One Thing Leads to Another essays

One Thing Leads to Another essays Karl Marx and Frederick Douglass, although they wrote about distinct issues, there are ties between Douglass' infamous What to the Slave is The Fourth of July? and from The Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx. Douglass and Marx are marking actual events that flooded the populations' lives, as well as their lives. At first glance there is the assumption that they are non-related, but further analysis will prove that hypothesis otherwise. Douglass and Marx are writing revolutionary ideas for the times in which they live and for which the cultures in which they live. They are writing in societies that have great rifts between rich and poor, powerful and powerless. Both Douglass and Marx were engaged in organizations to help promote their views on civil issues. Douglass existed as a member of the Anti-Slavery Society and Marx was a member of the Communist League. The issues promoted by the two were both discussing current issues in their lives, more specifically, class struggles. Douglass talks about the division of slaves, while Marx talks about the divided social classes. Marx divided the social class into the Bourgeois and the Proletariat. The Bourgeois were modern capitalists, employers of wage laborers, and the owners of means of production, including work ethics and the physical instruments of production. The Proletariat were the class of the modern wage-laborers. They don't have their own means of production and therefore, they must sell their own labor to survive. This is just the same as Douglass discusses the slaves and tyrants. Marx took Hegel's theory that presents history as a "process in which the world becomes conscious of itself as spirit." With that, Marx argued that "as a man becomes conscious of himself as spirit, the material world causes him to feel increasingly alienated from himself. Escape from this alienation requires a revolution." This refers to What to the ...

The Collapse of Ronan Point The WritePass Journal

The Collapse of Ronan Point Introduction The Collapse of Ronan Point IntroductionDesign and ConstructionCollapsePerceived FailuresProcedure and Project ManagementKey FailuresRecommendations for Better Project ManagementNext Steps and ConclusionsReferencesRelated Introduction The purpose of this paper is to consider the perceived failures associated with the famous collapse of Ronan Point on 16 May, 1968. Following a gas explosion, an entire corner of the 22 storey tower block in East London collapsed, killing 4 people and injuring 17. In order to analyse the failures that occurred, the paper will firstly look at the history of the building, its design and construction, before looking at the collapse itself and the perceived failures that were identified after the event. The building was named after the chairman of the housing committee of the relevant London Borough, Newham, and was one of many tower blocks built during the 1960s in a budget-driven and affordable way to deal with the growing demand for affordable housing in the region (Levy and Salvadori 1992). The very ethos of this affordable housing and the use of cheaper materials and cheaper construction approaches is arguably one of the first and fundamental contributory factors to the disaster (Griffiths et al 1968). Design and Construction The actual design and construction of the building was mooted as far back as the end of World War II, when much of the housing available in the London region was destroyed as a result of the war and there was a rapid demand for a large amount of housing. Other factors such as a lack of skilled labourers, as well as the changing housing policy which enabled multi-stories to be established, created a demand for the design and construction of buildings such as the one in question here. A prefabricated construction technique was used which involved the creation of much of the high-rise building which was then transported to the area for final construction (Cagley, 2003). The actual construction approach that was used here was that of the Larsen-Nielsen system which was composed of factory-built, precast concrete components designed to minimise on-site construction work. Walls, floors and stairways are all precast. â€Å"All units, installed one-story high are load bearing† (ENR, 1968 at p.54). Although this system was tried and tested, the approach was not designed to be used in a building of more than 6 storeys high. However, the building of this tower block was 22 storeys high and there was no recognition, at the construction phase, that this could potentially jeopardise the validity of the construction technique. The basic construction approach involved a precast concrete structure frame, with each floor of the multi-storey building being supported by the load-bearing walls directly beneath each other, floor upon floor (Bignell et al 1977).   