Knowledge management is an essential tool for organization. Discuss Essay

Knowledge management is an essential tool for organization. Discuss - Essay Example Thus, managing knowledge is the most crucial role for organisations to survive and thrive as we move into a knowledge economy driven and global environment. Basically, â€Å"organizational knowledge creation is the process of making available and amplifying knowledge created by individuals as well as crystallizing and connecting it with an organization’s knowledge system,†( Nonaka, Krogh and Voelpel 2006). Research has shown that knowledge creation, retention, sharing and management is an essential tool for an organisation as we gradually move towards a knowledge economy (Nonaka 2007). During the current period, it can be noted that the business environment is constantly changing and knowledge creation is a virtue whereby the human resources management in particular will take a leading role in spearheading the initiative to influence the individuals in the organisation to come up with new ideas that can be crystallised as well as connected with the organisation’s knowledge system. Having created the requisite knowledge, then the process of knowledge management attempts to formalise a means of continuous improvement through reflection, and codification of knowledge gained during the project (CCTA 1999). For instance, Nonaka 2001 argues that making personal knowledge available to others is the basic tenet of the knowledge creating company. This will allow others to learn which promotes management of knowledge that has been created with a particular organisation. Through the use of PRINCE2 as a mandatory project management methodology in government sponsored projects, the identification and codification of personal knowledge through â€Å"lessons learned† is a key objective. This involves the utilisation of knowledge created to the benefit of the organisation as a whole. Knowledge creation is a source of long term solution for organisations to gain competitive advantage in an economy that is characterised by uncertainty and ever changin g environment (Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995; von Krogh et al. 2000). The companies which are quick to create new knowledge in response to the changes obtaining on the ground have a competitive advantage over those which are slow to respond to these changes. In essence, creating new knowledge is about re-creating the company and the individuals to meet a particular vision or ideal. Knowledge creation is not a specialised event but it is treated as a preserve for every worker. This is not limited to a particular department since the notion of the knowledge creating company posits to the effect that every employee has a role to play as far as this concept is concerned in an organisation. A critical analysis of the article entitled â€Å"Organizational Knowledge Creation Theory: Evolutionary Paths and Future advances† by Nonaka, Krogh and Voelpel (2006) shows that the success of an organisation is mainly influenced by its ability to keep pace with changes taking place in the business environment and this is aided by knowledge creation. Examples can be drawn from the cases of Canon as well as many Japanese companies which manufacture cars such as Toyota. Keeping pace with changes in the environment in which the organisation operates entails creativity and innovation of new ideas that will be synthesised into the knowledge system of the company. Managing this knowledge is a basic tenet of

How Becoming an Adult Has Changed Christmas Essay Example for Free

How Becoming an Adult Has Changed Christmas Essay I love the holidays, they bring a special joy to my life, they make me smile even if things may not be going as planned in my life; just the thought of family and friends spending time together is a great big deal in my family. I now get to experience the feeling and joys my parents did when they see me opening my presents. My children are so precious and I love having every memorial moment with them. We still do the same things at Grandmas every year nothing has changed except for the fact that I’m a Mother now. I can distinctively remember the Christmas of 2006; it was the year my son (Jaylen) was born. It’s the year I realized that my spoiled days were over and it was not only about me any more. It was the first time I actually realized that I’m Mommy now! It was a very fearful and joyful moment at the same time; my family didn’t pay as much attention to me anymore. They were occupied with my new baby boy (Jaylen), I was extremely happy, they had taken to my son because 18 months earlier they were a little upset that I was going to have a baby(they thought I was too young). My dad was the happiest I have seen him in years, he was a proud grand pap. I’ll admit I was a little jealous because all the attention was no longer on just me I had to now share it. Then again I sat back and thought I’m an adult now and I should not be treated like a baby anymore, so from that point forward I found the grown up I had hidden inside. Thirty-three months (two and a half years) later there was an addition to my family for the holiday, I had my daughter JaKailah, she was a great gift after losing our Nana Boat in June of 2009. My daughter was born just 13 days later (June 21 2009); my grandmother and I both feel as though she is a part of Nana Boat in many ways. Not having our Nana Boat with us on Christmas anymore is a huge void; she is their saying â€Å"just give the children what ever they want, they are our special gifts from god†. One thing that has stayed the same is all holidays are special in my family, but Christmas is still the most important. All my family still meet at Grandma’s house every year. We have family from every where that comes in from out of state to celebrate this special occasion. Every year our Christmas routine has stayed the same; grandma has a special way of making every holiday memorable, she was also very particular about time, there was a time for everything we did on Christmas. She has a set schedule between 9:00 am and 10:00 am. Everyone shows up at grandmas to put their presents under the tree. Grandma has breakfast made for everyone every Christmas pancakes, bacon, sausage, eggs and toast. Then at 11:30am it is time to give each other the presents we have for one another. By the time we were all done opening presents it is time for us to have dinner at 2:30. WOW! We could smell that great food cooking the whole time we were opening our presents. As a child I can remember many traditions sheared with my family. Because there were so many people staying at Grandma’s for the holidays. I can remember making pallets (beds) on the floor with my cousins so the adults could have the beds and air mattresses. My cousins and I would stay up really late and sleep until the after noon. After waking up I can remember my Uncle Bobbie; he looked just like Mr. Rodgers (from Mr. Rodger Neighborhood) he has the same blue sweater and those same blue tie up shoes. I would wake up and say good morning, Mr. Rodgers it is going to be a wonderful day in the neighbor hood. I was a very spoiled child; I got what ever I wanted, when I wanted it from every one in my family. I have even started my own traditions with my children, we have one day where we all sit down at the dining room table after Thanksgiving and we tell each other what we would like to have Santa Clause bring us for Christmas. I have even found a count down to Christmas calendar filled with chocolate candies, it starts at twenty-five and end at one; what you do with this calendar is you start at twenty-five and every night eat one piece of chocolate and by the time its Christmas eve there is one less piece of chocolate remaining. Basically it is a count down to Christmas by eating a piece of chocolate each night until Christmas. My children are still very young so we are still in the process of coming up with new traditions. Things in life change so fast with out notice, some good and some bad, I just make the best of what I have. I always thought that I would need to be the center of attention, but this Christmas I learned that it’s not always about me. Each and every member of my family was very important in many ways. Each of us have our own roles and it works for my family. My fiance is a very quiet, laid back, stay out the way type of person. My Aunt is crazy for the kids, she literally buys them everything. My uncle is the strict no nonsense kind of guy who like the kids to stand in the corner. Uncle what can I say about him? Oh wow he’s the grouch, always yelling, the Children are too loud make them sit down. My dad always happy and feeding into what ever the kids say, do this and do that. Pappi mostly hiding in the room away from everyone to stay away from the chaos. My mom she is the clean freak always running around after every one cleaning up behind them. My Nana Boat she was all for the kids give, give, give that all she knew when it came to her baby’s. My brothers and sister they are needy, always wanting something that they really do not need. Being the big sister I have to love them(I do very much so. I’m only going to talk about my immediate family, because if not you will be here reading for months. As for my-self I’m kind of a reserved person; I just sit back and watch what’s going on around me. I can remember the time it took my grandma to prepare for Christmas; she would bake for weeks. She would let me help her make cookies, pies, fudge, and my most favorite of all chocolate covered pretzels with sprinkles. I can still smell those cookies and pies bake. Being with my grandma and helping her bake was the best feeling in the world. Still to this day my grandma still lets me help her bake for Christmas. She doesn’t leave out my children, they are right there with their hands in the dough, just getting as messy as possible. I know every edition to or family makes Christmas every year more and more enjoyable. I believe that each and every Christmas changes each and every person in my family for the better. CODA: There are a few reasons why I chose to use Frank McCourt â€Å"Limerick Homecoming† essay from the book Angela’s Ashes published in 1996. One reason I chose to use this essays style to revise my family essay is because Frank McCourt showed how to go from past to present tense in the same essay to tell about a special event in this life. Another reason I believe that this essay showed that no matter how bad things are at one point or another in your life that having your family around can make things all the better. Lastly, I chose this essay to because I related to the characters, meaning that I related to them so not coming from a rich family, not graduating high school and still striving to make it in this world .

Comparing the Two Theories of Cognitive Development Essay -- Papers Ps

Comparing the Two Theories of Cognitive Development There are three main types of cognitive development. There is Piaget's theory, Vygotsky's theory and the Information processing approach. The two theories that I am going to compare and contrast are Piaget and Vygotsky's theories. There are many differences between these two theories, but there are also many similarities too. Piaget suggests that cognitive development takes place as a result of experiences which force the child to accommodate new information, creating new schemas and occasionally leading to a qualitatively different kind of thinking- moving from one stage to another, but these changes need to depend on readiness. However, Vygotsky placed more of an emphasis on the importance of social context in transforming elementary into higher mental functions, and the role of the ZPD in understanding how this transformation takes place. Piaget's theory, also known as the 'discovery learning theory', brought up two ways in which schemas became more complex, assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is basically the process of fitting new information and experiences into existing schemas, and accommodation is the process of changing the existing schemas when new information cannot be assimilated. An example of this could be when a child has a schema "wings, beak and being able to fly" (a normal bird). Every new instance of a creature with the same characteristics is assimilated into this schema. But when that child sees an aeroplane in the sky, the child asks what it is. The aeroplane challenges the current schema. This new information cannot be assimilated into the ... ...cross cultural research based on Piagets theory. Piaget produced the first comprehensive theory of children's cognitive development. The theory has been more extensively developed than any other it has changed our ideas about children and has had a general influence on educational practice has. Also the good theories should generate research and Piaget's theory has certainly done so. Piaget's theory under emphasizes the role of language and social interaction in cognitive development. Vygotskys theory focuses on the process of cognitive development rather than the outcome, and this is harder to test. Vygotskys ideas on cognitive development have had considerable influence. Although Vygotsky produced very little direct empirical evidence, other researchers have provided support for his ideas and their application.

