Driving Force of Globalisation Essay

An NIC stands for a Newly Industrialised Country. It is a term used to describe a country that has moved away from an agriculture-based economy and into a more industrialised, urban economy. These countries have a high growth rate. Current NICs include China, India, Brazil, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Philippines, Thailand and Turkey. The average growth rate between these countries is approximately 7.64% compared to the world average of 3.7% (2011). The average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita for these NICs is US$10,769 compared to the world average GDP per capita of US$12,000. GDP is a useful indicator of development and a great measure for comparing differences between countries, therefore allowing a clear differentiation between countries that are Highly Industrialised Countries (HICs), Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs) or Low Industrialised Countries (LICs). The Human Development Index (HDI) is another strong indicator of development, it includes a combination of statistics: life expectancy, education and income. The average HDI of these NICs is approximately 0.6874. The world average HDI is 0.862. India is now an NIC, as the IT services boom has transformed the country’s economy, which is now growing at more than 9% per year, the same rate as China. India’s HIC is 0.547(2011 estimate). Since China opened up its markets to the West in the 1980s, the city of Shanghai has transformed into a booming metropolis consisting of about 21 million people. Shanghai accounts for 30% of China’s foreign exports and attracts 25% of all foreign investment into the country. The GDP of Shanghai alone is US450 billion! China’s HDI is 0.867 (2011 estimate). Globalisation is the stage of processes and impacts that occur at a global scale, usually economic systems, but it can include physical systems (global warming) and socio-cultural systems (fashion, music, film industry). Globalisation can be measured using the Globalisation Index, which tracks and assess changes in the 4 key components of global integration. Another measure of globalisation is the KOF Index of Globalisation. This calculates the overall index of globalisation and sub-indices referring to actual economic flows, economic restrictions, data on information flows, data on personal contact and data on cultural proximity. NICs have been and continue to be the driving force of globalisation. Manufacturing tends to occur mainly in industrialised countries. Globally, manufacturing output continues to increase and most manufacturing still occurs in industrialised countries. Although relative contribution of manufacturing to most industrialised countries economies has declined, manufacturing remains fundamental to all economies. Many of the new industrialised countries are dramatically increasing their manufacturing output, by establishing their unique multi-nationals and implement manufacturing plants in developed countries. An example of a country doing this is South Korea. NICs have a variety of advantages over fully developed countries, as they are able to benefit from cheap labour costs, lower business taxes, cheaper land and fewer environmental controls. Multi-nationals are hugely responsible for a large majority of the rise in globalisation, for example; the introduction of Trans-national companies (TNCs). These multi-nationals have huge benefits, i.e. they have generated millions of new jobs in NICs, however; they have also lead to social, political and economic problems within a country, as well as between countries. For example, Uganda, a very poor country with a GDP per capita of just $1,300 (2011), has been forced to lower its prices of exporting coffee, which is what its economy relies on. Coffee prices have fallen by 70% since 1997, costing exporters in developing countries $8 billion in lost foreign-exchange earnings. This divides the gap between the rich and the poor, as the richer countries will benefit from trading, while the poorer countries, such as Uganda, will loose out in gaining money on exports, therefore making them poorer. TNCs dominate industrial production including manufacturing and services, therefore further dividing the gap between the rich and the poor, and being the main leader of globalisation as a consequence. TNCs work to meet the demand for its good from HICs. For example, Toyota, like many other TNCs undertakes much of its manufacturing in LICs in order to meet the high and constant demand from HICs. Manufacturing in LICs is preferred as it provides these large companies with cheap labour. Toyota was recorded as the fifth largest TNC in 2010. It has 51 overseas manufacturing companies in 26 countries and regions, it has Design and Research and Development centres in the USA, Japan, Belgium, the UK, France, Thailand and Australia, and its headquarters are in Japan. Globalisation inevitably increases pressure to liberalise trade and to eliminate tariffs and non-trade barriers. Liberalisation of trade within OPEC clearly resulted in China (an NIC) for example, gaining a comparative advantage over the US (MIC) in the manufacture of machinery products. Globalisation has also been a resulting factor for the dramatic increase in technology. Bangalore, in the Silicon Valley of India is experiencing a remarkable IT boom, that is transforming the prospects of India’s economy. The internet is the fastest growing tool of communications. It took just 4 years for the internet to reach 50 million years, in contrast to the 38 years it took for radio and 13 years for television. However, the bulk of internet traffic is between and within North America, Western Europe and, to a limited extent, East Asia i.e. HICs and NICs. In Asia, Japan accounts for the major share of internet traffic, which is the reason for why this country has become an NIC, where as most other countries in Asia are LICs. A number of charismatic new Indian companies are now challenging the multinationals for global leadership in this area, including TCS (TATA Consultancy Services), Infosys and WIPRO (the current global leader in technology). The IT services boom has helped to transform the Indian economy, which is now growing at more than 9% a year, comparable to China. The new-found affluence of the young workers in the IT sector has led to a change in attitudes to wealth and consumption in the country. More and more young people are increasingly being able to afford such luxuries, for example cars and home ownership. On the other hand, NICs are not necessarily the driving force to globalisation. The reason for this is that these countries have only been able to develop due to the richer western countries. These MICs have the money to buy up land in poorer countries, as part of land colonization in order to meet the demand of these MICs. Many of the new industrializing countries (NICs) are dramatically increasing their manufacturing output, however this is only as a result of industrialised countries becoming established in the NICS. The core periphery is a theory to explain the process by which some countries become wealthy and others become poor, subsequently increasing the divide between them. The patterns of trade that emerges from the 1500s onwards created a wealthy ‘core’ of European countries. The nations who supply these rich European countries remained poor and on the edge, known as the periphery. The Global core regions include North America, Europe and Japan. This core owns and consumes 80% of global goods and services, earns the highest incomes, makes most decisions about the global economy, e.g. what goods are produced, and provides most global investment. Therefore, richer countries control trade, and so have control of LICs to meet their large demand, subsequently being the driving force of globalisation. Trade has been the engine of globalisation, with world wide trade in manufactures goods increasing more than 100 times (from $9.5 billion to $12 trillion) in the last 50 years. This has outpaced the overall growth of the global economy. Since 1960, increased trade has been made easier by international agreements to lower tariff and non-tariff barriers on export of manufactured goods, especially to rich countries. Those countries which have managed to increase their role in the world trading system (through implementing TNCs) by targeting exports to rich countries – such as Japan, Korea and now China. All these countries have seen a dramatic increase in their standard of living. In conclusion, I strongly believe that NICs have been the driving force to globalisation. Moving to a more industrialised, urban economy will help any country to perform better in the global market, helping it to gain a higher growth rate and GDP. Having a higher HDI in a country will also help those countries to receive higher standards of living and an enhanced quality of life. Globalisation occurs as factor of change to economic, physical and socio-cultural systems, which all have large global influences. HICs have therefore, increasingly been the cause for globalisation, as they develop from an agriculture-based economy into an industrialised, urban economy.

