Behavioral assessments and personal behavior preferences Essay

In an economic environment, which becoming more challenging and competitive, businesses must look for ways of having the edge. In any organization, the workers are the most essential resource; if they fail to deliver, then the mission of the whole organization is compromised. That is why the human resource department of any organization has a critical role to play and must use an elaborate method that ensures only the best candidates are selected to take on various responsibilities within the organization. One of the techniques employed is behavioral assessment, which I think is a very effective strategy for developing an effective and efficient workforce. Benefits of behavioral assessment in hiring By conducting a behavioral assessment, the hiring officials can determine the personality and work ethics of a potential employee (Eiseman, 2008). They will also be able to determine if the applicant’s habits coincide with the requirements of the job description and if these personal traits augur well for the accomplishment of the organization’s goals (Eiseman, 2008). There is a need to ensure that any hired employee will not clash with other employees as a result of personality differences as these occurrences take up a lot of organization time, time that could be used to deliver results (Warden, 2006). Secondly, behavioral assessment helps determine which position within an organization a candidate is best suited for (Norris, 2009). For example, an applicant vying for an office operations position can exhibit excellent leadership and interpersonal skills. The hiring official can therefore inquire if he or she would be interested in leading a sales team or being in charge of customer relations. The third reason why I support behavioral assessment in the hiring process is that it uncovers personal information that is necessary to determine how coachable the candidate is, how flexible his or her timetable is going to be, his or her anticipated level of engagement and dedication and how tolerant he or she is to sudden changes in working routine or a change in responsibilities (Eiseman, 2008). These qualities can then be weighed against those of other candidates to determine who is best suited to be awarded the opportunity. Personal behavior preference and effective communication Behavioral assessment is not a guideline for hiring; but a tool. Behavioral characteristics are directly related to an individual’s personality; and personality in turn directly manifests itself in how well an individual relates to the people he or she comes into contact with in the process of executing his daily professional and personal duties (Schuler & Briscoe, 2004). Therefore, if an employer has cues about an employee’s behavioral preferences, he or she will know how best to approach the employee and how to interact with him or her while causing minimum friction. This augurs well for a harmonious coexistence within a common working environment. The communication between the two parties is bound to be more effective if the behavioral traits and personal preferences have been determined before they entered into a contractual agreement. In return, effective communication contributes greatly to efficiency and productivity (Schuler & Briscoe, 2004). Conclusion  Over the last several years, behavioral assessment has become a widely used tool in human resource management. In fact, 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies employ this tool while hiring new employees (Warden, 2006). Its widespread use is attributable to the fact that the information it yields is invaluable in predicting workplace behavior, individual potential of each worker and communication strategies to use (Norris, 2009). These insights are very essential in the formulation of team and leadership building, capacity development, conflict resolution and succession strategies for the entire organization.

Barriers to communication Essay

1.3 Identify barriers to effective communication A child, young person, their parent(s)/carer(s) or even a member of staff whose first language is foreign may make it harder for any communication spoken to them to be understood. They may only understand very small words of the language you’re speaking, so information will be harder to put across. For example; in my setting, there is a child who can understand what you are saying, but it seems, most of the time they seem very quiet. This may be due to their parent(s) being from a foreign country, so they may be able to communicate in their parent(s) language, but not in ours so may find it hard to communicate some of their needs/feelings. Someone may have a sensory deprivation – such as hearing or sight. This will make giving and receiving information harder to do – they may need an interpreter at all times for example. When talking to a service provider, they may use technical language that the service user may not understand which will make it harder for them to process the information and may worry what they have meant. Someone may be going through a difficult time that is making their emotions go all over the place – such as they may take things the wrong way, get upset easily, no full concentration and not trying as hard to complete/do things. Environmental/setting problems can cause a barrier for a communication – someone who may not be able to see very well will find it hard to read any written information in a dimly lit room. Or, for example, someone in a wheelchair can find it hard to communicate with someone if they are at a desk that is above the wheelchair users head.