Collapse The collapse itself happened at 5:45 am in the morning when the tenant of one of the apartments on the 18th floor lit a match, unbeknownst that there had been a gas leak overnight. By lighting the match, an explosion took place and this ended up damaging the load-bearing wall which was present on the 18th floor and was acting as the only support for the corner of the 19th floor. When the corner of the 19th floor collapsed, this had the effect of the 20th floor collapsing. Once the floors above had already collapsed the pressure on the floors became unbearable and the domino effect continued downward, destroying the entire corner of the building (Delatte, 2009). The way in which the collapse took place meant that, essentially, it destroyed a portion of the living room all the way down the building, but left the bedrooms intact in most cases, with the exception of floors 17 to 22 the room which were in the immediate vicinity of the explosion. It was on these floors that all of the fata lities happened and due to the fact that the explosion had taken place early in the morning, the majority of the individuals who were in their bedrooms were unaffected (Delatte, 2009). Perceived Failures When looking at the perceived failures and causes of failure, it can be seen that the analysis is largely split into two distinct areas: first, considering the immediate cause of failure; the second looking at the fundamental flaws in the design and construction of the building that allowed such a dramatic reaction to the immediate event (Griffiths et al 1968). The actual investigation into the event which took place involved a government panel which was formed in order to look at the causes of failure and to consider whether or not there were other buildings which potentially could suffer from a similar eventuality, in the future. As stated previously, the construction approach taken for Ronan Point was replicated in many other buildings, with eight other exact replicas in occupation. Therefore, establishing the reason for the collapse is crucially important (Pearson and Delatte, 2003) One of the key factors that took contributed in the immediate event itself was found to be a substandard connection used in order to connect the gas stove in the relevant apartment. Whilst this meant that the gas leak had presented itself in a way that would not have been likely, had they used a different connection, as well as having the incorrect connection, it was found that over tightening had occurred during installation. This probably weakened the connection and allowed gas to leak out. Despite this, the evidence gathered suggested that the explosion itself was not substantial, as there was no permanent damage to the hearing of the individual in the apartment. This suggests that relatively little pressure was involved, although there was sufficient pressure to move the external walls of the building and to create a progressive collapse within the building (Levy and Salvadori, 1992). Broadly speaking, the progressive collapse is thought to have occurred due to the fact that there was a lack of alternate load paths available and there was no support for the structural frame available on the higher floors (Wearne, 2000). This meant that when there was an explosion on level 18, this took out the only support so that the floors above level 18 failed and this placed excessive pressure on the lower floors, until it ultimately collapse to ground level. Perceived failures, can be split into two distinct categories, the first being the cause of the explosion itself; the second looking at the repercussions of the explosion, which were extensive, given the magnitude of the explosion, which was relatively low. Procedure and Project Management Unsurprisingly, as a result of the collapse here, building codes, guidelines and regulations were advised not only in the United Kingdom, but across the globe. The building regulations, changed in 1970, state that any building with more than four storeys needs to have a design structure in place that would resist a progressive collapse of this nature (Pearson and Delatte, 2005, pp. 175). Apart from the construction mechanisms themselves, there were also concerns that failures had occurred in the project management, as well as failures to check procedures. The gaps between the floors and in the walls meant that the building had not been established in a way that was part of the original design and planning. In addition to the actual failure in the design of the property, concerns were also raised in the report in relation to the need for quality control of the construction processes taking place. For example, it was proven that during the construction, certain design factors had been ignored, with unfilled gaps between the floors and walls, throughout the premises, which meant that the building had little in the way of separation between the flats. Furthermore, in high rise buildings of this type, a relatively narrow staircase is acceptable, as there is thought to be enough fire protection between the floors. In the absence of this fire protection, narrow staircases w ould be unacceptable, in the event of a fire or explosion of this nature. Key Failures The analysis above indicates that there are several failures which together created the dramatic collapse at Ronan Point. These are: social pressures on the construction company to establish a large amount of housing accommodation, rapidly and cheaply; the use of constructions not aimed at high storey buildings of this nature; failures to put in place methods whereby there was no secondary support structure in place, in the event of a failure with any of the load-bearing walls; failures with the processes being followed, which resulted in the wrong processes being followed in the connection of the gas pipes, as well as other omissions during the construction process, with the failure to follow the design provided. It can be seen, that the project