Proposal for a Business Research Project Exploring the Impact of Coursework

Proposal for a Business Research Project Exploring the Impact of Passion of Employees in the Banking Sector to their performance - Coursework Example In undertaking the research, a group of banks from the same financial institution will be randomly selected as our sample for the research. A survey will be designed with the financial institutions senior management, other staffs and customers as the sample space. We will choose a sample size of 300 randomly selected respondents for the research. Data will be collected using two methods. Hand delivered questionnaires for employees and oral interviews for customers. Since our data include description data, coding will be done to the data. Then the collected data will be entered, analyzed, and interpreted to reach a conclusion. A report will be written at the end of the research to show the outcome of the research in simpler terms. Objectives 1. To identify the efforts of employers in this sector to build passion in their employees and what motivates them to do so. 2. To determine whether the passion of an employee is influenced by his level, experience and gender and whether it is nat urally acquired or built by motivation and working conditions. 3. To determine how other employees feel working with their fellows who are passionate about what they do. 4. To find out how their clients feel when served by a passionate employee and to determine the criteria they use to judge whether an employee is passionate or not. Literature Review According to Cameron and Spreitzer (2011), passion has been studied for a long time in various contexts, like philosophy, theology, political science, psychology, and sociology. They also show that most of the writings in this field argue that passion is an intense emotion that interacts with cognition and motivates an individual’s behavior. Moreover, they argue that passion makes people to be heavily involved and... According to Cameron and Spreitzer, passion has been studied for a long time in various contexts, like philosophy, theology, political science, psychology, and sociology. They also show that most of the writings in this field argue that passion is an intense emotion that interacts with cognition and motivates an individual’s behavior. Moreover, they argue that passion makes people to be heavily involved and invested in the activities they undertake. Linley and Harrington identify passion as the desires, thoughts, plans and behavior which persist over time. They also say that passion can lead to increased performance regardless of costs, external obstacles or moral objections. These scholars also reveal that the difference between passion and enjoyment is that passion is deeper and lasts for a longer time. Moreover, they indicate that in a team passion can play quite important role in motivating others and can help people to adhere to their goals despite the challenges of achie ving them. Passion for work helps employees to sustain the energy necessary for organizational excellence and enables managers to motivate and inspire other employees. This shows that passion in employees can actually make an organization to excel. Linley and Harrington show that people cannot raise passion, so the best thing to do is to identify the thing you are passionate about and pursue it in your life.

Human Resources And Organisational Development Essay

Human Resources And Organisational Development - Essay Example The company undertook aggressive expansion strategy by establishing budget clothing stores in malls and purchasing chains of travel agents. The company also created the â€Å"Montague† in honor of the founder of the company. 80 percent of the income was from the grocery business. Later, Mercury Consolidated acquired Smith’s and installed new managers with the objective of out competing Allworld Foods. Mercury Consolidated had initially embarked on similar strategies in New Zealand, France and South Africa. Allworld depended on other business lines like clothing, Montagues and travel to buffer the revenues when grocery business was declining. Smith’s ne management implemented new product mix and streamlined operations. Smith’s ventured in new markets Generation Y and Generation X. Within two years, Allworld dividends declined and employees expressed a lot of grievances with the management. Shareholders raised concerns of the remuneration of the management. According to the CEO, Lily Chambers, new a cultural shift was needed and was only possible to start at the top. The paper will discuss the need of changes in the organisational culture and processes in order to survive in the changing external environment. The paper will also analyze the current culture of Allworld and the desired culture. Lastly, the paper will offer recommendations that should be implemented in order to attain competitive strength and market share in the industry. Current organisational culture and desired organisational culture There are numerous reasons that may lead to failure of organisational market share. The decline in the market share can be... This report stresses that the CEO will then have to remove all the obstacles to the cultural changes. For instance, a review of performance evaluation methods, job descriptions and remuneration methods will assist in removing the hu8man obstacles to the cultural changes. The next step will involve creating short term wins. The short term wins are early indicators of the organisational cultural changes. The CEO should set time frames for the short term wins that could be like within a year. The early targets should be easy to achieve and may include low employee absenteeism. The management should then build on the short term win in order to ensure total organisational cultural changes. New product development and creativity should be the defining culture of Allworld. This essay makes a conclusion that the management of Allworld has relied on traditional aggressive pricing and advertising strategies to stay competitive in the market. There is evidence of poor management practices and lack of planning. Allworld lacks a contingency plan that can enable the company to effectively respond to urgent changes in the market. The management should change the values, assumptions and beliefs of the organisational culture. Scanning of the environment will enable Allworld to understand the competitive strengths and strategies of all the competitors. Allworld should conduct research on the changing customer needs since customers are no longer attracted to the low pricing strategy.

