The Whistleblower: Julian Assange

The Whistleblower: Julian Assange Julian Assange is one of the most well known informants since 2006. Assange is an Australian resident and the pioneer of a gathering that assaults the mystery reports of governments by spilling them. Truth be told, he figured out how to release classified data and information about worldwide money related exchanges between various nations and associations just as mystery activities with respect to military and approaches. He additionally established WikiLeaks as a site where informants and programmers could be able to put taken data about associations without referencing their genuine personalities. The site just as Assange began to pick up popularity in the majority of the houses everywhere throughout the world since Chelsea Manning contributed in the spillage of information about the American armed force. Besides, programmers had the option to put on WikiLeaks a video about shooting Iraqi residents, who were not equipped, by helicopters that had a place with the United States. This video was named Collateral Murder. From that point forward, the name of Julian was referenced in numerous fields including harmful squanders tossed close to Cote dIvoire alongside activities and strategies with respect to confinement in Guantanamo Bay. Christodoulou, holly. (2017, February 8). In 2010, informants on WikiLeaks had the option to discharge in excess of 2,000 records with respect to political links. They figured out how to get these reports from a source without a character. Furthermore, these reports were released and discharged after the spread of Collateral Murder video and the archives identified with Iraqi and Afghani Wars in 2010. The two reports surpassed in excess of 4,000 records. It is said that the spillage of such data and information originated from a source that had a place with Bradley Manning. In actuality, Manning is an expert who used to work in the American Army Intelligence. Be that as it may, he was detained later. Many individuals get some information about whether WikiLeaks had the option to discharge classified records previously or not. Truth be told, the response for such inquiry is yes.â In request to prevail with regards to releasing every one of these measures of data, WikiLeaks has gone through three phases legitimately subseque nt to being made. It merits referencing that the principal stage included the arrival of archives with respect to Kenya around eight years back. During this period, the mindful people of the site and its administration worked by a wiki model. This model furnished perusers and lumberjacks with the capacity to put data on the site regardless of what this data is or these archives are. In actuality, the site had the power to decide the sort of records and whether to acknowledge them or not. The subsequent stage, through which WikiLeaks moved, incorporated the arrival of Collateral Murder seven years back. In actuality, a great deal of political association paid attention to that video truly since it was considered as a political assertion of the ruthlessness of the United States arrangements. This video was discharged so as to appear and explain a specific conclusion, not so as to advise open about such point regarding view. At long last, the third stage incorporated the arrival of con ciliatory archives and marks. This stage is going on the present moment. WikiLeaks figured out how to have associations and solid associations with associations in the field of media and news to have the option to gather, examine and distribute political archives through utilizing sorted out ways as opposed to tossing such discretionary links on the web or executing them as a source to show a specific assessment. Zittrain, J. (2010). While Julian and different informants accept that individuals everywhere throughout the world are in profound need of WikiLeaks, the legislative specialists and associations think the inverse. Truth be told, Assange feels that these spillages of reports power the administrations to be increasingly open and not to conceal any insider facts. Likewise, they urge those political associations to regard general society and their security alongside indicating that they are clear and legitimate. It must be thought about the way that WikiLeaks was a mysterious obscure site except if it prevailing in the arrival of recordings like Collateral Murder and Baghdad Airstrike recordings. Tragically, Baghdad video was discharged by the site seven years back and discussed the homicide of two columnists, who used to work in Reuters, by American military powers. On the opposite side, the case is distinctive for the United States. Authorities in the American government wanted to blame Assange for treache ry and reconnaissance since he has discharged private secret conciliatory links with respect to Pentagon. As a matter of fact, the American government put stock in the possibility that these reports have brought about the annihilation of its national security and remote issues with other ground-breaking nations. The WikiLeaks sway the American business diary. (2016). With respect to how the United States reacted to these spillages, it depended on the strategy of intensity so as to compel WikiLeaks and Assange to return back the hacked archives soon after the arrival of conciliatory links in regards to the Afghani War. In addition, it began alongside the British government to denounce these activities since they figured they could prompt the obliteration of people groups lives and their protection. In addition, a ton of specialists believed these archives to be delicate since it contacted a great deal of top mystery political issues and circumstances. Colleges likewise in the United States have cautioned their understudies not to enter WikiLeaks, read any report or set up any information not to open their lives to peril. At last, it merits referencing that administrations must be exceptionally cautious while managing classified records and secure them well with the goal that they might maintain a strategic distance from any sort of hacking or any informant who may consider spilling them. Karhula, P. (2012). References: Karhula, P. (2012). What is the impact of WikiLeaks for opportunity of data? Recovered February 15, 2017, from IFLA, http://www.ifla.org/distributions/what-is-the-impact of-wikileaks-for-opportunity of-data The WikiLeaks sway the American business diary. (2016). Recovered February 15, 2017, from The American Business Journal, http://www.abjusa.com/highlights/features_apr_may_11/the_wikileaks_impact_don_t_shoot_the_messenger.html Zittrain, J. (2010). All that you have to think about Wikileaks. Recovered February 15, 2017, from https://www.technologyreview.com/s/421949/everything-you-have to-think about-wikileaks/ Christodoulou, holly. (2017, February 8). Who is Julian Assange and for what reason is the WikiLeaks originator needed by Sweden? Recovered February 15, 2017, from THE SUN, https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2188164/who-is-julian-assange/

Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof Group

Red Army Faction or Baader-Meinhof Group The left-wing psychological militant gathering Red Army Factions fundamental goal was to fight what they saw as extremist inclining and in any case abusive, working class, middle class estimations of West Germany. This general direction was combined with explicit fights of the Vietnam War. The gathering promised faithfulness to socialist goals and contradicted the industrialist business as usual. The gathering clarified its aims in the RAFs first report on June 5, 1970, and in ensuing dispatches in the mid 1970s. The gathering was established in 1970 and disbanded in 1998. As per researcher Karen Bauer: The gathering announced that ... its point was to raise the contention between the state and its restriction, between the individuals who abused the Third World and the individuals who didn't benefit from Persian oil, Bolivian bananas and South African gold. ... Let the class battle unfurl! Allow the working class to sort out! Let the equipped obstruction begin!(Introduction, Everybody Talks about the Weather...We Dont, 2008.) Eminent Attacks April 2, 1968: Bombs set off by Baader and three others in two Frankfurt retail establishments cause critical property demolition. At preliminary, Gudrun Ensslin, Baaders sweetheart and a submitted dissident, asserted the bombs were planned to fight the Vietnam WarMay 11, 1971: A shelling of US military quarters murdered one US official and injured 13 others.May 1972: Bombing of police base camp in Augsburg and Munich1977: A progression of killings intended to compel the German government to discharge kept individuals from the Group occur, including the death of boss open examiner Siegfried Buback; the death of Dresdner bank; Hans Martin Schleyer, snatching of the leader of the Germany Association of Employers and previous Nazi gathering member.1986: Siemens official Karl-Heinz Beckurts is executed. Initiative and Organization The Red Army Faction is regularly alluded to by the names of two of its essential activists, Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof. Baader, conceived in 1943, spent his late teenagers and mid twenties as a blend of an adolescent reprobate and a la mode terrible kid. His first genuine sweetheart gave him exercises in Marxist hypothesis and later gave the RAF its hypothetical underpinnings. Baader was detained for his job in burning down two retail chains in 1968, quickly discharged in 1969 and re-detained in 1970. He met Ulrike Meinhof, a columnist, while in jail. She was to assist him with working together on a book, however went further and helped him escape in 1970. Baader and other establishing individuals from the gathering were re-detained in 1972, and exercises were accepted by supporters with the gatherings detained organizers. The gathering was never bigger than 60 individuals. The RAF After 1972 In 1972, the gatherings heads were totally captured and condemned to life in jail. Starting here on until 1978, the moves that the gathering made were totally planned for picking up influence to have the authority discharged, or fighting their detainment. In 1976, Meinhof balanced herself in jail. In 1977, three of the first organizers of the gathering, Baader, Ensslin, and Raspe, were completely discovered dead in jail, evidently by self destruction. In 1982, the gathering was revamped based on a methodology paper called, Guerrilla, Resistance, and hostile to Imperialist Front. As indicated by Hans Josef Horchem, a previous West German knowledge official, this paper †¦clearly demonstrated the RAFs new association. Its inside showed up from the outset still to be, as until now, the hover of RAF detainees. Activities were to be completed by the commandos, order level units. Support Affiliation The Baader Meinhof Group kept up joins with various associations with comparable objectives in the late 1970s. These incorporated the Palestine Liberation Organization, which prepared gathering individuals to utilize Kalashnikov rifles, at a preparation camp in Germany. The RAF additionally had a relationship with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was housed in Lebanon. The gathering had no alliance with the American dark jaguars however reported their faithfulness to the gathering. Starting points The gatherings establishing second was in an exhibition in 1967 to fight the elitism of the Iranian Shah (ruler), who was visiting. The political visit drew huge grounds of Iranian supporters, who were living in Germany, just as restriction. The executing by German police of a youngster at the exhibit brought forth the June 2 development, a liberal association that vowed to react to what it saw as the activities of a fundamentalist state. All the more by and large, the Red Army Faction became out of explicit German political conditions and out of wide liberal propensities in and past Europe in the late 1960s and 1970s. In the mid 1960s, the heritage of the Third Reich, and Nazi autocracy was still new in Germany. This heritage helped shape the progressive inclinations of the people to come. As indicated by the BBC, at the stature of its notoriety, around a fourth of youthful West Germans communicated some compassion toward the gathering. Many denounced their strategies, however comprehended their appall with the new request, especially one where previous Nazis delighted in noticeable jobs.

Portrayal of African-Americans on Television free essay sample

This paper centers around the treatment of African-Americans in TV programs crossing decades. This paper centers around the treatment of African-Americans in TV programs traversing decades. Explicit shows are talked about (for example All In The Family, Sanford Son). Ends are drawn by the creator dependent on his/her examination with respect to patterns of treatment of African-Americans in broad communications. There is no doubt that media is an extremely incredible power in the entirety of our lives. Regardless of whether we understand it or not the media is a significant factor in trim a portion of our first sentiments as youngsters. That is the reason it is significant for TV to speak to all minorities. TV has not generally worked admirably of this. Be that as it may, it has improved definitely from how things were during the 1950s. It is additionally significant that different races are depicted precisely. On the off chance that they are depicted in cliché ways, that will be the view that youngsters have before they are mature enough to settle on their own choices. We will compose a custom exposition test on Depiction of African-Americans on Television or then again any comparable subject explicitly for you Don't WasteYour Time Recruit WRITER Just 13.90/page We have to encourage our kids about different races so as to face a daily reality such that regards all races.