management would have, at least in part, dealt with many of these failures and would have either prevented the explosion, in the first place, or would have seriously reduced the impact of the explosion, once it did take place. The crucial factor in this analysis is that the explosion itself was relatively minor, yet the repercussions were large and it is this chain of events that requires attention when it comes to better project management, in the future. Recommendations for Better Project Management Certain failures took place at the design phase, when the design construction of the premises was selected, yet was not entirely suitable for a 22 storey building. This was arguably the first and crucial failure which could have been avoided with further research into the limitations of this design. However, the main focus of the recommendations presented here is in relation to the project management process, from the point at which the design was presented for the construction, to the point at which the building was completed (Pearson and Delatte, 2005). At the outset, when the project team came together, there was an opportunity to run scenarios and to check the validity of the chosen construction, given the design that were being presented and the need to establish a 22 storey building. By running these types of scenarios, it is likely that it would become apparent that the chosen construction design was simply inappropriate. Even without this element of the project management being undertaken and risk assessments being carried out, the next stage of the project management should have involved a strong quality control check for every aspect of the work. The fundamental design of the building was proven to be flawed; however, there were also errors during the actual construction phase, for example the use of the wrong connections when it came to the gas pipes installed. Although this, in itself, did not lead to the catastrophic collapse of part of the building, it did create a minor gas explosion which started the chain of events. Quality control processes at every phase of construction and fitting would have potentially prevented the chain of events from emerging, in the first place (Shepherd and Frost, 1995). Next Steps and Conclusions Bearing this in mind, there are several proposed changes and next steps which could be taken to prevent a similar failure happening in the future. Firstly, although the design used was accepted during this era, it was known that it would simply not be appropriate for the type of building which was being planned. This should have been noted, at the outset, with additional safety structures then planed so as to prevent this type of progressive collapse from taking place. Secondly, worst-case scenarios should be run, at the outset, to enable the project managers to ascertain whether any weaknesses existed. Moreover, although the rest of collapse in this case resulted in the building being destroyed, it was also not able to withstand strong winds and this also, ultimately, could have resulted in the building becoming uninhabitable. By running scenarios, such as high winds or explosion, these issues would have been highlighted and changes in the design could have been incorporated, from the outset (Pearson and Delatte 2003). Finally, quality control during the construction process was also not suitable. This should have been done with much greater consistency, to ensure that the smaller processes, such as the fitting of connections, was carried out to an appropriate standard, thus preventing the minor incident that ultimately led to the overall disaster. By following these clear project management approaches and ensuring that an individual was put in place, in order to manage quality and control, as well as any variables in this area, the collapse of the building could have been avoided, or at least the cause of the collapse mitigated against, so as not to cause loss of life and injury. References Bignell, V., Peters, J., and Pym, C. (1977). Catastrophic failures. Open University Press, Milton Keynes, New York. Cagley, J. R. (2003, April). The design professional’s concerns regarding progressive collapse design. Building Sciences, 27, 4-6. Delatte, N. J. (2009). Beyond failure: Forensic case studies for civil engineers. American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Reston, Virginia, 97-106. Engineering News Record (ENR). (1968). â€Å"Systems built apartment collapse.† ENR, May 23, 1968, 54. Griffiths, H., Pugsley, A. G., and Saunders, O. (1968). Report of the inquiry into the collapse of flats at Ronan Point, Canning Town. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London. Levy, M., and Salvadori, M. (1992). Why buildings fall down: How structures fail. W.W. Norton, New York, 76-83. Pearson, C., and Delatte, N. (2003). Lessons from the Progressive Collapse of the Ronan Point Apartment Tower. In Forensic Engineering, Proceedings of the Third Congress, edited by Paul A. Bosela, Norbert J. Dellate, and Kevin L. Rens, ASCE, Reston, VA., pp. 190-200. Pearson, C.,and Delatte, N. J. (2005) Ronan Point Apartment Tower Collapse and Its Effect on Building Codes. J. Perf. of Constr. Fac., 19(2), 172-177. Shepherd, R., and Frost, J. D. (1995). Failures in Civil Engineering: Structural, Foundation, and Geoenvironmental Case Studies, ASCE, New York. Wearne, P. (2000). Collapse: When Buildings Fall Down, TV Books, L.L.C., New York, 137-156.