Chemunity.Com Case Study Analysis

Take Home Exam Questions Question 1 When ChemUnity. com began, Herman Rijks was a 37 year old, Masters of Science graduate from the Technological University of Delft, Netherlands. He was born in South Yemen and grew up in Africa. Rijks had experience in green-field chemical distribution start-ups, and general management experience in various chemical companies. He worked for HCI, a chemical company for three years, and prior to ChemUnity. com, he was part of the HCI corporate e-commerce task force. Mark-Jan Terwindt was a 34 year old graduate from Nijenrode Business School in Netherlands.He worked for eight years in the chemical distributions in countries such as: Ecuador, El Salvador, and Venezuela. Later, he went to the Czech Republic to manage HCI Operations, and before ChemUnity, he was in South Africa managing the integration of an acquired company. Both the founders spoke Dutch, English, Spanish, and a working knowledge of German, and additionally, Herman spoke French. Also, th e founders shared similar interests, like sports and traveling (flying), and both have wives and children. The founders have a good amount of experience in business, e-commerce and the general industry to succeed.They both have several years tenure in companies related to the industry. Also, they are highly educated in areas that are important to the company (for example, Business and Science). The linguistic abilities of the founders allow them to understand and communicate with partners and customers in Western Europe, improving communication channels and service quality. The shared interests they have could mean that they understand each other more, have a good friendship, and allow them to work together on the company more frequently than just regular founders.Alternatively, this could mean that they will reinforce each other’s ideas without truly considering all the factors involved. Question 2 The product that ChemUnity provides fits extremely well with an online exchan ge because it’s a commodity. Meaning that all variables (grade, concentration & packaging) can be standardized and price is the determinate factor. The system used protects the buyers and sellers, and creates a serious and profitable environment for all, and makes buying and selling easy.A buyer’s order has a preferred and highest acceptable price, and only the preferred price is transferred to the suppliers. Potential suppliers within the right geographical region are forwarded the message via email and SMS. The supplier has 25 hours to respond with a bid, and this only happens once to avoid price erosion of auction-like bids. ChemUnity compares the bid, informs the buyer and supplier who got the deal, and they take care of the transaction. Additionally, no parties can withdraw from the deal, and inquiries are very serious.The simplicity in the variables makes commodities easy to trade in an online exchange and the business model developed by ChemUnity creates a profi table, safe, and easy buying & selling environment. The characteristics of the products fit, and can be successfully sold online in an online exchange. Question 3 Steps (1) through (5) explain the trading process at ChemUnity and are listed below. (1) An inquiry is posted from a buyer on the ChemUnity website that includes the name, grade, concentration, and packing of the commodity based on a predetermined list, delivery date, geographical region of the buyer, and a price indication. price indication includes preferred and highest acceptable price, and the preferred is given transferred to suppliers) (2) Potential suppliers, determined by information given by companies, are forwarded the inquiry. (Both supplier and buyer can exclude parties or regions outside of their scope to trade. ) (3) Once an email or SMS message is received by the supplier they have 25 hours to respond with its bid. (Which only can be made once to prevent price erosion) (4) ChemUnity compares the bids, inform s the supplier who got the deal, and connects the buyer and seller where the transaction is managed between the two parties. transaction is binding and because of credit insurance, supplier payment is certain) (5) The supplier ships the product and the buyer receives it. The trading process is streamlined and simplified in a concise number of steps. This seems like a very efficient process that does not even revision and it serves its purpose. Question 4 Value Proposition for Both Buyers and Sellers * Time efficiency in buying & selling products. * Access to good buyer & seller track records. * Emotion free deals with no room for confusion. * Multiple ways to access: internet or WAP phone capability. Clear legal framework adds simplicity. * No time zones. * Future linkage to your order entry. * Credit insurance. * More efficient supply chain. * Optional usage and ability to react whenever needed. * Higher margins as non-value added middlemen are eliminated. Value Proposition for Buy ers * No need to contact multiple sellers with each purchase of products. * Quick responses to requests. * Proactive & filtered information with no overload or irrelevant postings. * Post your preferred price. * Able to source from new companies more efficiently and at lower prices. Value Proposition for Sellers Receive only interesting requests from buyers that are profitable through filtering of information based on seller’s profile. * Possibility of serving smaller customers and reaching customers in new geographical markets. * Freedom in making bids. * Set your own prices. * Payment coverage and easy credit checks. * Ability to exclude regions or parties in a buyers list. * Ability to do normal business and travel as bids only needed to be checked once a day. * Eliminate regional boundaries and ability to reach the whole market. * Other sellers in market will not dump products. No Price erosion from auction like bids. There are several advantages for both parties at what would seem like little to no cost to either party. ChemUnity assists these companies in making transactions while they focus on their respective specializations. This allows for much more buying and selling efficiency. The value proposition is extremely strong. The value proposition seems great on paper, but in fact could be improved greatly. As the alternative ChemUnity. com Case (2002) suggests the chemicals market is large one and has a long inefficient supply chain.A consortium might not wipe out all the companies, and classifications and regulations in Europe is still far from consistent across all countries. A very large part of customers do not use a Complete Tender Management system, they use catalogues. A large addition to the value added for a supplier and buyer would be to have one of these systems implemented. Sourcing/access to the information will give value added and not just a yellow pages approach to the system. Question 5 There are several major threats to the Chem Unity Business model and four of them are summarized below.Potential price collusion between suppliers One threat to ChemUnity business model is the collusion of prices between suppliers. If they decided to set all the prices high it could affect the ability for the company to create value for the buyer. Also, even if these prices weren’t high, it would affect the ability for ChemUnity to negotiate prices. This threat is strong because it would eliminate the value added, but is very unlikely to happen as the suppliers want to compete naturally in sales and would require some type of elaborate conspiracy. Supplier and buyer post purchase relationshipAnother threat to the ChemUnity business model is if the buyers and sellers decide to keep makings transactions after the first sale without ChemUnity in the picture. This would probably increase seller margins and make products cheaper for the buyers. ChemUnity would not have control over the situation as much, due to the fact the y bring the buyer and seller together and let them take care of the transaction. Competing websites (Catalogue, Aggregator and Auction) Catalogue, aggregator, and auction site business models are in direct competition with the ChemUnity business model.They can take away market share because we all compete for the same customers. If users have no problem searching through the catalogues and finding the deal they want, there is no value added for the searching and time costs that ChemUnity offers. Aggregator business models can add huge amounts of leverage to the buyer as they are all working together to get the best prices. They go to the supplier, speak for the buyers and get the best deal. Auction sites can but a lot of pressure on suppliers and can support dumping practices and price erosion. It is very attractive to a buyer when he can get much lower prices as a result of these effects.Traditional Distributers These traditional distributers could be considered indirect competitor s as they do not compete online, but have a presence in the industry. They could have strong relationships with buyers especially in their local geographical areas. They could compete on convenience and logistics with the buyers, especially if it was a convenient automatic replenishment system, where the traditional distributers handled everything. This is based off of the idea that managing something might have more costs than it’s worth, especially if it’s in small quantities or cost values.Consortiums According to the alternate ChemUnity. com case study (2002), ChemUnity could encounter problems if a company’s grouped together to start their own market place. This is known as a consortium, and ChemUnity could â€Å"find it [hard] to get suppliers and buyers to go on-line, and this is a drawback compared with a consortium. † It further explains that if key suppliers were to launch a consortium it would crush the market place credibility of ChemUnity. Ov erall Threat Analysis There are several threats that the ChemUnity business model faces in this environment.Potential price collusion between suppliers eliminates the value added by the company and supplier & buyer post purchase relationship prevents revenue from repeat purchases. Catalogue, Aggregator, and Auction sites – the direct competition for the company, threaten the business model as they compete for the same customers. Traditional distributers – our indirect competitors, still have a presence in the industry through customer relationships, convenience, and time saved. Consortiums are future competitors; they can crush the credibility of the company if created.ChemUnity can meet its threats as it a differentiated service than can add a lot of value, but if it cannot meet its threats it will have huge problems with market penetration. Question 6 Below you will find a Porter’s Five Forces analysis used to find the attractiveness of the industry. Bargainin g Power of Buyers (-) Bargaining power of buyers is very high, because buyers are not dependant on this way of purchasing a product. They can use multiple other channels to purchase it. There is a high availability of substitute services, so buyers have a lot of power in terms of options.Buyer switching costs are nothing compared to firm switching costs, buyers can choose to go anywhere and this service has a small amount of buyers (because of the large size of orders). In addition, there is high buyer price sensitivity and buyer information is extremely high. They can search a lot of places to find information on prices. Lastly, the products do not have uniqueness, they are simplistic in the amount of variables and standardized. Overall, bargaining power of buyers is high and I rated this as negative for the attractiveness of the industry.Bargaining Power of Suppliers (+) In general, there are there are several suppliers who offer similar products so there are a lot of alternatives for the firm to work with other suppliers who want the demand. There is also a high presence of substitute inputs for these chemicals as other manufactures can create identical chemical products. There is also a very weak distribution channel so the suppliers may rely some of the companies’ services. Overall, the bargaining power of suppliers is low and I rated this as positive for the attractiveness of the industry. Threat of New Entrants (-)A website with a similar