Understand How Jp Morgan Ended Up Finance Essay - Free Essay Example

The infamous Jamie Dimon joined the darling financial institution in 2005 as CEO and also joined the New York Federal Reserve bank board in 2008. 4 Notorious for his squeaky clean reputation relative to many of his contemporaries, his myriad successes in the big banking world landed him four times on Time magazines 100 Most Influential People list. While the whale tale that plays out in the remainder of the paper threatened to tarnish his sterling leadership (and that of the firms), his navigation surrounding the event is one of the reasons JP Morgan surfaced, ultimately, intact. The Set Up Usually, a story of this nature would trigger thoughts of the rogue trader phenomena at UBS or Societe General. However, this story has a twist. What is lurking beneath the infamous London Whale trader, Bruno Iksil, is a whole department enabling the beast. That department was the firms Chief Investment Office (CIO). The major responsibility of CIO was to manage the firms excess cash reserves through investments that would meet their future liquidity needs and hedge their $350 billion balance sheet. This was primarily done by investing in a diverse portfolio of high credit quality, fixed income securities that had maintained an average rating of AA+. At its helm was Ina Drew, appointed by Dimon in 2005. The following year her team was able to lift the $20 million trading loss limit for their department. In 2007, they started the Synthetic Credit Portfolio to hedge the inherent credit risk in the firms main business lines. (This portfolio is a key character in the story and will be discussed further in the following section.) By 2010, CIO had brought in 25% of JP Morgans annual profits of $20 billion. At this point, with loss limit barriers removed, exotic new products in the mix, and record profits, one might think that more transparent and thorough department reporting would be required. However, according to JP Morgans task force, CIO actually lost its alertness and became less concentrated on the trading details. Focused more on top line risk measurement numbers that, ironically, masked their ever-growing risk exposure; one might say they lost the trees for the forest. In fact, some commentators thought CIO had deflected from its original purpose and become the worlds biggest proprietary trading counter. In other words, it had become a profit center not a risk management center. Because CIO was so actively increasing its exposure to high yield bonds and various over-the-counter derivative products, the risk of its trades became nearly equal to that of the entire investment banking department at JP Morgan. Since the fund-raising cost for CIO was lower than that for the investment banking arm, the regulations were less, and there was a history of successes, Dimon was moving more and more trading business to CIO. It was this sense from the rest of the trading community, of a growing whale, that partially fueled the pressure and cornering felt inside CIO. The Methodology The positions in the Synthetic Credit Portfolio consisted of standardized indices based on a number of credit default swaps (CDS) on debt issuers.[footnote: JP Morgan Report on Trading Loss] A credit default swap is a financial swap agreement in which the seller of the CDS will pay the buyer if a loan defaults. A CDS is a derivative contract, but acts very much like an insurance contract. The riskier a bond is, the higher the price of the insurance will be. There are different prices for different bonds to be insured from defaults. Also, issuers can choose to insure either the buyer or the seller of the bond. The trader language is intuitively a little backwards in the banking world for CDS. Being long a CDS is buying protection and is effectively a short risk position. Conversely, shorting a CDS is selling insurance and creating a long risk exposure. A firm like JP Morgan is in the business of being long on financial risk by way of their principal banking service functions. Hence, the objective of CIO was to have a net long CDS position to mitigate these risks. CIO added a layer of complexity in its Synthetic Credit Portfolio by choosing to trade the Credit Default Swap Index (CDX) which serves as a benchmark for protecting bondholders against default similar to equity value indices. This is what the CDS index of investment grade firms looked like on Apr.18th, 2012. Notice that it doesnt show the price changing over time like stock indexes do. Rather, it shows prices of the swap depending on the period of time the swap covers, more like the yield curve of a bond. Typically, an upward sloping CDX curve means that it is healthy. That is, the riskier a bond is, the higher the price of the insurance will be. Because, as the time period becomes longer, the more opportunity there is for unexpected events to happen, the riskier it is. So, swaps with longer time intervals cost more than those with shorter ones Iskil went on to implement a flattener strategy on the CDX curve, basically, betting the front end (left) of the CDX curve would go up relative to the back (right.) Although there are several ways to do this, CIO chose to do so by buying short term CDS and selling long term CDS. If the CDX curve really flattens, meaning that short-term swap prices rise faster than long-term swaps, investors will make a profit. If the market moves on a small scale, the short/long positions will cancel each other out, making the total position market neutral. With the move by the U.S. Federal Reserve, announced in the third quarter of 2011, to implement a massive Operation Twist agenda, its easy to see why CIO initially adopted their strategy. The aim of the Feds objective was to, indeed, flatten the U.S. Treasury yield curve and CIO seemed to be going with the flow. So, where did they go wrong? The key point is that, to maintain the flattener strategy, you have to keep your long and short positions balanced. As these products continually either shift in value or expire, a trader has to frequently enter into new trades. Also, in order to keep the balance between products that does not move step-in-step, an accurate ratio must be established. As shorter term products are less volatile than longer term products, a one-to-one ratio on rate curves is insufficient. Traders will need a greater amount of the near term product to offset the longer dated maturities. Disrupting this ration degrades the hedge into an outright long or short position on the index, leaving it enormous exposure to the market. 6 Worlds Collide At the Harbor Investment Conference that took place in February 2012, leading hedge fund managers came together and were subjected to the sales pitch for one particular off-the-run CDX, the Series9 IG 10-year Index (where IG is short for Investment Grade.) The products appeal was the existence of several of its bond components that had subsequently been downgraded since the indexs inception in 2007.13 Given the lack of a department Treasurer since October 2011, the introduction of competing top line objectives at the start of 2012 (discussed below,) and the initial losses beginning to occur in January, CIO must have thought they had found the Holy Grail. But, prudence was out the door. Iskil built up $12 billion of shorter term maturities matched up with $20 billion of longer term maturities in the Series 9. Anyone active in calendar spreads would recognize this as an outright directional trade. In addition, Iksils portion of the overall CDS market was so large that he was quickly running out of counterparties to his accumulating positions.12 As soon as JP Morgan couldnt hide its positions any more, due to their overwhelming presence in this niche market (and whatever leaked out at the Harbor conference), hedge fund traders started to collectively move against them. Ultimately, the other market participants were able to alter the price for what JP Morgan was looking for and caused their extraordinary losses. And, it would take CIO several months of mounting losses to accept this truth. 12 A Game of Poker At times, it seems that CIO was infected with many elements of the gamblers psychology including overconfidence and belief perseverance. Up until that point, it appears they had attributed their significant successes to themselves rather than other market factors. In tandem, they anchored their values of the portfolio and preserved their belief of this value by refusing to accept price movements as real and citing leaks of their positions as the source of divergence.16 While CIO was right that there were outside forces putting pressure on prices unrelated to typical market conditions, they were wrong in believing that it wasnt real or sustainable. If CIO had disclosed the position and loss every step of the way, the situation may have been reversible. What was At Risk? 12 On top of all this, they had a major problem with their Value-at-Risk (VaR) model, a statistical risk measure used to base how much a trader might lose in one day. A precise VaR model is important and the one that CIO used was different from the rest of banks. It developed the VaR model on its own and the weight setting was lower. CIO had been petitioning to implement a new model throughout this key period, late in 2011 and early 2012. The VaR number decreased dramatically to $67 million per day from $129 million. Iksils VaR alone was often $30 million to $40 million, sometimes reaching $60 million. Thats almost equal to level for the firms entire investment bank. A minor adjustment in the mathematical calculations (incorrectly omitting a division symbol to create an average rather than a sum), significantly altered the output of the model. 12 In the report released by JP Morgan, there were some risk protocol breakdowns in the models development, approval and implementation process. For instance, back testing was not rigidly required by the firms management as only two months worth was done to gain the models approval. So, it became operational with many technical problems embedded in the system including the increased potential for error by requiring manual data entry. Further, the developer and the operator were the same person which breaches the separation of duties best practice. This combination left CIO depending on a highly inaccurate model. Observations An influential company, like JP Morgan, who prided themselves on being a leader in managing financial risk, took a wrong turn and lost sight of core fundamentals. ÂÂ  In a report released by the Task Force of JP Morgan, there are a few areas where they feel that the CIO failed to do their job in terms of judgment and acting on their concerns. ÂÂ   One such area was how upper management established inconsistent priorities for the Synthetic Credit Portfolio that proved near impossible to follow simultaneously. The priorities included keeping the risk balanced while managing both VaR, gains/losses, and reducing the Risk Weighted Assets (RWA). When trying to achieve these all at once, varying priorities created conflict and fostered a platform to develop their unusual strategies in an effort to meet multiple objectives. ÂÂ  If CIO management had listed these priorities in order of true importance while also developing a way to act on them, there would have been a stronger framework to reconcile front line strategies against top line goals. In addition, a type of fire sale, exit strategy needed to be outlined in advance of the trading positions going awry. ÂÂ   It is no wonder that from this complicated profile of priorities there come even more complex trading strategies. When theyÂÂ  were conceived, the CIO managers, as well as their personnel, did not fully understand how to use these products in a way that managed the risk they were creating. These strategies should have undergone extensive analysis on their impact to the RWA, especially, given their notional amounts prior to trading. Ultimately, upper management was responsible for taking more time to develop comprehensive trading strategies that required the whole department had extensive product knowledge under numerous scenarios. The CIO didnt obtain or even ask for detailed reports on specifically the Synthetic Credit Portfolio. By not having reports generated in real time, the Chief Investment Officer had little knowledge on what the trading activity looked like on a day to day basis. ÂÂ  Instead, she just simply checked the portfolios profits and losses. Even more concerning is the lack of efficient communication between traders and senior members and officers of the department. Reports show that multiple warnings were given by traders to different senior members expressing concern regarding the riskiness and volatility of this portfolio. A catalyst for this breakdown was the significant changeup in managers within a short period of time beginning in late 2011 through early 2012. However, a company of JP Morgans size and history should be able to easily withstand routine shakeups of this nature. Consistent communication, seamless management transitions, and intimate knowledge of shifting valuations are not areas to be lacking in especially when it comes to the scale of assets JP Morgan possesses. Despite numerous attempts to voice concerns during the first few months of 2012, CIO management did not disclose any problems or losses for the portfolio to the board. The Aftermath Internal Impact While the firms share price took a huge plunge immediately following the height of the losses, a year later the stock has more than recovered. Its overall ranking as a world company has dropped, however, from 36 in 2011 to 51 in 2012.1 Many members of the Synthetic Credit Portfolio team, including Messrs. Goldman, Wilmot and Weiland departed the company along with Drew. Dimon took a 50% pay cut for 2012 and the firm was seeking claw backs from various other employees as well. Several additional steps have been implemented to better manage CIO since then. With new faces in CIOs leadership team, such as CIO Matthew Zames and CFO Marie Nourie, the department has upgraded its reporting and modeling. Reports now include detailed trading and positions data and VaR models have automated control features. A CIO Investment Committee meeting is now held weekly and Business Control Committee meetings are held monthly with a cross-reference team with the Risk Committee. New departments to supplement CIO, called Deputy CRO/Head of Firm-wide Market Risk to monitor market risk and Wholesale Chief Credit Officer (WCCO) to assess the wholesale credit risk, were also created. Actions to strengthen the model review group are focused on selecting the most significant models, testing and reviewing risk exposure precisely, specifying different models to different products, and updating the database. CIO also enhanced the limit structure, such as 53 new country exposure limits, also applicable to both CIO and Treasury, as a subset to the Firm-wide Country Exposure Limits (From: JPMorgan Report on Trading Loss). These new risk policies offer specified rules to CIO and require them to limit the risk onto a transparent and controllable scale. Social Impact According to OCCs quarterly report on bank derivatives activities, in the fourth quarter of 2011, the big five banks (JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and HSBC) held 95.7% of the U.S. $ 230.8 trillion derivatives in the outstanding balance. After JPMorgans announcement of the huge loss, major banks stock price acted as: Citigroup fell 2.4 percent, BoA fell 1.7%, Morgan Stanley fell 3.2% and Goldman Sachs fell 2.7%. As the Butterfly Storm presents, a small abnormal fluctuation will bring a disaster to the worldwide financial industry. And the amount at stake is powerful enough to destroy it. Standard Poors and Moodys both downgraded the rating of JPMorgan after the firm disclosed its initial trading loss of $2 billion. As we can see from the chart, the last credit rating was lowered and future rating downgrades are possible reflecting increased concerns about the banks hedging capabilities. Macintosh HD:Users:xuli:Pictures:JPMorgan rating from SP.png The next graph shows Moodys rating downgrade in response to JPMorgans London branch problems. It was downgraded from Aa2 to Aa3 since 21 Jun 2012. Macintosh HD:Users:xuli:Pictures:JPMorgan London Branch from Moodys.png The following chart shows the rating for JPMorgan Chase financial strength declining from B to C in the middle of 2012. Macintosh HD:Users:xuli:Pictures:JPMorgan Chase from Moodys.png Whats more, the rating on long-term debt was lowered from Aa3 to A2, which means Moodys regards JPMorgans debt as riskier making it more costly for them to raise funds in the future. In addition, it has altered the risk profile for existing bondholders portfolios. Regulatory Impact Dimon was requested to appear in congressional hearings regarding the loss. The Federal Reserve and OCC called for JPMorgan to improve its risk management team and rebuild the CIO department structure. In addition, federal regulators commanded JPMorgan to improve its money-laundering prevention. Conclusion As Mr.Dimon said to Meet the Press: we have a huge security portfolio, we are a big bank. In fact this security portfolio has unrealized gain of $80 billion, but in how we manage that portfolio we did lose $2 billion. We took far too much risk, the strategy we had built is badly verified and badly monitor. It should never happen. Certainly, Jamie Dimons long-standing reputation and willingness to cooperate in various sentence hearings displays a role model case for handling such crises. Weathering this storm required the collaborative effort of many of the firms top talent. From assessing the damage, to outlining more than a band aid fix. Dimon, speaking as a panelist at the 2013 Davos convention, pointed out that these losses were sustained in an area protected from clients accounts. However, this was a major malfunction in the company, that consults other international firms to avoid this. When a huge $6 billion loss occurs in a department aimed at reducing risk rather than taking it, it comes as no surprise that business leaders began taking notes. The trades and risks were in such great magnitude that it is crucial with true risk management for the officers to have been monitoring this activity closely, accurately and often.

