Strategic Management Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Strategic Management - Assignment Example Starbucks purchases Fair Trade coffee. This arrangement helps local farmers by guaranteeing a minimal price of $1.26 per pound of wholesale coffee. It also provides them with technology transfers and access to financial assistance such as short term loans to finance the crops of Coffee. Starbucks believes in the value of implementing wellness programs to help out different stakeholder groups including customers, suppliers, and employees. Starbucks purchased 269 million pounds of coffee in 2010; 84% of its purchases came from C.A.F.E. Practices approved suppliers (Starbucks, 2011). The Starbucks stores are designed to save as much energy as possible through the acquisition of superior technology and innovative processes. Water conservation is another practice that Starbucks Cafe practices. The average American uses more than 6 times more water per year than the average African. The company supports social causes such as world hunger and the AIDS/HIV epidemic. The company refers to its employees as baristas. The baristas are supposed to help the company create the â€Å"Starbucks Experience.† The wastage that Starbucks stores produce is minimized through the implementation of its recycling program. The implementation of the firm’s recycling program is customized per store since it is dependent on the availability of existing recycling programs in the community. # 2--Week 3 Discussion Question 2 A company is constantly in the news due to its dominance of the retail marketplace is Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is the most successful retail store in the history of the United States. The company creates value by offering products at lower prices than the competition. The firm has a superb supply chain that allows the company to source products at lower costs. The company also uses bulk purchasing to achieve savings. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest employer with over 2.1 million employees worldwide (Walmart, 2011). The competitive advantage the company enjoy s is composed of a variety of factors which include: better customer service, lower prices, superb marketing, size of product offering, and superior locations. The firm offers over one million products to its customers. Wal-Mart is a multinational corporation that is publicly traded in the NYSE that operates in 28 countries. My employer does business in the United States solely. The core strategy used by Wal-Mart of beating the competition in terms of price is not aligned with the strategy the company I work for uses. My employer uses a differentiation strategy to attract customers. The products and services offered by my employer are unique, which is contrary to Wal-Mart’s strategy of offering common household products. An attribute or characteristics that both Wal-Mart and my employer share is a commitment towards customer service. A second characteristic that both companies share is the existence of an e-commerce operation. Wal-Mart has an online store that sell is product s to the entire global customer base. The e-commerce operation my employer uses differs in that the company focuses only on the domestic marketplace. # 3-- Week 3 Discussion Question 3 People eat outside their homes more often when the economy is doing well and their disposable income is higher. During bad economic times upper level restaurants are hurt more than cheap products. The industry leader in the fast food industry, McDonald’s, achieved global sales of $24 billion and $4.94 billion in net income