Blue Ocean Strategy

Blue ocean strategy is a book of business strategy by W. Chan Kim and Renà ©e Mauborgne. The blue ocean strategy explains how to move your business into new markets with less competition and greater profitability. The book is basically divided into three main parts. The first part covers some important concepts of blue ocean strategy such as value innovation, differentiation and low cost and key analytical tools and frameworks used in this strategy. The second part explains the four steps of blue ocean strategy formulation. The main idea behind this book is to present an organized framework for identifying and implementing out of the box and never been thought before blue ocean strategies. If one is capable of thinking out of the box, something other than a traditional strategy then it will enable us in formulating a blue ocean. The basic idea of blue ocean strategy is to reconstruct market boundaries to break from the competition and create blue oceans. The main idea behind consisted of two parts: first was to discover whether systematic patterns existed in reconstructing market boundaries and secondly whether r not these applied to all kinds of businesses and industry sectors. The researchers found six basic approaches also called six paths framework for reconstructing market boundaries. These six approaches challenge the traditional six assumptions involved in formulating strategies which lead to creating red oceans. They proceed by emphasizing on the fact that the companies should break out of these boundaries which they define by themselves on how to compete. Path One: Look across alternative industries The first path for a company is not only to compete with firms in its own industry but it should also consider the firms in alternative industries offering such products and services which have different functions and forms but serve the same purpose. One such example is that of Net Jets which came up with the idea of fractional jet ownership. Net Jets created a multi billion dollar Blue Ocean of private jets and commercial travel which offered low variable and fixed costs as compared to commercial airline travelling and thus it created a entirely new market and was the only  survivor and market leader of all the 57 new entrants. Similar example is that of NTT DoCoMo which broke out of Red Ocean of intense competition by breaking the tradeoff between the alternatives. Path Two: Look across different strategic groups within industries The second path given by Blue Ocean is to get out of the competition by looking across different strategic groups. In this context the different companies in an industry working on a similar strategy fall under one strategic group and others in different strategic groups. And in this highly intense and competitive market the key to creating a Blue Ocean across different strategic groups is to break out of these by creating a better understanding of the factors that determine customers’ decision to trade up or down from one group to another. A very good example given here is that of Curves which is a women fitness company, broke out of the completion by building on the advantages of both the traditional health clubs and the home exercise programs. Other examples are that of Ralph Lauren, Toyota Lexus, Sony Walkman and Champion Enterprises which created Blue Oceans by breaking out of their strategic groups by offering the advantages of both the strategic groups of their industries that resulted in their success. Path Three: Look across Chain of Buyers In most of the industries it has been a trend to target only a single type of buyer. However there is a chain of buyers which includes the purchasers, the actual users and some times also the influencers. Each of these three groups of buyers may seem similar to the seller but actually they are different as they provide different value. Conventionally different industries focus only on a single customer segment and think that they are the only possible target customers, however it is a wrong approach and they need to think out of the box which can lead to creating new Blue Oceans. Novo Nordisk a Danish insulin producing company created a Blue Ocean in the insulin industry. Previously Nordisk like all other pharmaceuticals focused only on doctors which are the influencers. But Novo Nordisk came up with the idea of Novo Pen which was easy to use and was targeted directly at the end users that is the diabetes patients. This helped them in creating a blue ocean and continuous improvement and advancement in their offering resulted in  maintaining their Blue Ocean success. Path Four: Look across complementary product and service offerings This path explains that the importance of complementary products and services should never be overlooked as the untapped value is often hidden in them. Providing the facilities of baby sitting and car parking are complementary to movie theatres. NABI made use of the fiberglass instead of steel body buses and had a huge impact on lowering the maintenance and other costs and created a Blue Ocean in the bus industry. Philips created the kettle with a mouth filter and Barns and Noble came up with knowledgeable staff in their lounging were such complementary products and service which were revolutionary. Path Five: Look