When they met, he told her she didn’t have any reason to ad he was there to help her on anything he needed. Adrienne Kennedy eventually used is works as a guideline for her works and then tried to imitate his works. â€Å"She was very much in awe of Tennessee Williams at the time and so I imitated him (Kolin). Before their friendship was started, she attended workshops at a local university on the reflection of Williams plays. She then met him at the Actors studio and their relationship boomed after they left from there. That is what has helped Adrienne Kennedy get to where she is today, by meeting Tennessee Williams. One of the great American playwright, Tennessee Williams, has produced some of the best works we will ever see. Even though his professional career only lasted 45 years, his works are still being used all over the world. Tennessee Williams was an important American playwright who tied in his personal life into his writings, and used women over men in his plays, and he compared his works to the other authors and critics. Williams will always be one the greatest American playwright in history.

Abortion and the Importance of Religion :: Papers

Abortion and the Importance of Religion There is a negative relationship between support for abortion and the importance of religion, while controlling party affiliation. Among males, there is a negative relationship between support for abortion and the importance of religion. Among females, there is a negative relationship between support for abortion and the importance of religion. A person’s religious background greatly influences whether or not they support abortion. When religion plays an important role in someone’s life, they are less likely to support abortion. Most religions strongly disapprove of the taking of someone’s life. They consider it one of the highest sins a human can commit. They believe that abortion is considered murder because even a fetus has a spirit so it shall be considered a living human. When religion plays a less important role in a person’s life, they are more likely to support abortion. These people are more likely to consider reasons for the abortion rather than never permitting it. These people tend to look at the women and why she is requesting the abortion. They are less likely to consider a fetus a living being until it is born. The first hypothesis indicates that the higher the importance of religion is to a person the less supportive they would be of abortion, with regards to that persons political party affiliation. The party in which a person identifies with will have a direct effect on the link between support for abortion and the importance of religion. Political parties, as well as a persons religious background, play a major role in attitudes towards different issues. By nature, democrats are more likely to approve abortion than republicans. A person’s religious background usually has an effect on which party they associate themselves with. Therefore, there must be a link between a person’s party affiliation, religious background, and their support of abortion. The second and third hypotheses indicate that gender has an effect on support for abortion based on their religious beliefs. I believe that men are less likely to approve abortion than women because of the women’s’ movement that has been going on for years. Many women are more apt to approve of the idea of pro-choice. They want to decide what is best for them, not some politician in Washington, D.C. A 90’s women is more independent than say a 50’s women. They are battling for women’s rights. Abortion is a very controversial issue which directly effects women’s rights. I believe that

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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Journal Title: Frontiers – A Journal of Women’s Studies. Volume: 26. Issue: 2. Page Number: 206. Hamza Ates, 2004, Management as an Agent of Cultural Change in the Turkish Public Sector. Journal Title: Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. Volume: 14. Issue: 1. Page Number: 33. Books Daniel Denison, 2001, Managing Organizational Change in Transition Economies. Contributors: Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 37. Daniel Denison, 2001, Managing Organizational Change in Transition Economies. Contributors: Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Mahwah, NJ. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 37. Raymond T. Butkus, Thad B. Green, Motivation, 2001, Beliefs and Organizational Transformation. Publisher: Quorum Books. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 2001. Page Number: 68. Journals Ashford, S.J., and L. L. Cummings. 1984. â€Å"FeedbaCk as an Individual Resource: Personal Strategies of Creating Information.† Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 32: 370-398. Barney, J. B. 2001. â€Å"Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage.† Journal of Management 17:99-120. Druckman, D., Singer, J., and Van Cott, H. (eds.), Enhancing Organizational Performance, 1997 Collins, P., G. Hage, and F. Hull. 2000. â€Å"Organizational and Technological Predictors of Change in Automaticity.† Academy of Management Journal 31: 512545. Frohman, A., â€Å"Igniting Organizational Change From Below: The Power of Personal Initiative,† Organizational Dynamics, 2002. Kotter, John P. 1996. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Morris, J., Cascio, W., and Young, C., â€Å"Downsizing after All These Years: Questions and Answers about Who Did It, How Many Did It, and Who Benefited From It,† Organizational Dynamics, 2001 Passmore, W., and Woodman, R. (eds.), Research in Organizational Change and Development, 2001 Pettigrew, A., Massini, S., and Numagami, T., â€Å"Innovative Forms of Organizing in Europe and Japan,† European Management Journal, 2000 Walston, S., Bogue, R., and Schwartz, M., â€Å"The Effects of Reengineering: Fad or Competitive Factor,† Journal of Healthcare Management, 1999 Whittington, R., Pettigrew, A., Peck, S., Fenton, E., and Conyon, M., â€Å"Change and Complementarities in the New Competitive Landscape: A European Panel Study, 1992-1996,† Organization Science, 2004.