business model could easily be implemented at a very low cost. Similar software that the company uses could easily be imitated because of the very simplified variables in commodity products and intuitive idea. Websites can be up in a matter of weeks or days, and overall it is very easy for new entrants to start a company. Alternatively, the exit barriers are very low as well, as a website can be shut down at any moment and the company holds no inventory or major facilities. Overall, the threat of new entrants is high and I rated this as negative for the attractiveness of the industry.Threat of Substitute Products or Services (-) The threat of substitute services is very high. Any company could come up with a similar idea and there are several substitute business models that threaten the market share. Catalogue, Aggregator, and Auction sites can easily be substitutes for the service. Traditional distributers can also easily service anyone in this market. In addition, key suppliers could create a consortium and take over instantly while killing the market credibility of this service. Overall, the threat of substitute services is high and I rated this as negative for the attractiveness of the industry.Intensity of Competitive Rivalry (-) Intensity of Competitive Rivalry is high in the industry, as the case noted – there were a lot of players in the market place that established operations and gathered customer base. These companies, along with us compete for the same customers. There a re several firms in the industry competing (high firm concentration ratio). Strong competition between online and offline service offerings mixed with difficulty in maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage leads to a high intensity of competitive rivalry.Overall, the intensity of competitive rivalry is high and I rated this as negative for the attractiveness of the industry. Overall the attractiveness of the industry as seen in the above Porters Five Forces analysis is one out of five which leads me to believe the industry isn’t very attractive. The bargaining power of buyers, threat of new entrants, threat of substitute products or services, and intensity of competitive rivalry were all negative in terms of attractiveness in our analysis. The buyers have power, entrants can easily get in, there are many substitutes, and it is very competitive.The only attractive part is that supplier power is not that high, even though they are still very important to the firm. Questi on 7(a) As indicated in the case, the major categories of ChemUnity’s costs were related to marketing, people, and IT. Also, in the beginning marketing was the biggest cost at 60%, leaving 30% to people, and 10% to IT. Later, the people costs were assumed to rise and the marketing costs were assumed to go down. I estimate this would leave us at 50% marketing, 40% people and 10% IT. It was noted in the case that there were two venture capital companies providing early financing in the amount of â‚ ¬1. million (27. 5% of the company). Using this number, marketing would cost â‚ ¬750,000, people would cost â‚ ¬600,000, and IT would cost â‚ ¬150,000. Question 7(b) As noted in the case, the average size of a deal was estimated to be â‚ ¬5,000 to â‚ ¬10,000. Using the 2% transaction fee, and the most conservative deal estimate, you get â‚ ¬100 per transaction (â‚ ¬5000 ? 2%). This would mean that you would require 1,500,000 transactions to break even with the early financing that was made. This could be attainable over time but is not likely to happen quickly, especially with the low amount of buyers the business serves.Question 7(c) Using the 3000 daily customers to the website from the case, the 1995 click through rate of 2. 1% , and a estimate of â‚ ¬0. 19 per click ( high pay-per click estimate is due to the fact that these customers are very focused), the website could generate â‚ ¬11. 9 daily (3000 ? 2. 1% ? â‚ ¬0. 19), and â‚ ¬359. 10 monthly. This is not a very significant amount of money. The pros of this kind of income is that it is basically free, as long as you have a website and takes not much management of the ads to generate the revenue.The cons are that there is a very small amount of money per click, and with only 3000 customers daily you are very limited to how much you can make. If you had for example a hundred thousand or so a day, this would be much better. Question 8 Short-Term Challenges The main short -term challenge was to test the concept with a couple of products to see if the company is on the right track. Successful implementation starts from marketing and the company needs to make sure suppliers are aware of the exchange and get product leaders. The belief at the time was that the buyers would come as soon as the sellers were onboard.Once buyers and sellers are established, the company needs to activate them to get the market liquidity up. Once the company is known for these products, they have succeeded in the first challenge. The second short-term challenge was a human resources issue; they needed people a chemical history background. These people would communicate with suppliers and buyers and should bring enthusiasm and belief in the business idea. The third short-term challenge was an IT issue – the technology needed to work flawlessly in its execution.The service is not perfect at the moment the company is working towards improving it. Long-Term Challenges The major long-term challenge was expansion of operations. By targeting a couple of strategic suppliers and many fragmented buyers in each product, they believed they could have a total of 200-500 suppliers, and up to 10,000 buyers. They believe they need to proceed with one product at a time, giving them the ability to test the concept and concentrate efforts on a focused segment. The real challenge was to pick the right products.They could also expand their service portfolio, by providing more financial services to gain revenue. They could also get involved with transportation, but would be a difficult avenue as they need to choose the right services, good partners and the proper expansion location. Cash flow has been an issue so the company needs to raise more financing. A second round of financing was timed for a couple months after launching the service. The company wants to raise another â‚ ¬5 – 10 million from banks, venture capital, and market players. Meeting Short-Te rm ChallengesThe company needs to begin testing the concept as soon as possible. Successful implementation begins with marketing efforts – the company needs to raise supplier awareness of the exchange and get product leaders onboard. The next issue is raising market liquidity, and it can be done by activating the sellers and buyers by contacting them. Once the company raises awareness about its products, they have succeeded in the first short-term challenge. The second short-term challenge can be solved by using a headhunter to find the best people the company can find.This would require some funding but will easily be worth the cost. These people would need to be educated on the concepts of the company and know how to communicate well with suppliers and buyers about the service, and have enthusiasm and a strong belief in the business. The final short-term challenge can be solved by rigorously testing and improving the technology to work flawlessly. Meeting Long-Term Challeng es The expansion of operations should be done by targeting more suppliers and buyers for more potential revenue.I believe these need to be higher than the estimates given in the case– 200 suppliers and maybe 5000 buyers is not adequate enough. It is possible they can try targeting an additional geographical location, perhaps in South/Central America or Africa where the founders worked. Either way, with the market they have now, they need to test a concept and concentrate efforts on a focused segment and pick the right products. One option for expansion was to provide financial services, or get involved with the transportation of the product.Personally, I am not a fan of this idea because they are losing focus on what they specialize in. But if they were to do these options, they would need to hire consultants and rework the business model entirely. Also, with transportation they need to choose the right type of services, good partners, and a good expansion location. Finally f or their cash flow problems, they will need to ensure they get that financing by fully disclosing information, addressing the problems they have, and working with venture capitalists to perhaps negotiate the share of the company for a given amount of funding.Question 9 As the alternate ChemUnity Case Study (2002) suggests, it’s easy to multiply figures and play around revenues and market volume on paper, but it does not address the habits of a given industry. Experience has shown that many internet service providers have failed due to the fact that many of them were not focused enough, spent too much money before making any, and didn’t bring enough value to its users. The main challenge lies in the art of change management.ChemUnity has this challenge for both buyers and seller, but it remains that these groups would benefit from a multitude of significant strategic advantages (if it had the ability to support change management processes) Also the case suggests that fo r the company to potentially succeed, the platform they develop must be flexible and characterized by short development cycles that will match the needs of the market and increase the functionality for its end users. They also need the right mix of employees with experience in the field and who are used to driving change along with a highly skilled sales team.If they had an online complete tender management system, they could save time and money and access more efficient markets. This is a great opportunity for the company to drive change in the company – along with a complete business process reengineering of their buying and selling process. If the company followed these steps, they would have potential success in the market. I personally don’t think they can be successful unless they do these things, and it seems like a big changes are needed. Question 10 (a) The three options for business model changes are below:Status Quo This option would be to remain the same bu t focused on its specialization. Transportation Addition to Business Model This option would be to introduce transportation into the model to create more value for customers. Financial Services Addition to Business Model This option would be to introduce financial services into the model to create more value for customers. The criteria we used to assess which business model to use includes the following: Cost, Value Added, Revenue, Expenses, Ease of Change, and Adaptability.I decided to use a decision matrix and estimate the values from 1-10 using subjective data from the case and intuition. The best alternative according to the criteria is Added Financial Service to the business model. It would not cost a very high amount to implement, would add a decent amount of value and revenue to the business. The expenses are fairly high, seeing as you need more cash on hand and you need to develop this business model, and be able to setup a good financial plan for customers.The ease of chang e is pretty fair, is pretty easy to adapt into it, and has a moderate amount of risk involved. Finally, the market share is would increase a lot compared to status quo. The next close business model would have been transportation, it’s just a more risky and more rewarding model because it requires large capital investments, but hard to adapt and change into. References Petri Lehtivaara (2002) ChemUnity. com Case Study. Retrieved From http://www. supplychain-forum. com/documents/articles/ACF41. df Nielsen Norman Group (2000) Methodology Weaknesses in Poynter Eyetrack Study. Retrieved from http://www. nngroup. com/articles/methodology-weaknesses-poynter/ Wikipedia (2012) Pay Per Click. Retrieved from http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Pay_per_click ——————————————– [ 2 ]. Nielsen Norman Group reports a 2. 1% click through rate in 1995. [ 3 ]. Wikipedia reports that in 1997 the pa y-per-click was from $. 005 to $. 25 (â‚ ¬0. 003 to â‚ ¬0. 19 using March 26,2013 exchange rates)