Case Of Organizational Behavior Samples

In a very broad sense, organizational behavior refers to the study of how human individuals interact or behave within a group. These studies are conducted extensively to understand how to better integrate the employees and run a business more efficiently. At the core of this field of study lies the idea that scientific approach can benefit an organization through better managing the workers and, thus, making sure the individuals work more cohesively and as a single unit. Organizational behavior may be loosely described as the process of understanding and predicting of human behavior as a group member or as an individual in order to manage and maximize their output within an organization. Organizational behavior also studies the behavioral traits or patterns individuals show to one another within the organizational sphere. The effects of these interactions are also studied in depth. Organizational behavior is the study of every behavioral aspects of an individual who is a part of a bi gger organization, the interface of two or more individuals, or between the individual and the organization or of the organization itself. Organizational culture is the single most important aspect and parameter that decides how will the performance of the employees be as individuals or a whole group. Moreover, organizational culture is the conglomerating bundle of the assumptions, values, ethical considerations, ideologies and other organizational parameters that decide how would an individual or a group within the organization behave while their interactions and interfaces between themselves and the organization or amongst themselves (Alvesson and Sveningsson 2015). These parameters all have important and extensive influences upon individuals and modulate their behavioral patterns, dictate how they dress or act as a member or part of the organization. Organizational culture also often sets the bar that decides and measures how will the performance of the individual and the group is (Alvesson 2016). Every single organization has distinct and visible organizational culture that varies from each other and are unique in i ts nature. These organizational culture are developed over days and are maintained tirelessly to uphold the organizational reputation within the industry. This reputation is one of the biggest attributes for ensuring a successful business (Ehrhart and Kuenzi 2017). Organizational culture is primarily a very basic but overall guideline or boundaries as to how should the employees behave while representing the company. Organizational culture is the unification of the values, ethics and behavioral pattern of the employees that make up the unique environment for each organization (Ostroff and Schulte 2014). While these behaviors are often up-front and are very visible, it is also often the case that these are embedded psychologically. The very core beliefs and values are personified by the behavior of the organization and, in some cases, the employees as well. The managing authorities are the ones who decide how would the employees behave within the organization. Organization culture fl ows down from the senior authorities to the employees and not the other way around (Ashkanasy and Dorris 2017).    Also termed â€Å"corporate culture†, organizational culture is reflected through a few basic functions of the company. It is the guidelines and broad paths through which an organization functions and operates its business: how does the organization treats and interacts with its customers and employees as well as how does it serve or helps the wider social communities (Bortolotti, Boscari and Danese 2015). Organizational culture decides upon how much freedom is given to the employees to have inputs about the operations of the company and what contributions do they have in the decision making process, providing new ideas for development and benefit of the organization or how much leniency is tolerated for p3ersonal expression. The hierarchical construction, the flow of power and how free flowing is information within the organization are all decided by the organizational culture and work ethics(Barbera 2014). The organizational goals and purposes demand the employees to believe and be committed to them and organizational culture plays a pivotal and decisive role in this: the organization must be able to make the employees feel welcomed and a valuable part of the organization so that they want to work for the employers and help them to fulfil the objectives that were set out with in the first place of starting the company (Glisson 2015). If the employees are made to feel they are important and they understand that the company is taking their care, they will themselves take care of the customers. The whole functioning of the company will be much smoother and the higher authority need not be directly involved in the interaction with the customers, rather, they can be focused more on other more pressing issues. Customer care and services, post sales services, product quality are all results and/or shaped by organizational culture (Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014). Another very important aspect of running a business in the modern world is the environmental s ide of it. Every business, industry or organization must abide by the rules and requirements to protect the environment and reduce the process of global warming. A strong and ethical organizational culture helps to make sure that organizations keep this in mind and not cause any harm to the planet (Dubey et al. 2017). Virtually every single step of the operations of an organization is impacted by the organizational culture: how will the idea of a new product or service be conceived and shaped, how will the marketing tactics be planned, how to reach the potential customers and how to penetrate the market (Uzkurt et al. 2013). Organizational culture takes a lot of time to achieve and once established, it is so involved in every operation of the organization that it becomes almost impossible to change. That is why organizations must be very careful from the very beginning, having a concise