Operations Management and the Demise of Best Buy Essay

BEST BUY This project will discuss the inventory methods, customer service, and overall operations of Best Buy and how through better operations management the company can be operated. We will use examples from the text book, class discussion and group discussion. We will also consult with trade journals and internet articles. Overview: Best buy was founded in 1996 in Richfield, Minnesota by Richard Schulze as an electronic specialty store. The company has gained 19% of the consumer electronics sales market. Best buy operates over 1150 stores worldwide and has several different brands and subsidiaries including Geek Squad, Magnolia audio video and Best express. Best buy has generated over 40 billion dollars in revenues in North America, 3 billion in Europe and 1.5 billion in China. Best buy experienced great revenues when its rival Circuit city went out of business and did very well up until the economic downturn of 2008 and 2009. Problems and current situation: The company continues have to have fierce competition from Verizon, ATT, Apple Wal-Mart and most importantly â€Å"Amazon†. The completion for customers is only getting fiercer with the online retailers like Amazon continues to take more and more market share away room Best Buy. Downfall of Best Buy: Why is best buy going out of business now? In one sense Best Buy is its own worst enemy; there has been number of issues with best buy. Some of the stated issues are: 1. Poor product knowledge and lack of product availability: For example at the beginning of the semester I wanted to buy a new laptop. I went to the Best Buy closest to the school and I knew what I wanted and how much I was willing to pay. I had research the Best Buy website and found it  online but did not have time or patience to wait. So I went to the store and they did not have the laptop I wanted. I found a similar laptop that performed just as well but it’s not what I wanted. 2. Higher prices: Best Buy cannot compete on price any longer and the customers know this full and well. For example if you found the attest technology gadget in best buy for 100 dollars and online for 75 dollars, where would you buy all thing being equal. Of the answer is you would buy it online. Especially if it’s a product you are familiar with. This only makes Best Buys show rooming problem even worse. 3. Poor Customer satisfaction: Satisfying a customer is a major key to make business, but best buy seems loosing this key. Some recent surveys show that Best Buy has been doing its best to leave the troops unhappy. Major factors for this are the higher prices, poor customer service, and lack to inventory management. In this era of Cut-Throat Competition, Best buy is losing its grip in the electronic market. Corporation like Amazon, eBay are spreading its business very fast leaving no scope of mistake for its competitors. Best buy has lacks product for display in there show rooms, says my personal experience. Entering the stores and unable to spot the latest products of high end American brands like apple, doesn’t impress anyone. Specially, when you have the access to all kind of electronic product on websites like Amazon that too with all kind of technical details. Best Buy need to develop its inventory management so as to display and deliver products to their customers on time. Focusing the blunders where company made apologies to thousands of customers for not delivering products for Christmas which were orders on thanks giving, Best buy’s reputation is in jeopardy Another trouble which Best Buy is facing is – it is unable to provide a free home delivery unlike Amazon and EBay. Also these online websites provides facilities like picking the product from the customer’s place if the customer wishes to return the order. This has deprived Best Buy from a huge crowd to potential customers. There is a severe need that best buy should make some strategies to develop a system of free home delivery. One more factor which bothers most to a lay man is paying high prices. Best Buy must work out some plans to compete online websites and also some emerging electronic store which intend to sell  products keeping low margin money. Serving the customer in better way seems like a past policy of Best Buy. When a company’s customer experience starts to drop, it’s time to sell the stock. I’m afraid that may have happened at Best Buy, especially when I look at their new customer satisfaction surveys. Moments when the customer representative have no clue to the technical aspect of the product has become common. May be some training sessions for the CR’s may come out fruitful. Dominant trends are consistently conspiring against their business model; Best Buy must accept this fact. Out of which buying products from your house sitting on a couch, interests every customer. Moreover the innovative high graphic design and sophisticated virtual display of product is making things work better