The rule system Essay Example for Free

The rule system Essay Looking beyond the biological argument the debate carries on through two propositions of how children acquire and produce grammar: single and dual route theory (Mareschall et al. 2006).  Childrens inflectional morphology follows a curved pattern which begins with correct application of outer layers; for example adding ed at the end of a word indicates the past tense. Inflections then become disrupted as grammatical rules are over generalised producing common errors such as goed. With experience children then seem able to apply regular and irregular forms of various tenses with ease. This pattern of development is called the U-shape (Plunkett and Wood, 2006). A conventional account for this process is that infants simply memorise the correct formation and as they discover grammatical rules they over apply them creating mistakes, then as the rules become more robust they eliminate the over-regularisations and adopt the correct format for nouns and verbs (Plunkett and Wood, 2006) The competing theories differ in their account of how the memorisation and inflection process leads to the U-shape pattern of development (Plunkett and Wood, 2006).  Dual route theory has traditionally been associated with nativists such as Pinker (1988). The theory suggests that there is a memory system working in conjunction with a rule system. These two cognitive systems are activated when an individual attempt to inflect a word (Plunkett and Wood, 2006). The memory system, which they suggest keeps a record of all the irregular and most common inflections (Plunkett and Wood, 2006 p.182) is firstly consulted in an attempt to retrieve the appropriate formation. The rule system, which uses common rules of language to add endings to word stems, is simultaneously consulted to retrieve the appropriate ending. Should the memory system be successful in its search the rule system is prevented from proceeding (Plunkett and Wood, 2006). The dual route theory explains the U-shape as a result of the memory system failing to retrieve the correct inflection and thus liberating the rule system producing an over-regularisation. With experience rare inflections are then solidified producing fewer errors. The empiricist version lies with the single route theory which is supported by connectionist models who developed the same U-shape pattern of development and also learned plural inflections before past tense inflections (Plunkett and Wood, 2006, p.184) as infants do.  The theory holds that regular and irregular inflections are produced by a single system that stores all of the inflections in the language (Plunkett and Wood, 2006, p.183). Whilst connectionist networks can only serve as an indication of how credible  a theory is and not how such a process might occur, it is nevertheless a good reinforcement.  Single route theory proposes that the higher the numbers of inflections are stored in the memory the more intense the competition gets for memory space  resulting in what is known as the interference effect. This effect results in words with similar phonological sounds being confused. Another connectionist model produced by Rumelhart and McClelland (1987) lent support to this theory. The first few verbs fed into the network were successfully conjugated but as more were introduced so the competition for network resources intensified and resulted in over-regularisation. Then through further training irregular verbs became engraved and mistakes diminished (Plunkett and Wood, 2006). Other empiricists such as Marchman (1997) have produced evidence that favours single route theory by carrying out research that supports the prediction of which type of errors children are likely to produce. Marchman found that irregular verbs with many enemies were more likely to have {add/ed/} wrongly used as their past tense form than verbs that had few regular verb enemies also irregular verbs that had highly frequent past tense forms were less likely to be given the regular past tense endings than those verbs whose past tense form was rare (Plunkett and Wood, 2006, p.187), this adheres to the single route theory. Further support has been produced by cross-linguistic researches. Dual route theory serves as an efficient means for highly regular languages such as English. However for other languages such as German this is not the case nor is it valid for any language that has multiple ways of forming a tense. Chomskys Universal Grammar theory was challenged by Tomasello (2000) who suggested a distributional explanation for childrens understanding of syntax. His approach places verbs in a prominent position as they place important constraints on utterances (Plunkett and Wood, 2006). Rather than memorising all utterances Tomasello suggests analogy; a partial remembrance of some utterances that are later adapted as prototypes for new utterances (Plunkett and Wood, 2006). Early diary studies support this view. Brain (1963) made observations on his son through this early technique and observed that some words, which he called Pivot words only occurred in one position whilst Open words moved around freely. During the process of learning syntax, pockets of knowledge are formed; these then broaden allowing one another to influence each other creating grammatical regularities. According to the distributional approach the explanation for recovering from over-generalisation is that as the pockets of knowledge become more robust they develop an ability to isolate which in turn reduces errors that may of occurred through either the inappropriate extension of a pocket of grammatical knowledge or an attempt to resolve conflict between pockets of grammatical knowledge (Plunkett and Wood, 2006, p.196). Researchers such as Fodor and Karmiloff-Smith were a good representation of opposing views on brain modules. On balance the empirical evidence supports the epigenetic view of modularisation a process by which genes and the environment work together to create self organisation (Karmiloff-Smith, 1992). Neuroscience further supports a view in between nativists and empiricist, whilst they are able to produce evidence that the brain is capable of supporting language in other areas it is  unmistakable that damage to left hemisphere (the seat of language) can severely effect language development. How children acquire and produce grammar is debated  through single and dual route theory. Empirical evidence has given greater support to the single route theory which does not deny elements of nature but also incorporates  nurture. Connectionist networks are becoming a common method to test theories and have been used to lend support to many language theories such as the distributional approach. Children through out the world inevitably learn their mother tongue whether it be by speech or sign (Karmiloff-Smith, 2002). What is substantive is whether this is due solely to operant conditioning of caregivers or to an innate principle of universal grammar. In view of the evidence presented in this paper it seems implausible that language can develop without the presence of both nature and nurture as Bruner (1983) conveys; we shall make little progress if we adhere either to the impossible account of extreme empiricism or to the miraculous one of pure nativism. (Bruner 1983, P. 10).