and cohesive idea about what they want to achieve through the business, i.e. the motives of the company (Kangas et al. 2016). Employees and customers have to be able to identify with the organizational business operations or goals if they either want to work there or buy the products or the services of a particular company. Organizational culture is defined as an â€Å"emergence† of a state within an organization that is highly complex and is incalculable. This state results from a few very simple ingredients, though the final outcome is different for every organization. There are three parameters within an organization that can be controlled, moderated and managed: the employees, the work and the customers. These are the three basic pillars of any organization and every single operation is executed and planned with focus on any, or all, three of these. Organizational culture is almost always highly influenced by regional cultures (Modaff, Butler and DeWine 2016). The beliefs and ideals of different social community shape how an organization will behave, treat its customers and employees. These beliefs and values are deep inside the collective social mentality, and it is only natural that these will be some of the primary things to decide what will be the operations of the organization. The creation of any organizational culture is dependent upon the beliefs and values of its leaders. Workplace culture is entirely created by the leaders as they are the ones with a proper idea about what is to be done band the true motives of the organization (Asgary and Li 2016). However, it is not the final deciding factor: while most of the times leaders do shape the organizational culture, there are also times when organizational culture also decides what kind of a leadership is possible, or how will the leaders behave him/herself. An established culture influences and shapes a leader just as much as it being influenced by the leader (Fullan 2014). An effective organizational culture decides and governs the mentality and behavior of the employees and the authority that will ensure the employees reaching their goals while adhering to the collective motivations. When an employee feels that she or he is being assisted and helped by the leader to fulfil their personal goal, job satis faction also gets better and this, in turn, pushes the employees to work even harder. While a strong organizational culture will help the employees in the process of achieving its goals and grow together, a weak one will have disruptions in the work and functions of the organization. However, if individual employees are seen as to be more important than the organization itself, sustaining the operations and striving towards the organizational goals may become difficult as the company will be having a tough time trying to balance the priorities (Goetsch and Davis 2014). The market orientation and culture of an organization must be focused at generating a profit and should revolve around results. Competition within an industry must be kept up with, if the organization wishes to stay in the game and keep generating a profit. Having an adaptive culture can help organizations immensely. This means an inclusive work culture where all the employees are included in the decision making process of the company. An adaptive or inclusive work culture ensures that the company y will survive through time, simply because it will have all the employees looking after its interests. A flexible work culture is dynamic in nature and are focused upon risk-taking and innovation (Glisso n 2015). Power culture within an organization decides how would information flow within the organization among the different departments. It also determines the hierarchy of the organization and the power structure. This kind of work culture is spearheaded by a single leader who takes all the decisions on behalf of the entire organization and controls the marketing and other strategies of the company. A role culture is where the employees all know their specific jobs and roles in the organization and report to their seniors. Efficiency and accuracy are paramount in a work culture like this one. There are some basic characteristics of organizational culture, despite being unique to every organization. Some of them are elaborated below: The organizational culture is a self-sustaining pattern that gives an idea about how things are to be done in the organization. Organizational culture is mostly instinctive and repetitive and cannot be easily categorized or labelled. Corporate culture is always evolving: slowly, but surely (Katzenbach, Oelschlegel and Thomas 2016). While it is almost impossible to change the entire established work culture, it is possible to control certain emotional aspects of it to control the performance and outcome of some of the functions. Cultural inputs and catalysts help companies to make changes that last longer and have more positive impact on the performance of the employees (Modaff, Butler and DeWine 2016). There are some basic principles of the organizational culture that help companies to achieve long term success. These can be defined as follows: Now that a rough but cohesive idea about the basic tenets of organizational culture has been comprehended, further discussion would try to establish the same as an important of business running. To achieve this, three case studies are looked into in greater detail and discussed how did they manage to be so successful despite such fierce competition in the sector and what role did organizational culture had to play in it. It is not unknown that Google has a very strong work culture that is also the biggest reason behind it being recognized as one of the most sought after companies to work at. Even pictures from inside Google’s offices make people chart their education and career plans so that one day they can achieve that. A company does not achieve such a status just like that. The very essence of the core ideals and beliefs of the company is forged within the organizational culture of the organization, that prompts its actions and every other strategy (Wei, Samiee and Lee 2014). The company has