First time :: essays research papers

The first time event that I remember best is my first time in Blue Water. It was a life altering event for me, and I am thankful for it. I forgot what the most important thing in life was, and I became a bad person and I did bad things, in turn ended me up in jail. I have to admit it at first I was scared so bad I was sick to my stomach. I remember the thoughts that were going through my head. I kept thinking about all the movies I have seen about jail, that just made it worse, and it really bothered me that I would have to get a strip search.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Once I was there, it had a smell that I could never forget; it was a sterile smell but at the same time grungy. I had to strip in front of a guard. He took my clothes and gave me burgundy shirt and sweat pants. After your search they take you to the doctors to look at you and see if you have any problems. Then a guard will take you to the admission house, it was called Trent House. Trent has 18 hour lock up and half an hour outside time. When you are in that house it has very limited privileges, also it has big, thick metal doors that have huge locks on them.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When I walked into the range I was scared, but I was trying to look like I wasn’t. When I got out of my room, I had one guy come up and tell me to fight someone, and told me if I didn’t that him and three other guys would jump me. The way people handle things in there is extremely different then the way people do in society. You have to fight for your respect, and that’s all that counts. I found myself not as afraid once you have some respect. Its not exactly like real jail, people don’t get raped or killed, but in a way it is in the fact fighting solves all problems.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  When I was transferred to Georgian House I got that feeling in my stomach again, because Georgian held people that have worse crimes and have been there longer. It was the exact same, fight and people won’t bother you. We showered alone, and we only got a little paper cup of shampoo and a little bar of soap.

Management Accounting Change Essay

Describe the ‘Challenge of Management Accounting Change’ in light of recent research findings and discuss, how can this change help an organisation, in getting its strategic, tactical and operating objectives? Management accounting change and the continuously changing roles of management accountants have dominated accounting literature for the past few decades and the theme of management accounting change procedures has been a topical issue of many studies such as Baines and Langfield-Smith, 2003; Kapla, 1985 and Granlund and Lukka, 1998, just to name a few. In order to understand the relationship between a firm’s strategy and objectives with its management accounting systems, it is necessary to first define the latter. The Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) define Management Accounting as â€Å"the process of identification, measurement, accumulation, analysis, preparation, interpretation and communication of information used by management to plan, evaluate and control within an entity and to assure appropriate use of and accountability for its resources. Management accounting also comprises the preparation of financial reports for non-management groups such as shareholders, creditors, regulatory agencies and tax authorities. † It is important to explore the extent to which management and strategic concerns are driven by accounting practices, and also how accounting practices are mediated by the views that managers have of the role of accounting (Burns et. al, 1999). Changes in Management Accounting can be viewed as an inevitable process, and they are also intrinsically interlinked to not only changes in a firms strategy, but also with environmental changes. Both internal and external changes in our economic and business environment are the dominating factors in the change of management accounting practices within organisations. This view that change is inevitable has been supported by Kaplan (1985), where he details the change as a â€Å"cause-effect relationship. † In short, management accounting systems have to change whenever there is any sort of change in an organisations business or economic environment. Organizational change is frequently a response to environmental change; such as changes in competition, or changes in laws and legislation. So if Management Accounting change occurs due to organizational change, it is important to note the indirect link between environmental change and management accounting change (Burns et. al, 1999). Wijewardena and De Zoysa (1999) support this idea by detailing that the success of an organisations strategy can be determined by how quickly and effectively management accountants can adapt to their systems to ever changing environmental and economic conditions, thereby supporting the link between management accounting practices and the business environment. It is fair to state that there are a number of factors that can influence change in management accounting and these factors are both internal and external. A research project on management accounting change in the UK, that was funded by CIMA and the Economic and Social Research Council was conducted between 1995 and 1998 by Burns et. al (1999). The study aimed to investigate changes in management accounting systems, the changing role of management accountants and the adoption of modern accounting techniques. The study initially sought to settle the claim that management accounting had not changed in more than 60 years (Johnson and Kaplan, 1987). The initial stages of the research found that management accounting practices use traditional accounting systems and modern techniques such as Activity-Based Costing and Strategic Management Accounting were not being used as much as expected. One reason for management accounting changes is the general economic factors such as the globalisation of markets. Changes in technology are another key factor, especially changes in information systems and methods of production. It is in this context that changes in management accounting have taken place. Changes in information technology have allowed for accounts and information to be dispersed around the organisation and managers have a more profound and hands on role within a firm. This in turn indefinitely has an impact on how objectives are met and how strategies and tactics are implemented to achieve, said objectives. This has led to a decentring of accounting knowledge, meaning that it is not only specified accountants who have knowledge of a company’s accounts, but also managers and their subordinates. This gives managers a greater ownership of information and it also means that they have to have an increased knowledge of accounting systems. Ezzamel (1997) states that a â€Å"lack of change in accounting practices is presented as being not only detrimental to business interests but also threatening to corporate survival. † However we must also look at external environmental factors and how they affect management accounting systems. A definition stated by Macy and Arunachalam (1995) define an external environment as â€Å"a phenomenon that is external and have either potential or actual influence on organisations†. However we must reiterate the fact that organisations of no control whatsoever over external factors. It is in an organisations best interest to take any external factors that could affect their operations, into consideration and to recognise them for their long term survival. External factors create a lot of uncertainty for firms. This uncertainty means that companies have to learn to adapt to sudden changes in external environmental business factors. Research by Mia and Patiar (2001) show that organisations must have more refined management accounting practices in order to operates successfully in uncertain business environments. There are also a number of views that contradict the idea that management accounting systems are directly influenced by external environmental factors. The idea of uncertainty, according to Chapman (1997), can be linked to internal factors as well as external factors. More research shows that external factors affecting management accounting can be dealt with in the way internal managers and accountants actually perceive the external variables. Despite the vast amount of advantages to management accounting and organizational change, there are also downsides to such changes. Burns, Scapens and Ezzamel (1999), show that accounting change can challenge existing routines and institutions within an organisation. This can then lead to conflict and resistance within employees, managers and perhaps even board members. Goal congruence may disappear, and an organisations strategy to achieve objectives may be hindered with the lack of an aligning view from all the members who have succumbed to the initial accounting change. Burns et al. (1999) also state that it can be a difficult process for previous systems to be unlearned. A major role for management accounting systems is to motivate behaviours of employees and managers in line with the desires of the organisation as a whole. A great problem is that many managers try to implement new accounting systems without taking into consideration the behavioural implications and consequences of employees with regards to these systems. The lack of goal congruence and effective communication can lead to low motivation and dysfunctional behaviour of employees. A change in an existing system will reduce employees’ knowledge and skill thereby affecting the effectiveness to achieve company objectives. Implementation of new techniques has to be orchestrated with great care and communicated thoroughly throughout the organisation. Accounting practices and emerging routines can be said to be institutionalised when they become widely accepted in the organisation such that they become the unquestionable form of management control. In which case, they are an inherent feature of the management control process, and represent expected forms of behaviour and define the relations between the various organisational groups (Burns and Scapens, 2000). Burns et. al study of â€Å"CHEM†, a small chemicals manufacturer showed that a change in the accounting and organisational systems had little impact on the company as a whole and it did not change their previous ways of thinking. This led to conflict between individual members of the chemical manufacturing company. Later, the new accounting systems were scrapped as they offered little benefits to the company; there had been very little change in the routines, institutions and systems of the firm. There are also claims that management accounting does not always change or respond to environmental or business changes. For example Kaplan (1984) suggests that despite significant changes to the business environment, such as increased competition and continuous changes in technologies and production processes, there has been no signicant changes in management accounting to match since 1925. Research conducted by Horngren (1995) and Burns et. al (1999) show that firms still tend to use traditional management accounting methods instead of adopting new techniques such as ABC. It is also important to note that their has also been a lack of implementation of non-financial measures such as Total Quality Management, Strategic Management Advice or Internal Financial Presentation and Communication. The absences of â€Å"modern† accounting methods support the claim that there is indeed in some cases little change within organisations from traditional accounting systems to new techniques. It is a difficult process to draw a set conclusion on the effectiveness of management accounting change. It is evident that there are vast pools of research both supporting the idea that management accounting hange is beneficial in aiding an organisations strategy but there is an equal amount of research to support the idea that change in accounting systems is derogatory to the success and progress of a business. It is fair to say that further external factors can determine how successful accounting change can be for a firm. For example we must take into account cultural and political factors of the country a particular organisation resides in to fully understand the implications of strategic, and management accounting change. It is impossible to apply findings from research to every company, because in short, every company is different; be it it’s strategy, its structure, its ethics or its objectives. We must be liberal in what we determine is successful implementation of management accounting change. The change that has taken place in organisations cannot be pinpointed to solely a change in management accounting systems and techniques but it is in fact the change in how these new systems are used and implemented (Burns et. al 2000) and these changes are more often than not part of wider changes of the organisation as a whole.