The Theory Of Media Richness

The Theory Of Media Richness To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in a way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. Anthony Robbins. Electronic mail is a method of exchanging digital message from sender to receiver. Email plays an important role in business today and has become a basic necessity in any organization just like paper and ink. It is been used by many as an all-encompassing collaboration platform than a simple communications tool. According to P.K McBride (2006), World Wide Web is an ever- growing aspect of internet with billions of web pages. Workers are given unrestricted access to the Web, allowing them to manage their own research. It provide facility to copy, reply or forward messages like document and graphical files to the sender or to the third party. Effective transfer of messages and informations within the organization and between top managers and employees is very essential for the betterment of company. Email is the most commonly used electronic messaging service. Smartphone which includes email as basic feature has increased accessibility of email. It influence mobile technology, email has a major impact on business, marketing, medical field and banking. The purpose of this essay is to evaluate Email as communication tool in personal and organizational level. However, this essay firstly define email and its use in organization along with different use of theories for email communications and which include Information overload Social cues Media richness theory Critical social theory Controlling effect From above all the theories, Media Richness Theory is the most effective for business communication as it deals with symbol carrying capacity which refers to face-to-face communication and which is a must for any organization to success and build relationships. This essay focuses on people attitude towards communications and its implementations in work place with respect to Media Richness theory. Essay explains employees use of email and mobile communication for their personal and organizations purpose and how Computer-Media Communications plays an important role in it. Advantages and disadvantages of the theory are specified with example of BlackBerry and Android. In the end, my own experience of use of mobile email communication is explained in relation to my personal email diary found in the appendix. Implementation of theory and Email communication. Communication helps coordinate and effective control resulting in clear understanding, good production and healthy climate for cooperation among the various levels. Both for personal as well as organizational use, email have become a part of our everyday lives from communicating with friends, for new job application. Most services on internet whether its social networking or professional ask for email address before using their service. According to Mullins (2010: 230), Email has some emotions woven creatively to encapsulate feelings through signs and symbols. It has many advantages like free communication between social groups and in organization which involves communication with employees, clients as well as potential customers. Email help maintain records and archive of business transaction, rechecking past information, file repository, contracts which could be recovered later. It help have a record of your clients database and act as a address books which has all the important co ntacts that could be conveniently retrieved anytime. The portable gadgets like mobile phones and laptops are able to send and receive emails and help manage your business even if you are travelling or in another part of the world. The communication tool for evaluating email could be best explained by Media Richness Theory by Richard L. Daft and Robert H. Lengel. According to them it is a frame work to describe a communications medium by its ability to reproduce the information sent over it. It helps understand the impact of different communication media type on message and help reduce ambiguity of communication through proper selection of communication media. It comes from Computer -Media Communication (CMC) and is often associated with business communication by Newburry (2001). Sitkin, Sutcliffe and Barios-Choplin (1992) found data carrying capacity and symbol carrying capacity to carry information. Face-to-face communication would be characterized as rich media while modern information technology such as email could be classified as lean media. It deals with internal communication within an organization context. The theory got upgraded to email and it was considered as a good way of communication in organization. Silverstone in the beginning of the 90s [Zhao 2005], put forward concept of Domestication of Technology Theory which deals with how technology gets integrated in people daily life and its impact on social environment where as in other hand it deals with communication in business and it is based on contingency theory and information processing theory. E.g. if a manager need to remind its employees about an upcoming meeting then which communication medium should be used to inform and send the message: face-to-face, telephone, memo or electronic mail? Such communication choice in organization varies from its level of ambiguity. Employee can be updated and get connected to top management through emails, and can also get latest news reports and this could be obtained by effective use of this Theory. Proper training and guidance is very much essential for introducing new technology at work place for obtaining complete employee involvement in the organization. An employee can obtain many different types of mails such as personal emails, emotional mails from friends and relatives, social emails involving some event or activities, professional mails with job interviews, notifications of ads etc Face-to-face communication medium is the richest one followed by email, telephone, memos and letters (Rice and Shook 1990). Advantage of Media Richness Theory: Ability to reproduce information. Sender chooses a communication medium. Reduces uncertainty and equivocality. Help improve employees performance. Disadvantages of Media Richness Theory: Choice of media is done by assumption of rational decision making. Actual use of media and social influence is not reflected. Ignores use of symbolism in communication. Theory is devised before the widespread use and developments of email. Mobile users like to get their mails in their mobile devices and which launched the mobile email solution with BlackBerry. The handheld device helps receive and send mails wherever they are and help stay employee connected and could give immediate feedback as soon as possible. Another example is the Android Operating System in modern mobile system which provides users to do array of operations as it can run multiple applications at the same time, multitasking and is more fluid than other cell phones. Mobile email allows composing, forward and responding to emails exactly in the same way as on a personal computer. With the fast spread of mobile email, it is getting integrated in our social and work life as it has potential to impact the way employees use email and work together. Mobile email is now becoming an important tool for mobile workers for effective communication, coordination, collaboration and to handle complex situations on move hence resulting in improved relationship with customer, co-workers and supervisors. After critically analyzing my own email for a week, I have found that the use of mobile email device for communication has some advantages as well as some disadvantages. In my survey, I have received mails from social network sites, personal mails, job vacancies and notifications. Mobile email help keeps me connected with the world and help to be updated; I could check my mails on a move and even reply to some important mails. For example there are situations when I receive irrelevant mails like advertisements and junk mails and I read them thinking its important and hence waste my own time. When I am on move and expect some important mails to arrive and then battery dies or I misplace my phone then it can give rise to major problem. Devices could be easily broken or misplaced and could also create privacy invasion towards personal and organizational security. It makes a person so dependent towards it that people spend less time with family and friends. The one main disadvantage of m obile mail device is it has a negative health effect and which a major problem in todays busy life. Conclusion: Communication is very essential for any organization to build relationship and for its success. The use of mobile device for email is been adopted by people for personal as well as for organizational purpose. It helps receive mails even when they are on outside their homes or organization. From the critical evaluation, Media Richness Theory is the most effective theory to understand the value of mobile email devices as an effective tool for communication. This theory help organization to select appropriate communication media to communicate with its employees and to stay connected through mobile email devices and an example of such a device is BlackBerry and Android which help send and receive mails at anytime and anywhere. Mobile mailing helps keep a record of their daily activity and also maintains database which enable them to communicate with people no matter where they are. The Human Resource professionals play supportive role in achieving organisations goals by making employees and technology join together for effective result in work place. The introduction of new technology help raise productivity of work, develop new product and services, innovative thinking and developed method of communication between colleagues and customers. Mobile communication acceptance device in an organization depends on its management and employees and how well they get mixed with technology and its usage. The devices has many advantages like instant mail alert, help stay connected while move and having peoples record and ease of communication where as the disadvantage include lack of social participation and privacy factor. The use of new technology like mobile email for communication in relation to Media Richness Theory is now reaching its heights and is been adopted by organization for its employees personal and professional use.