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Information Systems Basics - Essay Example et of interrelated components that collect, manipulate, store, and disseminate data and information and provide a feedback mechanism to meet an objective.† (Stair and Reynolds, 2011). That is, using IS, organizations and its employees can store as well as analyze the organizational data for the key purpose of organizational functioning as well as critical management decisions. As mentioned above, as part of IS, various departments of the organization will use number of IT related products from computers, servers, internet, softwares and so on, to carry out the organizational tasks. â€Å"Today, information systems are used for business processes from communication to order processing to number crunching and in business functions ranging from marketing to human resources.† (Stair and Reynolds, 2011). Globalization is a phenomenon that has changed the world in various aspects, from cultural aspects to business aspects. Speaking of business aspects, globalization has broken down the invisible barriers between the countries and by â€Å"riding† on technology has and is still creating business opportunities for organizations. That is, due to globalization and the resultant immense opportunities, organizations are entering newer countries or markets in a more optimum manner. While entering and after entering, these organizations maximally utilize Information Systems (IS) for virtually managing the organization. (IS (information system or information services), n. d). From emails to video conferencing, cloud computing and so on, organizations are maximally utilizing IS. In addition, organizations depend on internet and web to carry out various processes. All these incorporation of IS into organizational functioning due to globalization and the resultant entry into newer markets has been transforming the traditional businesses into digital businesses. â€Å"Organizations are trying to become more competitive and efficient by digitally enabling their core business processes