Killings By Andre Dubus English Literature Essay

Killings By Andre Dubus English Literature Essay The short story Killings is written by Andre Dubus and was first published in 1979. The short story has also been adapted into a motion picture called In the Bedroom by director Todd Field in 2001. The movie had actors Sissy Spacek, Marisa Tomei and Tom Wilkinson in the lead roles and was even nominated for several Academy Awards. The story is set in the town of Massachusetts and explores the psychology and emotions of bereaved parents who have just lost a twenty-one year old son- murdered for having a relationship with a woman who had a jealous ex-husband and two children. Dubus treats the character of the murderer, Richard Strout, humanely and provides an empathetic perspective so that the reader can actually feel the frustration of the young man whose wife was seeing a man much younger than her and his jealousy getting the better of him. Dubus has concentrated on the revenge killing of Richard by Franks father, Matt Fowler. Richard had committed a murder of passion as he felt provoked by Franks intimacy with his estranged wife and two sons. Dubus has pictured Richard Strout as a crude man without a very high sense of morality. This is further demonstrated by the fact that Richard starts to date other women as soon as he is out of prison on bail. Matt and Ruth, Franks parents, have encountered Richard roaming around scot-free without any remorse as is apparent in Matts comment to his friend Willis Trottier, He walks the Goddamn streets (Dubus 4). This angers Matt and saddens Ruth as they feel that the murdered of their son had gotten away without being punished for his brutal crime. The main message in the story is that even though Matt Fowler avenges his sons death, finds no peace and is haunted by a sense of guilt and utter loneliness. Retribution and revenge for the murder of a loved one, though, a very natural human instinct, is not always the answer to the loss of the person. Matt Fowler felt justified in kidnapping and killing Richard Strout, however, having accomplished his final act of revenge, does not find peace. The question Dubus has raised in this story is whether revenge is a better solution to forgiveness. At the end of the story we are left to wonder whether Matt Fowler would have been better off forgiving Richard Strout instead of killing him. By kidnapping and killing Richard, Matt Fowler only reinforced violence which affected not just him but his entire family. Dubus provides details of the gruesome murders in the story to bring out the horror of the crimes they committed. Richard had shot Frank three times in front of his children which Dubus uses to highlight the mindless and abhorrent behavior of Richard. This act of passion and revenge turns the life of an otherwise ordinary happy person into a nightmare and pushes him to commit a crime that he would not have dreamt of if he had not been so provoked. The Fowlers reckon that Strout would only serve five years at the most in jail on charges of man slaughter which is not nearly enough for Ruth and Matt. In the story, Dubus has written about two murders, yet, the reader is tempted to label only Richard as the real murderer and not Matt because the reader feels an innate empathy for the bereaved father. We tend to justify Matts criminal act even though both the killings were similar in nature and both the murderers were allowed to go free after their heinous crimes. This is probably because we look for justice and Richard being let out on bail and showing himself around without any punishment being given to him makes us feel that he deserved what happened to him. As humans, we are emotional and look for closure in any given event, however horrific and the final denouement seems to be justified. It is also important to remember that Matt Fowler was not a killer by temperament whereas Richard was hot-tempered and callous. Goading Matt into an act which was unnatural for him seems to justify the end. The killing of Richard Strout was only a means of achieving the ends of justice- or that is what Matt imagined. Even though, Matt has a confidante in Willis and has the sympathy of the entire community, in the end he is plagued with this knowledge that he is no less a murderer than Richard. He is ridden with guilt and this makes him feel isolated and morally dead. The irony is that as readers we feel empathy for the Fowlers and even though we cannot condone what Matt did we feel there should have been a way where family, friends and the larger community had intervened and allowed Ruth and Matt to share their grief. Not having a channel to express their agony, Matt turned violent in his mind and killed Richard everyday in the face (Dubus 10) just as Richard had killed his son. Dubus has left his readers wondering whether for all the empathy that they must feel for Matt and Ruths loss, was the pre-planned, cold-blooded murder of Richard necessary to experience a feeling that justice had been done and feel purged off their growing inner violence. As things would have it, Matt does not feel tranquil and struggles to whip up the hatred he felt for his sons murderer after going through his house and seeing the more human side of Richard. The role of Willis in the planning and execution in the kidnapping and killing of Richard has been shown to be a bit dubious. It is true that being a good friend of the Fowlers he would feel strongly for them, but to cold-bloodedly plan the murder of a young man who went to school with his own sons needs more justification. Ruth and Matts motivation for exterminating the cause of their sorrow may find a resonant sympathy in the hearts of the readers but Willis motivation to abet in the killing of Richard brings us to face the r eality of how brutal we have become.