The Secret Of A Success - 992 Words

The Secret to a Success The Zappos organization, in my book, is considered scarce in the aspect of customer service. There are little to no company that can even compare to its outstanding and distinguish customer service that they provide. I will be discussing several aspects of the Zappos organization in this paper. Initially, I have dealt with numerous online organizations including small and well established ones, but their customer service paled in comparison to Zappos. For instance, the way the organizations efficiently handle their refunds. Recently, I ordered some shoes on shoesbon.com. I selected my item and checked out, the process went swimmingly; two days later, I received an email saying that my shoes are now out of stock, please select an alternative. I kindly replied saying I would prefer a refund to my original form of payment. Three days have come pass, and I still have not received a reply from the organization. I am currently dealing with less than acceptable customer service; shoesbon.com is currently withholding my funds, money that can be utilized somewhere else. If I had known about the Zippos organization and its phenomenal service I would not be in this predicament. According to Zappos.com, â€Å"refund will be processed and automatically applied to your credit card or o riginal method of payment within 2 days.† It is almost four days, and shoesbon.com failed to even respond to my refund request. Next, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the ZapposShow MoreRelatedThe Secret of Success1246 Words   |  5 PagesTHE SECRET OF SUCCESS -Khupkhogin Khongsai INTRODUCTION Everyone wants to learn the secrets of being successful in life. There are many people who have achieved success in this world. Success doesn’t come to those who wait†¦.. And it doesn’t wait for anyone to come to it. 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It is found in the Bible.† This simple statement should encourage Christians to seek God’s guidance through the Bible in all aspects of their lives. This essay examines how biblical principles can be incorporated into the financial topic of return on investment. The three sections in this paper will help the ChristianRead MoreThe Secret to the Success of Amazon1488 Words   |  6 PagesThe secret to success of Amazon is they don’t think like a brick and mortar retail store. For example, placing low cost items near a checkout is proven increase sales. Yet distracting online customers during the checkout process increases process increase cart abandonment and decreases conversion (Severt, 2). It is also important not to have other distractions during the online checkout. At the normal store customers need something to keep them waiting in line. 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Othello’s Themeland - 3037 Words

Othello’s Themeland Built on a broad base of multiple themes, Othello is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular tragedies. Let’s sift through the themes and try to rank them in significance. In the Introduction to The Folger Library General Reader’s Shakespeare, Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar consider the arch-villainy of the ancient to be the most potent theme: Othello has been described as Shakespeare’s most perfect play. Critics of dramatic structure have praised it for its attention to the main theme without irrelevant distractions. Many Elizabethan plays had rambling subplots and much extraneous detail to amuse the groundlings. Othello avoids all irrelevancies and the action moves swiftly†¦show more content†¦Heilman discusses the ancient’s instinctive reaction to the love-theme of the play: Before coming directly to the forming of the love-theme that differentiates Othello from other Shakespeare plays that utilize the same theme, I turn arbitrarily to Iago to inspect a distinguishing mark of his of which the relevance to thematic form in the play will appear a little later. When Iago with unperceived scoffing reminds Roderigo, who is drawn with merciless attraction to the unreachable Desdemona, that love effects an unwonted nobility in men, he states a doctrine which he â€Å"knows† is true but in which he may not â€Å"believe.† Ennoblement by love is a real possibility in men, but Iago has to view it with bitterness and to try to undermine it. (333-34) The theme of hate is the theme on which the play opens. Lily B. Campbell in Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes indicates this hate in the opening scene: It is then on a theme of hate that the play opens. It is a hate of inveterate anger. It is a hate that is bound up with envy. Othello has preferred to be his lieutenant a military theorist, one Michael Cassio, over the experienced soldier Iago, to whom has fallen instead the post of â€Å"his Moorship’s ancient†. Roderigo questions Iago: Thou told’st me thou didst hold him in thy hate. And the reply is a torrent of proof of the hatred for Othello that has almost exceeded the envy of Cassio

Organization Change Management Business Environment

Question: Discuss about the Organization Change Management for Business Environment. Answer: Introduction: The existing business environment has facilitated diverse perspectives for industries to realize their business potential. The evolution in the business environment can be primarily attributed to the changes in technology which in turn were responsible for flexible access to information. Leadership and organizational culture have been assumed as the key concepts for research by academics (Benn, Dunphy Griffiths, 2014). The effect of leadership and organizational culture is emphasized highly in management literature in context of business management and organizational behavior. Change is inevitable for every organization in order to adapt to the varying market environment. Subsequently the organizational performance is linked to sustainable and productive implementation of change. Therefore organizations have to assume the significance of change management and the role of leaders and managers in realizing the objective of change (By Burnes, 2013). Implications of Organizational Culture The existence of distinct relations between the performance of an organization and organizational culture as well as with leadership styles depicts the extent of research conducted in the domain of transformational change management. Certain implications of organizational culture are also indicative of the effect of leadership styles on the prevalent organizational cultures (Cordery et al., 2014). Furthermore, literary aspects pertaining to leadership indicate the necessity of assuming efficiency within the standards of the organizational culture. However, there has been limited research on the probability of cumulative impact of organizational cultures and leadership styles on organizational productivity during transformational change. Culture can be described as the entity which illustrates the commonly accepted norms for conducting procedures and general behavior in an organization. Culture of an organization is embedded in the structure and therefore the probabilities of modifying organizational culture in event of transformational change have to be evaluated. Culture has been described as the collective mentality which distinguishes a specific group of individuals in an organization from the other (Cameron Green, 2015). Various contextual definitions of organizational culture also indicate that culture can be perceived as a framework of mutually shared values. The implications of organizational culture for organizational performance are noted in two profound outcomes. Firstly, the management can be able to identify the feasibility of implementing change with respect to the preferences of members of the organizations. Secondly, the management can utilize cultural assessment as a potential resource for estimatin g the causes for lack in performance which can assist in determining remedial measures. The necessity of an organizational culture can be perceived from the context of strategy implementation which describes that management faces formidable setbacks while introducing new strategies due to the incompatibility of organizational culture with the terms of the strategy. Therefore, organizational culture can serve contrasting purposes of either inhibiting the prospects for business organization or facilitating opportunities to influence marketing and product development strategies. Organizational culture has gradually transformed into corporate culture and the effects of the same have been observed imperatively in many large corporations such as IBM, Microsoft, Starbucks, and IKEA etc. The consideration of various components which can assist in implementation of an effective corporate culture has been noted in the research of many academics (Carter et al., 2013). The distinct elements of the organizational culture which have been identified in literature are primarily reflective of the shared values of individuals in an organization. There have been prominent examples of organizations which have framed their organizational culture from their vision or mission statement. Such type of initiative enables the organization to sustain a productive organizational culture alongside catering the short term as well as long term objectives of the organization. A major share of the effectiveness of various efforts for introduction of change in an organization can be attributed to organizational culture. The primary influence of change in companies which adhere to value based organizational cultures is observed in the stern association of members with the organizational culture and values even in case of change in members or any strategic change in the organization. Organizational culture and its productivity for an organization can also be weighed in terms of the role played by leadership during change (De Neufville et al., 2013). The major implication of organizational culture during change is observed in the ability of employees to stay united which validates organizational culture as a functional moderator of situations of change. Organizational culture with Leadership Style Organizational culture has to be implemented in a coordinated fashion with leadership styles since the scope of change management is an imperative concern of leaders and managers. The role of leadership in strategic transformation of an organization has been widely mentioned in contemporary business management literature. The changes in the organizations strategy are directly reflected on the organizational culture which in turn has to be apprehended by leaders and managers in their efforts (Osibanjo, Adeniji Abiodun, 2013). The culture change requirements can demand leaders to improve their commitment and energy in their efforts to achieve the desired outcomes of the change. The key theoretical implications pertaining transformational leadership suggest that leaders must frame a unique vision for implement changes in the internal cultural norms of the organization through promulgation of personal characteristics. Transformational change perspectives also need to be considered by le aders in context of sustaining ethical practices and higher standards of morality in order to address the complex factors which can invoke collective effort from the members of the organization. The impact of leadership styles on organizational culture form an imperative aspect of strategic change management policies implemented by an organization (Rafferty, Jimmieson Restubog, 2013). The definition of flexible work environment alongside prospects for development provided by leaders in an organization could encourage employees to adapt to the new changes in the organization. Consistent efforts from the leaders to communicate with employees and acquire feedback regarding the implementation of change in an organization could help in collecting viable insights in the prospects of change management and its feasibility in the present cultural and leadership context (Vakola, 2013). The comprehension of culture and the impact of its transformation on the strategic management outcomes of the organization has been a formidable inclusion in the requirements for a transformational leader. A leader can achieve efficiency during strategic changes through inclusion of processes such as recruitment of staff, socialization, dismissing members deviating from culture and the improvement of communication mechanisms within the internal environment of the organization. Primary illustration of organizational culture The primary illustration of organizational culture as described in the literature review is based primarily on shared values. The critical reflection on this aspect of the literature can render probabilities of incompatibility with the modern forms of culture adopted by domestic organizations which prove to be functional in event of changes. Transformational changes require an organization to implement major modification in terms of its internal environment as well as external factors (De Neufville et al., 2013). The consideration of external factors is primarily the key reason for introduction of transformational change. The introduction of transformational change can be the outcome of a major legislation or changes in global economy as well as certain events which have their roots in the internal environment. The major critique which can be derived in this case is the lack of explanation on the combined effect of leadership styles and organizational culture on the performance of an organization during the period of change. The objectives of leadership styles and their distinct implications in addressing the diverse contexts of change management have also been minimally addressed in academic research. While the literature emphasizes on the role of organizational culture in sustaining a bond between the employees of the organization in events of change, there has been limited reference to the assessment of individual behavior (De Neufville et al., 2013). The necessity of organizational culture can be aptly observed from the review and furthermore, the use of organizational culture for timely identification of employee preferences prior to a change and the factors which cause limitations on organizational productivity can be considered as one of the formidable strengths of the literature. However the consideration of other profound factors such as personal life of members during organizational change, behavior of new employees and impact of changes in leadership styles and their impact on change management can be termed as the major weakness of the literature. Organizational culture has also been attributed with contrasting impacts which can be observed in either limitations or oppo rtunities in the scope of flexibility to adapt to strategic change. The outcome provides a reference to the successful corporate cultures implemented by major corporations. These citations can be used by leaders and managers to optimize their change management strategies which serve as a promising facet of the literature (Little, 2014). On the contrary, the dependency of an organization on proven organizational cultures and relying on the chances of success in a different business environment can prove to be an ambiguous bet for many organizations. The factors of organizational resources are also ignored in the literature which is functional contributors to the strategies of an organization during change management. Organizational culture has also been perceived as a major influence on the activities and approaches of leaders as noted in the literature which indicate the efficacy of organizational culture in moderating change management scenarios. The illustration of leadership as a conclusive element in the process of change is also referred widely in the literature review (Vakola, Armenakis Oreg, 2013). Leadership obtains significance in terms of its ability to influence the employees. The existence of various leadership styles is a promising indicator of the capability of leadership to adapt to diverse change scenarios such as economic, geographic or legal changes. Relocation to another geographic location can be assumed as an example of transformational change. In this case the organization would not have to face any issues with implementation of change as the employees would be serving under the same leaders (By Burnes, 2013). On the contrary, economic changes which induce reductions in s alaries of higher management personnel are responsible for increase in number of outgoing leaders which causes strategic management issues for the new leaders. Therefore the critique can indicate profound references to limitations of the literature related to the role of organizational culture and leadership styles during transformational change. Recommendations Possible recommendations which can be laid out for introducing amendments in change management strategies include identification of external factors such as political, legal, social, economic and technological factors which can help leaders to frame the organizational culture along the same lines (De Neufville et al., 2013). Furthermore, design of a change management strategy which can adapt to the external factors in business environment would account for sustaining organizational growth. The research on finding profound relation between leadership styles and organizational culture changes as well as their influence on transformational change also indicates the requirement of sophistication of consideration of elements which have been neglected such as resources. References Benn, S., Dunphy, D. and Griffiths, A., 2014.Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge. By, R.T. and Burnes, B. eds., 2013.Organizational change, leadership and ethics: Leading organizations towards sustainability. Routledge. Cordery, J.L., Cripps, E., Gibson, C.B., Soo, C., Kirkman, B.L. and Mathieu, J.E., 2014. The Operational Impact of Organizational Communities of Practice A Bayesian Approach to Analyzing Organizational Change.Journal of Management, p.0149206314545087. Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2015.Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers. Carter, M.Z., Armenakis, A.A., Feild, H.S. and Mossholder, K.W., 2013. Transformational leadership, relationship quality, and employee performance during continuous incremental organizational change.Journal of Organizational Behavior,34(7), pp.942-958. Cullen, K.L., Edwards, B.D., Casper, W.C. and Gue, K.R., 2014. Employees adaptability and perceptions of change-related uncertainty: Implications for perceived organizational support, job satisfaction, and performance.Journal of Business and Psychology,29(2), pp.269-280. De Neufville, R., Odoni, A., Belobaba, P. and Reynolds, T., 2013.Airport systems: planning, design and management. Little, J., 2014. Lean Change Management-Innovative Practices For Managing Organizational Change.Happy Melly Express, Austria. Osibanjo, O.A., Adeniji, A.A. and Abiodun, J.A., 2013. Organizational change and human resource management interventions: an investigation of the Nigerian banking industry.Serbian Journal of Management,8(2), pp.139-154. Rafferty, A.E., Jimmieson, N.L. and Restubog, S.L.D., 2013. When leadership meets organizational change: The influence of the top management team and supervisory leaders on change appraisals, change attitudes, and adjustment to change.Psychology of Organizational Change: Viewing Change from the Employee's Perspective, pp.145-172. Vakola, M., Armenakis, A. and Oreg, S., 2013. Reactions to organizational change from an individual differences perspective: A review of empirical research.The Psychology of Organizational Change: Viewing Change from the Employee's Perspective, pp.95-122. Vakola, M., 2013. Multilevel readiness to organizational change: A conceptual approach.Journal of change management,13(1), pp.96-109.