Control Mechanisms Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Control Mechanisms Paper - Essay Example Planning incorporates different control mechanisms and their impact on the system. During a planning stage, management develops several approaches in order to respond to possible changes and threats. Concurrent control influences decision-making process and further implementation. Budgetary controls determine allocation of resources and time spent on each activity. Planning and control procedures are computerized and take advantage of the explosive growth of inexpensive, commercially available budgeting, scheduling, and resource allocation software (Frame, 2002). Feedforward and feedback control influence implementation and organizing. In order to cope with this ever-changing character of needs, managers first recognize that it exists. Feedforward and feedback control influence selection of techniques and methods of organizing. Beyond this, they are aware that the changing nature of needs that may require changes in the plan once implementation takes place. Concurrent control does not have a great impact on organizing but requires that immediate changes and variations will be immediately accepted. Plans are rarely static statements of how things should be done; instead, they are dynamic instruments, allowing staff to manage change in an orderly fashion (Starbucks Home Page 2007). Concurrent control helps to foresee that variance from the plan will occur when the plan comes up against the real world. Budgetary control influences coordination and resource control. Control mechanisms influence the directing function and help to make necessary changes and amendments. In Starbucks, managers pay a special attention to feedforward and feedback controls which help to detect threats and errors. Directing depends upon concurrent control and possible variables. The environment in which planning is carried out is complex. Also, budgetary controls stipulate limitations and financial constraints. Starbucks managers first of all are aware of the limitations of the