for online sellers and buyers but a hard nut for companies like best buy. Best buy has been trying aggressively to flourish its market in places like UK, China and may be, this has led Best Buy to get distracted from its home ground of performance. Seems like its high time for Best buy to re-engineer its business module and work hard on customer satisfaction sector. (Sources: American Customer Satisfaction Index and Devil’s Advocate Group analysis) Many store focus on customer service, but Best Buy does not care. According to â€Å"http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Buy† Best Buy one of the lowest customer rating on customer service. I myself had a bad experience when I bought a Dell laptop on Best Buy online. The laptop will crash (blue screen) when I use more than 30 minutes. First, I thought the software I tried to find the problem, but not found anything. When it crashed too many times, I decided to restore the Windows. It still crashed then I decided to exchange the laptop at Best Buy Saugus (close to my house). I met a lady there then explained the problem. After that she took my laptop to test. When she came back she refused to accept laptop return. She told me there was nothing wrong on that laptop. I told her I cannot use that laptop it crashed if I use more than 30 minutes. I had used that laptop for 5 days and the return policy is 15 days (now change to 30 days), so I can exchange. She replied if I want to return and exchange I have to pay 15 percent restocking fees. I asked her why, she replied because I returned a good laptop. I kept explaining her about the laptop problem, but she did not listen to me then she called another customer â€Å"Next customer†. I was very  angry. 4. Lack of Employee’s Knowledge and the use of technology: Best Buy has sufficient number of employees to serve the crowd of customers. Majority of the best buy’s employee does not have the best convincing power at first glance. They employees do not have sufficient knowledge about the product and are not updated with the updating of technology. From my personal experience I found that some of the employees do not have sufficient knowledge about the products. I went there to buy an Apple Mac Book Pro. I had used apple products since a long time so I asked them some technical queries. And out of my 7 queries they were able to solve only 4 of my queries, and on asking about the rest they replied me that we are extremely sorry but we do not have an answer for this. Then I went to apple store and placed the same 7 queries on their desk and I got the solution for all my 7 queries. The department also faces problems of over stock and out of stock of materials. Best buy is also not updated with the technology of automatic request of placing orders. There are problems when the materials go out of stock and the customer is in need to that particular material only. Being a competitive world the customer won’t wait for couple of days to get that material from best buy instead would go to any other store and get that material. These problems can be solved if technologies are used to a good extent. Comparing Wal-Mart and best buy Wal-Mart uses an automatic re-order technique for all its materials. For example: 100 counts of chips are ordered and the details are placed in their database. As the counts of the chips from their database go below 30 the system automatic places a re-order of 100 counts of chips. Using this way they never face an over stock and out of stock problems. The database is up to date with the latest entries of the inventories. 5. Inventory management: On the management side of the company it has big problems with its inventory management as well as its compensation policy. Best buy was very slow to enter the online market and has not done well in making its website very good. The company inventory system should change to a more perpetual inventory similar to Wal-Mart. And it should have a compensation system based on good sales as well as good service. A better Human resource policy based on production would better serve the company. The company must  also find a way to capture the customer in the store and not has the customer use the store as testing center to later buy over the internet. The company has failed to make this happen; better sales training as well as customer service training could offset this. Additionally Best has got to rid of selling DVD’s, and CD’s. They are taking up way to much space in the stores and they are selling fast enough due to them being obsolete. The company has tried to change this buy opening Best Buy mobile stores in shopping malls similar to cell phone providers. This has reduced cost associated with operating the big box store that best buy has been known for. This also reduces square footage to help in making the company more profitable. If they can continue to use this placement strategy they might be able to save the company. All in all this improvements may help the company in the short term. In the long term Amazon will prevail and put Best Buy out of business. 