comparision essays

comparision essays Not knowing whom to depend on may guide a persons life into misery or death, especially if it were the life of a child. There is nothing worse then the suffering of children. This topic is a stigma, but two novels have dealt with this subject matter in a thought-provoking manner. Throughout Frank McCourts, Angelas Ashes and Anne Franks, The diary of a young girl, there are many comparative aspects. These novels are both autobiographies that use the suffering of children to acquire the readers sympathy. Readers see the misery through the childs eye, which creates a greater impact of feeling. These two novels take place approximately around the same time frame. Frank McCourts childhood story begins in 1935, were Frank McCourt is five years old, living in New York. Anne Franks diary begins in 1942, when she is a twelve-year-old schoolgirl, living in Amsterdam, Holland. Franks and Annes family faced hunger, death, boredom, petty misunderstandings, and frustration of living in unbea rable conditions. The main characters in the novels learn whom they are able to depend on, found means to survive and turned to their religion for reassurance. Both Anne and Frank were able to keep their religious faith to better themselves although living in poverty and fearing for their lives. As a young boy Frank realizes he has to depend on himself for food and emotional stability. His home lacked this type of support for, his father who is an alcoholic, spent more time at the pub then taking care of his family. The child is above in bed bawling and roaring for his milk and youre drinking the pint (McCourt, 184), is said by Franks younger brother in attempts to encourage his father to stop drinking all of their money away. Due to Franks fathers affliction with alcohol, Frank feels he must take on more responsibility. Frank gets a job to feed him and the f...

Study of Post Acquisition Staff Retention within Business Dissertation

Study of Post Acquisition Staff Retention within Business Organisations - Dissertation Example The analyzed quantitative studies show that Kraft did not have some knowledge practices of staff retention after taking over Cadbury, which could enable it to retain some of the most skillful and knowledgeable staff. The study recommended the adoption of a knowledge retention framework to be embedded in the Kraft’s knowledge management policy. INTRODUCTION Staff retention is the process that ensures that employees are retained or kept within a company (Kearney, 2010). This happens particularly to employees who have needed or valued skills or experience in a critical/scarce field where recruitment is quite difficult. Staff retention stems from the process of employment (Batellan, &Van Essen, 2010). It also occurs in mergers and acquisitions (Bourantas, & Nicandrous, 2012). Post-acquisition and merging, like employment are an important process, which should receive sufficient and careful attention to ensure it realizes its goal. After two or more companies merge, strategies empl oyed to ensure staff of the associated companies are retained determines  the successful operation of the merged company (Bourantas, & Nicandrous, 2012). This means that the recruitment, placement, replacements, and selection processes play a crucial role in predetermining the effectiveness of the retention strategy of the companies involved. According to Bower (2013) for such companies to succeed in staff retention, their retention strategy should be linked positively to the practices and processes of selection, placement, recruitment, development, remuneration, training, and performance appraisal. Retaining knowledge is often the prime goal for many organization that decide to merge (Hambrick, & Cannella, 2011). Studies indicate that knowledge, and skill retention is the prime reason why most organization opt to retain staff. Knowledge is identified as a resource that is strategic in providing competitive organizations advantage (Capron, 2010). Even though organizations have ide ntified the knowledge value, few of them have started to manage the efficiency of knowledge effectively (Capron, 2010). The management of knowledge for the creation of value is still a concern of any management. Even though different organization’s operations like finance, marketing, supply chain or sales, are appropriately mastered, the effective management roadmaps of knowledge is still under investigation. Managing knowledgeable, and skilled employees has increasingly become the key challenge for most organizations (Mitchell, Capron, & Dussuage, 2012). According to Samuel and Chipunza (2011) retaining high performing employees is a challenge to many organizations because these employees who are high skilled frequently shift jobs to seek for attractive jobs. The management of knowledge includes the identification of knowledge, development, sharing, acquisition, utilization, retention, and distribution (Montgometry. & Collis, 2010). Generally, employee turnover has become a major area of research from both practical, and theoretical stand point. From the theoretical stand point, understanding key causes of turnover may not only provide an overview of where specific turnover problems for the retailers lies, but also from the theoretical perspective, understanding the fundamental causes of turnover can provide an overview as to how to control this growing problem and identify where a retailers specific turnover