Free Essays on Similarities Of The Bible And Gilgamesh

In the first volume of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, the introduction tells the readers about the â€Å"invention of writing and the earliest literatures† (3). The earliest form of writing in 3000BC in Mesopotamia led to the first recorded story, Gilgamesh. Interpreted by N.K. Sandars, this epic shows the Egyptian’s love and worship of nature. The story also has several parallels to the bible and more specifically the story of Noah and the flood. The characters of Gilgamesh worship different gods of nature and emotions such as love. This is important in showing the importance of nature in the 3000 BC world. In this time the people would use everything in nature to help them prosper in their lives. The gods also helped Gilgamesh and Enkindu’s journey into the forest. By guiding the men, the sun god Shamash helped them to trudge onto their destination, to kill Humbaba. Shamash said, â€Å"Go forward, do not be afraid† (22). When they get to Humbaba, the god Shamash helped the men by summoning â€Å"the great wind, the north wind, the whirlwind, the storm and the icy wind†¦they came like dragons† (23). Because of the force of nature applied by Shamash, Gilgamesh and Enkindu defeated the beast Humbaba. The closest parallel to the bible is seen in part 5, The Story of the Flood. Both in the bible and Gilgamesh, there is an ark built and pitched. They both place animals on the boats, both bring their families, and both sent birds out to see if it was safe to leave the boat. Both boats also landed on a mountain. These stories similarities may be because of a story passed down from the times of Noah and incorporated into the story of Gilgamesh to add a bit of extra excitement.... Free Essays on Similarities Of The Bible And Gilgamesh Free Essays on Similarities Of The Bible And Gilgamesh In the first volume of the Norton Anthology of World Literature, the introduction tells the readers about the â€Å"invention of writing and the earliest literatures† (3). The earliest form of writing in 3000BC in Mesopotamia led to the first recorded story, Gilgamesh. Interpreted by N.K. Sandars, this epic shows the Egyptian’s love and worship of nature. The story also has several parallels to the bible and more specifically the story of Noah and the flood. The characters of Gilgamesh worship different gods of nature and emotions such as love. This is important in showing the importance of nature in the 3000 BC world. In this time the people would use everything in nature to help them prosper in their lives. The gods also helped Gilgamesh and Enkindu’s journey into the forest. By guiding the men, the sun god Shamash helped them to trudge onto their destination, to kill Humbaba. Shamash said, â€Å"Go forward, do not be afraid† (22). When they get to Humbaba, the god Shamash helped the men by summoning â€Å"the great wind, the north wind, the whirlwind, the storm and the icy wind†¦they came like dragons† (23). Because of the force of nature applied by Shamash, Gilgamesh and Enkindu defeated the beast Humbaba. The closest parallel to the bible is seen in part 5, The Story of the Flood. Both in the bible and Gilgamesh, there is an ark built and pitched. They both place animals on the boats, both bring their families, and both sent birds out to see if it was safe to leave the boat. Both boats also landed on a mountain. These stories similarities may be because of a story passed down from the times of Noah and incorporated into the story of Gilgamesh to add a bit of extra excitement....

CVA - Cerebral Vascular Accident essays

CVA - Cerebral Vascular Accident essays A cerebral vascular accident (CVA), or commonly known as a stroke, impact approximately 500,000 individuals in the United States each year. According to the Encyclopedia of Aging (Scherer, 1982), a stroke occurs with a neurologic deficit from a disruption of vascular function. This may be the result of a partial or total blockage of blood vessels to the brain by a hemorrhage or blood clot. In the U.S., 50 percent of those suffering their first stroke are 70 or older; most are males. The most at risk for a stroke are those individuals with transient or mild neurologic events, a cardiac disease that predisposes them to embolism, and asymptomatic with a carotid bruit that indicates a blockage. Those who have experienced transient ischemic attacks, or indications of cerebrovascular disease, also have a high risk for stroke. Strokes caused by an embolism occur suddenly. There usually is not a loss in consciousness, but an alteration in the state of consciousness. Some neurologic symptoms such as paralysis of one side of body, inability to speak, or loss of side vision of both eyes may also occur. Strokes from a hemorrhage may occur suddenly or progress slowly. Normally it is caused by an aneurysm that bursts or a congenital malformation of the vessel. Nausea, vomiting, headaches, and stiff neck are symptoms of a hemorrhagic stroke (Sherer, 1982). Hypertension is the single most important risk factor for stroke. Other factors include heart disease, diabetes, smoking, and elevated blood cholesterol. Once a stroke occurs, there is nothing that can be done to restore the dead brain tissue. Treatment includes preventing a recurrence with anticoagulation medication and medical control of the hypertension. Some forms of aneurysms and hemorrhages can be treated surgically. Rehabilitation is important to maximize the degree of functional adaptation and self-care. Because of the seriousness of strokes, high-risk patients should be well ...

Aylitical critique of Post cold war philosophers Fukuyama essays

Aylitical critique of Post cold war philosophers Fukuyama essays The cold war was a time of political and economic insecurities. It was not a battle in the sense of bloodshed but a battle purely of political ideology. It was a battle of political ideas which involved blocs and mini wars fought by the Soviet Unions allies rather than themselves. The United States was politically opposed to a communist ideology and communist influence on third world or less developed countries. These tensions began as early as World War 1, due to the Russians pulling out of the war, and continued to the late 1980s and early 1990s, when a democratic change took over. This time period is considered to be the end of the cold war. There were many articles with differing opinions written at this time. No articles were more notable and risky than Francis Fukuyamas The End of History. Fukuyama stated that history had come to an end in a sense to the emergence of a strong and unbreakable form of western liberal democracy. Fukuyamas ideas will be challenged and also better explained in the following years by other Political Scientists and philosophers such as Huntington, Barber and Sakakibara as just a few to mention. Though Fukuyama has many valid points his article is based purely on speculation. His ideas and Philosophies were so brash and new that he took much criticism but yet still opened up a whole new debate on the future of international politics. The cold war was just at its end. The Soviet Union and communism as a whole was in a bit of a retreat stage. The cold war was beginning to be viewed as the past and liberalism was beginning to be seen as the prevailing and stronger political ideology. The future as with all political struggles was still unsure. Fukuyama boldly stated that liberal democracy will not be superseded by a better or higher form of government. Large ideological battles and debates would be a thing of the past and this would also bring to an end large confli...

Interactional theory in Gandhi Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Interactional theory in Gandhi - Research Paper Example To understand his life, Attenborough (1982) produced and directed Gandhi. This paper analyzes the film using Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson’s (1967) Interactional Theory on communication. It aims to show that this theory helps explain Gandhi’s effectiveness as a persuasive communication expert and social transformation leader. Gandhi demonstrates an interactional view of communication because Gandhi used non-violent, non-cooperative, and peaceful communication strategies, which have been successful in attaining individual and social changes because he continuously reframed punctuations regarding the causes and resolutions to conflict. Gandhi depicts the rise of Gandhi, from being a lawyer of racial injustice in South Africa to a transformational leader in India. Attenborough (1982) showed how Gandhi started his non-violent approach to conflict management, when he realized the intensity and extent of racial discrimination against Indians in South Africa. With his friend and supporter, the rich Indian businessman Kinnoch, they and their thousands of supporters defied the Pass Law and other oppressive policies, until they changed legislation into one that improved racial equality. Gandhi returned to India, which was in a historical transition from colonial ownership to independence. Gandhi aroused the formation of nationalist organizations and used the media to gain publicity and to spread his non-violent, non-cooperative, and peaceful approach to the demand for independence from Great Britain. Interactional Theory views relationships as â€Å"patterns of interaction† (Watzlawick et al., 1967, p. 2), where every member participates in the cybernetic environment, while interacting with other systems to control their environment too. Gandhi is an effective communicator because he does not undermine the value of the press in enhancing public awareness and changing individual and social beliefs. The first rally in South Africa indicates how Gandh i saw the media as a partner in documenting non-violent actions, so that more people would join him and for the British Empire to realize the power of their numbers. Gandhi wants journalists to cover their peaceful protests because it can unite the nation. He told the reporter Walker that he â€Å"cannot unite a community† without a paper (Attenborough, 1982). He then used the media, including his own paper, to promote his views on non-violent and non-cooperative action toward resolving various conflicts. Gandhi knows the importance of connected systems to achieve widespread social changes. Interactional Theory has five axioms and the first aims to show how complex systems operate by stating that people â€Å"cannot not communicate,† so everything that is said and done is a message. Watzlawick et al. (1967) stressed: â€Å"Activity or inactivity, words or silence all have message value: they influence others and these others, in turn, cannot not respond to these commu nications and are thus themselves communicating† (p. 1). The pragmatic approach to language emphasizes the effects of actions on communication behaviors (Wayne, 1990, p.603). Gandhi shows the importance of every aspect of communication to express his strategies and to persuade people to follow his methods. His main emphasis is that violent, non-cooperative, and peaceful communication strategies can be used to attain social

Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Research Paper Example He asks Molly, who is his backup, to get back to work as she was engaged in a chat even after lunchtime. Molly resorts to chatting claiming that Dan cannot boss her around. He thinks of reporting this to the floor supervisor, Mr. Davis who at that time was reviewing low performance of his employees and was thinking how to get the employees to become efficient. Evaluation of the Scenario Promoting Cultural Diversity   In the given case, Karishima has a different cultural background and is having problem in adjusting. Similarly all the other employees are having a problem in adjusting with her because of her accent and other differences such as her inability to dress up the way other call centre employees do. The management should inform the existing employees of a new /foreign employee being hired. This is because it will prepare them to face the differences. Moreover, the employee being hired should be trained a little. This can be done by giving the employee an orientation for abo ut 2 weeks at least. In this way, the employee won’t be working formally but will get to know people at work and will start communicating with them. The strategies for cultural diversity are based on complexity theory. Solving Problems   One obvious problem in the case above is that, there are many problems but apparently no one is trying to reach solutions. Susan has a problem with her co worker, Karishma but she does not take the case to her supervisor rather she complains about it to her friend and instead of trying to reach a solution she laughs it off with her. Joy does not appreciate what her colleagues are gossiping about related to Karishima and wants to correct them but concludes otherwise leaves to go back to work in a sour mood. Even here she does not try to reach a solution for the problem; rather she ignores it and spoils her mood. Whenever a problem is observed, employees should be asked to discuss the problem with the management or with the senior staff. More over, they should be encouraged to discuss the problem on a horizontal level as well. This will help employees to learn more about each other and will bring them closer to one another. This strategy is based on Cognitive resource theory, which states that a leader obtains effective group performance by first making effective plans, decisions and strategies, and then communication them through directive behavior (Robinson, pg 351, 1998). Furthermore, the head should communicate with those working under him so that he can learn about problems faced by the lower staff thus becoming able to solve their problems efficiently. This can be based on University of Michigan Studies which state that there is an employee oriented leader and a task oriented leader. In this case, the leader should be employee oriented so that he can emphasize on interpersonal relations (Robinson, pg 357, 1998). Motivating Employees In the given case, employees are not motivated. They just work for the sake of mone y or because it is necessary for them. However, it is important that employees at a workplace are motivated or else they lose interest in work and are not able to perform their best. In this case, Mr. Davis is reviewing low employee performance and he knows it is because the employees are not motivated. Employee motivation is imperative for an organization. Employees can be motivated intrinsically as well extrinsically. In order to give them extrinsic motivation, the management can announce

Respiratory Therapy in the Department of Continuous Quality Improvment Essay

Respiratory Therapy in the Department of Continuous Quality Improvment - Essay Example It is a management philosophy that states that most things can be improved and there is serial experimentation everyday at work to meet the needs of those served and to improve the services rendered. FP&M World Class Journey (2008) continue to state the core concepts of CQI. These are: quality is meeting and/or exceeding the expectations of the customers; success is obtained by meeting the needs of those served; most problems are found in the processes, not in the people; rather than blame it seeks to improve; unwanted variations are sought to be reduced or eliminated; the scientific method is used to achieve small continual improvement; and, continuous improvement becomes effective when it becomes natural to the way work is conducted everyday. The core steps in CQI are to: form a team that is knowledgeable in their area of expertise; define the aim; understand the needs of the people served by the system; identify and define the measures of success; brainstorm strategies for improvement; plan, collect, and use the data for effective decision making; and, apply the scientific method to test and make changes (FP&M World Class Journey, 2008; Rieve, ND; ASQ, ND); Quick, Nordstrom & Johnson, 2006). As per the information gathered in this research document, it may be extrapolated that the goals of CQI are to enter an institution, identify what the problems are, use techniques that will help solve the problems, involve everyone pertinent to the area in discussion, obtain research data and interpret it, and make recommendations based on the findings of Continuous Quality Improvement. The CQI problem solving techniques are to define the problem. This involves focusing on the problem, not only the symptoms. Flowcharts and cause-and-effect diagrams are techniques used to define and analyze the root causes. There is a need to generate

Is Marxs analysis of capitalism still valid today Essay

Is Marxs analysis of capitalism still valid today - Essay Example These among other economic predictions are some of the reasons that supplement Marx’s relevance in the present time. The ideology of the social structures and economic interests dictate the political movements and intellectual conceptions of the people. This fact is evident in many circumstances in the present day. The political parties nowadays are controlled by the association of certain members of the public with clear and similar goals. These parties with a particular member associations define the economic state of the nation considering the people they represent. Marx developed this theory in 1840 so as to explain the different systems of royalism that France had that were affecting the social structure. In Marx’s view, he claimed that the economic interests revolved around the social groups (Schumpeter 2013, p. 20). Politically, it is possible to rise to power through reaching out to these groups and changing the economic status of a nation will certainly affect these groups. In the last presidential elections of the united states of America the tea party which supported the candidate mitt Romney was formed as a result of being fed up from the taxes of the Obama administration. The tea party started as a social group that were of the opinion they were being taxed more than the usual and the fruits of their taxes were not being experienced. This led to an association of people who wanted to change their financial status, through the changing of the political setup to attain the economic interests of the members (Sperber 2013 ). This is an example of the current events that are applicable to the theories that Marx put out in assessing the leadership of a place relative to the economic status of the region. The labor theory of value is also a Marx ideology which tends to describe the pricing of a commodity in relation to the cost of labor induced in production. A commodity

Essay on "The Act of Writing in the Age of Numbers"

On "The Act of Writing in the Age of Numbers" - Essay Example ces in technology like electric typewriters and social media posts make it increasingly harder because they make readers focus far more on a piece of writings numbers than on its content. While Marches argument seems a little odd, he does make a good point that readers should not get into the habit of thinking that how many words a piece of literature contain, or how many times it has been shared, are what makes it so special. One example which shows very well what Marche argues is that of a post made to Facebook or another social media website by someone who is a celebrity. This post would immediately be shared widely, and would get high numbers that might make it seem of huge importance to everybody. However, those high numbers would not necessarily mean that the article is really important. On the other hand, an post shared by a regular person might actually be very meaningful and highly relevant, despite not being widely shared. This is what Marche talks about when he says that "relevance has become nearly identical with its quantification." (Marche) Another area where words of a different sort matter is that of essays written by students in college courses. As Marche points out, the first attempts to put a word count on an essay assignment resulted in students paying too much attention to it, and not to the essays content (Marche). By making such a big point out of the number of words that an essay contains, a professor might be teaching students to make sure that the essay is the right length first, and make sure it has a good argument second. It would make more sense in this case to focus on what the essay does, rather than its length. In works of literature like poems and novels, Marche argues that far from numbers never having mattered, they are where English literature "begins." (Marche) While he is right that poetry and verse rely on numbering systems to be effective, he also discusses that a lot of poets continually struggled against these

Is Marxs analysis of capitalism still valid today Essay

Is Marxs analysis of capitalism still valid today - Essay Example These among other economic predictions are some of the reasons that supplement Marx’s relevance in the present time. The ideology of the social structures and economic interests dictate the political movements and intellectual conceptions of the people. This fact is evident in many circumstances in the present day. The political parties nowadays are controlled by the association of certain members of the public with clear and similar goals. These parties with a particular member associations define the economic state of the nation considering the people they represent. Marx developed this theory in 1840 so as to explain the different systems of royalism that France had that were affecting the social structure. In Marx’s view, he claimed that the economic interests revolved around the social groups (Schumpeter 2013, p. 20). Politically, it is possible to rise to power through reaching out to these groups and changing the economic status of a nation will certainly affect these groups. In the last presidential elections of the united states of America the tea party which supported the candidate mitt Romney was formed as a result of being fed up from the taxes of the Obama administration. The tea party started as a social group that were of the opinion they were being taxed more than the usual and the fruits of their taxes were not being experienced. This led to an association of people who wanted to change their financial status, through the changing of the political setup to attain the economic interests of the members (Sperber 2013 ). This is an example of the current events that are applicable to the theories that Marx put out in assessing the leadership of a place relative to the economic status of the region. The labor theory of value is also a Marx ideology which tends to describe the pricing of a commodity in relation to the cost of labor induced in production. A commodity

Criminology Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 8

Criminology - Essay Example ibute to the rise of such crimes in the cities, include the population density in the cities, level of education and unemployment rates (Baltic, 2011). Other related crimes that augment the prevalence of aggravated assaults include drug peddling and underage drinking. However, the prevalence of aggravated assault in the three cities decreased significantly, the rate of aggravated assault in Detroit fir example decreased by about 2% in the last two years. St. Luis for example had a higher prevalence of drugs and illegal guns in the city. Lack of effective border security coupled with weak immigration laws make the United States susceptible to illegal guns and drugs from such neighboring countries as Mexico. Illegal guns and the complex illegal drug business are among the factors that influence the prevalence of aggravated assaults. Within the last two years, the police departments in the cities revamped their efforts in controlling drug and substance abuse. The efficiency of the police helped reduce the levels of the aggravated assaults in the cities. Additionally, improving statistics on the levels of employment and education in the cities are among the factors accounting for the decrease in the rates of aggravated assaults in the three cities am ong many others throughout the United