across functional or emotional appeal to buyers There are different types of appealing strategies that are adopted by companies to appeal the customers. Some of these are functional while others are emotional. The different examples discussed in this case are the Cemex (Mexican Cement Company) and QB house (Japanese Barber shop) which created Blue Oceans by appealing their customers through different functional and emotional offerings. Path Six: Look across time This path illustrates that how important it is to have foresight and keep in mind the changes that are to take place with passage of time. This can be done by looking across the time in terms of the value a market delivers today to the value it may deliver tomorrow. Apple capitalized on the changing trend in the music industry and came up with ITunes music store for its IPod which also helped it in stopping illegal selling of music and creating a Blue Ocean. Cisco Systems also looked ahead of time and accounted for the growing demand of high speed data exchange with its routers, switches and other networking devices. 2. Focus on the Big Picture, Not the Numbers Traditionally what most of the strategies lack is that they don’t think out of the box and thus lack the view of the big picture and thus they key is to create a strategy canvas to arrive at a Blue Ocean. Drawing Your Strategy Canvas Drawing a strategy canvas has never been an easy to do job. It involves  identifying the key factors of competition which can be done by assessing that to what extent your company and its competitors offer the most competing factors and what are the actions that are being taken by you and your competitors. This process after the implementation of six step model involves steps in visualizing strategy which are as follows: Step One: Visual Awakening The process of visual awakening is very important to change the mind set of such people especially the executives who are resistant to change and like the status quo. However this problem can be overcome by asking such people to draw the value curve of their company’s strategy which will trigger the need for change in their minds and thus they will be inclined towards change and will come up with new and different strategies. Step Two: Visual Exploration The wakeup call was just the first step. The next step is to send team it to field, putting managers face to face with customers and experiencing by themselves what problems they have with their products and services and what are their perceptions. This task should not be outsourced as it is very important to see these things by your self rather than letting others do the work of your eyes. They should observe their customers (existing, lost and new ones) as well the customers of their competitors and then come back and analyze their strategies. Step Three: Visual Strategy fair In the third step of visualizing strategy the teams are asked to draw six new curves of strategy and create a compelling tagline which can emphasize the strategy in a better way. After that the teams are asked to present them and on the basis of feedback and discussion the new curves for strategy are formulated. Step Four: Visual Communication The last step is to communicate the newly formulated future strategy to employees in an easy and understandable manner. This can be done by distributing one pager showing old and the new strategies to the employees and then can be discussed with every one. 3. Reach beyond Existing Demand The third principle for creating Blue Ocean is to reach beyond the existing demand. This to increase the demand for a new offering and two strategies are followed by companies to achieve this goal. One is to focus on existing markets and customers and the other is to target finer markets or customer segments to accommodate buyer differences. Another important concept explained here is to maximize the size of Blue Ocean, which says that once the Blue Ocean has been created the next step is to maximize its size. For this purpose companies instead of focusing on their customers try to focus on the non-customers by taking the reverse approach which allows the companies to unlock mass of customers and demand which did not exist before. Callaway Golf is one such company which created demand for its offering by focusing on its non-customers. The Three Tiers of Non-Customers According to Blue Ocean strategy there are three different tiers of non-customers that can be converted in to customers which are as follows: i. The first tier of non-customers is closest to market sitting on its edge waiting to jump ship and shift to another industry as soon as the opportunity knocks. ii. The second tier is of customers who refuse to use you offerings. These are buyers who have used your industry offerings just as an option to fulfill their needs but have often voted against them. iii. The third tier is of non-customers who are farthest from your market and have never thought or considered of using you industry offerings as an option and can only be attracted by focusing on commonalities. 4. Get the Strategic Sequence Right The fourth principle of formulating the Blue Ocean strategy is to get the strategic sequence right. This principle focuses on building robust business models to ensure healthy profits based on Blue Ocean strategy.