6. Online- a bad decision: Nowadays, the numbers of customers shopping online increase significantly. It is more convenience save time and money. Many retailers are focusing on Online shopping including Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, Sear, Home Depot, Loews, Amazon, Newegg, and so on. Many Online stores do much better than Best Buy. Best Buy Online has many weaknesses including: shipping fees, price management, inventory management, and customer service. Best Buy does not care much about shipping fees. The shipping fees is too expensive if compare to other stores. For example, If I want to buy Number Hunt (baby toy), it cost $10.50, plus shipping $6.14, and plus tax $0.65. Total cost would be: $10.50 + $6.14 + $0.65 = $17.29 If I buy three Number Hunt, Best Buy will charge the shipping fee three times ($6.14 x 3 = $18.42). The total for three Number Hunt would be $51.87. If I buy from Amazon it costs $9.99 plus $4.99 shipping. Total $9.99 + $4.99 = $14.98. If I buy three Number Hunt, Amazon will not charge shipping free because the total over $25.00. The total for three Number Hunt would be $9.99 x 3 = $29.97. This example ( $51.87 VS $29.97) show me that Best Buy online store cannot compete with big online stores like Amazon.com or Newegg.com at all. Best Buy should talk to shipping companies to get the same shipping deal like Amazon or Newegg otherwise Best Buy will become a showroom. Another problem, Best Buy Online  has to compete with other retail store like Wal-Mart, Target, Sear, Kmart, Home depot, Loews and so on. The small stuff like toy customers most likely would buy from Walmart.com, because the price always cheaper than Best Buy and Wal-Mart charge flat rate shipping. It means whether customers buy one or five items they pay the shipping for the first item only. Whey Best Buy charge every single item? Best Buy has price match policy to compete with other stores, but the policy does not work on Best Buy Online. Best Buy has small AT&T in side and an Apple retail store. If customers want to buy I-phone 5 in store, Best Buy will sell to contract customers only. On other hand, customer can buy an I-Phone 5 without contract on Best Buy Online. It costs $699.00 ($50 more expensive that Apple Store). Why Best Buy sell $50 more expensive than Apple store? On customer point of view, it does not make any scene to buy an I-Phone 5 without contract form Best Buy Online at all. That problem make customers decide to shop at Apple directly rather than via Best Buy Apple store. Best Buy Online does not have a good inventory management to manage the inventory. Many customers could not receive what they order, because Best Buy Online does not have in their warehouse to ship. Here a quote from resellerratings.com â€Å"awful. Service was bad, rude, and nasty. Didn’t have the product I wanted and told me they did. I had to wait 2 weeks to get it. I called and they said, there was nothing they could do. The entire district was out. That is awful inventory management to let 15 stores go out of a product. Will not be shopping here again† Sometimes there are plenty order items in the local Best Buy Store, but Best Buy local stores could not ship the item that was order on Best Buy Online. It is not a good business practices. Best Buy should allow local store to ship the item if Best Buy Online warehouse run out of stock to keep the customers happy and get the item that they ordered. Another alternative solution, Best Buy could adopt just on time inventory management to manage the inventory. If Best Buy wants to survive and be a best place to buy electronic product online, they should implement the shipping fees, price management, inventory management, and customer service. Best Buy Online has lost many customers. If the customers keep leaving Best Buy Online like that Best Buy Online would be out of business like Circuit City. It is not too late, but the implementation should take an action soon. Conclusion: In conclusion we feel that Best Buy would have to make a huge investment in operations management, training, inventory management and customer service to turn around the company. We feel collectively the end of Best buy is coming soon due to the above factors and more importantly the online retailers. Because of the deficiencies in Best Buy the company will not be able to recover from its flaws. We feel that the consumer will continue to use the Best Buy for showroom purposes and then buy online. The investment in time and dollars needed to change the company will not be worth it in the long run References: www.amazon.com www.newegg.com www.walmart.com http://www.resellerratings.com/store/Best_Buy www.bestbuy.com www.seekingalpha.com http://www.customerthink.com http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/01/18/best-buy http://www.heartofthecustomer.com http://storefrontbacktalk.com/e-commerce