Palestine and Israel Essays -- Threats to World Peace

Background The issue of Palestine and Israel is one that has been hotly contested for over a thousand years. The last fifty years have been especially important in the history of the Jewish people and Palestinians. Since the death of Yasser Arafat on the 11th of November 2004 , and the election of Mahmoud Abbas as his successor as leader of the Palestinian Authority, significant steps have been taken towards a lasting peace. This will hopefully lead to a conclusion of the second Palestinian intifada, which began in late September 2000, and to an end of the oppression of the Palestinian people by the Israeli Defense Forces. Both Jews and Arabs have suffered heavily from the conflict, thousands of innocent civilians have died on both sides, and peace is in the interests of all. History of the Conflict The disputed territory that has been alternately referred to as Palestine and Israel is relatively small, the total area is only roughly 22 000 square kilometers. It is bordered by Jordan on the East, Lebanon on the North, Egypt and the Mediterranean Ocean on the West, and shares 76 kilometers of border with Syria in the North East. The two disputed territories that are occupied by the Israeli Army but under the autonomous control of the Palestinian Authority are the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. These two territories amount to roughly 6400 square kilometers, the West Bank makes up the majority of this area – it amounts to 6000 square kilometers in the Eastern part of the country and borders the nation of Jordan. Jews have long considered Israel to be their national home. They consider it to be a Holy Land, or a Promised Land – they believe it to be their right from God to live in the region. The area is also considered... ... - http://www.myjewishlearning.com/history_community/Israel/Overview_IsraeliPalestinian_Relations/Intifada_I/Intifada2.htm Israeli Defense Force - www.idf.il The Socio-economic Impact of Settlements on Land, Water, and the Palestinian Economy - http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cahier/proche-orient/colonies BBC News – What is the West Bank barrier? - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3111159.stm Books: Beitler, Ruth Margolies – The Path to Mass Rebellion: An analysis of two intifadas B’Tselem: The Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories - Information Sheet: May 1993 – House Demolition During Operations Against Wanted Persons. Human Rights Watch – Israel, the Occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian Authority Territories Series: In a dark hour: the use of civilians during IDF arrest operations