PEECLAMPSIA Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

PEECLAMPSIA - Term Paper Example The readings have to be at least above 90 for diastolic pressure and more than 140 for systolic pressure for a confirmation of the condition to be made. The HBP readings should at least be accompanied by a confirmatory test of 300 milligrams of protein in urine. As the condition gains severity other symptoms and signs may manifest, and the pressure may reach 160/100. According to evidence based practice these indications do not automatically guarantee the existence of the condition and a measure on platelets has been proposed as a more effective measure (Ekiz et al., 2011). MPV count, which is a platelet measure in predicting the occurrence of preeclampsia is an aspect under debate. This can be seen in the work of Dadeszen who said that the platelet ratio in MPV is more sensitive compared to MPV alone for predicting the adverse maternal outcome related to preeclampsia (Von Dadelszen et al., 2004, p 871-879). Dundar et.al, on the other hand, shows that MPV increases during pregnancy, but is highly prominent during preeclampsia development (Dundar et al., 2008, p 1052-6). As such, MPV provides a good diagnosis tool for the condition. The evidence-based proposal on diagnostics thus implies that MPV is a better measure. This is also cited as a better measure of the condition’s progression-a thing that the other diagnostic measures cannot offer. The evidence-based practice using MPV as a diagnostic measure for the condition is already in clinical practice and has offered a better tool for monitoring the condition. However, it is not widely applicable globally in clinical diagnostics practice. Symptoms: Symptoms of preeclampsia could include irritability, edema, and sudden increase in weight, nausea, decreased urination, belly pain and migraine-like headache. Causes and risk factors: Preeclampsia’s causes are not clearly known, but there are various propositions that point to various probable causes, which include heredity, blood vessel problems, dietar y effects and disorders of the autoimmune system. Factors that predispose pregnant mothers to the problem include advanced age (>35 years), kidney diseases, multiple and first pregnancies as well as pre-existent conditions such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension. Pathogenesis: The etiology of preeclampsia and its development are inconclusive. There is some uncertainty with regard to the development and progression of the condition. However, there is potential explanation on the mechanism of preeclampsia. According to David, Laresgoiti-Servitje and Gomez-Lopez (2010), the limitation of blood flow in placenta is cited as a possible trigger for hormone-based reactions, which cause damage to endothelium that lines the vascular system as well as inflammation that characterizes the condition. Alternative explanations from other studies show that alterations in the immune system and maternal. This research-based proposition is supported by evidence, which shows that shifts occur in the immune system in terms of component cells when the condition occurs. Alterations of allorecognition of the fetus have also been cited as a potential causes of inflammation that accompanies preeclampsia (Fonseca et al., 2007). Management and Treatment: The management of preeclampsia heavily relies on a pharmacologic approach aimed at controlling blood pressure levels (Drife, Magowan & Owen, 2009). This is the current common evidence-based clinical practice that is often put to use in the control of preeclampsia. The aim is to keep high

Market-Led Strategic Change at Tesco plc Research Paper

Market-Led Strategic Change at Tesco plc - Research Paper Example The second applies the analysis to Tesco plc, providing relevant examples. Companies develop marketing plans to know how it should direct its efforts towards bringing a particular product or brand to market. The plan acts as a roadmap, a set of guidelines to ensure success, and contains an analysis of the target market, the marketing objectives, and the marketing mix, which explains in detail the selected strategy for the product, its promotion, distribution, and price (Cohen, 1995). The quality of a marketing plan depends on the assumptions it makes about the customers and the basis for those assumptions, how the marketing objectives are defined, and how the marketing mix are analysed; above all, how it is put into action (Shark, 1994). Traditional literature on marketing programmes and actions such as by Wind and Claycamp (1976) identified the development of product policies (brand, quality, and value) as the most critical element of a marketing plan because this is how companies can engage customers and meet their needs. As Peter and Donnelly (1997, p. 127) observed: "developing new products is the lifeblood of successful business firms". Crawford (1994, p.9-11) categorised "new products" as follows: new to the world (inventions), new for the firm, additions to product lines, product improvements, and repositioning (retargeting for new use or application). Major changes in the marketplace, media and communications, ... elopment of product policies (brand, quality, and value) as the most critical element of a marketing plan because this is how companies can engage customers and meet their needs. As Peter and Donnelly (1997, p. 127) observed: "developing new products is the lifeblood of successful business firms". Crawford (1994, p.9-11) categorised "new products" as follows: new to the world (inventions), new for the firm, additions to product lines, product improvements, and repositioning (retargeting for new use or application). Total Integration Major changes in the marketplace, media and communications, and in consumers were the key drivers in the development of integrated marketing communications or IMC as a new paradigm for marketing professionals for the 21st century (Schultz and Schultz, 1998). Schultz and Kitchen (2000, p.3) identified four elements that pushed these changes in the practice of marketing: digitalisation, information technology, intellectual property, and communication systems, with the result that consumers have become more fragmented and converged into smaller, more targeted and specialised groups. Levitt (1975, p.10) was amongst the first to note the need for changes in the traditional methods, practices, and ways of thinking prevalent in the era of mass marketing and communications in the 1960s and 1970s, arguing that "management should not see itself as merely producing products but as providing customer-creating value satisfaction and pushing this idea to every nook and cranny of the organisationcontinuously, and with enough flair to excite employees". He warned that if this is not done, the company would have no consolidating sense of purpose or direction. The earliest formal definition of integrated marketing was formulated in 1989 by the American

Comparison of Arguments in their Effectiveness Essay

Comparison of Arguments in their Effectiveness - Essay Example Men often seek uncomplicated solutions to problems as well as useful advice while women often try to institute intimacy by making a discussion of problems and getting concerned in order to strengthen connections. According to Macaulay and Rafelman, the styles of speech that men and women use to converse have been depicted as "debate vs. relate", "report vs. rapport, or "competitive vs. cooperative". In fact, Rafelman shows that men and women view the world very differently and this is because of not only their gender and physical characteristics, but also because of the way that they are raised. For a long time, it has been known that the two sexes think and make decisions differently and this is the reason why they are good at the diverse roles that they undertake, and this includes matters concerning language. What a man is good at doing and the way he does it is not the exact way that a woman would do it. There has been a lot of debate concerning this matter, with some, such as Ma caulay, believing that to believe that women see the world differently from men is being sexist. Rafelman on the other hand, believes otherwise, and they attribute these differences in attitude to the fact that men and women were created differently and these differences were meant to serve specific purposes. The fact that there are differences between the characteristics of men and women is an indication of the way in which they communicate with others within the society. Men and women have extremely different ways of dealing with speech especially in stressful situations and these show just how dissimilar their worldview is. Despite the fact that the circumstances leading to a stressful situation may be similar between the two sexes, the way the respond to it is often quite different and this is often manifested in the way that they communicate. For example, men tend to become moody and brood over the situations, and more often than not, they end up picking up fights with the peop le in their lives. Furthermore, men are more likely to prefer remaining alone until such a time as they feel better before needing any company. This is not the case with women who, when dealing with stressful situations, often seek the company of their friends and family with whom to converse so that they can help them deal with the situation. Therefore, it can be said that while men are often aggressive in their speech when in a stressful situation, preferring to be alone, women on the other hand prefer to deal with the situation with the help of the people they love. Men and women view the world differently through the use of new technology in the daily activities; one of the findings is that men use the internet more often on a daily basis as compared to the women. In reality, men prefer doing practical things like paying bills online instead of physically doing the payments. On the contrary, women will prefer handling bills physically, and when searching for something online, th ey are likely to view broad range of sources of information. Instead of searching information online using a variety of search engines, they would do the searching using the sources they trust would give them what they are looking for, these are often limited in number which is attributed to the fact that women have a less probability of trusting as compared to men when it comes to practical issues. Men would use the internet tools frequently for various