A Commentary on An Astrologers Day Essay Example for Free

A Commentary on An Astrologers Day Essay The writers description of the astrologer leaves us in no doubt that he is a charlatan his equipment, costume and appearance all have a deliberate, theatrical quality designed to convey the impression of a mystic power which he does not possess. Notice the authors wryly ironic comment that the abnormal gleam in his eye is really an outcome of a continual searching for customers and his dry observation that even a half wits eyes would sparkle between such a painted forehead and dark whiskers. The deliberate artifice of the astrologer is further underlined by the authors use of phrases such as To crown the effect and This color scheme. The illusion is enhanced by the fact that the astrologer works in the eerie glow of a smoky flare which adds to the enchantment of the place. The astrologers customers are depicted as gullible creatures who are irresistibly attracted to him like bees. But although the author portrays the astrologer as a fraud, his innocent customers are not shown in the light of hapless victims. The writer does not condemn or deride the astrologer as a parasite but sees him as a businessman who gives his customers value for money: he said things which pleased and astonished everyone: that was more a matter of study, practice and shrewd guesswork. All the same, it was as much an honest mans labor as any other, and he deserved the wages he carried home at the end of the day. We are told that the astrologer has not chosen his profession by design. Intriguingly, the author informs us that he was once a simple farmer who had to leave home without telling anyone. Although the fact that he had to depart hurriedly and travel far suggests that something dire occurred, the actual reason for his flight is not given, thus arousing our curiosity and conferring upon the exiled stranger a sense of mystery, more real than he could possibly create for himself in his bogus role of astrologer. Whilst he has no mystical powers, the astrologer is a shrewd psychologist. He diagnoses his customers problems by listening to their troubles and supplies them with solace and reassurance. Notice how he is careful to either blame his clients woes on other people, or attribute their troubles to elements beyond their control. In this way, they all depart as satisfied customers. Our expectation is aroused by the suitably dramatic entrance of the astrologers antagonist. For reasons which become apparent later, the author has cleverly contrived the scene so that the man is initially no more than a dark shape who blots out the solitary shaft of light which remains after the nut vendors departure. Our initial impression of the stranger is unsympathetic he grumbles and truculently challenges the astrologer to prove his worth in the form of a bet. It is only after the bet has been agreed that the astrologer glimpses the mans face whilst the latter is lighting a charoot. The sight of the mans face seems to shock the astrologer but again we are purposely given no explanation why. The astrologer is so dismayed that he tries to retract the wager and hurriedly leave but the man is ruthlessly insistent and becomes threatening. Surprisingly, the astrologer agrees to speak but only if the wager is increased to one rupee. Both the reader and the man are surprised to hear the astrologers seemingly miraculous divinations as he accurately describes the mans grisly past. The man is dismayed to learn that his thirst for revenge cannot be quenched since his enemy is already dead. He is further stunned to discover that the astrologer knows his name and accepts his admonition to return home and never travel southward again. The astrologer leaves the man with one consolation: he tells him that his enemy received his just deserts by dying a deservedly painful death. Our curiosity is finally satisfied at the end of the story when the astrologer goes home and reveals to his wife that the man in question was in fact the reason why he fled his village. Unbeknown to the man, he had ironically been consulting the very person he had been relentlessly searching for all these years! For the astrologer, meeting his old enemy has been doubly rewarding: firstly, the knowledge that he is not a murderer has lifted a great burden of guilt from his mind; secondly, he has assured his future safety by tricking his antagonist into believing that he is dead. The story fittingly ends with the astrologer sleeping contentedly, having finally laid to rest the ghost of his guilt and successfully warded off the menacing specter of revenge. The authors technique in this story is more subtle than it first appears. Although we are just as surprised as the client when we first hear the astrologers uncannily accurate comments, our surprise is of a different nature since we know what Guru Nayak does not that the astrologer is a definite fraud. Hence, there is an ironic distancing between the reader and the astrologers antagonist which is further stretched by the fact that he is portrayed as an unsympathetic character. Whereas the initially skeptical Guru Nayak becomes increasingly convinced of the astrologers mystic power, the reader becomes increasingly suspicious, especially when the astrologer correctly gives his clients name. Unlike Guru Nayak, the reader has not become increasingly mystified and overawed by the astrologers knowledge, but gradually realises that a connection must exist between Guru Nayaks story and the secret of the astrologers past. Hence, whilst the ending satisfies our curiosity, it does not come as a total surprise. We also share the astrologers final sense of relief, partly because we find Guru Nayak unpleasant but mainly because we admire the way in which he skilfully and successfully handles such a crisis of circumstance and manages to extricate himself from an extremely dangerous situation. Rising to the occasion, he uses his professional acting skills and sharp wits to turn the tables on his overawed antagonist and transform a perilous predicament into godsend. Finally, the authors effective use of irony is worth commenting. Near the beginning of the story, he writes that the astrologer knew no more of what was going to happen to others than he knew what was going to happen to himself next minute. Given what is about to occur, these words become prophetically ironic. Note also the wry irony of the astrologers final complaint to his wife (The swine has cheated me!) when he himself had perpetrated the greater deception and cleverly cheated Guru Nayak of his revenge . Lastly, the matter-of-fact title is a masterpiece of ironic understatement. An Astrologers Day implies that the story will describe an average or typical day in the astrologer life whereas the event related is both extraordinary and fateful.

Comparison of AWS and Rackspace SLAs

Comparison of AWS and Rackspace SLAs Name: Amulya Gajanan Dudhal Introduction: Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Rackspace are the two-leading public cloud service providers of the 21st century. The service level agreement laid down by these companies describes the level of service that can be expected by the user from the cloud service provider. The intention of a service level agreement is to let know the user what he/she will receive from the cloud service provider. The service level agreement is aimed at providing the cloud providers transparency in customer service. There are certain differences in the service level agreements of Rackspace and AWS. The most important factor a user considers when selecting a public cloud service provider is the uptime or the availability guarantee of the cloud service provider. Rackspace claims to have an uptime of 100% while AWS claims to have an availability guarantee of 99.95%. AWSs approach to this is more realistic which provides them with the right to have a downtime of 4.3 hours anytime in a year. In case of network failures, the user always wants to know the MTTR (Mean time to resolve) claimed by the cloud service provider. While AWS decides to not specify the MTTR, Rackspace claims to resolve issues in the time span of 1 hour. If Rackspace fails to resolve the issues in the time period specified, they owe the user credits for network usage as a penalty.   This is something that Amazon should include in their SLA. If AWS or Rackspace violates any clause specified by them in the SLA, the user/customer gets the right to notify the companies about the same. After notifying the company the customer must request for the credit from the companies. Amazon has to pay the customer a credit of 10% period while Rackspace owes the customer 100% credit if it vindicated. Also, if the storage service provided by the companies goes down for some time AWS offers 25% credit to the customer while Rackspace again owes the customer 100% credit. Both the companies might want to think about an automated credit function in events of downtime in their service. Also, Rackspace and AWS both provide recommendations to the customer on how the services offered by AWS and Rackspace best suit the customers case. Rackspace also has a flat rate across the multiple availability zones except for UK. Amazon on the other hand does not provide a flat rate across all the availability zones and has slightly higher rates in the UK, just like Rackspace. The foundation of cloud servers is built on shared resources. So, in the case of Rackspace the customer with the bigger Flavor (instance) is given top pri ority in a rack. But in the case of Amazon Web services, the customer gets the services he/she pays for. Variable performance is offered by Rackspace, while dedicated performance is the key feature of AWS. When it comes to storage Rackspace charges a customer with 10 cents/GB of storage, while AWS charges 14 cents/GB up to 1 TB of data storage. Outgoing bandwidth being an important factor, plays a key role in deciding the public cloud service provider for the customer. Rackspace charges the customer with 18 cents/GB. On the other hand, AWS does not charge the customer with a single penny for the first GB of outgoing bandwidth. But, later after the first GB, AWS charges the customer 12 cents/GB up to 1 TB. AWS, clearly is a win-win situation when it comes to outgoing bandwidth. Also, there AWS has key features of spot instances and reserved instances. Rackspace does not have any such feature to offer which can help the user reserve instances for future use with guaranteed performance . Rackspace is ideal for customers looking at services such as uptime, architectural guidance and managed services. But, AWS is more suited for customers looking for commodity capabilities at lowest costs. Amazon also has a separate storage service called as S3. It allows blob storage and retrieval for data from 1 B to 5 TB. Storage SLA of AWS thus covers blob storage and retrieval. Remote disks called as elastic blob store are reserved for EC2 instances. Rackspace on the other hand do not offer any separate storage service SLA. Bibliography: Spada, Stefano. Exploring Cloud Slas: Amazon Vs Rackspace Web Host Industry Review. Web Host Industry Review. N.p., 2017. Web. 11 Mar. 2017.

Conflict and Tradition in Things Fall Apart Essay -- Things Fall Apart

Conflict and Tradition in Things Fall Apart The book Things Fall Apart successfully expressed how Chinua Achebe had succeeded in writing a different story. It pointed out the conflict of oneself, the traditional beliefs, and the religious matters of the Africans. Throughout the novel, Chinua Achebe used simple but dignified words and unlike other books, he also included some flashbacks and folktales to make the novel more interesting and comprehensible. Things Fall Apart was about a man named Okonkwo, who was always struggling with his inner fear although he was known for being a strong, powerful, and fearless warior. He feared of weakness, and failure more than the fear of losing and dying and that forshadowing the consequenses he got at the end. Through this man that Chinua Achebe represented the deep and rich human characteristics and the beliefs of one religion to another. The agriculture of the Igbo society was different than other societies of today. Yams were the main nourishment through every meal and they called these yams "the king of crops." Furthermore, people used the yams for every traditional celebration and used kola nuts to offer their "chi" or personal god. These food, as Chinua Achebe had described, sometimes related to or involved with the religion or ancestrial spirits. Sometimes there were certain celebrations for each specific kind of food such as the New Yam Festival. Chinua Achebe used agriculture to express certain characteristics of each festival and celebration of the Igbo society. There was not o... ...hrough this book that Chinua Achebe cleverly described the complexity of each religion and how it affected the African community at that period of time. The death of Okonkwo at the end was unpredictable to the readers because throughout the novel, Chinua Achebe described him as a strong warrior who feared of nothing besides failure and weakness. When Okonkwo committed suicide, he also committed the only thing he feared, and that was weakness. Things Fall Apart was the book about power, strength, sentiment, religion and love; it also contained several dramatic ironies. Although Achebe had written many books and novels, Things Fall Apart was one of his finest work that got listed as the Classic Bestseller. His delicately African style furnished the uniqueness as well as the prominence to the book.