Theoretical Framework for Numl

Theoretical framework The study regarding organizational change shows that to be successful an organization must not only sustain itself on the inside, but it should also adjust itself to the environmental needs. For an organization to be effective it is important that it is stable and is able to change suitably. Organizational health is a theory which is used to explain the extent to which an organization is proficient of dealing with these two, slightly opposing forces.It is observed by Owens that as time passes organizations try to maintain themselves, increase the bureaucratic rigidity and try to adopt the traditional practices. He called this an organizational climate which is unhealthy and lays emphasis on maintaining the organization at the cost of its requirement for continuous flexibility to meet with the varying demands and expectations of the external environment (Owens, 1981). In his observation about the Pakistani Universities, S.Mehmood says that there are various reaso ns like; lack of funding, lack of political will, acute centralization, low–quality teachers, and the absence of a conductive teaching and research environment which unable the universities in Pakistan to grow (Mehmood, 2010). Institutions responding to environmental needs and these reasons can be viewed as healthy institutions. This description closely resembles to the cause of low intake of the students in NUML Peshawar. Organizational change can be produced by organizational self-renewal. Such an organization which is able to self-renewal is described by: 1.An environment that beliefs in flexibility and openness to change, increasing communications, and problem-solving. 2. A clear and common techniques through which participants can participate in orderly, methodical, cooperative problem-solving 3. A capacity to reach out suitably for ideas and resources that help to solve problems (Owens, 1981). Smith has reported that institutions which have been able to adopt organizati onal changes possessed three necessary characteristics: effective leadership, enlistment of prevalent support, and the fusion of purpose and people (Smith, n. d. ).These findings show that differences in organizational change and leader behavior should be related to low intake of the students. The independent variable in this case will be organizational change with respect to time. Changes are needed in annual funding (increase in budget), quality of teachers, teaching and research environment, awareness about the campus and courses (advertisement) and campus premises. The dependent variable is the intake of students in NUML. If these differences are met, the intake of students can increase by bringing changes in the organization that meet the day-to-day demands.

Free Essays on Sewalls Reponse To Mathers “The Negro Christianized

Sewall’s Response to Mather’s â€Å"The Negro Christianized† Cotton Mather and Samuel Sewall clearly disagree on the legality of slavery. For Sewall, it is most important that slaves be given the same freedom as all men; for Mather, it is most important that slaves be Christianized and given the opportunity of eternal light through the grace of Jesus Christ. Christianizing slaves, according to Sewall, neither makes possession of them legal nor improves the providence of their masters. Mather indicates that Christianization of African slaves will accrue benefits to their masters in the next life while Sewall believes that Christianization ameliorates the possibility of their masters receiving God’s grace. According to Mather, â€Å"You deny your Master in Heaven, if you do nothing to bring your Servants unto the Knowledge and Service of that glorious Master† (Mather, 335). So to Mather, a master disserves not only God and Africans but also himself by missing the opportunity to Christianize his slaves. On the other hand, Sewall writes, â€Å"The extraordinary and comprehensive Benefit accruing to the Church of God, and to Joseph personally, did not rectify his brethrens Sale of him† (Sewall, 326). Essentially, Sewall believes that any attempt to improve the quality of a slave’s life (Christianization or otherwise) does not outweigh the immorality of their purchase and possession. â€Å"For he that shall in this case plead Alteratio n of Property, seems to have forfeited a great part of his own claim to Humanity† (Sewall, 324). Consequently, owners, in Sewall’s view, jeopardize their own salvation (â€Å"Humanity†) by owning slaves. In addition, Sewall feels that it is wrong to separate Africans from their native land and that attempts at Christianization, if any, should occur in Africa; however, Mather writes that Christianization offers both removal from their savage land and salvation. â€Å"To Christianize them aright,... Free Essays on Sewall's Reponse To Mather's â€Å"The Negro Christianized Free Essays on Sewall's Reponse To Mather's â€Å"The Negro Christianized Sewall’s Response to Mather’s â€Å"The Negro Christianized† Cotton Mather and Samuel Sewall clearly disagree on the legality of slavery. For Sewall, it is most important that slaves be given the same freedom as all men; for Mather, it is most important that slaves be Christianized and given the opportunity of eternal light through the grace of Jesus Christ. Christianizing slaves, according to Sewall, neither makes possession of them legal nor improves the providence of their masters. Mather indicates that Christianization of African slaves will accrue benefits to their masters in the next life while Sewall believes that Christianization ameliorates the possibility of their masters receiving God’s grace. According to Mather, â€Å"You deny your Master in Heaven, if you do nothing to bring your Servants unto the Knowledge and Service of that glorious Master† (Mather, 335). So to Mather, a master disserves not only God and Africans but also himself by missing the opportunity to Christianize his slaves. On the other hand, Sewall writes, â€Å"The extraordinary and comprehensive Benefit accruing to the Church of God, and to Joseph personally, did not rectify his brethrens Sale of him† (Sewall, 326). Essentially, Sewall believes that any attempt to improve the quality of a slave’s life (Christianization or otherwise) does not outweigh the immorality of their purchase and possession. â€Å"For he that shall in this case plead Alteratio n of Property, seems to have forfeited a great part of his own claim to Humanity† (Sewall, 324). Consequently, owners, in Sewall’s view, jeopardize their own salvation (â€Å"Humanity†) by owning slaves. In addition, Sewall feels that it is wrong to separate Africans from their native land and that attempts at Christianization, if any, should occur in Africa; however, Mather writes that Christianization offers both removal from their savage land and salvation. â€Å"To Christianize them aright,...