Moral Autobiography Essay Example

Moral Autobiography Essay Over the years have learned to become more accepting and inclusive of all sexual orientations and overall worldviews. This can be seen particularly in my top points on the hermeneutic circle and how I have used my social location to influence my views on justice and sexuality. The hermeneutic circle is a tool that can be very easily related to the life that have lived so far. This ranges from academic to personal to employment. Having a wide variety of points on the hermeneutic circle is something I see as a vital part of who I am, and ultimately makes up who I am today. The first point on the hermeneutic circle that I believe is apt to my life is the very first one. What is the community of accountability for me in my life? I personally serve many roles to please other people. The first example would be in my service organization. Am the District Secretary, and my job is to assist the District Governor with anything that they might need throughout the year. Rarely complete any task with the thought in mind of how it will affect me personally. On a more educational level, complete all my assignments to please my professors and abide by their rules or guidelines. NT simple write a paper how I choose to; I have to follow the guidelines that were set for the assignment. The next point on the circle would be the second one. What are some of my loyalties stated or implied? This point brings me back to my service organization I am a member of. Whenever people ask me to describe myself, I begin with a member of this organization because I am loyal to them a nd their mission. It is something will always believe in and stand by. Another think I would say, but very different, would be that am Irish American. We will write a custom essay sample on Moral Autobiography specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Moral Autobiography specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Moral Autobiography specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer I identify as an Irish American because I am loyal to my family and their roots, but also to the fact that I was born in America and am an American Citizen. What attitude toward social change is being exemplified by my life choices? This is the next point that relates to my life. I believe that social change in America is desirable by the majority of Americans, however it is something we have trouble figuring how to do. Myself believe that we need social change, but also have a strong feeling it will not happen. Many people are stuck on what happened in the past, and need to move on to how to change the true. We can never change the past, and that is where us as Americans are getting stuck. The last point goes hand in hand with my next point pretty well in the context I see it in. What are my thoughts in regards to truth claims? I personally believe that there are never ways to 100% find the truth in situations and that goes back to social change. Any truth can be debated in the eyes of anybody because we are able to have our own opinions on things in todays society. Just because I believe that something is true, doesnt mean another person has to believe in its truth. Everyone is allowed to have their own opinions on things and each person can have their own idea of what is true and what is not. Along with that, all truths are open to examination and interpretations. Just because I believe that something is true doesnt mean I cant change my mind later on. Always allowing for possible revisions and re- imagination. The status of historical claims is something I see as a secondary method or way to explain my position or stance on situations. Ultimately believe that this goes back to the idea of social change and the past stopping us from moving forward. I believe that everything that has happened in the past, both historical and not, has made us the country we are today and we have no need to dwell on that past. When I am making claims always allow room for others to contest or disagree with what I have said, and never take offence if someone does. Being a member of such a service based organization we are always bouncing ideas off each other and giving each other feedback. I will admit that everyone contributes that one idea that changes the entire year and then there is always at least one idea which you regretted saying. Therefore I am always open to comments on my ideas and claims made. In my role as a Transition Leader at Default, I have constantly received feedback from my fellow peers, and value their input and opinions. Receiving feedback from others is a vital part of growing and is something I think everyone should use in their life. Knowledge comes from a multitude of places, and therefore there are many different types of knowledge. The main source of knowledge I use is from experiences. I always remember things that have tried before, ending both good and poorly. This is how I learn what to, or not to do, in the future similar situations. The other source Of knowledge I use is my peers. Learn from my fellow peers almost daily, and it is always so relatable. Having someone else around my age to help guide me through situations really helps during the tough times. All of these points from the hermeneutic circle are all dictated and influenced by my social location. Social location can consist of many different things but the one that define my location the most are my ethnicity, my economic class, and my gender. All three of these social location pieces play a ole of describing who I am as a person. When someone asks me what my ethnicity I am very proud to speak about that. I love being an Irish American, and would love that chance to learn more about my heritage one day. Having this outlook on my ethnicity has enhanced my ethical worldview in the way that I am very open and eager to explore new cultures and ethnicities. Just recently I had the opportunity to be fully immersed in the Arabic culture and the Muslim ethnicity. Allowing myself to open my eyes to new ethical worldviews has been a part of me that I have loved exploring the past few years. There is one thing that hinders this, and that is my economic class. I would consider myself to come from the middle economic class, as in I cant always afford everything my heart wants. I would love to take the time to expand my ethical worldview horizon, but I sadly cant afford to do so. I am never ashamed to say am from a middle class family, but sometimes it hurts your chances to take part in some amazing experiences. Hopefully one day the idea of economic class cannot be a factor when attempting to further your worldview, but as of right now it is hindering my ability. Finally, my gender is one that plays and interesting role in social location. I myself identify as a male and prefer masculine pronouns. However, over the past few weeks I have learned that not everyone is so simple. This is the reason that gender plays such a huge role in my eyes. I have never had any issues with my gender and it never accrued to me that others might while growing up. Gender is something is assigned to us, and is not something that we get to choose, and therefore almost always will have an effect on each persons social location. It doesnt matter what you identify as or what you prefer to be called, your gender will be your gender no matter what. All of these aspects of my social location all come together to help create my overall definition of the word justice. Justice is something that I do not fully believe in, however have defined it in a very clear way in my life. Justice is when the correct punishment or reward is assigned to an action completed by a human, animal, or entity. The problem I have with this is who gets to decide what is right and what is wrong? There has always been some grey rear when it comes to right and wrong because it is not always so clear. Also, in some situations we might say it is right and then someone else might consider it to be wrong. Should one person punish a person while someone else praises another? I do not believe that this will change until we come up with an ultimate way to clearly define something as right or wrong. Overall, everything that has any form of meaning in my life has formed together to make me the human being I am today. Will this be different then every single other human on the planet? Of course it will, but that is also makes us who we are.

A Cry From the Heart essays

A Cry From the Heart essays What is Justice? Who follows Justice? What kind of peace is the United-States and Israel declare they want? Who are the ones that instigate violence? For the Americans and the Israelis, those questions are answered in the following manner: Palestinians want war; they are the instigators of violence; they refuse to go to the negotiating table; they refuse peace. However, reality is completely in contrary to what they claim. Answer those questions and u will have a clear image of the truth. Who are the ones with the bulldozers? Who are the ones with F-15s? Who are the ones with the guns and missiles? Who are the ones that came in 1948 and expelled more than 860,000 Palestinians out of their homes? Who are the ones who killed 3,500 Palestinians refugees in the camp of Sabra and Shatila in 36 hours? Who are the ones raping young girls and woman with broken bottles? Who are the ones skinning off the face of innocent Muslim alive? Who are the ones killing children in the arms of their mothers? Who are the ones who killed a young boy and his father, circled in a corner, after they surrendered? Who are the ones who planted a mine in a schoolyard killing 5 young children? Who are the ones destroying Palestinian homes for no reason? Who are the ones killing mothers in front of their children? Who are the ones assassinating fathers in front of their wives and children? Who are the ones imprisoning 500 Muslims in a cave, torturing them and killing them all at once? The United States of America and Israel refuse to answer and admit the answers to these questions. They allege that the Palestinian are declaring war and that any mean of resistance are acts of terrorism. There is one thing Sharon and Bush must know. The Palestinian people do not have bulldozers, F-15s, missiles and guns. The only weapons in their possession are their hands and their strong faith ...

Unit four Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Unit four - Assignment Example There are different behaviors that can be used to identify child abuse. In the caregivers or parents of the child, these may include: Any reluctance to expose their children or charges to medical examination. Some parents also take their children to different medical facilities in order not to draw suspicion or added questions about the true cause of injuries. There are parents who have offered no valid reasons to explain why their children have wounds or injuries. Some parents refuse to let medical workers speak to their children alone. They also answer on their children’s behalf. There are instances where the caregiver or parent is unresponsive to the child even though the child appears to almost be a young adult who seeks to meet the emotional needs of the parent In the case of the child, these may include: The presentation of a depressed child who seems unduly anxious and is too eager to please the parent. Some children even show a deep fear of the parent. The child may al so exhibit emotional problems that are inconsistent with their young age. These may include nightmares or temper tantrums. Other children appear to be emotionally unavailable and do not seek comfort even when they are exposed to suffering. On the other hand, they may appear to be overly-obedient towards their parent or care-giver. When expected to undress, the child may show a reluctance at taking their clothes off, or exhibit extreme passivity when the nurse or doctor starts to examine them In most cases where the child is being severely physically abused, the child will warily follow the parent or care-giver with his eyes as though seeking to perceive when the next blow might come (Wortans, Happell and Johnstone, 2006). 2) Identify where the ethical principles of autonomy, justice, fidelity, beneficence, non-malfeasance, and veracity are implied in the ANA Code of Ethics for Nurse with Interpretive Statements (ANA, 2001) to guide the practice of the manager. The ANA Code of Ethics for Nurses  was created to be a guide for conducting nursing responsibilities in a way that would maintain or preserve the best standards of nursing care. This code also seeks to uphold the ethical obligations of the nursing profession. The first code, non-malfeasance, or ‘first do no harm’, is descriptive of the nurse's obligation to preserve the patient's safety. It is a throwback to the ancient ‘Hippocratic Oath’, and states that the doctor’s first responsibility is to keep from taking actions that will further compromise the health of the patient even before starting to treat the ailment or injury that is affecting the patient. Beneficence, which is the second principle, speaks to ethical concerns; particularly when there is a discrepancy between what may be considered as being good between the patient and hospital, nurse and patient, or even between patients themselves. Options that may have varied moral consequences include approved services , financial reimbursement, matters concerning physical or sexual abuse, or organizational issues like the peck-of-command. Autonomy is the third ethical code and refers to patients’ right to self-determination. For instance, patients have the right to

College Life Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

College Life - Essay Example Associating with clubs and social activities during college life can be enriching but demanding in terms of time and attention. College student life is an enriching experience as it involves not just exclusive devotion to education but also lifelong learning experience and structures (Huang & Carleton, 2003). Club and social activities are activities that students participate in during their leisure time. Leisure plays a significant role in the modern world although in the past very little attention was given to leisure and leisure activities. College life is the most important part in any person’s life. Leisure activities undertaken during college life, influences students in many areas of life including job and life satisfaction. Studies have shown that there is a significant relationship between leisure participation, leisure satisfaction and life satisfaction. Activities such as participation in social clubs on campus help mould an individual towards handling larger respon sibilities. This stems from the changed mission of colleges and universities as they strive towards holistic development of an individual. Participation in activities during college life falls under extra-curricular activities which plays an integral role in collegiate experience (Tenhouse, 2011). These activities complete the college’s academic curriculum and thereby augment the student’s educational experience. Students get an opportunity to interact with other students apart from class interactions. Students are at their natural when they interact at the social level. Student peers are an important source of influence on the overall development of an individual. It also influences the affective and cognitive development of the student. Participation in clubs and social activities leads to well-rounded development of the individual, which is the principal focus of such activities. Involvement in such activities impact the emotional, intellectual, social and inter-per sonal development of students. Participation stimulates their thinking and analytical skills, enhances their organizational ability. It also helps students to learn to manage conflicts, negotiate and communicate effectively. It fosters team spirit and enhances leadership qualities. They adapt other skills such as time management and academic competence as they also mature socially. It enhances their self-esteem and self-confidence as they gain autonomy and learn to appreciate others’ similarities and differences. As pointed out by Huang and Carleton (2003), participation in social activities and membership in college groups can be enriching. It helps students develop skills specific to their career path which leads to job success. Job success implies job satisfaction and ultimately satisfaction in life. Social activities enable the students to link the academic knowledge with practical experience which helps them understand their own talents and abilities. Experiences of this kind prepare a student for the first job as these reflect in the curriculum vitae and students often receive placements while still on campus. Tenhouse finds that participation in clubs and activities has a positive impact on attaining a bachelor’s degree and on educational aspirations. Such students also develop higher ambitions and aspirations than students who do not involve themselves in extra-curricular activities. Campuses have become diverse and hence students desire