Marxist Feminism :: essays research papers fc

Marxist Feminism The objective of my paper is to examine the connection between Capitalism and women’s both social and economical inequality. Marxist feminism explores this question by laying out an economic theory that shows a correlation between the emergence of capitalism, production and private property and the continued oppression of women. Other theorists argue that this oppression is due to an already existing patriarchal society. Is the exploitation of women in the home through an unfair division of labor a result of the beginnings of capitalism? Is this exploitation in the home a cause of other inequalities, mainly those in the wage labor market? Is capitalism bolstered by already existing patriarchal social relations, or is capitalism continuing to reinforce patriarchal systems? Finally is it possible to liberate women and reach true equality in our current capitalist economy? These are the main questions I will examine throughout my paper. These questions and the objective of my paper are significant to explore because they will help me to better understand my current status as a women in our capitalist economy. Understanding the origin of women’s economic oppression, and other inequalities, is a part of reaching an idea of how to remedy our current situation as women. It is important to me to answer the questions I have laid forth in order to take small steps in personally and possibly publicly, changing the current position of women. BIBLIOGRAPHY Booth, Janine, Rosie Woods, â€Å"Women, Capitalism & Socialism† Worker Liberty Magazine, no. 58, Oct. 1999. Braunstein, Elissa, Nancy Folbre, â€Å"To Honor & Obey: Efficiency, Inequality & Patriarchal Property Rights, Feminist Economics, Vol. 7, no. 1, Nov 2001. Engels, Frederick. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, 1972 (original date 1884). Hartmann, Heidi â€Å"Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Job Segregation by Sex† in Zillah Eisenstein (ed.) Capitalist Patriarchy & the Case for Socialist Feminism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1979. Hartmann, Heidi â€Å" The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism & Feminism: Toward a More Progressive Union† in Lydia Sargent (ed.