Project Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

Project - Assignment Example He has emphasized on the some of the most important areas of human development which include health and education. According to Kanna (2011), Al-Maktoum has invested heavily on education as well on the development of knowledge within the region of UAE by grooming potential leaders within the private as well as public sectors of UAE and also by promoting other crucial areas such as research and development, business leadership, youth empowerment, cultural development, preservation of traditional heritage and also promoting various platforms for the economy. Under his leadership, UAE has become an economic powerhouse (Davis). The leadership approach by Al-Maktoum has been transformational. Literally speaking, transformational leadership is a leadership style which is able to implicit certain positive changes within the people who follow the leader (Bass). Transformational leaders like Al-Maktoum are energetic, passionate as well as highly enthusiastic. The government of Al-Maktoum has not only transformed the fate of UAE but has made UAE as one of the most dominant countries in the world (Davidson). An insight on the leadership strategy of Al-Maktoum can be further elaborated: Self-awareness: Al-Maktoum’s government has consistently got in touch with the citizens of UAE and has asked people for feedback and suggestions for improvements and has also listened to what is needed for improvement. Eliminating self interest: The leadership approach of Al-Maktoum goes beyond portraying any level of self interest or selfishness and is an approach which has a mass effect. His strategy has balanced any potential conflict of interest which may arise between the citizens. According to Al-Al (2008), by implementing an adequate level of trust as well as by generating the enthusiastic support from his subordinates, leaders have the adequate ability in improving individual as well as team performance. Due to this reason, this of approach of

Evaluating the Business Environment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Evaluating the Business Environment - Essay Example This essay stresses that the airline industry has been seen to make less and less revenue as the market forces and the business environment becomes harsh on it. However, Ryanair has seen its revenues grow and in most cases exceed the industry average. The airline has been capitalising on its uniqueness as a low cost airline to remain afloat and this is after analysing its Porter’s five forces. This report makes a conclusion that Ryanair has put in place, it becomes clear that the company has tried in coming up as the low-cost airline of choice for many in Europe. The company also established cost reduction measures based on reducing the impact of its threats in the industry as well as improving on its weaknesses. In overall the Ryanair has made huge strides in making sure that it emerges at the top despite the challenges faced. With all this progress the airline needs to change a few approaches to the market in order to gain more and to ensure a sustainable business. The management need to be more careful with their advertisements as they have seen them airline lose a great deal of finances in legal fees after being sued by competitors. Their website needs to carry information that is not misleading to the customers in regards to fares as the case has been in the past. The airline needs to diversify and move further into other continents so as to become a global airline wi th a wider market base thereby more revenue generation. However, this latter move needs good strategies as competition is stiffer on a global scale and the cost of operation will increase dramatically.