Activity Based Costing Essay Example for Free

Activity Based Costing Essay Activity based costing (ABC) is a relative new way to allocate costs to specific processes and services. This system assures that the costs are accurately distributed to the products or services that generated them. ABC illustrates costs more accurately, giving management insight to the cost associated with certain business activities. ABC extends the decision-making skills of management by expanding on traditional costing (job order costing/process order costing) techniques. However, since ABCs introduction in the 1980s, many corporations are not using ABC, despite gained managerial decision making capabilities. Even by the mid-1990s, ABCs use has not spread throughout the accounting industry and its use is not obvious (Selto Jasinski, 1996). The following article will discuss the pros and cons of the ABC method. ABC is an extension of traditional product costing techniques. These techniques are called job order costing and process order costing. A job order costing system arranges costs for each unit as it goes through a production process. A process cost system collects costs in work in progress account. The numbers of units worked are recorded for the accounting period. These systems alone do not accurately illustrate costs incurred. Instead, these two costing techniques generally lump costs into 3 main categories (cost centers). These three categories are direct materials, direct labor and overhead. Cost drivers are then assigned to represent the relationship between the cost and the process it is allocated to. ABC provides a better map of the costs of manufacturing products or distributing services. ABC uses a multitude of activity centers, which are the equivalent to the previously mentioned traditional cost centers. Each of these activity centers has its own cost driver and driver rate. ABC identifies many different costs to products by adjusting the cost driver and driver rates to specific activity centers. This process avoids across the board allocations of cost. For example, a product, which takes up .03% of space in the warehouse, would require .03% cost absorbed by product sales revenue. If the depreciation unit requires 5% cost to replace equipment at a latter date, 5% is the driver rate for that particular product. Unit, batch  and product level costs can be determined with ABC. The following steps can summarize the ABC process. The first step is to identify the activities that consume resources and allocate costs to those activities. For example, purchasing materials, record keeping, labor, materials, miles driven, machine hours and number of customers served are activities, which consume resources and needs costs to be assigned to them. The second step is to distinguish the cost drivers that are related to each activity. For example, if machine hours an activity used in the process, then the number of hours used in production of one unit would be the particular cost driver rate. The last step is to allocate costs to products by multiplying the cost driver rate by the number of cost driver units consumed by the process. There are many inherent strengths in the ABC model. The ABC model allows costs to be allocated to many different activity centers. Few corporations can focus on undifferentiated product lines and be successful. Having multiple product lines means the company has multiple cost drivers associated with each different product line. ABC is helpful in selecting which products are successful and which ones should be eliminated. Accurate cost information is key in determining the actual costs of frequent product changes. This cost is important because costs can be a good indicator of the justification or termination of varying product lines. Product lines have become more complex. Product lines of past were much simpler. For example, the Model T Ford came in one style and one color, black. Today, Ford cars have many different colors and styles. These different styles all have different cost drivers and activity centers. ABC illuminates hidden costs when high volume sales are not present and product differentiation is. This is advantageous because unprofitable lines can be replaced with lines that are profitable. Not many years ago, labor comprised 25 to 50 percent of a products cost. However, since the 1960s, labor is increasingly less involved in the  production process. For example, the textile industry replaced 100-year old shuttle looms for European air-jet looms, doubling output with less labor. In steel, the Nucor corporation used continuous casting machines to yield labor costs of $60/ton verses traditional steels $130/ton. Labor cost today is infrequently the driving force behind costs it was during the development period of cost accounting (1930s). Instead, indirect costs have replaced labor as the dominant portion of costs for some products (Kelly, 1991). To use labor as the major basis for allocating as job costing or process costing accounting does, may lead to inaccurate decisions by management. The accounting profession has largely overlooked ABC. Among reasons cited for low adoption were employee resistance and the organizational changes essential with the use of ABC (Ness Cucuzza, 1995). Some trace the source of hindered adoption of ABC to technical as well as cultural issues. Others feel that ABC would be more widespread in industry if it were marketed better by the accounts themselves (Brausch, 1992). There are several reasons for ABC low adoption rate. Complexity is an obstacle to implementing ABC. ABC requires detailed records of the costs associated with producing products and services as compared to traditional methods. This detailed record keeping requires more effort from the accountants and is more time consuming. The complexity of ABC can contribute to more errors. ABC can require more time to check and recheck to uncover errors. ABC generally requires more effort on the part of the accountant verses traditional methods and reduces the adoption rate of ABC. Another reason for not using ABC is the increased economies of scale. Many corporations are standardizing their products to reduce the costs to manufacture them. For example, Coca-Cola distributes its products in many different countries. The product varies very little in respect to packaging and manufacturing. Traditional methods of accounting can assign costs more easily, quickly and accurately for those products that have little or no product variation. ABC is a valuable tool in calculating the costs of producing varying product  lines. These differing product lines require more extensive accounting practices than traditional costing methods provide. The information obtained from ABC can help promote product lines that managers feel are profitable between those which should be eliminated. Labor is less frequently the major ingredient in the production process. ABC addresses this concern by examining and illustrating the overhead costs associated with particular activity centers. ABC describes these over head costs more accurately and is beneficial when increasingly more complex manufacturing processes are used. Adoption issues should be addressed to implement ABC method when costing decisions matter to managers. Bibliography: ReferencesBrausch, J.M. Selling ABC: New Cost Systems Can Flounder if They Are Not Marketed. Management Accounting, February 1992, pp. 42-46. Geishecker, M.L. New Technologies Support ABC. Management Accounting, March 1996, pp. 42-48. Kelly, K. A Bean-Counters Best Friend. Business Week, October 25, 1991, pp. 42-43. Ness, J.A. and T.G. Cucuzza. Tapping the Full Potential of ABC. Harvard Business Review, July/August 1995, pp. 130-131. Selto, F.H. and D.W. Jasinski. ABC and High Technology: A Story with a Moral. Management Accounting, March 1996, pp. 37-40. 17

Free College Essays - Setting in Their Eyes Were Watching God :: free essay writer

Importance of Setting in Their Eyes Were Watching God In Zora Neale Hurston’s romantic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, two settings are contrasted to reinforce the author’s theme of a search for true love. The setting of Eatonville, Florida, where main character Janie experiences life as the mayor’s wife, is contrasted with the Florida Everglades, where Janie lives with Tea Cake in a much more relaxed atmosphere. Hurston describes Eatonville not in a negative way, but more as a place that is not beneficial to an independent woman like Janie. Janie Starks, the wife of the mayor, is sentenced to spend her days as a worker in the town store, hair tied up, and silent. She must deal with money and figures without being able to enjoy the â€Å"lying sessions† on the porch, or attending such impressive town events like the â€Å"muleogy.† To the reader, Eatonville represents all that is repressive in life. Janie’s nature is restricted not by the town itself, but by her status in the town. Contrasted with Eatonville is the Everglades or the â€Å"muck.† The muck is where Janie can be free. Her hair is allowed to hang down, and she can dance, sing, talk, and socialize with everyone from the Indians to the landowners. The muck is where Janie lives with Tea Cake, her true love, her "bee." The muck symbolizes freedom and a relief from oppression that was experienced by Janie. The contrast of these two places reinforces the theme of a search for love and fulfillment. To see what an ideal situation for an independent woman like would be, Hurston must first show the reader what Janie cannot deal with. Hurston has her character Janie go on a quest, one that was begun the day she was forced to marry Logan Killucks. The contrast in the setting is similar to one between good and evil. Janie’s life with Joe fulfilled a need -- she had no financial worries and was more than set for life. She had a beautiful white home, a neat lawn and garden, a successful husband, and lots of cash. Everything was clean, almost too clean. A sense of restraint is present in this setting, and this relates to the work as a whole due to the fact that this is the epitome of unhappiness for Janie. The muck, however, is filthy. The rich soil covers everything in sight, even the bare skin of its inhabitants.

