The Firm and Strategic Human Resource Management Essay

The Firm and Strategic Human Resource Management - Essay Example In order to function efficiently and effectively, people must be managed well. Human resources management (HRM) is the art and science of dealing with people at work for the optimum achievement of individual, organization and society’s goals. While general management is the orchestration of all the resources, human resource management is limited to people management – their motivation, acquisition, maintenance and development. Strategic human resources management (SHRM) is defined by Boxall & Purcell (2003) as â€Å"concerned with explaining how HRM influences organisational performance. They also point out that strategy is not the same as strategic plans. Strategic planning is the formal process that takes place, usually in larger organisations, defining how things will be done. However strategy exists in all organisations even though it may not be written down and articulated. It defines the organisation’s behaviour and how it tries to cope with its environmen t.† Boxall & Purcell have been intrigued by theories and applications of SHRM that they have written several discourses on the subject including the article entitled Strategic Human Resource Management: Where have we come from and where should we be going? In this regard, this essay aims to present a brief synopsis of the paper to outline the content and to identify the nature of the discourse. A discussion of the results of the paper would be proffered in terms of stating the key claims of the findings and determining what it adds to the body of knowledge on SHRM. In addition, the findings from the article would be related sporadically with discussion from the literature in the course module. An assessment of the methods used by Boxall & Purcell would be touched on, as required. Likewise, an identification of the researchs practical implications would be determined; as well as an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of the paper, as finale. Authors Boxall & Purcell proffered in

Health social care Essay Example for Free

Health social care Essay Thought?What is reflective practice? Reflective practice is self re-evaluation of your practice with the customer. Making sure that all issues is reported to management and daily records are kept up to date, on and after every visit. It’s a process that makes you stop and think about your own practice and your actions. Refocusing on your thinking and knowledge to generate new ideas. Look at your behaviour, learning needs and your judgement. Why is reflective practice important? Reflective practice is important for you to focus on how you interact with your colleagues, customers and the each environment that you will be in. It’s an impact on yourself learning and knowledge you have gained. Helps you to recognise on how to what you have done well so it can be put in practice for other situations. Also means in reflecting your own values, beliefs, and experiences which will help your thoughts and ideas to share with your colleagues. Use this to gain better strength weakness so that you learn from your own mistakes and take the appropriate actions in future. Improves your basic judgement and professionally enables you to apply skills to the personal development cycle. How reflective practice contributes to improving the quality of service provision? Contributes to improving the quality of service provision as the care worker constantly revises the policies and procedures and new standards that are being constantly set. Being up to date on the relevant new policies and procedures help the care workers to do their job and maintain of what is expected from them. How standards can be used to help care worker reflect on their practice? Having a standard so they can always reflect with it and achieve the same standardised level that is expected in a care worker. Ensuring that meeting these standards these would be the CQC ESOS and the bluebird ccode of practice that is found in the office.