The effect of the phenomenon of separation of ownership and control Essay

The effect of the phenomenon of separation of ownership and control for modern corporations - Essay Example Corporate Governance Share-holder activism in 1990s stimulated interest on corporate governance. In fact, it became a household name in the United States when a California based company â€Å"California Public Employees Retirement System† (CalPERS) questioned the listed companies in which it had invested the funds of its members, for their practice of buying back their shares at higher prices. This literally resulted in reduction the value of shares held by CalPERS. Contemporary companies all over the world including the U.K. followed suit to safeguard the interests of their widely dispersed shareholders. What started as a means of funds mobilization by an entrepreneur for engaging in large scale activities and to achieving large scale economies, soon became handy for the entrepreneur to exploit the small and widely dispersed investors.1 In the 19th century, even the privately owned large companies who had accumulated wealth overtime had to resort to procurement of funds from the capital market as they had outgrown themselves. Agency theory that explains separation of ownership from control was first discussed by Adolf A Beale and Gardiner C Means2. One can still go backwards to the times Adam Smith who in his â€Å"The Wealth of Nations† 3 has said that company directors would not care for shareholders’ money as their own and this is the problem with agency theory as observed by Letza, Sun and Kirkbride.4 Fame and Jensen 5 argue that separation of decision making (control) and risk-bearing (ownership) become viable because of the need for specialization of management and risk bearing besides the need for controlling agency problems. They cite the nature of an organization as a nexus of contracts both written and oral among the owners of factors of production and customers which are the internal â€Å"rules of the game†. The rights of owners of each factor of production and customers are specified and their performances evaluated. Th ese factors of production are rather stake-holders in the organization. The authors assert survival of a form of an organization depends on its ability to sell their output required by their customers at the lowest price while at the same time fully recovering costs. There are two types of organizations wherein risk-bearing (ownership) and decision (control) functions are separated and wherein the two functions are combined in the same agents. In the contractual nature of organizational forms, the residual claimants are the residual risk bearers having claim over the net cash flows after meeting the contracted payments to the factors of production from out of stochastic inflows of resources. Thus, residual risk is known by the â€Å"difference between stochastic inflows of resources and promised payments to agents.†6 These residual claimants are the ones who bear the most uncertainty and it is considered worthwhile as it reduces costs of monitoring contracts with the rest of the agents. This contributes to the survival value of the organizations as distinct entities. It is mandatory to produce outputs at lesser costs so as to ensure increased net cash flows to safeguard the residual claimants’ interests. Restriction on residual claims differs from each form of organization. For example, large corporations where common stocks are in use have the least restricted residual claims. That is, the shareholders have no role to play in the organizations. Because of this, risk sharing is unrestricted for the

Early child education Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Early child education - Essay Example The nature of the statement we get from those around us will affect our attitude in dealing certain matter. In my third grade, I gave a wrong answer to a simple mathematics question in class. Our teacher called me the most stupid student embarrassing me in the classroom. I felt that I will never be good in mathematics for the rest of my life and did not feel like attending his classes anymore. Besides, I never participated in the class after the incident due to fear of embarrassment again. The negative statement affected my grades since I had an attitude that every question in mathematics was hard. Most teachers fail to consider the impact of their words or action to students (Grotewell and Yanus 17). In situations when I faced my relative or friend due to anger or frustrations, I wanted get their understanding and comfort. The understanding would show that they care how I feel and may be able to help if possible. Confiding in them may be necessary because they can provide support to help in solving the problem causing frustration or anger. If they say, â€Å"use your word,† means they do not want to understand my situation and do not care about my feelings and what is happening. The phrase will make the situation worse by causing more anger and frustration. The problem mainly arises due to lack of support and comfort from the person I trusted with my feelings. Confiding to the same person in future may be hard due to the frustration of the previous experience. The attitude towards the person handling how I feel will be negative that I will not be able to trust them in the same situation. When getting to the unwelcoming environment, the people tend to show facial expression to you such as frowning and raising the upper lip and nose to show disgust in your presences. Some of them will also smirk as you approach. The tone of their voices also changes to low tones as they communicate between one another and others have sarcastic tones to