Gibe, Gybe, Jibe, and Jive

Gibe, Gybe, Jibe, and Jive Gibe, Gybe, Jibe, and Jive Gibe, Gybe, Jibe, and Jive By Maeve Maddox The verbs gibe, gybe, jibe and jive all begin with the sound [j] and are often confused. gibe (verb): to taunt, to insult. Example: â€Å"If he laughed instead of cried when someone  gibed  at him, often the  teasing stopped.†Ã‚   gibe (noun): a sneering comment, a taunt. Example: â€Å"The  teasing, taunts,  gibes  and hurtful acts are a part of me still.† gybe (verb): (sailing term) to shift suddenly and with force from one side to the other when a ship is steered off the wind until the sail fills on the opposite side. Alternative spelling: jibe. Examples: â€Å"As Phil slipped overboard, the  boom gybed.† â€Å"A gust of wind caught their  sail, the  boom jibed, nearly knocking Mr. Snider overboard.† jibe (verb): to make sense, to agree with, to fit in. Example: â€Å"The latest research findings jibe with those recorded in 1934.† The noun jive has these three meanings: 1. a type of fast, lively jazz Weve been wanting to  play Jive  since the band first started. 2. lively and uninhibited dancing. He doesnt quite bounce around like a rubber band during his jive, but does good enough to notch a 7-7-7. 3. talk or conversation, especially talk that is false, misleading, or worthless. It’s time to cut the jive and tell the truth. As a verb, jive can mean to play lively music or to dance to lively music. Example: They spaced each other about four feet apart and  were jiving  to the music. The verb jive can also mean, â€Å"to mislead or deceive.† Maybe the narcs  were jiving  him, maybe  they were  going to shoot him in the back. I searched his eyes for some clue that  he was jiving me. He wasnt.   The most common errors with these words are to spell gibe as jibe and to use jive in the sense of jibe. Here are some examples of misuse from the Web: Incorrect: Arizona Prison Privatization Proposal Doesnt Jive with Market Correct : Arizona Prison Privatization Proposal Doesnt Jibe with Market Incorrect:  But  my opinion  about that  doesnt jive  with everyone elses opinion.   Correct :  But  my opinion  about that  doesnt jibe with everyone elses opinion.   Incorrect: If your child is hurling his own silly  jibes at  the teaser, then its a mutual thing. Correct : If your child is hurling his own silly  gibes at  the teaser, then its a mutual thing. Incorrect: Put-downs, slurs, jibes, and innuendo of all kinds are never purposeless or harmless. Correct : Put-downs, slurs, gibes, and innuendo of all kinds are never purposeless or harmless. The Oxford English Dictionary validates the nonstandard use of jive in the sense of jibe as â€Å"U.S.† usage, but Merriam-Webster Unabridged (notorious for its tendency to embrace all types of questionable usage) does not. The only definition M-W offers for jibe is â€Å"to be in accord.† Its only definitions for the verb jive are related to music, misleading talk, and teasing. Two other much-cited American authorities are careful to distinguish between gibe and jibe: The Chicago Manual of Style A gibe is a biting insult or taunt; gibes are figuratively thrown at their target â€Å"The angry crowd hurled gibes as the suspect was led into the courthouse.† Jibe means to fit, usually with negation â€Å"The verdict didn’t jibe with the judge’s own view of the facts.† The AP Stylebook To gibe means to taunt or sneer: â€Å"They gibed him about his mistakes.† Jibe means to shift direction: â€Å"They jibed their ship across the wind.† or, colloquially, to agree: â€Å"Their stories didn’t jibe.† Summary The sailing term may be spelled either gybe or jibe. The latter is more common in US usage. The verb that means â€Å"to agree† or â€Å"to fit† is spelled jibe. The noun and verb that convey taunting are spelled gibe. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:"Based in" and "based out of"Best Websites to Learn EnglishDrama vs. Melodrama