Comparing Sir Thomas Mores Utopia and Virgils Aeneid Essay -- Compar

Identity and Power in Sir Thomas More's Utopia and Virgil's Aeneid In Utopia and the Aeneid, Sir Thomas More and Virgil describe the construction and perpetuation of a national identity. In the former, the Utopian state operates on the â€Å"inside† by enforcing, through methods of surveillance, a normalized identity on its citizens under the guise of bettering their lives. In the latter, the depleted national identity of the future Romans in the wake of the Trojan War must reformulate itself from the â€Å"outside† by focusing on defining what it is not. In both instances, the lines between the â€Å"inside† and the â€Å"outside† are clearly drawn and redrawn. The two methodologies are in actuality the flipsides of one another: in clearly defining the accepted national identity and contrasting with it the danger and instability outside this narrow conception, the state is legitimized in doing violence on a massive scale to either eliminate the constructed outside threat or to further the imperialistic project so that th ese lines remain intact and unquestioned. In Utopia, the state imposes a culture of normalization to formulate a national identity that both defines and binds its citizens. The fifty-four towns of the country are virtually identical with the â€Å"same language, laws, customs, and institutions† (More 70). Even the appearances of individuals resemble each other with no distinctions in dress. This imposition of conformity serves to form a singular national identity that is artificial yet prevalent. As a result, the normalization is internalized by the people, becoming a cult of self-surveillance where the uniformity of physical appearances is superceded only by the uniformity of identity. The state succeeds in establishing a panopt... ...te literary Trojan Horse. As the representative work of the entire Western civilization, his work is guaranteed wide dissemination. However, the ambivalence of his literary conventions often traps the unwitting reader and forces him or her to confront the violent undercurrents of Pax Romana. In essence, More and Virgil speak to the dangers of imposing a normative national identity that actually becomes the flipside of a violent imperialist project. More importantly, they open up space for dissent by critiquing the seemingly impenetrable state system from the inside and thus exposing its inherent contradictions precariously built on a foundation of violence. Works Cited Virgil. The Aeneid of Virgil: A Verse Translation. Trans. Rolfe Humphries. Ed. Brian Wilkie. New York: Macmillan, 1987. More, Thomas, Sir. Utopia. Trans. Paul Turner. New York: Penguin, 1965.

Banning Books Essay

Teenagers are reading more books than ever now, and some people say that we have Harry Potter to thank. But surrounding teen books is the ‘myth’ of book banning. Some may think that only old books were banned, and that they are now back on the shelves of schools and libraries around the country. This is not so. Not only have old classics such as The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger been banned, but newer books are being challenged as well. The controversy of book banning stems from the pursuit of knowledge. Though Hitler did many bad things in his lifetime schools still teach about the Holocaust, and yet now parents are requesting that their children do not learn what certain books have to offer in the way of knowledge. But some parents do not stop there. Books are being taken off school shelves, depriving all students instead of just one. Can one person influence a whole school or town? Is this even fair to everyone involved? The answer is no. Book banning should be illegal because reading a book is an individual choice, some books are banned without much thought, and sometimes books are banned without all parties involved reading it. People recommend books to each other all the time, but reading books is another matter. Sure, a friend may say that a book is good but that doesn’t mean that you will read it. But by banning books schools and libraries are taking away the choice to read the book whether it was recommended or not. While some people think that foul language in books is a perfectly logical reason to take them off the shelves not everyone shares this idea. But if libraries and schools only hear one group’s side of the story they are more likely to ban the book. The process of banning a book seems at first to be simple. A parent (probably the most common case) goes to their child’s school and gets a form with several boxes to check off: â€Å"Do not assign this book to my child. Withdraw it from all students as well as my child. Send it back to the proper department for reevaluation. † And then: What do you object to in this book? What material do you recommend to replace this book? Sounds rather easy, right? And then there’s the vote. In some cases those voting on the outcome haven’t read the book. If the book is banned what example are schools setting for the students? They are basically saying that it is alright to take knowledge, no matter what it is, away from someone or several people. Would it be right to not teach anyone about Hitler? Would everyone support lessons about wars and discrimination being removed? Most likely not. But when books are banned that is what schools are doing, they are taking away something that was never theirs in the first place. They are labeling something inappropriate based on their beliefs or the beliefs of one person. And this is undermining the individual’s choice to read the book. And sometimes they seem to not realize what they are even doing. If you look up why some books have been banned in the past it’s likely that you will find some pretty crazy reasons. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger was banned by one group of parents because they thought it would turn their kids into communists. The Lord of the Flies by William Golding was challenged because it demoted humankind to the level of animals. 1984 by George Orwell was banned because it was pro-communist. The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien was banned for being ‘satanic. ‘ More recently the book The Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson is being challenged in an Oklahoma school for being inappropriate for teenagers. According to the mother of a student at the school the book has â€Å"Homosexual content, unprotected sex, underage drinking, and reckless promiscuity† and that is why the book should be banned. Though these can all be viewed as appropriate reasons to ban a book those who took this claim seriously seem not to have connected all the clues. The book in question does have homosexual content, as does the real world that teens live in everyday, but there is not sex in the book, unprotected or not. The mother also states that the book â€Å"has no moral fiber† which is not true. The Bermudez Triangle is the story of three girls and their friendship when two get into a relationship together. No moral fiber? But instead of taking these things into account, the book was removed from the shelves. This case could turn into countless others all over the United States and it needs to be stopped. Taking away a book without even assessing the reasons to see if they make sense when applied to the book is lazy and unfair to the author and those who want to read the book. Taking a book off the shelves because several or all parties involved want to is a bad thing, but what if only one person objected to the book? How is that fair to the rest of the people it affects? If one person said they didn’t want to go to a movie but five others wanted to what would happen? If one person didn’t want someone to be president in the United States but the majority did what would happen? The outcomes of these two situations are relatively the same in general because the United States is based on Democracy. But what if the situation was this: What if one person thought a book was inappropriate for children and the rest had never read the book but still had to decide? What would happen? In some cases those voting on the book’s banning (usually the principle of the school, the Director of Human Resources and the Director of Instruction) have not even read the book. And what position does this put the book in? A bad one, that’s for sure. If only one person has read the book and are complaining about it then what are the others to think? That the book should be banned of course! This is by no means fair to students, the author, or any other patrons of the library. It is blindly stealing knowledge from others and not acknowledging it. It is, in essence, like teaching that Martin Luther King Jr. was a bad person because he held marches but not telling why he was holding marches because you don’t even know. It is informing someone (or misinforming someone) because you have no idea what you are talking about, which is better known as lying. The Bill of Rights says â€Å"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;† Banning books is certainly not keeping with this statement. Freedom of the press includes books, and taking books off the shelves is therefore prohibiting the reading of them. This makes book banning against the Bill of Rights and unconstitutional. If the United States keeps book banning legal the country is going against its very own fiber – that people have certain rights, that the press has rights, and that this freedom is important. A parent keeping their own child from reading something is their decision, but to deprive their child of reading for their education is not in any way wise or good, and keeping other students and children from reading books is just as bad. Book banning should be illegal because reading is an individual’s decision, banning books is often done without much thought or reason, and sometimes book banning is done unfairly because those voting on the book’s banning have not read the book in question. Teaching children to steal is thought of as wrong, and a country built on freedom should not permit any stealing, much less the stealing on knowledge.