Understanding Change

PART ONE Understanding change Perspectives on change The ethics of organizational change Planned change and its critics Strategic change Building and developing competitive advantage 3 39 73 11 1 147 CHAPTER 1 Perspectives on change 1. 1 Introduction 1. 2 Perspectives on change 1. 2. 1 Modernity, progress, and change 1. 2. 2 Pathways to change 1. 3 Structural-functional change: changing structures and functions 1. 3. 1 An organization is a complex whole 1. 3. 2 Structural theory 1. Multiple constituencies: change by negotiation 1. 4. 1 Stakeholder interests 1. 5 Organizational Development: the humanistic approach to change 1. 5. 1 Intervention strategies at the individual level 1. 5. 2 Intervention strategies at the group level 1. 5. 3 Intervention strategies at the organizational level 1. 6 Creativity and Volition: a Critical Theory of Change 1. 6. 1 Conflict, flux, and change 1. 6. 2 People are active agents 1. 6. 3 The critique of the spectator view of knowledge 1. Summary Study q uestions Exercises Further reading References 4 6 6 7 8 13 16 18 20 22 24 24 25 28 28 29 30 33 35 35 36 36 4 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE 1. 1 Introduction This chapter lays the framework for this book by arguing that organizational change is developed within models and frameworks that inform our understanding of the subject. In this chapter we will learn that knowledge and practice of organizational change are influenced by assumptions derived from the models or perspectives we use.For example, if we regard change as a matter of systemic structural arrangements we can make in an organization, then we can see how the analogy of organism or biological system helps to inform our judgements. Because perspectives offer ways of seeing, they will inevitably organize our perception in line with the dominant analogy used. However, analogies are only partial knowledge claims. Four perspectives on change are cited in this chapter: why four perspectives in particular?The answer to that question is str aightforward but you need to understand at this point that a perspective is an overarching approach that contains a variety of theories that have become associated with it. You will see why these are the dominant perspectives once you have read the remainder of this section. First, the structural-functional perspective is the oldest approach to organizational design and therefore change. Like each perspective, it contains a variety of theories that attempted to resolve some of its difficulties as it developed.These theories include the hard systems, systems dynamics, cybernetics, soft systems, criticalsystems heuristics, and postmodern systems thinking (Jackson, 2003). The structuralfunctional perspective encourages us to think about structural arrangements and functional interrelationships within organizations. The development of the opensystems model in the 1950s assisted our understanding further by focusing on how inputs to an organization are transformed into outputs. This is u seful for thinking about how we might change tasks and relationships in a production process.The value of the structural-functional perspective lies in its ability to change the arrangement of tasks and procedures in relation to the customer or client specification. The advantage of the perspective lies in its ability to look at an organization as a control mechanism: that is, to understand the important structural components and to articulate the functional interrelationships between the parts. Inevitably, structural redesign will therefore influence the functions that each part produces for the whole. But the perspective has disadvantages also.Because it is a model for controlling operations, it is therefore mechanistic. It tends to ignore how motivations, behaviours, attitudes, and values contribute to effective performance. The multiple constituencies perspective emerged from dissatisfaction with the structural-functional perspective. Although it was initially associated with th e work of Cyert and March (1963), it increasingly came to adopt a range of theories associated with the action and motives of individual actors rather than with the action of systems per se.The multiple constituencies perspective refers to the way that complex organizations have to negotiate objectives with different groups of stakeholders who have overlapping and often conflicting needs. When we consider hospitals, health PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE trusts, postal services, public bodies, local government, and transnational companies, then we come to recognize that the organization’s needs are inextricably linked to various stakeholder groups. This affects how resources are managed and distributed, as well as how change might be facilitated to maximize efficiency and effectiveness.An investigation of how multiple constituencies bring their own interests and motivations into the organizational arena will help us to provide an informed approach to managing change by recognizing the various resource needs of different groups. We can recognize the advantage of this perspective in drawing attention to the various stakeholder needs but we can also recognize that it is limited to a partial analysis. It is less concerned with developing people. It also has a limited view of power. Consequently this reduces organizational change to consensual negotiation between pluralities of groups.Those academics and practitioners that adopt the Organizational Development perspective would share much with the two previous perspectives because it embraces both a systems approach and a focus on stakeholders and governance. However, it is distinguished by its methodology of action research as much as it is by its ethical approach to developing organizations through people. For the first time we begin to see people as resources to be developed rather than as simply costs on a balance sheet. This perspective emerged from the human relations approach, which focused on personal and grou p development.However, unlike the two previous perspectives, it argues that maximum efficiency and effectiveness cannot be achieved by dealing with tasks, procedures, and customers’ or clients’ needs without looking at the quality of management, leadership, communication, culture, motivation, and values. Because the Organizational Development (OD) perspective on change emerged out of human resource theory, it became a synthesis of structural functionalism and behavioural research. The two main contributions of this approach are the focus on social characteristics and ts methodology dedicated to a humanistic approach to change and development. OD is also associated with the idea of planned change and the need to clearly diagnose clients’ needs before making an intervention. These provide major advantages in thinking about change but they are also partial and limited to conceptualizing change as a matter of consensus, as does each perspective mentioned so far. The final perspective—Creativity and Volition: a Critical Theory of Change— reflects the challenges and assumptions of Critical Theory.It cannot be regarded as a unified perspective, as the others can, because it does not seek to offer solutions to change problems. But it does go further than any of the other perspectives in demonstrating that people, rather than systems, are the main element of analysis in any change theory. Each of the other perspectives tends to reify human action. By contrast, this perspective seeks to redress the balance by arguing that people are active agents of change. It also brings another important element under scrutiny.That is, each of the other perspectives focuses on rational change. This has implications for designing and planning change as a linear sequence of events. However, if change programmes ignore emergent processes that result more from conflict, flux, and uncertainty than from consensus and stability, then intervention strategies will have a limited and often 5 6 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE unintended effect. Because this perspective is derived from Critical Theory we should not assume that it is immune to criticism. The main criticism is that it does not offer solutions.It does not provide useful intervention strategies. It does, however, make us stop and think before we act. You should now be clear that each perspective contains a range of theories that share assumptions, methods, and approaches. These can be stated simply as: 1. A focus on systems and structures (the structural-functional perspective). 2. A focus on governance (the multiple constituencies perspective). 3. A focus on behavioural improvement through personal and Organizational Development (the OD perspective). 4.A focus on constant critique (Creativity and Volition: a Critical Theory of Change). A simple reminder of the focus is: systems, governance, behaviour, and critique. The argument throughout the book is that to manage change you need to un derstand these interweaving debates. In this chapter we will: †¢ Explain the benefits and limitations of change contained within the structural-functional perspective. †¢ Examine how a multiple constituencies perspective provides arguments for involving stakeholders in complex change initiatives. Explore the value of human resource and organization development interventions as well as their limitations in planned change initiatives. †¢ Appreciate why organizational change may be characterized better by conflict, flux, and uncertainty. †¢ Consider the source of creativity. †¢ Appreciate the role of Critical Theory in understanding organizational change. 1. 2 Perspectives on change 1. 2. 1 Modernity, progress, and change It is important to contextualize the four perspectives of this chapter by illustrating that each emerged from, or in reaction to, the process of modernism.The term ‘modernism’ was originally used to describe the new machine age of the early twentieth century, which reflected progress through the application of scientific principles, order, and control. Scientific principles emerged from the pursuit of rationality embedded in the philosophy of the Enlightenment. The twentieth century was influenced PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE by progressive movements in art and architecture, but the new age was eventually associated with negative qualities that, paradoxically, were linked to its greatest triumph—the machine age.The new machine age was characterized by large-scale movements, revolutions, and world wars which all proclaimed progress through the application of machine technology or through the metaphor of the machine as the embodiment of efficiency and effectiveness. This was no more apparent than in business and management, where modernity reflected the task of controlling large-scale organizations. Techniques or processes such as bureaucracy, Taylorism, and Fordism came to reflect the new managerialism of th e machine age in which the principles of measurement and calculation came to dominate thinking.This emphasis on rational calculation had advantages in the form of mass production of cheap goods but, to achieve this, the human cogs in the machine were alienated by a technology that largely ignored social practices. You should therefore be aware that the structural-functional perspective emerged at the time when modernism suggested progress through the application of rational principles. It should be no surprise, then, that it tended to focus on task and throughput by using the metaphor of organism as machine. The perspective referred to as multiple constituencies emerged in the 1960s.It was the first to challenge the naive rationalism of the structural-functional perspective by arguing that an organization is not equivalent to a biological entity and that therefore the organic model was not appropriate to organizations. An organization was better conceived as a ‘legal fictionâ €™ (Shafritz and Ott, 1991). This had the advantage of persuading us that progress is simply a result of social processes and that all organizations are no more than devices to achieve certain objectives. The perspective helped to establish the idea of change through governance.Organizational Development has been the main tradition of organizational change and has much to recommend it, such as a declared humanistic commitment to change. It has also developed useful techniques and methods, but its use of the biological model limits its critique. The perspective we call ‘Creativity and Volition: a Critical Theory of Change’ is united only by its objection to modernism. It therefore provides a useful counterbalance to the other perspectives by offering criticism of the conventional wisdom. But it also suggests that human volition and creativity are a long way from the modernist assumptions of progress. 1. 2. 2 Pathways to change Each perspective contains theories that lead to a change intervention. The phrase ‘change intervention’ refers to change actions taken at a strategic level to help an organization become more effective. A perspective can therefore be regarded as a model for understanding how a subject can be understood. Advocates of a perspective develop theories to inform their views and they construct methodologies to test the accuracy of their various theories within a perspective. However, each perspective is open to criticism precisely because it contains assumptions about organizational reality.Each is therefore valuable as a framework 8 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE Figure 1. 1 Pathways to change STRUCTURAL-FUNCTIONAL CHANGE Change occurs for dysfunctional reasons when internal functions fail or when structures do not reflect the rational design of the best system INTERVENTIONS focus on the alignment of functional relationships and the structural re-design of the system to accommodate changing external environmental conditions MULTIPLE CONSTITUENCIES Change is a negotiated order and organizations are arenas in which internal groups and external stakeholders seek to exert influenceINTERVENTIONS focus on contractual relationships. A distinction is made between a formal contract and an informal or psychological contract ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Change is planned once needs are diagnosed INTERVENTIONS focus on both personal and Organizational Development and change CREATIVITY, VOLITION AND CRITICAL THEORY Change results from conflict not consensus INTERVENTIONS are replaced by critical analysis for change, but in the interest of validity we need to be cautious about the claims to certainty that each makes.We would be wise, therefore, to view these perspectives as pathways to understand organizational change. We can take the analogy further and suggest that each perspective represents a pathway through a minefield of conceptual difficulties. Each perspective is illustrated in Figure 1. 1. 1. 3 Structural-fun ctional change: changing structures and functions Structural-functional change is the oldest perspective on organizational change. This perspective is also known as structural-functional analysis. It is effectively a social-systems PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE iew of organizations as opposed to the mechanistic or closed-systems perspective of physics. Henry Fayol was one of the first writers to make the link between structure and function. In his 1916 book General and Industrial Management, he describes the relationship between organizations and biology in terms of an analogy. Thus he points out that, just as organisms evolve and become more sophisticated in their structural properties, so do organizations. We can see why the organic analogy is important to organizations when we consider Fayol’s description of specialization and differentiation.For example, [s]pecialization belongs to the natural order; it is observable in the animal world, where the more highly developed the creat ure the more highly differentiated its organs; it is observable in human societies where the more important the body corporate the closer its relationship between structure and function. As a society grows, so new organs develop destined to replace the single one performing all functions in the primitive state. (Fayol, 1916: 19) 9 Thus, as organizations grow and develop, they become much more complex and require new types of structure.In order to deal with this complexity, work has to be simplified through the division of labour. Some years later, structural-functional analysis viewed the study of organizations as the analysis of both structural and functional interrelationships between elements in an organizational system. Structural-functional analysis of an organization begins with the assumption that organizations are cooperative systems. Whilst they are constituted by individuals, this is less relevant than the fact that they are systems designed to coordinate the actions of in dividuals. They are better viewed, therefore, as adaptive organisms.This means that any organizational system ‘is deemed to have basic needs†¦ related to self-maintenance†¦ and†¦ self-defence’ (Selznick, 1948: 26). Selznick suggests that organizations, as systems, maintain themselves by means of five essential imperatives, described as follows: 1. The security of the organization as a whole in relation to social forces in its environment. This imperative requires continuous attention to the possibilities of encroachment and to the forestalling of threatened aggressions or deleterious (though perhaps unintended) consequences of the actions of others. 2.The stability of the lines of authority and communication. One of the persistent reference points of administrative decision is the weighing of consequences for the continued capacity of leadership to control and to have access to the personnel or ranks. 3. The stability of informal relations within the orga nization. Ties of sentiment and self-interest are evolved as unacknowledged but effective mechanisms for adjustment of individuals and subgroups to the conditions of life within the organization. These ties represent a cementing of relationships which sustains the formal 10 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE uthority in day-to-day operations and widens opportunities for effective communication. ‘Consequently, attempts to â€Å"upset† the informal structure†¦ will normally be met with considerable resistance. ’ 4. The continuity of policy and of the sources of its determination. For each level within the organization, and for the organization as a whole, it is necessary that there be a sense that action taken in the light of a given policy will not be placed in continuous jeopardy. Arbitrary or unpredictable changes in policy undermine the significance of (and therefore the attention to) day-to-day action by injecting a note of caprice.At the same time, the organization wi ll seek stable roots (or firm statutory authority, or popular mandate) so that a sense of the permanency and legitimacy of its acts will be achieved. 5. A homogeneity of outlook with respect to the meaning and role of the organization. To minimize disaffection requires a unity derived from a common understanding of what the character of the organization is meant to be. When this homogeneity breaks down, as in situations of internal conflict over basic issues, the continued existence of the organization is endangered.On the other hand, one of the signs of a ‘healthy’ organization is the ability to orient new members effectively and readily slough off those who cannot be adapted to the established outlook. (Selznick, 1948) These imperatives are the mechanisms of a stable ‘organic’ system that is applied by analogy to an organization. One particularly relevant assumption of this analogy, and indeed of structural functionalism in general, is that of compulsion. There is little room for individuals to exercise imagination because organizations are viewed as constraining mechanisms that compel people to act in a particular way.When viewed through a structural-functional frame, organizational analysis proceeds by following three basic assumptions, as indicated below. 1. Organizations are cooperative systems with adaptive social structures, made up of interacting individuals, subgroups, and formal and informal relationships. 2. Organizations contain variable aspects, such as goals, which are linked to needs and self-defence mechanisms. 