teams who are solely focused towards keeping the employees happy and making sure that productivity is consistent and regular. While it may seem intrusive to many, it is also true that great visions are often misjudged and/or frowned upon. It is understandable if some companies are weary of the organizational culture simply based on the fact that the industry of Google are absolutely different. While di fferent sectors do demand different work cultures, it is also true that some basic ideas can be used by every sector or organization within it. It has already been elaborated in the previous section about how can a greater employee integration help an organization to achieve higher degrees of success can happier employee circle ensure higher performance. This section will look into the different ways through which Google tries to achieve this aspect of organizational culture and, in turn, attain success. Google firmly believes in the fact that it is the employees behind the success of the organization. There are innumerable applications to work for the company and every single one of them are reviewed. The employee integration process begins at the very first step of hiring a person as an employee. In the interview process, the applicants are faced with odd situational questions and are asked to provide answers. The answers are not expected to be correct, rather the company tries to see which of the applicants have an aptitude for imagination and can come up with innovative ideas under pressure. This gives the organization an insight about the inner capacity of each individual at the very beginning. Human resource department relies solely on scientific research and data analysis to understand an d measure the performance of each individual employee properly. Extensive application of algorithm based formulae help the company to predict when will an employee leave the organization; optimal size of tables is also assessed using scientific methods. Google discovered that female employees take twice as many leaves as the male counterparts and this led the company to revamp the entire leave plans, giving the female employees paid maternity leaves. All of these steps taken provided the company with employees who were happier. Retention of the employees was achieved through providing them with higher perks and better paid leave plans. Google gives its employees a lot of perks including the advantages of bringing the children to the office and availing day care right there, sleep pods, free food throughout the day and many more which make the employees want to stay at the company. Studies have also shown that the employees perform better as well under these conditions. Google has clearly written guidelines about what are the ideals and organizational values. These ten grounding premises serve at the very core of the company and help the applicants properly understand what the organization expects them to do, which skills to possess and what are expected of them should they be selected to work for the company. Google shares all of its information with all of its employees. This makes the operations of the organization clear and transparent. The company also takes care to resolve any questions an employee may have regarding the organization. This assures the employees with a sense of security and makes them understand the operations of the company properly and enables them to work for the company in a clearer and proper fashion. Keeping the employees informed and enlightened about which direction the company is headed enables them be aligned with the objectives of the company and cohesively work towards the collective goals. Every employee is given recognition for however small an achievement may it be, encouraging them to work harder so that they can achieve even more credit for their work. At the same time, failure on the part of any employee or team is also highlighted. This type of clear and open appreciation of their efforts make the employees want to improve their performance and ensu res an office culture which is fearless. Google encourages its employees to socialize even outside of office so that a sense of a bigger society can be formed where everyone knows each other. This gives the employees a level of comfort to be working among the people they know, and being relaxed they can work with better concentration. This case study reveals that Google uses some basic and very normal ideas to form an organizational culture through employee appeasing, based on the very core idea that happy employees guarantee happy customers. Another very important aspect of Google’s work culture is that; it is never stagnated. The company is always changing and evolving its work culture, making sure any new aspect that would make the employees happier is not ignored. The company policy on employees is one of the most important things that ensure the employees’ higher performance rate and establishes the organizational dominance in the overall industry. Google is evidently highly successful in being able to use organizational culture by means of integrating the employees within itself and making themselves a successful company. All of these steps have helped Adobe to become the successful company that they are today and enjoy a great market share. Companies and organizations invests billions of dollars and uncounted amount of hours only to ensure that innovation and creativity are boosted. To stay ahead of the curve, to ensure organizational leadership in the industry and grabbing maximum market share, there is no substitution for innovation. Creativity helps every organization to come up with new ideas that help to create a new product or develop on an already existing product and innovate something. The aspiration to do something, to create something new is a great driver for motivation to work harder. This improves performance by a huge margin and often boosts the overall company performance as a whole. To ensure that the employees are going to work hard, Adobe looks into the fact that their employees are having fun at work. The organization firmly believes in the fact that innovation and creativity can be