My Exchange Experience Essay Example for Free

My Exchange Experience Essay Ocean is more resplendent because of its waves; forest is lusher because of the rainstorms; and life is richer because of all the milestones. I always believe that what makes people different is not the starting point, but the turning point. Twenty years had been gone in my life, but I did not feel my growth and maturity until I went to California as a foreign exchange student. In 2006, I should be like many other sixteen-year-old teenagers who go to school every day and spend time with parents at home. However, I made a decision to come to the United States for ten month with AFS Intercultural Program. At first, my English teacher in China asked me if I want to go to the AFS winter camp, which is for selecting exchange students across the country. At that time, I had absolutely no idea about doing abroad. What I pictured my life was to finish high school, go to a college, and get a decent job. My parents advised me that there were two choices lying in front of me. On one hand, I could ignore the exchange program and live like what everyone does, whereas on the other hand, I could try to go to a different way of living. Finally, I was selected to be one of the sixty three exchange students who would go to the United States. Since I stepped onto the land of United States, lots of hardships have already waited to test me. The very beginning thing I had to handle was to become adapted to the American style of living, such as trying all different kinds of food, watching movies together with the family, getting up early on Christmas day morning to open presents from â€Å"Santa Claus†, and so on. Then, I had to get used to the life in school. In China, we do not have the opportunity to pick courses; whereas here in the United States, I got so many classes to choose from. What was more, I had to make decisions on my own instead of asking my parents like what I normally did back home. Usually, I had to prepare a lot of work for whole night, but I never told my parents how tired and hard I felt here. I never wanted them to worry about me, which was another big difference. In China, I could tell them all my feelings, however, in America, all I could do was to bear everything on my shoulder and kept going on without hesitance. I felt so lucky to get involved in this exchange experience, which is a really important milestone in my life because I harvested and grew up a lot from it. I got the chance to practice my oral English skills because I was the only Chinese in that town. And then, without the aid of Mom and Dad, I managed to do many things well relying on myself, which really steeled me. Instead of looking at America through TV shows, I was personally on the scene to experience American culture, especially the education system.