An analysis on leaderships’ effect on culture Essay

Facts ConnectCo is an outbound call center in Toronto, Ontario and is the Canadian Subsidiary of a U.S. marketing and sales consulting practice. The parent company has provided services to Fortune 500 companies over its five years of operations and employs approximately 75 people. ConnectCo has annual revenues of $29.4 million, with Symbol Office Solution as their biggest account at $20 million annually, for a contract length of three years. This contract awarded ConnectCo net profits as high as 35% of sales. What ConnectCo offers to clients is the convenience and cost savings of removing a costly field sales force and replaces them with a more cost efficient outbound call center. These call centers help customers with technical problems, provide new equipment updates, and disseminates knowledge about new technologies or equipment. The Symbol account, as previously mentioned, provides a significant sum of ConnectCo`s total revenue and was first negotiated by Charlie Gallagher, the vice-pre sident of Canadian operations, and is managed by Chad Macdonald. Joe Davis is a passionate and experienced consultant that has worked closely with clients to identify and implement solutions to very specific problems. He joined ConnectCo hoping to learn from the pool of experience that he saw within the organization, with the majority of them being former Xerox employees with considerable knowledge in increasing sales. His role in the organization was to ensure that the level of service that ConnectCo provided met or surpassed the needs of clients. As per his position within the company he was the first to notice the discrepancy within the Symbol account. The contract that was signed between ConnectCo and Symbol required that there be a certain number of Inside Account Executives (IAE) that be trained at all times and at a phone making calls in the client`s interests. The recent decline in the IAE pool has left several seats open, with no calls being placed on behalf of Symbol, however they were still billing the customer as if the seats where all operating at full capacity while they should only be billing them for filled operators. The amount of the discrepancy totals $81000. The terms of the contract have been modified several times over its effective term with the first being an extension of the contract and the notice of intent to develop mutually agreed to service levels. Service level targets were never established. Symptoms The four factoring symptoms are communication, trust, accountability, responsibility and integrity. These symptoms are the leading cause for Connectco’s inability to run operations smoothly and effectively. The lack of communication within Connectco is causing headaches for Davis as information continues to be blocked by â€Å"noise† within the company. The communication is next to nonexistent from the top of the hierarchy to the department managers within the company. The lack of trust throughout the company is not helping their cause when trying to create an effective and demanded product for fortune 500 companies. There is little trust betwee the top managers and employees that they will complete their respected jobs at hand with the level of trust level between employees and managers decaying over time and as the situation worsens. Accountability is near nonexistent within the organization. Davis is not able to hold his manager accountable because of his past record in doing so. Accountability is crucial in order for Connectco to run smoothly in the future. Conflict frequently causes employees to look to offload their work onto others to not be responsible for failure, as in the case of Chad Macdonald passing the role of dealing with the Symbol account off to Joe Davis. Finally, there is little integrity. Dealing with the account neither Chad nor Charlie believe that the best solution would be to deal with the problem and would both prefer to make a decision that would go against the main values of the corporation that includes trustworthiness. There is a valid case of values incongruence within ConnectCo. These four main symptoms are major attributes to the problems faced within Connectco and are the four elements that may be the solutions to solving Connectco’s organizational problems in the near future. Problem Statement ConnectCo`s current situation is the direct result of the poor corporate culture as evidenced by the symptoms that are present. This culture stems from the leadership`s poor ethics and lack of values and has cascaded to the rest of the organization. Joe Davis, the new manager of the Planning and Reporting department for ConnectCo, began his new job about a month ago finds himself in the uncomfortable situation of questioning the morals of his coworkers that has led to the jeopardized relationship between ConnectCo and their largest client: Symbol Office Solutions. Joe must decide how to approach this conflicting situation as a new member of the company without compromising his own morals and values. Analysis In evaluating the relevant models to address the problem statement there is one model in particular that effectively incorporates several of the models needed to perform an analysis of the corporate culture at ConnectCo; Edgar H. Schein’s Model of Organizational Culture. Schein’s model is the most relevant to identify the reason for the symptoms and problems currently facing ConnectCo. The incorporation of the many different aspects to identify the culture of an organization including atifacts, shared values, and shared assumptions enables a thorough review of the culture present at ConnectCo. The following analysis will break down Schein’s model and evaluate each section with the following relevant analysis to get a better understanding of the situation. It will be presented in the following order; artifacts, shared values, shared assumptions. Artifacts Communication within the ConnectCo organization does not represent the ideal scenario for a well-run organization. This lack of proper communication and clarity is unfortunately spilling over into its business dealings with clients. Both represent one of the most evident aspects of the artifacts of the company, the cultural norms that are evident to others and neither is impressive. To begin, this analysis will focus on internal communication and then shift focus to the external communication with other organizations. â€Å"Davis opened up a new message and types a simple e-mail, in case Gallagher picked it up with his Blackberry†. This is but one example of the many e-mail conversations that take place within the ConnectCo organization. The situation that ConnectCo finds themselves in is extremely complicated, owing a client a credit for $81000, yet the medium with which Joe Davis chose to use to relay his message was e-mail. A quick analysis of the media richness hierarchy model shows that in this particular situation, which can be easily identified as non-routine and ambiguous, this medium carries too little data-carrying capacity. If ConnectCo is going to come up with a solution they are going to need to switch to a much richer medium such as face-to-face to get a better understanding of the issue and come up with better outcomes. A second occasion that warrants investigation is the initial email from Joe Davis to Charlie Gallagher. In this initial email he again used to wrong medium to convey the breadth of the issue that is ambiguous and non-routine. Charlie chose to respond in an email as well, with nine words. This will play a factor again in the analysis of the shared values, more specifically the espoused values that leadership (Gallagher) conveys. Communication between the organizations is also very weak, speaking to the weak cultural artifacts of the ConnectCo organization, and possibly Symbol. It has been acknowledged that they do indeed have face to face communications with their customers, Gallagher does meet with Puhl for golfing events face to face, this does not represent an ideal time, however, as the venue is much to informal to discuss business matters as public meetings contain significant noise, literally and figuratively, that may lead to the message being decoded incorrectly. The rest of the communication between the two parties, even between the account relationship manager Chad MacDonald and Steve Puhl was done either by telephone or by email. Another aspect of the artifacts of communication that deserves attention is the construction of the contract. Again, the communication process model is most relevant and one of the simplest ways to word the breakdown is that the contract contained too much noise and was not properly decoded by ConnectCo. The ambiguity of the contract comes from many revisions, some of which were not even available to the relevant employees such as Joe Davis and using words such as â€Å"notwithstanding† which was interpreted differently by Joe Davis, Chad MacDonald, and Charlie Gallagher. This occurred because the contract was not descriptive enough. Another aspect to the artifacts portion of the model of organizational culture is the ceremonies that take place within the organization. These ceremonies are used by certain employees and management to get the attention of an audience. In this particular situation the most evident are the golfing trips that Gallagher takes with clients to cement his position as the most important contact to the clients. And finally, the organizational structure, which has a great effect on culture. ConnectCo currently has a client structure, as negotiated within the contract agreement, the organization will maintain a set number of staff specifically to service that account. Espoused Values â€Å"Our values reflect what is important to us. They are a shorthand way of describing our individual and collective motivations. Together with beliefs, they are the causal factors that drive our decision-making.† (http://www.valuescentre.com/values/?sec=values_overview) The above quote reflects what should be the core of any business, the values shared by all of the different employees congruent to the plan laid out by management for the success of the organization. In Schein`s model shared or espoused values represent the second of the 3 components and the first of the invisible dynamics, as in they cannot be easily observed by others. Richard Barrett, author of Building a Values-Driven Organisation: A Whole System Approach to Cultural Transformation believes that values can be either positive or negative and each can have an equal and opposite effect on the corporations culture. The espoused values must begin as an individual value through some authority figure, such as a founder, senior management, or even an individual with significant power within an organization. These individuals` culture then influences their immediate coworkers, the teams with which they operate, then the organization as a whole. These individuals can therefore set the values for the whole organization regardless of what the dominant culture of the organization through countercultures. â€Å" The culture of an organisation, or any group of individuals that share a common identity, is a reflection of the values and beliefs of the leadersâ€Å". (http://www.valuescentre.com/leadership/?sec=leadership__culture) With limited information on the dominant culture of ConnectCo as established by its American head company, which include integrity and trustworthiness, it can only be assumed that the culture that prevails at Connectco is a subculture of the organization as a whole. The following analysis suggests that the counterculture present in ConnectCo is the direct result of the actions of Charlie Gallagher. As the leader in the organization Charlie has had a profound effect on the values and ethics present within the organization. His handling of the Symbol account clearly demonstrates his values and ethics. His position as leader and culture setter warrants investigation based on several components. First, the competency of his leadership will be analyzed incorporating an analysis of his personal values and the source of his power. To begin, Charlie possesses several characteristics of an effective leader. He has significant self-concept, his personality skills are high, he has the motivation to be a leader, and significant knowledge of the business. These competencies push those that work for him to have the same skills as demonstrated in Chad MacDonald; however, his low integrity has also been transmitted to other co-workers. By encouraging Davis to p lay with the numbers and do things that were out of the contract he shows his low integrity. This has led to a lack of trust that is evident from Joe Davis and several other members of the ConnectCo staff throughout the handling of the symbol account. This is not the only negative quality that has displayed. Gallagher also exhibits limited cognitive and practical intelligence. His recommendation to simply `go with the lowest cost` shows a lack of understanding of the situation (and going back to communication) the ambiguity of the situation , this has pervaded to his employees where Chad was more than willing to agree to a band aid solution going against ethical business practices. Neither fully understands the situation and Chad was more than happy to hand off the problem to Joe Davis even though he was the relationship manager on the account and dealing with clients is outside of the scope of work for Joe Davis. The reason for Gallagher`s lack of integrity can be easily explained through the Swartz values circumplex. Clearly, Gallagher is more focused on self-enhancement, his need for achievement is evidenced through the fact that everyone must know that he is the one that negotiated the Symbol account and demonstrated through his golf business trips, as well as his refusal to accept responsibility for poorly negotiating a contract and failing to adhere and communicate the contents of the contracts that he signed. He is also a leader that craves power and prefers significant power distance, as proven by his screening of his employees’ calls and not showing up to the meeting with Joe Davis and Chad MacDonald to clarify the contract for them. Both of these values compromise his integrity and unfortunately those values are only two that his leadership has caused the rest of the organization to adopt, the need for security security being another. Gallagher`s aforementioned need for power is also affecting the culture of the organization. His handling of the Symbol account and the contract shows that he uses a wheel formation of information control to maintain power within the organization. By him going golfing with the big shots at Symbol rather than relationship manager Chad, shows that he needs to maintain that control of information which in turn gives him control over Chad and the account. This is combined with Joe Davis` perception of an upward appeal within the organization that made him rethink his ability to go to the higher ups with the information because he believes that the management will take the side of Gallagher given that they are both MBA graduates. Fear is an influence tactic that Gallagher has wielded to maintain order and obedience from his employees through his connection with the president. The effect on culture is that because employees cannot contact upper management the values that he imposes on the organization will be the ones that dictate how operations are carried out. Indirectly, this is what has causes the problem with ConnectCo and Symbol. Gallagher controlling the information has prevented Chad from acting in the best interest of the company to ensure the contract is followed and that there are no issues. It also means that now since the contract has not been followed the persons involves will use the cultural aspects of poor integrity and dodging that he has used with his employees as Chad demonstrated by dodging Steve Puhl and pushing the problem onto Joe Davis. Shared Assumptions and Values Analysing the shared assumptions of ConnectCo with the Schwartz’s Values Circumplex, we notice that the company talks about wanting to keep their most important client Symbol satisfied by valuing self-transcendence and conservation however their actions and dealing of the contract with Symbol do not reflect those values. The appropriate way to describe the values that ConnectCo tend to go by is self-enhancing. They are working for the client to provide them with everything listed in the contract, in this case a sufficient amount of IAEs, but are hiding information from Symbol to protect their own well-being. This seems to be enforced by Charlie Gallagher as he is telling Joe Davis that they should not have to pay any penalty fees to Symbol for empty seats at the IAE position if there are current individuals in training for that position. Now we will look at the ethical values and behaviour the moral intensity of ConnectCo, more specifically Charlie Gallagher’s ethical s ensitivity to the issue. The degree to which they should be applying ethical principles should be is high because Symbol is their biggest client and has trusted ConnectCo for a few years. However, the intensity being put forth is minimal as they are trying to get out of paying money to Symbol for not having staffed enough IAE’s and they are forcing Joe Davis to go against his values and follow suit. This shows how little Charlie Gallagher cares about ethically conducting operations with clients and co-workers, as Joe Davis is being pressured into complying with Charlie’s demand because he does not want to risk losing his job even though what Charlie is telling him to do is illegal. Taking a look at the conflict process model we find our sources of conflict between, Gallagher, Davis and Steve Puhl from Symbol. The most obvious source is the communication between Gallagher and Puhl. First of all the contract between the two is too vague and open for interpretation as the service level targets have not been defined for almost two years. Charlie is also not communicating the issue of his understanding of the contract, as he is just assuming that they should not have to pay Symbol credit for not having the specified amount of IAE’s because he is claiming that during those times they had individuals in training to fill those positions. Another issue is that even if what Gallagher interpreted was true, he does not have any data to prove that he had employees in training because he failed to communicate to Chad MacDonald, Joe Davis and to Carole Lam the exact details of the contract. This puts Joe in a uncomfortable situation when he receives a call from Steve Puhl and is unsure what the contract requirements. Another source of conflict is the incompatible goals and differentiation between Charlie and Joe. Joe is simply trying to do the right thing because he is new to the company and wants to make a good impression by doing things ethically however Charlie is trying to make it seem like he is fulfilling the terms of the contract by making assumptions of the contract to get away with not having to pay Symbol their deserved credit. Another source of conflict is the scarcity of important resources. As mentioned previously Carole Lam the analyst was never told to keep data on the amount of days and which days that employees were in training. Joe needed this data to complete his work but obviously was unable to retrieve complete and accurate data on employee training. The way that Charlie seems to be handling this conflict is by avoiding communication with clients and co-workers. He is notorious for screening calls, he failed to show up to a meeting with Chad MacDonald and Joe Davis, and when asked how to calculate the credit owed to Symbol he simply tells Davis to use the lowest cost to save ConnectCo money and make himself look good. He also does not seem to be of much help to Joe Davis as Gallagher is the one who began this lack of communication which has led to faulty handling of Symbol’s credit account, and seems to be avoiding Joe Davis. This is causing the rest of the employees to obey his ideas beca use they have no idea what the contract actually calls for and even if they did know, would likely be unwilling to challenge his decisions because he is higher up in the company. Alternatives Alternative #1: Bring these numbers and issues to the President and CEO Pros| Cons| * Issues dealing with the Symbol account get addressed * Issues with the culture of the organization get addressed * Issues are addressed to an authority that can fix these problems and remove the negative counterculture * Keeps the organization from committing accounting fraud like other companies (Enron) * Brings to light all the ethical issues surrounding Charlie Gallagher and Chad MacDonald * Addresses turnover issues that have become routine in the company| * This act could cause tension between Joe and his direct superior (Gallagher) * There is a risk that the President sees this act as disloyal * Working with Gallagher and MacDonald after bringing their issues to light will be difficult moving forward * President/CEO may share the same dysfunctional attitude towards the culture in the organization| This alternative should include him making an appointment with the President/CEO and bringing analyst Carole Lam to help support his findings. She is well aware with the financial numbers and how Gallagher is letting ConnectCo take money from their top client. This meeting needs to be face-to-face in order to bring about the severity of the conflicting situation. The meeting needs to include all facets of the organizations current lack of corporate ethical values and which individuals must be held accountable. Joe must conclude that if there are immediate corporate culture changes, he would still like to keep working with Gallagher and MacDonald and build a trusting and functional working relationship with both. This will help ease the tension between himself and his immediate superior as well as showing the President that he is capable of handling mismanagement. This alternative is highly recommended and addresses all the facets of this situation. Alternative #2: Quit and find another job Pros| Cons| * Joe no longer has to deal with the resoundingly shaky ethical structure and poor communication at ConnectCo * Joe doesn’t become a â€Å"part of the problem† * Joe no longer has to deal with Gallagher’s lack of trust and consideration with their top clientele at his cost * Joe doesn’t become an accomplice to committing accounting fraud| * Leaving an organization after only one month doesn’t look good to future prospective employers * This would go against his newly engaged fiancà ©e who wanted to see him â€Å"get off the road† * No severance package * No recommendation or verbal support from ConnectCo once he leaves| This alternative does not come recommended as it leaves Joe and ConnectCo with an uncertain future. Should Joe decide to leave the company, he would not get a severance package and future employers will wonder why he lasted only a month at his previous job making it more difficult to find employment opportunities. Also, his fiancà ©e did not want his moving around for work a lot and two jobs in less than two months will leave his situation at home stressful. Also, should prospective employers contact ConnectCo, they would have no reason to support Joe for his limited work. Although Joe does not have to deal with this poor corporate culture, running away from the situation does not help in any positive way. Alternative #3: Try to resolve issue without Chad MacDonald or Charlie Gallagher Pros| Cons| * Helps ease relationship between ConnectCo and Symbol * Steve Puhl does not have to deal with Chad (who he is getting nowhere with) * Joe can try to incorporate cultural changes to those he can * Has Carole Lam to help him fix the financial disparities of the comapny| * Leaving Chad and Charlie in the dark is risky * Steve Puhl may accidently contact Chad or Charlie and miscommunication may occur * Does not address how to fix the imminent turnover issues surrounding the IAE’s * Not reporting these changes with his superior could cost him his job| Because Joe handles the reporting side of the company, it would go against his responsibilities as an employee to bring up any new information regarding Symbol and can be subject to his employment being terminated if Gallagher was to find out. This alternative is incredibly risky, but does see some rewards. These rewards include easing the relationship between ConnectCo and Symbol and slowly changing the culture in the corporation as best he can. Unfortunately, he is only just a manager and a new one, so it would be hard for him to get others to respond to his command when there hasn’t been enough relationship development between his other employees. With this in mind, it is best to look at other alternatives. Recommendation Our recommendation is based off of Alternative #1, in which we suggest brining the financial statements and issues to the attention of the President and CEO. This will allow us to ensure that all problems in relation to the Symbol account and the culture of the organization are addressed accordingly. This will also shed light on the ethical issues that need to be addressed, surrounding Gallagher and MacDonald. As well, it will prevent any consequences from occurring, resulting from accounting fraud. Once Joe Davis meets with the President and CEO to inform them of his findings, it will be up to the President to create and urgency for change within the organization. In order to implement this change we would recommend the use of Lewin’s Force Field Analysis Model. By implementing this model the President could unfreeze the current situation, change the organizational culture and ethics of the company, and then freeze the company in that state. By doing so the company would chan ge into operating with a more socially responsible client first attitude. By creating urgency for change the President could use client satisfaction as a driving force to push the employees, in order to ensure each client receives the customer service they deserve. By ensuring the client is always receiving social and ethical treatment, it will drive away any restraining forces, such as lack of integrity, which can be attributed to the accounting fraud. Now we can consider how the President could unfreeze and re-freeze the company in order to complete the change. The President should focus on creating an adaptive culture, in which the company will have an external focus. By creating an external focus the employees will realize that the organizations success depends on continuous change to be a more stakeholder and client oriented company. In this situation it means focusing on changing into a more socially and ethically aware organization to better serve the clients. There is also an internal focus that must be implemented as well. This includes employees working towards the organizational goals that are set. In this situation the organizational goals would be to provide better customer service. As well by creating an adaptive culture, employees would have a stronger sense of ownership within the organization, and therefore take more responsibility for their performance and tasks. Therefore we believe that since a company’s culture often reflects the leader’s personality, it really is up to the President to make the steps necessary to change the organization. One final step we would recommend taking, is to fire Charlie Gallagher. The basis of firing Gallagher is the fact that he was trying to commit accounting fraud. Therefore the company would have just cause for his dismissal. By firing Gallagher, this would also be the first step towards creating a socially and ethically driven company; Gallagher is simply a restraining force that is preventing the organization from making that move towards a better organizational culture. Action Plan Our recommendation is often referred to as whistle blowing, which is when a company employee goes public or to his superiors with private information that could hurt the company. This technique is usually used when social and ethical responsibilities are being neglected or ignored. While it may seem simple enough, the process is far from smooth and the employee doing the whistle blowing is often made out to be a burnt out low level employee who is unhappy. So before Joe does anything of the sort he must be prepared for anything to happen. The best way to approach this alternative would be: 1. Collect all relevant information and be prepared to present your case and be able to answer any and all questions 2. No president of CEO wants to hear that their company’s values and ethics are being compromised, so he must prepare a plan B in order to protect himself from media and personal scrutiny. 3. Joe must schedule a face-to-face meeting with the CEO to ensure that there is no outs ide noise or misinterpretations with his information and language 4. When presenting his findings, Joe must deliver his message in a way that is not an attack or critique. He must not point out what is wrong but what needs to be improved and why. 5. As part of his presentation Joe needs to incorporate his own recommendations and action plan. Once he goes through with this meeting there is not turning back. The recommendation and action plan should follow a similar tone to what was mentioned above, it should not only identify the problems but what needs to be done to fix them and how to go about fixing them. 6. After the meeting is over all Joe can do is wait for the decisions by the CEO and board of governors. At this point in time a lot of different things can happen and Joe needs to be prepared for any outcome. The optimistic outcome would be to have your action plan ready to implement and begin fixing the company. The pessimistic outcome would be that they reject his action plan and making his career a nightmare. If this were the case Joe should be prepared to look for another job, or be prepared to defend himself from public scrutiny. Joe is caught in the middle of a lose-lose situation, so his best alternative is the lesser of two evils. It is difficult being the new guy in a company, especially when you’re the one telling that what they are doing is wrong. However, sometimes it takes an outside perspective to identify the problems that have gone unnoticed for too long. If Joe can present a clear and strong case that does not personally offend the CEO, and present the opportunities for improvement, the process should run as smooth as possible.