The concept of Strategic Planing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4250 words

The concept of Strategic Planing - Essay Example As explained by Creswell & Clark (2007), research is conducted to gain the missing information and knowledge that is needed to solve a problem. There are various techniques available to conduct researches. This report aims at understanding in detail one of the methods – Qualitative research. Before moving into the meaning of qualitative research, it is important to cite the available methods. These methods include qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods (Jobber, 2004). David Jobber (2004) highlights in his book the need for market research. Jobber has highlighted the importance of market research and has also emphasizes on how the research provides for accurate and correct results. Jobber (2004) also discusses that the results will help gain the view point of both the company as well as the customers. The information gained from these researches allows the companies to incorporate the suggestions and feedback into the daily processes and thereby improve the overall business making them more successful. A research design strategy is one which includes collection, measuring and analysis of data. â€Å"Quantitative versus qualitative research methods—two approaches to organization studies† (Lee, 1992). The quantitative research method is a conventional method to study organizations and is considered objective. Qualitative research has been noted to be subjective and descriptive, â€Å"its legitimacy often needs to be proven in organization studies† (p. 87). It is apparent that qualitative research methods differ from quantitative research methods. Cooper and Schindler (2008) defined qualitative research as an collection of interpretive practices that describe, decode and translate the meaning of naturally occurring phenomena in the social world. This means that qualitative research is subjective and deals with words. In contrast, quantitative research has a cause and effect association and deals

The Analysis of the Recent Microsoft's Acquisition of Skype Research Paper

The Analysis of the Recent Microsoft's Acquisition of Skype - Research Paper Example Acquisition is also used as a strategic tool for entering a foreign market, when other methods for achieving the specific target are not available (Coffey et al. 2001, p.52). In the above context, acquisition can highly enhance the organizational performance, under the terms that all its phases are carefully monitored; the readiness of the buyer to acquire an organization, with all the consequences of such initiative, needs to be evaluated in advance. The level of success of acquisition, as described above, is high and it is for this reason that managers of organizations worldwide prefer the specific strategy. In any case, the use of acquisition for covering various organizational needs to meet specific requirements: if the cost of the process is estimated to be significantly higher from the expected benefits, then another strategy of this type would be preferred (Frankel 2005). Moreover, if the acquired firm is of different culture/ industry, then time would be required for aligning the aims of the two organizations. Under certain terms, the acquired company cannot support the activities of the new owner – probably because the cultural or operational differences between the two firms are so high that acquisition would not benefit the company that initiated the above process. In accordance with Darby (2006) the successful completion of an acquisition process requires that accurate information are exchanged between the buyer and the seller in order for the assets of the acquired company to be effectively managed. Moreover, Coffey et al. (2001) note that every acquisition plan need to be carefully in advance regarding its costs; it is explained that if not all costs are estimated with accuracy - reference is made to the ‘purchase costs, administrative costs and integration costs’ (Coffey et al. 2001, p.52) – then the process is likely to fail, in the short or the long term. From a similar point of view, Rock et al. (1994) noted that the key target of an acquisition should be ‘the creation of a strategic advantage’ (Rock et al. 1994, p.5), meaning that the specific process would help the firm to improve its position towards its competitors. Particular emphasis is also given on the successful integration of the acquired company within the business entity of the buyer (Rock et al. 1994, p.5). The decision of Microsoft to acquire Skype would be evaluated by referring to the issues discussed above. Microsoft is a firm well established in the global market; in fact the organization is considered as one of the key competitors in the software industry – along with Apple (Yahoo Finance, 2011). The tools that Microsoft had already developed in regard to the direct – online communication, such as the Live Messenger and Xbox & Kinect, have performed quite well in the global market. However, still the firm did not have the control of the market, regarding products of such characteristics. Apple with a series of products/ software of advanced technology, such as iPhone and iMessage, had managed to get an important share of the market (Yahoo Finance 2011, Huo 2011). In the above context, the acquisition of Skype would offer to Microsoft a key strategic advantage towards its competitors – especially Apple; such perspective is among the main causes of acquisition as a business strategy, as explained above (Microsoft News Center 2011). At the next level, Microsoft is a firm quite powerful, in terms of funds available for the