Sainsburys Team And Leadership Behaviour

Sainsburys Team And Leadership Behaviour Introduction In this assignment I need to understand the team and leadership behaviour. The organisation I have chosen to look at is Sainsburys where I was a former employee. Sainsburys plc is a leading food retailer supermarket. The Scenario that I have presented took place when I was working at Sainsburys which will highlight what team skills took place. The main focus in my report is on leadership I will analyse the group interactions and interdependence that were implicated by applying appropriate theories from the Team Skills. This will then enable me to draw conclusions and offer recommendations for improvement. Sainsburys background Sainsburys plc is a leading food retailer supermarket, founded in 1869; it is the longest standing and the third largest supermarket in the UK. Not only is Sainsbury Britains largest retailer of food and wine but it is also the most respected, according to the reportings of the nationwide surveys of industry analysts and company directors. The company has received top or near-top ratings for product and service quality, successful development, profitable pricing, overall financial performance, advertising and marketing, and superior management, as well as recruitment, training, and retention of high-calibre employees. Characters The four characters that I have chosen to look at have different roles within the company however; they all play an important part in the scenario which shows their great team working skills. I have highlighted their roles within the store (Please see appendix 1). The Scenario I used to work in Sainsburys as a cashier and one day when I was working over-time there was a power cut. The store manger Clive called all the supervisors down to the check outs department and said we need to get all the customers out of store and so the check out manager Kristina done a tannoy on the speaker telling all the customers to leave the store due to the power cut. Meanwhile the store assistant manager, Duncan was calling the Head Office to inform them that the store had a power cut. Imran the supervisor of frozen foods than done a call out to all the staff asking them to leave the building and come to the main entrance of Sainsburys. After arriving to the main entrance of the building all the staff got in groups of 8 which were led by a supervisor. We then had to take the customers cold products and put them in the big fridge at the back of the warehouse which was running on a generator. The staff got told by the store manager Clive that all the cold products of the shelf had to be taken off and put it in to big plastic boxes which then went in the big fridge at the back of the warehouse. There were four supervisors; Amy, Dave, Steve and Imran, I was in imrans group and our task was to take of all the milk products off the shelves and put it at the back to the warehouse where the big fridge was. After we done the milk section we were then asked to do the yogurt section, in total it took us 3 hours, 1 hour more than we expected, this meant that the store lost out on 3 hours of business. After the store reopened I got told by my group supervisor to stand on the door n greet all the customers and tell them all the cold products cant be sold due to a power cut. After a few hours we got the power back and Clive the store manager asked a lot of the staff to do overtime and put all the cold products back on the shelves. The staff doing the over time were split in to 3 groups of 5 and in total it took us four and a half hours to put all the cold products ba ck on the shelf. Transcription of Interaction The dialogue that took place between the main characters in the scenarios described above shows the team work that took place (Please see appendix 2). Theories The trait approach to leadership arising from the great man theory identifies the key characteristic of a leader as being successful. Stodgill (1974) identified a list of main traits and skills that a successful leader should acquire. According to Stodgill, a good leader should possess the trait of being able to adapt to different situations, should be alert to social environments, be ambitious and achievement-orientated. As well as this a good, successful leader should be assertive, cooperative, decisive, dependable and dominant in the sense that they should have the desire to influence others. Stodgill also highlighted a good leader to be energetic, persistent, self-confident, tolerant of stress and willing to assume responsibility. The key skills that Stodgill identified as vital for a successful leader are that they should be creative, conceptually skilled, diplomatic, tactful, knowledgeable about group task, organised, persuasive yet socially skilled. The contingency theory proposed by fiedler (1964) states that they is no one way that is best for managers to lead, different situation will require different leadership style for a manager. The managerial situation depends on various internal and external factors such as the working environment. Fiedler identified 3 situations that could describe the condition of a managerial task; leader member relation, this refers to how well the managers and staff get along, task structure which relates to how structured the job is, position power which associates with how much authority the manager possesses. It has been noted that task oriented managers tend to be better in situation in which they have good relationship with good leader member relationship, structured task and a strong position of power. Leader member relation refers to the amount of dependability and support that the leader receives from his or her employee. The Herschey-Blanchard situational theory (1977) suggests that the appropriate leadership style depends upon the developmental level of maturity of the subordinates. This means that in order to establish the appropriate leadership style, the leader must first establish the maturity level of the subordinates in relation to the task that they are trying to accomplish. According to Blanchard the key situational factors are the readiness and developmental level of the subordinates and therefore four different leadership styles have been recognized; directing, coaching, delegating and supporting. The path-goal model of leadership proposed by Evans (1970) and House (1971) suggests that an individuals motivation depends upon their expectation of the reward. According to Evan the most important way that managers can motivate employees is by offering them reward and indicating what they must do to earn that reward. Analyse scenario Although the staffs at Sainsburys have been trained on what to do when there is a power cut, it still occurs unexpectedly, there is no one best way of leading that particular situation, moreover, a leadership style that is effective in one situation may not be effective in another although they may be similar situations. The optimal leadership style is dependent upon many of the internal and external factors; therefore, in this instance the contingency theory of leadership can be applied (Fieldler 1964) as nobody including the store manager Clive expected this to happen however, he was alert and adapted quickly to the situation. As the store manager to be a successful leader, Clive had to think quickly and act fast, therefore the situational leadership theory proposed by Hersey and Blanchard (1977) can also be applied to this scenario. He took the leader role and communicated well with all the staff by keeping them all informed and assigning them to jobs. Mullins (2002) describes leadership as the relationship through which one person affects the action or behaviour of another, from the scenario we can see that Clive leadership qualities affected the rest of the staff as they felt more motivated and knew what they had to do. Duncan used his initiative and thought of calling the head office and informing them nevertheless he still asked for Clives advice. The same applied to Imran as he thought of gathering all of the staff together however, he still asked Clive first. Clive possesses many of the traits and skills identified by Stodgill (1974) we can see from the way he handled the situation that he has the ability to adapt to different situations and is alert to what is happening around him. In addition to this we can see that as a store manager he is a good leader because he is cooperative with his staff, dependable because the rest of the staff rely on him and empowering because off the influence he has on others. We can also see that he did not panic, was organised and tactful in his approach. Clive assigned job roles according to the level of maturity of the workers; this is in consistent with the Hersey-Blanchard theory. From the scenario we can also see that Kristina took lead as well as she was assigning the supervisors on what section of the cold products to work. Imran was also a leader of his group and took a leading role of his group. Recommendations for improvement Conclusion The scenario shows that relevant leadership skills were in place and therefore the situation was handled successfully although some faults that did occur could have been avoided which has led me to present recommendations for improvement that could be used for future reference. The leadership skills presented in the scenario are also in consistent with the leadership theories that have been established. All the characters displayed leadership qualities even though they had different roles within the company; they still worked as a team to resolve the issue. References Evans, Martin G. (1970). The effects of supervisory behavior on the path-goal relationship. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 5: 277-298. http://www.j-sainsbury.co.uk/index.asp?pageid=380 Hersey, P. and Blanchard, K. H. (1977). Management of Organizational Behavior: Utilizing Human Resources (3rd ed.) New Jersey/Prentice Hall House, Robert J. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly 16: 321-339. Fiedler, F. E. (1964). A Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology (Vol.1). 149-190. New York: Academic Press. Mullins, L. (2002) Management and Organizational Behaviour. 6th ed. FT/Prentice Hall Mullins, LJ (2007), The Nature of Leadership, Management and OB (8e) Stogdill, R.M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of the literature, New York: Free Press Appendix 1 Character Position Duties Behavior Clive Male, 35 years old Store manager Clives main duty as the Store Manager is to look after the whole store meaning that all managers of all departments report to him. He has the leading role in the store and has to support all staff. He is very charismatic, a strong leader always interested in getting results. Although at times he can be described as authoritarian and arrogant. Duncan Male, 28 years old Store assistant manager As the store assistant manager Duncans main role is to assist Clive in supporting staff and managing the store when he is not present. He is a reliable, organized and motivated individual. Kristina Female, 38 years old Checkout manager Kristinas main duties are to supervise all staff working in the check-outs departments as well as cashing up the money at the end of the day. She is a very friendly, sociable, confident leader that looks for attention to detail although sometimes may appear to be bossy and dominant. Imran Male, 36 years old Supervisor Imran is a supervisor of the frozen foods department. His main duties are to supervise all workers in that department as well as assisting his manager and managing the department when his manager is absent. Although experienced and of a very helpful nature, Imran is lazy and does not keep to his time keeping. Jessica Female, 20 years old Checkouts operator Jessica is a check-out staff, her main duty is to serve the customers the products they want and to help them with any queries that they have. She is a bubbly and friendly person.