ushered through relaxation, where pressure is not an issue. Culture is the conglomeration of ideas, customs, beliefs, values and behavior of a particular person or of group as a whole. Adobe, above all encourages the employees to creative and tries to establish a work culture within the company that will itself evoke creativity. It is an observed fact that the companies that take these steps can see higher growth rate as well as better revenue. Adobe is one of the biggest software companies on the planet and also one of the most lucrative places to work at. Creativity has helped the company to stay ahead of its competition simply by making sure their products offer something extra that the other products do not. Adobe believes that creativity is something that should start at the top and should be reflected through the behavior and the working of the senior authorities. The people at the top are expected to lead the way by displaying innovative thinking themselves. If the leaders fail to behave in the company’s desired way, the employees would also fall short of their tasks. The leaders in the company are bestowed with the responsibility to unleash the creative capabilities of the employees. â€Å"KickBox† is a unique concept of the company that allows every employee to bring their imaginations and ideas through life using the company’s own resources. These are funded by the organization themselves to encourage the employees to develop new ideas. The employees are not expected to submit any proposals for it: they just go ahead with the plans. Adobe has a corporate culture that embraces risk taking rather than shunning it away. Risk aversion is believed to be, by the company, the single biggest threat to innovation. Adobe gives out its employees the signal that they are open to new ideas and new interpretations of existing products so that they are encouraged to take risks. If the risks are worthy, the organization rewards the employees and credit is given elaborately. This is another way through which the company ushers in new ideas for products. The leaders again play a pivotal role here: they have to make the employees understand that risk taking is awarded and not something that would land them in trouble. The training and development program of Apple is very well planned and organized. The employees of Apple are treated as one of the key advantages in the departments of the research and development as well as marketing. In order to attract and retain skilled and competent employees the Apple Inc. provides effective training and development program (Shafie, Siti-Nabiha and Tan 2014). These employees will improve the ability and benefit of the company. To meet its transformational challenges, the company needs to train new and current staffs. The ways in which the employees learn and achieve reflect as well as transform how the company does its business. Thus, they engage the employees to work responsively and improve the products. On the other hand, they raise awareness about the employees’ rights. To Apple it is not enough only to find and correct problems. Apple’s training programs are specially designed to educate employers about laws, rights, health and safety of the workers as well as suppliers (Cornelissen and Cornelissen 2017). Verità © and the Fair Labor Association — two organizations recognized internationally, dedicated to human rights have worked with Apple to figure out the quality of the company’s social responsibility training. It shows that the knowledge and awareness of the rights of the employees has been increased through Apple’s mandated training. They train supervisors and managers on their responsibilities, direct hire processes and even onsite management of foreign workers. Supplier Employee Education and Development (SEED) program has been launched by Apple to enhance professional development opportunities. Here, the classes on finance, computer skills, and the English language are offered. The company also made a partnership with Chinese universities to allow workers to achieve associate degrees. Over 60,000 workers participated in their first pilot program in 2011 and came up with higher morale are promoted more often than other employees (Myers and Fellow 2014). Their final suppliers have onsite e-learning centers. In order to follow up and compute the employee’s performance Apple audits. In 2011 the company conducted training sessions to prevent underage labor. This year, no cases of underage labor could be found in their audits. While the organization is encouraged by these results, Apple claims that they will continue regular audits and go deeper into their supply chain to ensure that there are no underage workers at any Apple supplier (Asgary and Li 2016). The company has decided to continue regular audits to ensure that there are no underage workers at any Apple supplier. Apple has made their training and development program intensively dedicated in order to bring out and sustain the competitive advantage. Apple frequently produces new products like computers, music devices, media sales, and telephones that require skill in completely different industries. Therefore, the expertise of its employees needs to change faster than at almost any other tech firm. Apple feels that the employees must be self-reliant. The reason behind it is that in a fast-changing environment, employee self-reliance gets weaken for providing target competencies and prescribing training. In order to develop the required skills, the employees need to learn continuously which employee ownership of development encourages. Instead of giving training how to sell a product, the employees are empowered which will shape them according to the company’s requirement as well as the customer’s. Apple’s team environment helps to build cohesion within team. The cohesion strengthens when the different development teams work competitively. This healthy competition helps in their development and they learn from each other. Apple’s effective training and development programs motivate and encourage innovation and creativity of the employees. Apple has compensation policies and packages which is structured