Grounded Theory -- Definition and Overview in Sociology

Grounded Theory Definition and Overview in Sociology Grounded theory is a research methodology that results in the production of a theory that explains patterns in data, and that predicts what social scientists might expect to find in similar data sets. When practicing this popular social science method, a researcher begins with a set of data, either quantitative or qualitative, then identifies patterns, trends, and relationships among the data. Based on these, the researcher constructs a theory that is grounded in the data itself. This research method differs from the traditional approach to science, which begins with a theory and the seeks to test it through the scientific method. As such, grounded theory can be described as an inductive method, or a form of inductive reasoning. Sociologists  Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss popularized this method in the 1960s, which they and many others considered an antidote to the popularity of deductive theory, which is often speculative in nature, seemingly disconnected from the realities of social life, and may, in fact, go untested. In contrast, the grounded theory method produces a theory that is based on scientific research. (To learn more, see Glaser and Strausss 1967 book,  The Discovery of Grounded Theory.) Grounded Theory Grounded theory allows researchers to be scientific and creative at the same time, as long as the researchers follow these guidelines: Periodically step back and ask questions.  The researcher needs to step back once in a while and ask the following questions: What is going on here? Does what I think I see fit the reality of the data? Data does not lie, so the researcher needs to make sure their own ideas about what is happening matches what the data is telling them, or the researcher may need to alter their idea of what is going on.Maintain an attitude of skepticism.  All theoretical explanations, hypotheses, and questions about the data should be regarded as preliminary, whether they come from the literature, experience, or making comparisons. They should always be checked out against the data and never accepted as fact.Follow the research procedures.  Research procedures (data collection, analysis, etc.) are designed to give precision and accuracy to a study. They also help the researcher break through biases and lead him or her to examine some of his or her assumptions that might otherwise be unrealistic. Therefore, it is important that the correct research procedures are followed so that an accurate conclusion is reached. With these principles in mind, a researcher can construct a grounded theory in eight basic steps. Pick a research area, topic, or population of interest, and form one or more research questions about it.Collect data using a scientific method.Look for patterns, themes, trends, and relationships among the data in a process called open coding.Begin to construct your theory by writing theoretical memos about the codes that emerge from your data, and the relationships among codes.Based on what you have discovered so far, focus on the most relevant codes and review your data with them in mind in a process of selective coding. Conduct more research to gather more data for the selected codes as needed.Review and organize your memos to allow the data and your observations of them to shape an emergent theory.Review related theories and research and figure out how your new theory fits within it.Write your theory and publish it. Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

Discussion Replies Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 5

Discussion Replies - Essay Example From this, we can conclude that change in political process and technology is having and will continue to have a considerably impact on war affairs and principles which might result to its revolution. Since ancient times, principles of war have been defined to as a set of guidelines that aids the military in making decisions while in the battle field. Although these principles are still being applied, they have been considerably revolving due to changing technology and the way people carry out warfare currently. For instance research conducted recently by the united research center showed that changing nature of war, especially in the Middle East, is generating a corresponding change in tactics and patterns the military are using so as to archive their objective.( Claus, 2003) According to another research it was outlined that the principles that are revolving and are most likely to change in the future include the principle of simplicity, chase, and unity of command. This is due to advancement in technology that forces the military to change their tactics and patterns. (Knock, 2001) However, despite the fact that these principles might change, it is unlikely that new principles will be developed. This is due to the fact that existing principle have been proven to be most efficient and effective during warfare and only slight adjustment are needed for it to fit in any generation. Conclusively, war will never be absolute because disagreements among states will always exist and insurgents will never stop propagating it until the day they archive their selfish strategies and goals. The only things that might change is the approach in which the military or States will be using during war fare. Also advancement in technology will force the military to modify the already existing principles so as to archive their set objective effectively. In the first post

Human population Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Human population - Essay Example He claims in his lecture that even in 1960 when world population was 3 billion, 2 billion was made up by the developing world and 1 billion was made up by the industrialized world. This highlights the need to work on living conditions of the poorest to control population control. Jackley also stresses on the need to improve the lives of poor people to control population and poverty, both of which are very serious issues. Microfinancing is one way to do that which is about lending small amounts of money to people who are faced with really tight financial conditions. Even a little amount of capital can bring enormous changes. Jackley has witnessed herself that only an amount of $100 can change the entire business trajectory of a suffering person in a country like Kenya or Uganda. Dr. Ehrlich also comments in a video that it is impossible to have a good future without stabilizing world population. So many horrible famines have already struck countries like China and India in the 70s due to