Lost and Found in Walden :: Walden Essays

Lost and Found  in  Walden Thoreau found himself at Walden - and lost himself on Ktaadn. Walden, a mile from town, was a benign experience in which he learned what he could do without, what was essential for life. Ktaadn, high and remote, taught him what he could not do without, what was essential life. He spoke of the hostility of the landscape. The mountain seemed to speak to him: "Why came ye here before your time? This ground is not prepared for you . . . I cannot pity or fondle you here, but (must) forever relentlessly drive thee hence to where I am kind." This landscape is hostile, not kind. It is "unforgiving and inhospitable to man" (Sidney). He responds to this imagined chastening with an apology, a verse explaining " . . . my way lies through your spacious empire up to light" - the way to light/enlightenment. The Web material illuminated somewhat Thoreau’s need for this experience - he had expressed a desire to "witness our own limits transgressed." He got what he came for. It seems to me that he did not anticipate such a terrifying experience, such utter alienation. Thoreau described this as "primeval, untamed, and forever untamable Nature" - "vast and drear and inhuman". "Man was not to be associated with it . . . It was Matter, vast, terrific, . . the home . . of Necessity and Fate." This was nature in its most primitive form. It did not allow, tolerate or acknowledge man’s control or manipulations, or even his need to comprehend. This is the same Matter from which our bodies are made, our physical nature. This is terrifying, alienating to Thoreau: "I stand in awe of my own body, this matter to which I am bound has become so strange to me . . . I fear bodies, I tremble to meet them." His purpose is met - he "witnesses his own limits transgressed". He senses that "his reason is dispersed." He tries to voice his feelings of alienation - and finds he is removed even from his voice, can only shout "Contact! Contact!" Wendy notes that Thoreau is "really failing at describing what he is trying to describe." Stacy notes that this passage is related to "a person getting a sense of their self in relation to Nature." The Web material describes Thoreau’s practice of linking landscape and identity.