Case Preview and Questions for Anagene, Inc. Essay

A start-up company struggles to understand its operating margins. How much of the large monthly fluctuations in margins is real and how much is caused by its costing system? Skim the section on The Genomics Analysis Market on pages 1-3 of the case but pay attention to the information on competitive position. Case Questions: 1. Work the Youngstown Products numerical example on the following page. (This should take only a few minutes and is basically a short refresher on a phenomenon we saw in the Bridgeton case.) Answer is inline in Youngstown case question. 2. The cartridge margins shown in Tables A and B vary from 17% to 65%. What elements of cost account for the difference between the 2000 Actual and 2001 Budget margins in Table A? What elements of cost account for the difference between the margins in the original 2001 Budget in Table A versus the revised 2001 Budget in Table B? For each element, why do you think costs changed between 2000 and 2001 between the original and revised budgets in 2001? What would you predict for each cost in the long-run? The elements account for the difference between 2000 Actual and 2001 Budget are the estimated material and scrap cost, overhead cost based on cartridge production volume. Revised material and scrap cost, overhead cost account for the difference between original and revised 2001 Budget in Table B. The estimated and actual production volume affects each element of cost. Larger volume means lower per unit cost. In long-run, the cost should approach to a steady level. 3.Kelly, Puleski, and Yeltin meet to discuss concerns about both â€Å"long-term profitability of the business† and â€Å"short-term profitability.† Discuss how well the current standard cost systems helps the board and analysts distinguish and understand these two issues. The current system doesn’t do well at estimating the cost. The estimated material and scrap cost, overhead cost depends on estimated production volume rather than capacity. The system can explain short term profitability but has difficulty to explain long term profitability. 4. Suppose sales in 2001 equal 26,000 units, as budgeted in January, and that actual manufacturing expenses turn out to equal budgeted expenses. What should Daniel Yeltin do to â€Å"devise a better way to calculate product costs and gross margins for management decision-making purposes†? (Hint 1: What are the decisions facing management and the board? Hint 2: Consider the suggestion in Activity-Based Costing and Capacity to allocate costs based on capacity, rather than based on production. What is current cartridge manufacturing capacity according to the information in Exhibit 8? What are the costs of providing that capacity according to Exhibit 7? What should Daniel Yeltin do with the cost of unused cartridge manufacturing capacity?) Basically calculating the cost based on production capacity rather than production volume. The current manufacturing capacity is 65000, while the cost of such capacity is $1,299,581. The unused cartridge manufacturing capacity should be written off as an expense. 5.Anagene expects demand for 95,000 cartridges in 2002. What changes can Anagene make to increase capacity to meet higher demand? (See information in the comments column of Exhibit 8 about additional capacity that can be added to the various manufacturing steps.) Assume employees added to increase capacity at any of the various steps cost $100,000 per employee, and assume these costs are treated as part of the overhead cost pool because they are costs of increasing capacity. Under these assumptions, how will the cost of adding capacity affect the overhead component of cartridge manufacturing costs? Youngstown Products, a supplier to the automotive industry, had seen its operating margins shrink below 20% as its OEM customers put continued pressure on pricing. Youngstown produced four products in its plant and  decided to eliminate products that no longer contributed positive margins. Details on the four products are provided below: ProductABCDTotal Production Volume (units)10,0008,000 6,000 4,000 Selling Price$15.0018.00 20.00 22.00 Materials/unit$ 4.00$ 5.00 $ 6.00 $ 7.00 DLH/unit0.240.18 0.12 0.08 Total DLH2,4001,440 720 3204,880 Plant Overhead $122,000 DL rate/hour$30 Youngstown has a traditional cost system. It calculates a plant-wide overhead rate by dividing total overhead costs by total direct labor hours. Assume, for the calculations below, that plant overhead is a committed (fixed) cost during the year, but that direct labor is a variable cost. 1. Calculate the plant-wide overhead rate. Use this rate to assign overhead costs to products and calculate the profitability of the four products. Product 2. If any product is unprofitable with this cost assignment, drop this product from the mix. Recalculate the overhead rate based on the new total direct labor hours remaining in the plant. Apply the new overhead rate to the remaining products. A is not profitable, after dropping out A, the new overhead rate will be 122000/(4880-2400) = 49.19 Product 4. What is happening at Youngstown and why? The total plant overhead is fixed, and when a product line is dropped, each product line has higher overhead allocated, and eventually Youngstown becomes unprofitable. 5. What does the situation at Youngstown (a low-tech manufacturing firm making decisions to shrink sales over time) have to do with the situation at Anagene (a high-tech firm making decisions to grow sales over time)? Anagene is facing a similar situation. If Anagene continues to use budgeted manufacturing volume when determine the cost,  Anagene might have a risk to run into the death spiral as Youngstown (dropping unprofitable product until nothing is profitable).

Processive Paragraph Essay Example

Processive Paragraph Essay Example Processive Paragraph Essay Processive Paragraph Essay Essay Topic: Paragraph Paragraph How To Stay Safe While Wielding. When wielding, you would want to have all of the equipment gathered together In front of you. Also make sure that you have glove that are Intact for use. Secondly, you should turn the fire source to a medium temperature, Just to warm It up. If smoke starts to come from the fire place, then It has already been warmed up. After all of that Is done, take an extended vice grip, grip your metal piece, and set over the fire. Wait until metal starts to look red. When Its hot, that Is when you can take it out and start to form it. You can form it by beating it with a hammer. Certain strokes of the hammer will flatten, curve, or twist the metal. At a period of time, the metal will start to cool from lack of heat. You could hold it back over the fire until hot again, but the fixtures of the metal might change. The only way to keep them formed is to keep that process of heating the metal and beating until a satisfied form. Finally, after forming the metal the last thing you would want to do is cool the metal. By putting it in room temperature water, you cool the metal. The water has to be in a wide and deep container that is heat safe to prevent melting of any material. After it is done cooling for at least ten minutes, the metal is safe to touch without gloves and you also have a fine wielded piece.