and prepared by a committee. The compensation committee prepares, review, and modify the incentive programs and policies. The board set the committee members and empower them to take external or internal counseling, advice and ask for any employee. Apple provides very good benefits like health and life insurance, Short- and long-term disability coverage, flexible Spending Accounts, disability coverage and employee stock exchange plans. As found in the official website of Apple, the company has built plenty of flexibility for the employees and their families. Apple’s executive compensation aims to attract and retain the executives with genius, creativity and entrepreneurial skill. To the company, the employees are their assets. It is the executives who are responsible to transform the company and bring success in the international market. The Compensation Committee examines the compensation program and determines the compensation for the executives. The distributes annual performance-based cash bonus program for the employees and follows pay system based on performance. Every executive is awarded with cash bonus equal to 100% of his basic salary. The compensation committee compensates fairly and adequately. In today’s weak economy, Apple has taken advantage of job demand and provided a good ambience to work. It faces no difficulty to replace the employees who have resigned. Apple maintains a healthy work culture that helps the company to flourish and prosper internationally. From the above discussion and a good look into the cases of the three organizations, it can firmly have concluded that organizational culture does help an organization to be successful. Organizational culture has been seen to be one of the most important aspects of business running which can make pivotal differences between a successful organization and one that is not. A strong work culture is something that would enable companies to make its strategies in a way that would help them to achieve the collective organizational goals and would also enable to establish a strong sense of bond within the company as well. A strong organizational culture makes sure that the environment within the company is cordial and a homely atmosphere prevails. This is one of the most important things to make the employees feel relaxed, enabling them to work even better. The companies with a good organizational culture makes the employees feel welcomed and an integral part of the company. This sense boost s them to try and work better. Recognizing the employees’ efforts and rewarding risk taking capabilities also ensure enhanced performance. Alvesson, M. and Sveningsson, S., 2015.  Changing organizational culture: Cultural change work in progress. Routledge. Alvesson, M. ed., 2016.  Organizational culture. Sage. Asgary, N. and Li, G., 2016. Corporate social responsibility: Its economic impact and link to the bullwhip effect.  Journal of Business Ethics,  135(4), pp.665-681. Ashkanasy, N.M. and Dorris, A.B., 2017. Organizational culture and climate. Barbera, K.M., 2014.  The Oxford handbook of organizational climate and culture. Oxford University Press. Bortolotti, T., Boscari, S. and Danese, P., 2015. Successful lean implementation: Organizational culture and soft lean practices.  International Journal of Production Economics,  160, pp.182-201. Cornelissen, J. and Cornelissen, J.P., 2017.  Corporate communication: A guide to theory and practice. Sage. Dubey, R., Gunasekaran, A., Helo, P., Papadopoulos, T., Childe, S.J. and Sahay, B.S., 2017. Explaining the impact of reconfigurable manufacturing systems on environmental performance: The role of top management and organizational culture.  Journal of Cleaner Production,  141, pp.56-66. Ehrhart, M.G. and Kuenzi, M., 2017. The Impact of Organizational Climate and Culture on Employee Turnover.  The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of the Psychology of Recruitment, Selection and Employee Retention, pp.494-512. Fullan, M., 2014.  Leading in a culture of change personal action guide and workbook. John Wiley & Sons. Glisson, C., 2015. The role of organizational culture and climate in innovation and effectiveness.  Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership & Governance,  39(4), pp.245-250. Goetsch, D.L. and Davis, S.B., 2014.  Quality management for organizational excellence. Upper Saddle River, NJ: pearson. Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A test of Schein's model.  Journal of Business Research,  67(8), pp.1609-1621. Kangas, M., Kaptein, M., Huhtala, M., Là ¤msà ¤, A.M., Pihlajasaari, P. and Feldt, T., 2016. Why Do Managers Leave Their Organization? Investigating the Role of Ethical Organizational Culture in Managerial Turnover.  Journal of Business Ethics, pp.1-17. Katzenbach, J., Oelschlegel, C. and Thomas, J., 2016. 10 principles of organizational culture.  Strategy+ Business,  82(Spring), pp.1-7. Modaff, D.P., Butler, J.A. and DeWine, S.A., 2016.  Organizational communication: Foundations, challenges, and misunderstandings. Pearson. Myers, C. and Fellow, K., 2014. Corporate Social Responsibility in the consumer electronics industry: A case study of Apple Inc.  Resource document. Georgetown University, Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. https://? lwp.? georgetown.? edu/? wp-content/? uploads/? Connor-Myers.? pdf. Accessed,  10. O’Reilly III, C.A., Caldwell, D.F., Chatman, J.A. and Doerr, B., 2014. The promise and problems of organizational culture: CEO personality, culture, and firm performance.  Group & Organization Management,  39(6), pp.595-625. Ostroff, C. and Schulte, M., 2014. A configural approach to the study of organizational culture and climate. Shafie, S.B., Siti-Nabiha, A.K. and Tan, C.L., 2014. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND PRODUCT INNOVATION: A CONCEPTUAL REVIEW.  International Journal of Organizational Innovation,  7. 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Global Management Information systems coursework Essay

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Comparison of US and China patterns of trade Essay

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