Analysis and Critique of Research – Based Literature

I. Summary of Hofstede’s Model of Cross-Cultural Management Early management gurus used to presume that their ideas on management apply to everybody all over the world. Their notions were challenged when the Japanese became a world economic superpower, along with the significant rise of dragons and tigers economies. The notion that management principles are not universally applicable across all cultural boundaries soon emerged and began to develop itself through various cross-cultural studies, such as Lane and Beamish’s (1990) study on western companies that built joint-ventures with people from other nations, without considering the differences in their management cultures and thought that it would be sufficient in dealing with global competition problems. Also read this  Critique of Stuff Is Not Salvation One study that stood out from the others came from Geert Hofstede (1980a), who defined culture as: â€Å"†¦the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another†¦the interactive aggregate of common characteristics that influences a human group’s response to its environment†. Richards (2001) mentioned that Hofstede’s study was focused on the differences in ‘mental programming’ among groups of people in different nations, through their collective preferences on certain states of affairs over others. His study was conducted through a questionnaire survey on IBM’s employees in fifty nations and his analysis was based on comparative data from that survey. Hofstede’s empirical study would then strengthen the belief that western, particularly American, management practices could not directly be applied on management from different cultures, which are based on different values. Geert Hofstede identified four levels of social attachments through which culture displays itself: symbols; heroes; rituals and values. Among said levels, values play the biggest part in explaining cultural differences. Hofstede further identified five primary value dimensions from which a pecking order can be established for each target country. These dimensions are: 1. Individualism versus Collectivism: The way in which people live together and the relationship that exists between the individual and the collectivity. 2. Large versus Small Power Distance: The extent to which a society accepts or rejects inequalities in such areas as prestige, wealth and power, or hierarchy versus equality. 3. Strong versus Weak Uncertainty Avoidance: The extent to which culture cope with uncertainty or unstructured situations, and encourage risk-taking, through technology, law and religion (risk avoidance versus risk comfort). 4. Masculinity versus Femininity: Attitudes to quality of life, achievement, assertiveness and competition (task versus relationship). 5. Long-term Orientation (Confucian work Dynamism): Value persistence (perseverance); having a sense of shame rather than guilt; search for virtue, rather than truth; long-term approach to life; and ordering relations by status and observation of it. Hofstede then placed countries within the above dimensions and found that a culture in one country makes people from that country to more likely behave in a certain way than other. This research was found to be very enlightening (Richards, 2001, p. 172), especially in paving the way to look deeper into the differences in cultural values and norms. In his 2002 counter-argument made toward McSweeney’s critique, Hofstede (2002, p. 1355) even claimed that his pioneering research had resulted in a ‘paradigm-shift’ in the field of cross-cultural studies. Later on in 1987, he developed what he called as ‘theory T’ (Richards, 2001, p. 178), which core arguments are: 1. The world is unequal and everyone has his/her place within the order. 2. Each of the children has his/her birthright place and has to work on his/her duties accordingly, but can improve his/her position through studying with a good teacher, working with a good patron, and/or marrying a good partner. 3. Wisdom is grounded on tradition. That is why human beings do not like change and will avoid it if he/she can. Trying to find the ideal model for these cultural differences, Hofstede then developed his theory T to a more complex model he called theory T +, which added on to theory T the component of change and the ability within a particular culture to modernize and synergize with other cultures through life experience; commitment to change; capacity to lead to change; and people’s learning capacities (Richards, 2001, pp. 6-17). II. Analysis and Critique The prescribed readings that followed after Richards’ (2001) overview of cultural differences, cultural dimensions and syndromes, through previous academics’ works (Hofstede, Trompenaars and others) and his own teachings on cultural understanding, essentially went back and forth on research credibility issues, including validity in the methodologies that these academics utilized in their research (i. e. Hofstede’s critique on Trompenaars’ research methodologies and its subsequent rebuttal from Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars in readings # 2 and 3 of the reading list, followed by more critique from Hofstede on Trompenaars’ work in reading # 4, and still followed by Brendan McSweeney critique on Hofstede’s own methodology and the quality of his evidence in reading # 5, which sparked another refutation from Hofstede in reading # 6, and still another counter-rebuttal from Sweeney in reading # 7). To this writer, all the above debate was focused on several key issues: 1. All theoretical claims have to be based on analysis grounded on empirical research. 2. Selection of methodology made on an academic’s research could determine the credibility of his/her research and subsequent academic analysis. 3. Research design, along with type of data and instruments to gather said data are exceptionally important in the formation of a researcher’s analysis. . The type of analysis used on a researcher’s database would determine the scope of academic claim he/she could create and how valid those claims would be. This writer’s own doubt on Hofstede’s research is mainly based on whether his sample of 117,000 respondents who participated in his questionnaire survey are homogenous, thus representative enough to the world population that was supposed to be the target population of his research on (world) culture. Unlike McSweeney in reading # 5, however, this writer would give Hofstede the benefit of the doubt on his choice of questionnaire content, which must have played a significant part in determining whether cultural differences could be correctly reflected through the selection of question items. Simply put, should the writer be in Hofstede’s shoes and possess sufficient resources within his grasp, he would probably undertake another survey-based research on a much narrower or tighter ‘cultural’ sub-concept or characteristic, which makes up a larger concept of ‘culture’.