The Tragedy Of Hamlet Essays - Shakespearean Tragedies, Free Essays

The Tragedy Of Hamlet Essays - Shakespearean Tragedies, Free Essays The Tragedy of Hamlet Arguably the best piece of writing ever done by William Shakespeare, Hamlet the is the classic example of a tragedy. In all tragedies the hero suffers, and usually dies at the end. Othello stabs himself, Romeo and Juliet commit suicide, Brutis falls on his sword, and like them Hamlet dies by getting cut with a poison tipped sword. But that is not all that is needed to consider a play a tragedy, and sometimes a hero doesn't even need to die. Making Not every play in which a Hero dies is considered a tragedy. There are more elements needed to label a play one. Probably the most important element is an amount of free will. In every tragedy, the characters must displays some. If every action is controlled by a hero's destiny, then the hero's death can't be avoided, and in a tragedy the sad part is that it could. Hamlet's death could have been avoided many times. Hamlet had many opportunities to kill Claudius, but did not take advantage of them. He also had the option of making his claim public, but instead he chose not too. A tragic hero doesn't need to be good. For example, MacBeth was evil, yet he was a tragic hero, because he had free will. He also had only one flaw, and that was pride. He had many good traits such as bravery, but his one bad trait made him evil. Also a tragic hero doesn't have to die. While in all Shakespearean tragedies, the hero dies, in others he may live but suffer "Moral Destruction". In Oedipus Rex, the proud yet morally blind king plucks out his eyes, and has to spend his remaining days as a wandering, sightless beggar, guided at every painful step by his daughter, Antigone. A misconception about tragedies is that nothing good comes out of them, but it is actually the opposite. In Romeo and Juliet, although both die, they end the feud between the Capulets and the Montegues. Also, Romeo and Juliet can be together in heaven. In Hamlet, although Hamlet dies, it is almost for the best. How could he have any pleasure during the rest of his life, with his parents and Ophelia dead. Also, although Hamlet dies, he is able to kill Claudius and get rid of the evil ruling the throne. Every tragic play must have a tragic hero. The tragic hero must possess many good traits, as well as one flaw, which eventually leads to his downfall. A tragic hero must be brave and noble. In Othello, Othello had one fatal flaw, he was too great. Othello was too brave, too noble, and especially too proud to allow himself to be led back to Venice in chains. A tragic hero must not back down from his position. He also has to have free will, in order to ezd up for what he believes in. Finally, the audience must have some sympathy for the tragic hero. In MacBeth, although MacBeth commits many murders, one almost feels sorry for him and his fate. Hamlet is the perfect example of the tragic hero. Hamlet has all the good traits needed to be a tragic hero. He is brave and daring. One example of this is that when he went to England, he was taking a big risk. If his plan didn't work, he would have been executed He also is also loyal. His loyalty to his father, was the reason he was so angry at Claudius and his Mother. Another trait was that he was intelligent. He was able to think up the idea of faking insanity, in order to get more information about Claudius. But Hamlet like all other tragic hero's had a flaw. He couldn't get around to doing anything, because he couldn't move on. He was a full grown adult, yet he still attended school in England, because he couldn't move on. Also, it took him a long time to stop grieving about his father, because he didn't want to move past that part of his life. And after he finally did, Hamlet couldn't get around to killing Claudius. He kept pretending he was insane even after he was sure that Claudius killed his father.