3. Organizations are determined by constraints and characterized by transformations when adjustments to needs are required.Such adjustments are required to deal with dysfunctions caused by instability in the operating environment. The biological sciences were seen as rescuing social science from the laws of traditional Newtonian physics, which saw everything as a closed system (Katz and Kahn, 1966: 16). Consequ ently, the emergence of the open-systems model, which was influenced by von Bertalanffy’s ‘general system theory’, enables us to view organizations as continuous flows of inputs, transformations, and outputs beyond their own boundaries. In 1966 Katz and Kahn articulated the concept of an organization as anPERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE open system. This was reinforced by Thompson’s systems contingency perspective in 1967. What emerged was an idea of an organizational system as an artificial rational construction designed to improve work performance. Unlike the closed systems of physical sciences, social (and biological) systems depend on, and interact with, their external environments. For Katz and Kahn, the main difficulty in proactively managing strategic change results from the fact that organizations have in-built protective devices to maintain stability. Changing these patterns is very difficult.Unintended change often occurs when organizations drift from the ir original aims. As Katz and Kahn indicate: [t]he major misconception is the failure to recognize fully that the organization is continually dependent upon inputs from the environment and that the inflow of materials and human energy is not a constant. The fact that organizations have built-in protective devices to maintain stability and that they are notoriously difficult to change in the direction of some reformer’s desires should not obscure the realities of the dynamic interrelationships of any social structure with its social and natural environment.The very efforts of the organization to maintain a constant external environment produce changes in organizational structure. The reaction to changed inputs to mute their possible revolutionary implications also results in changes. (Katz and Kahn, 1966: 278) 1 1 The open-systems model expresses the relationship between the elements as indicated by Figure 1. 2. Figure 1. 2 The open-systems model of Katz and Kahn ENVIRONMENT T ask Technology INPUTS Human, financial information, materials Management OUTPUTS Products and services Structure People 12 UNDERSTANDING CHANGEThe organization has inputs that are then transformed through a variety of management functions. These are designed to achieve the best possible organizational design by coordinating the task, through the use of technology by people who are structured or organized in a way that is both efficient and effective. x Stop and think 1. 1 Identify an organization and illustrate its inputs, outputs, and transformational processes. Provide details on how the internal processes are managed and controlled. Following Katz and Kahn, the open-systems model contains eight characteristics: 1.Importing energy from the external environment. Thus, just as the biological cell receives oxygen from the bloodstream or the body takes in oxygen from the air and food from the external world, the organization draws energy from other institutions. 2. Throughput is a phr ase used in many organizations, meaning that, as open systems, organizations transform the energy available to them. Just as the body converts starch and sugar into heat and action, an organization takes raw inputs such as materials and people and transforms them by producing products or services.Katz and Kahn suggest that, just as the personality converts chemical and electrical forms of stimulation into sensory qualities, and information into thought patterns, so the organization creates a new product, or processes materials, or trains people, or provides a service. 3. Output is essentially the service or product. Just as the biological organism exports from the lungs physiological products like carbon dioxide that help to maintain plants in the immediate environment, the organization provides customers with an output they value. 4.Systems are cycles of events in which the product is exported into the environment, where it furnishes sources of energy for repetition of the cycle of activities. Thus energy is the exchange of inputs and outputs with the external environment. For example, raw materials and human labour are turned into products and services, which are then marketed for monetary return, which is then used to obtain more raw materials and labour and perpetuates the cycle of activities. 5. Entropy is a process described by Katz and Kahn as ‘a universal law of nature in which all forms of organization move toward disorganization or death’.For example, ‘all complex physical systems move toward simple random distribution of their elements and biological organisms also run down and perish’. Therefore the survival of the organization requires the ‘arrest of the entropic process’. This is overcome because the organization imports more energy from its environment than it expends. In other words, ‘social organizations will seek to improve their survival position and to acquire in their reserves a comfortable marg in of operation’. Organizations do go out of business but they can replenish themselves.As PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE Katz and Kahn point out, ‘social systems, however, are not anchored in the same physical constancies as biological organisms and so are capable of almost indefinite arresting of the entropic process. Nevertheless the number of organizations which go out of existence every year is large. ’ 6. Information input, negative feedback, and the coding process mean that all inputs are also ‘informative in character and furnish signals to the structure about the environment and about its own functioning in relation to the environment’.Furthermore, the ‘simplest type of information input found in all systems is negative feedback’, which ‘enables the system to correct its deviations from course’. Katz and Kahn see this as analogous to the digestive system, in which selective signals are absorbed or assimilated. Terms like ad aptation and assimilation reflect the biological analogy because an organization responds only to those signals to which it is adapted, and reacts to the information signals to which it is attuned.Katz and Kahn argue that, rather like the selection process in nature, the term coding reflects the selective mechanisms of a system by which incoming materials are either rejected or accepted and translated for the structure. 7. Organizations, like biological systems, are not motionless, so there can never be a true equilibrium. Instead, we must understand that organizations, like organisms, develop a steady state or ‘continuous inflow of energy from the external environment and a continuous export of the products of the system’.The biological analogy is illustrated by the ‘catabolic and anabolic processes of tissue breakdown and restoration within the body’ that ‘preserve a steady state so that the organism from time to time is not the identical organism i t was but a highly similar organism’. Related to this are what they call the ‘homeostatic processes’ for the regulation of body temperature. Thus, as external conditions of humidity and temperature vary, the temperature of the body remains the same because it is regulated by the endocrine glands. The steady state and dynamic homeostasis of organizations are regulated by the organization’s subsystems. . Organizations ‘move in the direction of differentiation and elaboration’. That is, in biological systems genetic change occurs: organisms move from primitive to complex arrangements in order to survive. Similarly, as organizations mature they become increasingly diffuse. Thus they ‘move toward the multiplication and elaboration of roles with greater specialization of function’. 13 1. 3. 1 An organization is a complex whole As Michael Jackson states, ‘a system is a complex whole the functioning of which depends upon its parts a nd the interactions of those parts’ (2003: 3).Broadly speaking, we can think of three types of system: †¢ Natural biological systems. †¢ Social systems, such as families and religious and political institutions, which are socially constructed entities designed to accommodate relationships between people. 14 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE †¢ Artificial or mechanical systems, such as built environments and information systems, which are designed to make improvements to living or work arrangements. One of the advantages of systems theory, as Jackson informs us, is that it is not reductive.That is, it does not seek to reduce complexity by breaking it down into its component parts. Systems theory seeks to understand phenomena as wholes and consequently the term ‘holism’ is sometimes used to illustrate that a system needs to be seen in its entirety. The idea of holism is articulated by Thompson (1967): Approached as a natural system, the complex organization is a set of interdependent parts which together make up a whole because each contribute something and receive something from a whole, which in turn is interdependent with some larger environment.Survival of the system is taken to be the goal, and the parts and their relationships presumably are determined through evolutionary processes. Dysfunctions are conceivable, but it is assumed that an offending part will adjust to produce a net positive contribution or be disengaged, or else the system will degenerate. Central to the natural-systems approach is the concept of homeostasis, or self stabilization, which spontaneously, or naturally, governs the necessary relationships among parts and activities and thereby keeps the system viable in the face of disturbances stemming from the environment. (Thompson, 1967: 283)Systems theory seeks to explain complex interrelationships among organizational elements and external variables by using quantitative techniques. Because they see them as continua lly changing dynamic equilibria, systems theorists therefore view organizations as designed to cope with and manage change. An example of this is Weiner’s model of an organization as an adaptive system. Weiner uses the term ‘cybernetics’ (from the Greek for ‘steersman’) to describe a study of structures and functions of control, and information processing systems in both animals and machines. Thus, such systems are able to regulate themselves.In biological systems this is a natural process, whereas an organization’s systems must be designed. The overly mechanistic approach to viewing artificial systems needs to be balanced against two concerns related to the environment in which the organization exists: 1. Organizations are also social systems: any technical system requires people to operate it. Consequently their needs must be designed into the technical system. 2. Organizations have contingencies. In other words, the technology used by the o rganization, the nature of the industry it operates in, the competences of thePERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE staff who work for it, their motivations and leadership are also important contingencies that affect an organization’s performance. Each concern reflects the view that any change interaction must incorporate these constraints into the design of the new (changed) systems model. For example, if an organization is seen as a social system and not simply a technical system, then we must come to recognize the way in which people have to live, work, and engage in some way with the technical system.For systems designers such as architects and computer programmers it is therefore important to involve the people affected by the system. 15 x Stop and think 1. 2 Think of a technical system that you might redesign if asked to do so by an organization. For example, this might be an IT system, a production system, use of a physical space, or an administrative system. If you do not involve in its design the people who will eventually use the system, what negative outcomes might emerge? The link between organizational systems design and contingency theory illustrates how systems theory developed from a simple biological analogy.Galbraith’s (1973) book made a clear link between the functional components, organizational structures, and contingent circumstances of an organization. For example, Galbraith’s approach invites us to look for: †¢ The type and quality of information required in conditions of certainty or uncertainty. †¢ The degree of interdependence between the various functional components. †¢ Mechanisms that enable organizational adaptation. Table 1. 1 illustrates how information within the system affects an organization’s ability to take action towards change. The degree to which hange can be planned depends upon the amount of reliable information in the system. When the quality of information is high, changes can be planned but are unlikely to be major; when conditions are unpredictable, information is unreliable and the degree of success in any change initiative is low. We can therefore state that the greater the level of uncertainty, the more the organization must make provisional judgements and be ready to change things quickly. Contingency theorists who work within this perspective view organizational change as the degree of control an organization has over circumstances.Thus we can formulate a simple question for this purpose: ‘how wide is the gap between the amounts of information required by this organization at this time? ’ If we take the 2008 world banking crisis as an example, we can illustrate this point. During the month of 16 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE Table 1. 1 Control over circumstances: situations where significant change is inevitable The likelihood of major strategic change is low when: The situation is highly predictable. Traditional roles and procedures guide action. The qua lity of information is high.The likelihood of major strategic change is high when: The situation is not predictable. New procedures are required. The quality of information is low. October 2008, protracted negotiations between President Bush and the US Senate representatives, unhappy with his initial plans, eventually resulted in a rescue package for US banks. This was followed by the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, partly nationalizing some UK banks. Members of the G7 countries lowered interest rates around the world at the same time, also attempting to find a coordinated approach to the world economic crisis.The reality was that, at the time, no one could realistically estimate its extent: the information gap was simply too large. No one really knew who owed money to whom; nor did anyone know what impact the banking crisis was likely to have on other sectors of the world economy. Thus, attempting to steer change was impossible because there was insufficient information to ma ke reliable decisions. Although this is an extreme example, many organizations face similar problems to varying degrees. In situations of severe unpredictability caused by lack of information, managing planned change becomes highly problematic.The solution, according to Galbraith, is to find new solutions: The ability of an organization to successfully coordinate its activities by goal setting, hierarchy, and rules depends on the combination of the frequency of exceptions and the capacity of the hierarchy to handle them. As task uncertainty increases, the number of exceptions increases until the hierarchy is overloaded. Then the organization must employ new design strategies. Either it can act in two ways to reduce the amount of information that is processed, or it can act to increase its capacity to handle more information.An organization may choose to develop in both of these ways. (Galbraith, 1973: 312) 1. 3. 2 Structural theory The structures of organizations are considered to b e amenable to change. Organizations are viewed as rational and should be designed to achieve their objectives. The Classical School of Management argued that all organizations should be designed scientifically. The main contributors to the school were Henry Fayol, PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE Charles Babbage, Daniel McCullum, Frederick Winslow Taylor, and Max Weber. For these writers, organizational efficiency was achieved through the rational design of organizations.The Classical School assumed that there was a best structure for any organization, related to the environment in which the organization operated. The design of an organization was related to specialization and to the division of labour. Specialization is the extent to which highly skilled operations and individuals are required. Because the design of organizations was seen as a purely rational activity, problems or dysfunctions were seen to result from structural imperfections or flaws that could be solved by changing the org anization’s structure.Furthermore, although the Classical School considered that a bureaucratic structure was the best means to achieve efficiency and effectiveness, by the 1950s this view was increasingly challenged. The first challenge emerged with the work of Burns and Stalker (1961), who were interested in the rapidly changing electronics industry in Britain, and in Scotland in particular. Their research revealed that organizations in stable operating environments are heavily dependent on control mechanisms and therefore require mechanistic structures.Conversely, the newer industries based on, or developing, micro-electronic technology required organic structures in order to meet situations that are changing. The message, therefore, was that the rate of organizational change is critical to organizations. Where they have to meet rapidly changing circumstances and conditions, and where technology is critical to their survival, then organic structures need to be designed. Th is would also be true today of the fashion industry, where styles change quickly and competition for change requires organizations to get goods into the high street quickly.In the following year Blau and Scott (1962) argued that organizations have both a formal structure and an informal aspect to them. The formal structure determines the standard rules and regulations: for example, a highly structured organization operating bureaucratic procedures is managed through complex rules, policies, frameworks, and desk instructions. However, they argued that it is impossible to understand how organizations are structured by simply looking at rules and regulations without understanding the informal aspect of the organization.Their argument was heavily influenced by Barnard’s (1938) book, The Functions of the Executive, and suggested that the informal organization reflects unconscious processes. In other words, habits, attitudes, and assumptions of people are critical to performance. T his was clearly an early recognition that change requires more than structural redesign because it suggested that senior managers have to align the structure with what we call today the organization’s culture. The earlier work of Max Weber in the 1920s reflected his concerns with specialization.By the 1960s academics used the word ‘differentiation’ to reflect this but also to indicate how specialization is affected by increasingly complex environments. In relation to organizational change, we can note that the process of differentiation— increased complexity of organization—suggests that diverse forces are responsible for pulling organizations apart. This process of differentiation therefore means that 17 18 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE organizational change is required in order to integrate the organization with its new environment.To put this more succinctly, differentiation requires integration. This particular concern was articulated by Lawrence and Lor sch (1969) in their book, Developing Organizations: diagnosis and action. It also reflects the emphasis on design since change planning is required to deal with uncertainty caused by rapidly changing circumstances. This was reinforced by Davis and Lawrence’s (1977) argument that a matrix organization was required when external change was forced upon organizations. Accordingly, they argue that change in design is therefore determined by three conditions: 1.Outside pressure for dual focus. What they mean by this is that some companies need to focus attention both on complex technical issues and on the unique requirements of the customer; this dual focus requires a matrix structure. 