The New Calendar Essay Example for Free

The New Calendar Essay As time changes, so does the calendar. In 1793, the Gregorian calendar was replaced by a new one. Dates were moved, months renamed and the number of days in a week increased. The reason for a new calendar in France was to change and fix what was wrong in the original calendar. People who were with the new calendar approved it, for it provided more work and and a better resting day. For those who were against the new calendar, claimed that it made working life more difficult and that it was against nature. The adoption of a new calendar was a major change during the French Revolution. The calendar was created by skilled astronomers and was believed to be correct. The new calendar was created to correct all the problems that were passed down to them for many generations. Many believed that the Gregorian calendar was corrupt and the vices should be corrected (Doc 9). The new calendar showed the character of the revolution. Exactness, simplicity, reason and philosophy was used to create the new calendar. They believed that the new calendar will soon increase commerce and trade through uniformity of weights and measures. The arts and history will need new measurements of time. All errors of routine, which have been passed down, will now be erased (Doc 5). They also believed that it would make farming much easier if the year was split up by seasons (Doc 4). This is bias because the people who created the new calendar probably were high class citizens and don’t know how hard labor was for the farmers and the affects of more work days. Many people were in favor of this new calendar and were strong supporters. Many believed that the church calendar was brought upon ignorant people and that its main purposed was to mark the progress of fanaticism, debasement of nations, persecution and disgust. Also that as time creates new history it needs to be written in a different way (Doc 2). Many supported the Tenth Day of the week. People enjoyed reciting deeds, reading republican accomplishments, and honoring the memory of generals who became martyrs. They claimed they gained virtue on their day of rest (Doc 6). Some where thankful for extra days of labor and less day of rest for the active people (Doc 9). This is bias because if you have an easy job you would want to go to work but if you were raised and worked as a farmer who has do endure ifficult days of hard labor, you would be against the new calendar. Most of the people were not in favor of this new change. Many believed that the new calendar makes it much harder to connect with neighboring countries and with the centuries before them. It creates an obstacle too difficult to overcome (Doc 3). This is bias because even though the countries may have some similarities, their traditions and customs will always be different. Farmers complained about having more days of labor and less days of rest. In the ten day weeks, nine days are work days and one day is a rest day. They said that it was unbearable work and that they need more rest days from the harsh labor (Doc 7). Some say that the new calendar was forced upon the people as an act of despotism and that the holidays and festivals were based on it and were detestable (Doc 8). They also complained that there weren’t enough days of worship and that the extra days of worship should be reduced so Sunday is more holy and that the prayers are accepted by God. This is bias because even if they turn that calendar back to the original, there is only one day of worship, the same as the new calendar. When the National Convention adopted the revolutionary calendar, there were many different reactions to this change. The reason for the new calendar was to create a change and fix all the errors with the Gregorian calendar. Many people thought the new calendar provided more work and production of goods and a better rest day. Those who were not in favor of this new calendar were against it because it created harder labor and less time for rest and worship. This ne calendar lasted through the republican era but was erased by Napoleon I in 1806.