Analitical skills Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Analitical skills - Essay Example 44). The democratic space that also originates from the gains from the separation of powers has escalated the attainment of liberty in many governments. The doctrine gained original in the United States  as it was a provision in the constitution. In the UK, the adoption of the canon occurred much later with the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 (Benwell and Gay, 2011; Pg. 87). However, there were reform forces within the country that had started clamoring for the need to separate authority of each arm of the government (Benwell and Gay, 2011; Pg. 14). From the ongoing discussions, the paper suggests that whereas the separation of powers canon requires states to delineate clear boundaries in authority and sovereignty within the three branches of governance, some nations are still working with less formal forms and are argued to adopt the balance of powers or a fusion of the two arrangements (Calers, 2012; Pg. 51). The most notable of such countries are the UK and other states with a mo narchy system of governance. In fact, some developing nations appear trapped with the hope of attaining the freedom provided by the separation of powers seemingly becoming a myriad. This is because such countries have very superior executive, which easily usurp powers of the other state organs (Calers, 2012; Pg. 51). ... Analysis of the Separation of Powers: Executive, Legislature, and Judiciary The debate about the separation of powers has transformed over decades to the point at which people can clearly draw the boundaries between the executive, the legislature, and the courts. However, in other jurisdictions this clarity is still missing because the roles in these three arms seem to overlap (Calers, 2012; Pg. 88). Before the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 came into force, the UK Prime Minister wielded too much power that it was possible for them to influence all other arms of the government. The United States Constitution has a strong foundation for the doctrine of the separation of powers. Article 1 of the US Constitution contains powers granted to the legislature. Article II contains the powers of the executive, which rests upon the president and Article III provides for the establishment of a highly independent judiciary (Benwell and Gay, 2011; Pg. 76). The election of the Congressmen takes pla ce differently from that of the President. The Congressmen are in charge of legislation in the US. However, sometimes the executive can sponsor bills and lobby the Congress to debate and pass them as laws. A clearer example of this circumstance includes the healthcare bill also known as the Obamacare, which was sponsored by President Obama operatives in the Congress. President Obama used strategies available to him to lobby and rally the democratic Congressmen as well as a few Republicans to vote for the bill. The idea behind such initiatives was to push the state to accept the creation of separation of powers. This canon entails ideas that key institutions within a democratic state need to be functionally sovereign such that nobody should have access and unguarded power to span

Reaction paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 25

Reaction paper - Essay Example While moving around the camp he mentions the presence of a swimming pool but he fails to see the size of the swimming pool carefully enough. Cole is suggestive that the inmates were allowed to use a swimming pool the size of an ordinary carpet rug. Given that Auschwitz housed thousands of people at the same time, it seems strange to notice that a swimming pool would be available to serve them. Instead, it seems more likely that the camp’s senior most staff would have been allowed to use the swimming pool. In a similar manner, much of the evidence presented by Cole is weak and circumstantial. Another major allegation by Cole is the absence of millions of human bodies in mass graves to prove Auschwitz gruesome nature. An entire Polish army worth of officers terminated by the Soviets in the Second World War were only found a couple of years ago in a remote Siberian forest. In a similar manner this secret has been well hidden enough to escape the scrutiny of time. However, it is undeniable that the Third Reich was able to consume millions of innocent people because these people were never seen or heard from again. Trying to discredit the holocaust based on a gas chamber in a concentration camp hardly lends credence to any