2. Pressures for high information-processing capacity. The second reason to adopt a matrix structure is a requirement for high information-processing capacity among an organization’s members. The failure to construct a matrix organization in such circumstances will lead to information overload . 3. Pressure for shared resources.When organizations are under pressure to achieve economies of scale, they need to find ways of utilizing scarce human resources to meet quality standards. Both systems theory and structural theory share the view that organizations are rational and serve utilitarian purposes. That is, organizations are viewed as a means to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. They do this by identifying clear goals. The structural-functional systems perspective is therefore described as rational because it assumes a relatively simple cause and effect relationship among variables related to functional integration and structural change.As a perspective, it is clear about what it seeks to achieve. Organizational change is relatively straightforward: we either change functional relationships in order to achieve harmony or we change the design of the organization in order to meet the complexity of its environment. 1. 4 Multiple constituencies: change by negotiation In a dvancing a critique of the structural-functional perspective Michael Keeley (1983) argues that it is common to model organizations after biological systems. In most texts organizations are depicted as ‘social actors’ who possess the distinguishing features of living beings such as goals and needs.By contrast, individuals are portrayed as functional ‘members’ filling roles and serving as ‘human resources’ to further the organization’s ends. The organic model is useful mainly for addressing survival needs, PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE but one difficulty is that it tends to confuse the goals of an organization with the goals of powerful individuals. The structural-functional perspective presents a reified and overrational picture of social systems. By contrast, the multiple constituencies perspective does not assume that organizations exist independently from the people who work for them or interact with them.Multiple constituency theory was firs t outlined by Cyert and March in their book A Behavioural Theory of the Firm (1963), which describes organizations as coalitions of self-interested participants. Organizational goals, they argue, change as a result of bargaining processes because an organization is a dynamic coalition of individuals and groups, all of which have different demands. The perspective focuses on how goals are achieved and whose interests are satisfied and affected by the actions taken in the name of the organization.If we think, therefore, of an organization containing a number of groups and external stakeholders, all of which have differing interests, then we can consider how organizational change affects each different group, or alternatively how each may make demands on an organization to change its strategy. The multiple constituencies perspective focuses on the way in which resources are managed and distributed among organizational members and stakeholders in the interests of governance. 19 x Stop a nd think 1. 3 Imagine that you start a new job as a travel executive and are required to visit overseas destinations six times a year.You chose this job because you were excited by the prospect of overseas travel. As an incentive, employees are permitted to stay in the destination for two days after they have completed their tasks. Consequently executives are motivated to choose an interesting destination. Your organization operates from two different sites in the UK. During your first year of employment you hear rumours that the person who allocates staff to destinations ‘cherry picks’ the best for herself and then for friends or colleagues who work with her at the main site.You begin to realize that the rumours have a ring of truth about them. What do you do? Try to ingratiate yourself with the decision maker by becoming friends? Offer to take on more work if she offers you one or two better destinations? Should you take the issue to her line manager at the risk of be coming unpopular? Or do you accept the situation for what it is and that life is not fair? How do you bargain for change? The multiple constituencies perspective criticizes the structural-functional approach for making it difficult to achieve conceptual clarity about what constitutes organizational effectiveness.For example, Connolly, Conlon, and Deutsch argue that effectiveness statements are evaluative and descriptive. Generally they are not attempts to answer the question ‘how is an entity X performing? ’ but usually ‘how well is entity X performing? ’ and often ‘how much better should entity X perform? ’ The central differentiation among current effectiveness statements is how they specify the evaluation criteria used to define how well the entity is performing or could perform (Connolly, Conlon, and Deutsch, 1980: 211). As a result, the multiple 20UNDERSTANDING CHANGE constituency view treats organizations as systems with differential asse ssments of effectiveness by different constituencies. Although the interests of internal groups (for example, executives, managers, production workers, and so forth) and external stakeholders (for example, clients, shareholders, government regulators, suppliers, and so forth) may overlap, they each have specific interests and priorities or goals they seek to pursue. Each constituency brings its own interests and motivations into the organizational arena.We can therefore consider organizations as webs of fluid interactions between different groups of people whose interests keep changing. The multiple constituencies approach is therefore a means to identify the actions and motivations of people. More importantly, it reflects organizational change as a continuously negotiable order because interests and coalitions change over time. Although the multiple constituencies perspective originated with Cyert and March, it is rooted in the social contract tradition of political and moral argum ent.The idea of contract theory emerged in the seventeenth century with the political theorists Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the twentieth century such theories have become the basis for political theorists (as we will see in Chapter 7) and writers concerned with corporate ethics (see Chapter 2). 1. 4. 1 Stakeholder interests Since stakeholders reflect dynamic interests, change agents need to learn how to interact with them. There are various ways of doing this. For example, Mitroff (1983) suggests seven approaches.These are: 1. The imperative approach, which identifies stakeholders who feel strongly about an organization’s proposed policies or actions. This approach requires making a list of as many stakeholders as possible and interacting with them to resolve concerns. 2. The positional approach, which identifies stakeholders who occupy formal positions in a policy-making structure. For example, health trusts, schools, colleges, universities, and charities are required to have boards of governors who must oversee the operations of such organizations.Many boards of governors can be identified from organization charts or legal documents. 3. The reputational approach entails asking various knowledgeable or important people to nominate those they believe to have a stake in the organization. 4. The social participation approach identifies individuals or groups of stakeholders who may have an interest in a policy-related issue for the organization. For example, members of committees, and people who might normally be excluded because they are not so visible, or who do not normally have the opportunity to articulate their views, will be represented. 5.The opinion-leadership approach identifies individuals who have access to leverage of some sort. Examples include informed professionals, commentators, and editors of important newspapers or journals. PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE 6. The demographic approach identifies stakeholders by charac teristics such as age, sex, race, occupation, religion, place of birth, and level of education. 7. The focal organization approach seeks to identify individuals and organizations that have important relationships with the focal organization. That is, suppliers, employees, customers or clients, allies, competitors, regulators.The multiple constituencies perspective suggests that, prior to any change initiative, change agents should analyse the following issues: †¢ The purposes and motivations of a stakeholder. †¢ The resources of a stakeholder. These will include material, symbolic, and physical resources, as well as informational resources and skills. †¢ Special knowledge and opinions of the stakeholder. †¢ Stakeholders’ commitments to the organization and expertise. †¢ Relationships between stakeholders, focusing particularly on the amount of power (or authority), responsibility, and accountability they have. The extent of the network of interdepende nt relationships among stakeholders. †¢ The extent to which a change in strategy can be identified in the interests of any one particular stakeholder. 21 Such an analysis of stakeholder interests suggests that whilst stakeholders are generally supportive and have an interest in the organization, they can also become a negative influence on it. They might indeed reflect a threat and become a barrier to organizational change. Mitroff therefore suggests a number of options for influencing or changing the views and actions of particular stakeholders. We can: †¢ Simply exercise power and authority by ommanding the stakeholder to comply. †¢ Appeal to reason and therefore attempt to persuade the stakeholder. †¢ Engage in tactical bargaining with a stakeholder. †¢ Negotiate in order to reach a compromise. †¢ Engage in problem solving by sharing information, debating, and arriving at mutually agreed perceptions. The multiple constituencies perspective reflects a view of social systems in which people take actions and engage in activities to maximize their own interests. They also collude with others and engage in purposeful activity. Negotiation of organizational change revolves around three central issues: 1.Changing organizational objectives requires that leaders be able to re-evaluate the organization’s current mission, purposes, objectives, and goals, and mobilize action through inspiration. Such leaders need to embrace inspirational leadership. 22 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE 2. The ability to develop and mobilize intellectual capital by using the combined resources held by all stakeholders creatively. This should include the identification and cultivation of scarce resources, skills, and capital. 3. The ability to sustain cooperation and to eliminate conflict among stakeholders so that ethical, moral, and cooperative understanding is achieved.The perspective argues that it is constituencies of people, rather than organizations, that h ave goals and objectives. Consequently, it moves us away from the problem of reification, because stakeholder interests must be negotiated. Yet it still assumes that people act rationally through an appeal to the common good. The perspective draws us towards interventions that focus on a concern with organizational and personal values, social justice, and the distribution of rights and obligations. It provides a useful way forward for organizations in the public domain that are subjected to public scrutiny through governance. . 5 Organizational Development: the humanistic approach to change Organizational Development (OD) is derived from human resource theory or organizational behaviour. It dates back to the Hawthorne experiments, which began in the Western Electrical Company in 1927. Elton Mayo and his team began these experiments by using the same assumptions as the structural-functional perspective: that is, they initially sought to investigate improvements to organizational effi ciency by redesigning an organization’s environment along scientific principles.The experiments focused on rational pragmatic concerns such as technology and work performance, the rate of flow of materials, and throughput of a factory system. One can therefore recognize the early development of open-systems theory and structural design within these experiments. Their lack of success meant that the problem of efficiency and effectiveness was refocused towards socio-psychological factors, such as group norms. One interesting source dating back to 1926 was Mary Parker Follett’s description of ‘The Giving of Orders’ (1926).Follett argued that psychology could make an important contribution to understanding motivational relationships in the workplace. One example she discusses is the importance of understanding the law of the situation. Once this is discovered, better attitudes follow. She suggested that giving orders in a positive manner facilitated more harmo nious attitudes within the workplace. But related concerns that began with the Second World War later paved the way for a more sophisticated social science concerned with behaviour in organizations.In particular, a concern to identify effective leadership and to enhance workgroup relationships was paramount because of the American army’s focus on morale. As a result, many academics emerged from this tradition with a clear focus on the relationship PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE between leadership, motivation, and group dynamics. The investigation of individual and organizational needs was part of this use of applied social science. An early example was Maslow’s research, which resulted in his paper ‘A Theory of Human Motivation’ (1943).The awareness that human needs impact on organizations was a theme developed further in McGregor’s The Human Side of Enterprise (1957). By the late 1960s and 1970s OD emerged from this behavioural research as a distinct disci pline. Whilst it focused on harmonizing individual and organizational needs, it also readily adopted the open-systems framework of the structural-functional perspective. French and Bell (1978) were largely responsible for articulating this approach when they characterized the perspective as a mixture of open-systems theory with humanistic values.Today, we can discern six essential characteristics of OD. These are: 1. A methodology informed largely by Action Research—a term coined by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s. 2. Interventions should only result from careful organizational diagnosis (Tichy, Hornstein, and Nisberg, 1976). 3. A recognition that effective change requires process consultation (Schein, 1995) rather than negotiation through an individual in order to achieve corporate social responsibility in change initiatives.It should be noted that this is in line with OD’s humanistic approach to change. 4. An awareness of barriers to personal growth and organizational change , championed largely by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross (1973). 5. An emphasis on personal and organizational learning in contrast to training, proposed by Reg Revans (1982). 6. A recognition that groups and culture will influence change initiatives, articulated by Lewin (1951) and Schein and Bennis (1965). OD emerged as a distinctive discipline for managing change.It did so initially by adopting experiential approaches such as T-groups (training groups) and Lewin’s Force Field Analysis as a technique for managing organizational transitions. Action Research encouraged employees to develop a collaborative approach to diagnosing problems and engaging in action learning. Argyris’s book on Intervention Theory and Method (1970) is a comprehensive review of process-consultation techniques articulated by Schein (1995) and intervention techniques that became associated with the idea of planned, organization-wide change.Such change strategies were ‘managed from the top’ in o rder to ‘increase organizational effectiveness and health’ through interventions in the organization’s processes using behavioural science knowledge (Beckhard, 1969). Lewin’s (1951) three stages of change—unfreeze, change, refreeze—reflects the essence of the traditional OD approach through which a clear goal or destination is identified and cascaded to the organization’s members. This has been described as a linear model of change (Marshak, 1993) that tends to omit the 23 24 UNDERSTANDING CHANGE untidy parts of the process that do not fit neatly into Lewin’s framework’ (Inns 1996: 23). Most critics of Lewin’s planned change model make this argument. However, we must be cautious about this since, as we will see in Chapter 3, Lewin did not apply this approach to organization-level change. Often, OD proceeds with problem identification through the application of Action Research at the individual, the group, or the or ganizational level. Following careful diagnosis, intervention strategies are designed to deal with an organizational problem by applying various techniques.At the individual level, behaviour modification theory is often used to encourage personal growth. At the group level, intervention strategies are informed by analysis of group dynamics, whilst at the organizational level, strategic interventions are designed to manage strategic change through the application of technology, structural change, or change to human resources. We can understand how these interventions work by exploring them in greater depth. 1. 5. 1 Intervention strategies at the individual level Strategies at the individual level were influenced by behaviour modification theory.The purpose of this technique is to increase the frequency of desired behaviours and reduce the frequency of undesired behaviours. Behaviour modification therefore seeks to modify the behaviours of individuals by training people to recognize a positive stimulus in order to provoke a desired response. It can also be used to change an individual’s reaction to fears and phobias. Intervention strategies used instead of behaviour modification theory include personal and management development techniques such as Lewin’s Force Field Analysis and learning interventions designed to improve personal learning. Stop and think 1. 4 We rarely remember modifying our own behaviour but we do this all the time. Think about the last time you learned a new skill. How difficult was this at first? During the learning process how did you modify your own behaviour or attitudes? How did evaluation lead to improvement? 1. 5. 2 Intervention strategies at the group level At the group level, intervention strategies originated from studies of group dynamics including armed forces personnel, industrial workers, and professional groups. Group dynamics was first defined by Kurt Lewin in the 1940s.Observations of groups led Lewin to note th at groups develop personalities as a result of their unique composition. Change was therefore more likely when the group as a whole made a collective decision to have its members change their behaviours. This was far more effective in producing the desired changes than more formal techniques such as lectures and PERSPECTIVES ON CHANGE instruction. Lewin’s work became the foundation for training in group skills, sensitivity training, teambuilding, and OD. Groups therefore can be a major influence on change, or can inhibit change.However, the capability of a group to respond flexibly to change will depend on the degree to which its members: †¢ Explore problem-solving alternatives. †¢ Are motivated to achieve the objectives of the group. †¢ Make an effort to learn how to change. †¢ Discover what specifically needs to be changed to meet current demands. †¢ Are prepared to experiment. 25 1. 5. 3 Intervention strategies at the organizational level At the or ganizational level, a greater depth was provided by a focus on planned change interventions.Planned change strategies, according to Chin and Benne (1976), emerged from the Enlightenment tradition with the application of rational thought to interventions in the modern world. In other words, changing things requires an application to reason. Associated with this was the pursuit of social progress. Chin and Benne describe a central element common to all planned change programmes as ‘the conscious utilisation and application of knowledge as an instrument or tool for modifying patterns and institutions of practice’ (1976: 22).Planned change interventions are therefore extremely varied but they fall under three broad headings: 1. Empirical–rational interventions, such as political interventions giving rise to new