Employee Resistance to Organizational Change

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

Delay In The Malaysian Construction Industry Construction Essay

Delay In The Malaysian Construction Industry Construction Essay In Malaysian construction industry, delay is a problem that commonly happens during the construction stage. Delay is meaning that, construction work cannot complete within the period which stated in the contract document or part of the works run out from the planning schedule. Project delays due to eight groups such as client, consultant and contractor, just to name a few here. The main objective of this study is to identify the causes of delays, effects of delays, method of minimizing of construction delays in the Malaysian construction industry. This study was carried out based on the literature review, questionnaire design, and personal interview. With referring to the literature review, the author found out thirty eight (38) factors that are related to delays due to eight main groups which including client, consultant, contractor, material, labor, equipment, financial and external environment. Besides the causes mentioned, six types of effects and twenty three (23) types of methods of minimizing construction delays were also identified from the research. The questionnaire was distributed to those respondents from developer, contractor and consultant firms (engineer/ designer). For personal interview, it was done with two directors and one post-contract manager from different construction firms. The objectives of this study have been successfully achieve d. From the data collected, there are some most contributing factors including change of orders, poor site management and supervisor, poor design and delays in design due to the client, consultant and contractor related to delays. Besides, shortage of skill labor, shortage of construction material, frequent equipment breakdown, clients difficulties and unforeseen ground condition are also common factors from another five groups related to delays. Time overrun and cost overrun are the common effects in the Malaysian construction industry. On the other hand, method of minimizing of construction delays has been identified that more effective which consists competent project manager, ensure adequate and available source of financial until the project completion, multidisciplinary/ competent project team, complete and proper design at the right time and also proper project planning and scheduling. CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Working Title causes and effects of delay in the Malaysian construction industry 1.2 Problem Statement In the construction industry, projects can be delayed among large number of causes. There are different type and groups of delays found on construction projects. Delay has major effects on completion cost and time of construction project. Delays can be minimized if they were identifying causes. Knowing the cause of any particular delay in a construction project would help avoiding the same. Even though with different types of studies have been carried out to identify the factors influence the causes of delays, since the problems are quite related to the studies need to focus on specific geographical area, or region in Malaysia. A major appreciation of the Malaysia construction industry is due to the growing rate of delays in project delivery. In Malaysia most public work projects, including any construction projects under government authority or under privacy are awarded on a competitive basis using the traditional approach. The consultants and contractors are engaged in separate contracts. The contractors commonly would be involved until the whole project have been completed 1.3 Aim and objective of study 1.3.1 Aim To investigate delays pertaining in construction projects in Malaysia 1.3.2 Objective To identify the major causes of delays in construction project; To identify the effects of delays in construction project; and To identify the methods of minimizing construction delays. 1.4 Background of the study Construction delay is major problems frequent occur in the construction industry. Delays adversely impact on project stakeholders including owners, design professionals, construction professionals, purchaser and others. The main objectives of construction projects are cost, time, quality and safety numerous They have mentioned the most important causes in large building construction projects in Saudi Arabia which included approval of shop drawings, delays in payment to contractors and the resulting cash problems during construction, design changes, conflict in work schedules of subcontractors, slow decision making and executive bureaucracy in owners organizations, design errors, labor shortage and inadequate labor skill. (Assaf, et al, 1995) Refer to causes of delay in Saudi Arabia, the major parties to lead the delay happen which include client and contractor. Because of client always change the design of building. Besides that, late responds and poor project management team and also delay pay month payment to the contractor by client. On the other hand, contactor due to not enough worker during work progress and some argument with sub-contractor. They have studied the delays in building project in Thailand, as an example of problem faced by the developing economies. They concluded that the problems of the construction industry in developing economies can be nested in three layers: problem of shortages or inadequacies in industry infrastructure, mainly supply of resources; problems caused by clients and consultants; and problems caused by incompetence of contractors. (Ogunlana, et al, 1996) Construction in Thailand because some parties fault due to project delay such as contractor consultant and. During construction stage the client because of changing certain part of design and lack of experience could not solve the problem immediately. Besides client, designer is one of the parties because of own fault which is give unclear drawing to the contractor due to lack in experience. On the hand, the other parties which is contractor because of facing in poor management team, improper planning and scheduling and also inadequacy of s ite inspection. They have surveyed and classified the causes of construction delays in Hongkong as seen by clients, contractor and consultants, and examined the factors affecting productivity. The results of their research indicate that the five principal and common causes of delays are: poor site management and supervision; unforeseen ground condition; low speed of decision making involving all projects team; client initiated variations; and necessary variation of works.(Chan and Kumaraswamy 1996) Construction delay in Hongkong, the parties related to delay project include client, consultants, contractor and some relevant party. Factor to related delay by client such as client frequent delay make payment to contractor and also suffer in financial problem. Besides client, designer because of lack of experience always make mistake in drawing and late process design document. On the other hand, factor to cause contractor delay project which include lack of experience in project team and also poor site management and supervisions. Other than that, material is also one of the causes. During construction stages, material shortage and material changes to cause project delay. Identified the effects of delays in construction projects have been undertaken by some researchers. They have identified the six effects of delays were time overrun, cost overrun, dispute, arbitration, total abandonment, and litigation. The results of their studied about the effects of construction delays on project delivery in Nigerian construction industry, shows time overrun and cost overrun were the frequent effects of delays in construction projects.(AIbinu and Jagboro, 2002) In construction industry, the effect of project delay because of time and cost overrun. In this situation, some of the faults parties need to take responsibility to pay the loss and expense to those parties suffer in damage. Several studies have been studied and recommended the methods of minimizing delays in construction projects. They have identified five critical success factors could be applied to reduce the effects of delays includes: competent project manager; adequate funding until project completion; multidisciplinary/competent project team; commitment to projects; and availability of resources. (Nguyen, et al, 2004) To minimizing the project delay during the construction stage, first of all a client needs to hire an experience project manager. Once the problem of delay happen, the project manager can solve immediately. Besides that, the project team member should communicate with other team member. They have study also identified two methods to reduce or if possible eliminate time overrun were acceleration of site activities, and contingency allowance. (Aibinu and Jagboro, 2002) The contractor must take full responsibility during work progress. Once contractor found out actual work progress are not similar with estimate and he must take some action to avoid the project delay such as involve some additional worker. They have recommended four methods includes: developing human resources in the construction industry through proper training and classification of craftsman; adopting a new approach to contract award procedure by giving less weight to prices and more weight to the capabilities and past performance of contractors; and adopting new approaches to contracting, such as design-build and construction management (CM) type of contracts. (Odeh and Battaineh , 2002) 1.5 Scope of the Study The scope of the research will focus on literature review and a questionnaire. Projects investigate in this research included school building, church, office, hospital, communication facilities and etc. The survey will conduct in Malaysia. The questionnaire survey will design based on factors identify from literature review that contributed to causes of delays, effects of delays and methods to minimize delays. A questionnaire will developed to assess the perceptions of contractors and consultants of the relative importance of the causes and the effects of construction delays. The developed survey questionnaire will distributed to the target respondent in Malaysia 1.6 Outline methodology Stage 1: Literature review The review of literature has provided useful information based on the causes, effects, reactions and possible solution related to the issues delay project in construction industries. Stage 2: Pilot study Data collection will take the form of a structured postal questionnaire. However, an initial pilot study will be conducted to test the validity of the questionnaire through in-depth interviews with three contract manager. Stage 3: Main survey questionnaire and questionnaire go through with interview. The feedback from the pilot study should assist in finalizing the questionnaire and prepare the ground for main survey. The questions with centre around the areas mentioned in the above objectives. In order to obtain a high level of response, a multi-option format will be designed and limited to about 30 question and 10 questions which are go through with interview. Open questions are considered to be inappropriate as they would required the respondents to formulate an answer which needs lengthier input and will therefore be more difficult to analyze. Stage 4: Analyzing the postal and interview questionnaire This stage is analysis of the questionnaire to determine the level of agreement or disagreement by the respondents to each question within the questionnaire by counting the number of respondents who answer favorably or unfavorably. Besides that, analyze the questions which is done by interview to determine how the contractor to solve the delaying problem of project. Stage 5: Writing the research report The stage involves writing up the content of the dissertation and should cover the chapter proposed in the following section. Proposed contents Chapter 1 Introduction Chapter 2 Literature review Chapter 3 Research Methodology Chapter 4 Data Analyze Chapter 5 Discussion Chapter 6 Conclusion