Roderick Chisholm on freedom of the will Essay -- essays research pape

There is much debate over the issue of whether we have complete freedom of the will or if our will caused by something other than our own choosing. There are three positions adopted by philosophers regarding this dispute: determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Determinists believe that freedom of the will does not exist. Since actions are events that have some predetermined cause, no actions can be chosen and thus there is no will to choose. The compatibilist argues that you can have both freedom of the will and determinism. If the causes which led to our actions were different, then we could have acted in another way which is compatible with freedom of the will. Libertarians believe that freedom of the will does exist.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Roderick Chisholm defends Libertarianism, and in his essay â€Å"Human Freedom and The Self† argues that we have freedom of the will. Chisholm does not abandon the idea of causes but instead defines two types of causation. The first is transeunt causation where one event or state of affairs causes another event or state of affairs. This causation is based on a relationship between events. The second is immanent causation where an agent causes an event or state of affairs. An agent is an uncaused causer of events who is not bound by the laws of nature. This causation is based on the relationship between an agent and an event. Chisholm quotes a passage from Aristotle to demonstrate his immanent causation, â€Å"Thus, a staff moves a...

Melanin-Based Racial Prejudice Essay

Do you think humans are born to be judgmental? We usually make judgments based on what we see first, and most of the time an important factor is skin color. Social racism is known as the discrimination or intolerance of people of other races or skin colors. Racism occurs in many ways; however, it is not always obvious. Where did this type of behavior begin? Racial prejudice has many causes and effects from and on society that are inevitable. There are many ideas thrown around as to how racism began, though the truth lies in the historical facts. From slavery, to imperialism, to wars, we have always felt superior towards others with different skin colors and races. â€Å"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.† (Mandela, 1994). Racism has been a part of history for as long as humans existed and has been enhanced by early capitalism’s use of slaves for plantations and colonies. Back then, the colonists and imperialists used it as a way to show domination, but it resulted in dividing the modern world. A main factor of this division is that people who believe in stereotypes detest any communication with other races, causing a defense mechanism against them, and finally creating tension and animosity. History is proof that colored people have been treated unfairly and tortured over centuries. â€Å"Black† has always been perceived as negative. Black cats are told to be a sign of omen, black clothes are worn to funerals, and hell is pictured as a deadly place filled with darkness; these have all caused misinterpretation and created a wrong impression in people’s minds. Last, but unfortunately not least, pictures from The Holocaust -a genocide where about six million Jews were killed by the Nazis under the command of Germany’s Adolf Hitler- still haunt us (Mukherjee, 2014). Just as kids grow up imitating their parents, upcoming generations will grow up to be racists in a society where each individual thinks they are superior to everyone else if they have lighter skin. It is a never ending cycle that will most probably end in bullying. Children who grow up watching discrimination happen everywhere around them will end up feeling a need to bully classmates of othe r races. Racial discrimination has had several effects on society and employment. Studies have shown that  people with darker skin colors usually have trouble achieving ordinary goals like a job that pays well, a house in a nice neighborhood, and all the basic necessities. Why should a person with a darker skin tone suffer to obtain these essential rights and needs? The unemployment rate for African Americans in 1995 was 10.1 percent compared to 4.7 percent for white Americans (Berry, 1995). It is widely known that colored people face higher rejection rates when applying for jobs and are usually put second to whites with similar credit characteristics and also get paid less (Ross & Yinger, 1999). In addition, racism is associated with poor mental health. Studies show that the victims of bullying based on their skin color are at a greater risk of developing a range of psychological and mental health problems such as anxiety and depression. These conditions can contribute to more serious mental disorders. Therefore, eliminating racial prejudice is vital to improving mental health and emotional stability. Even though all that is happening, proper awareness is still not being taken into consideration. Racial discrimination is often practiced subconciounsly because societies from all around the world have successfully managed to mind wash generation after generation. In movies, for example, people do not realize that the African Americans usually die first. In crime scenes, they are usually the criminal. As a result of this, children are unintentionally forced to believe that dark skinned people are bad. Statistics show that majority of the public believe that African Americans are not accurately portrayed in movies. The use of offensive words regarding the Natives has become very common, as well, especially in modern rap songs. Rappers include offensive and extremely racist words in their lyrics. Another example is advertisements, and how they stress on promoting whitening beauty creams. The racism in this is not obvious, but it is obscene for the people who are not fair skinned. Finally, as a cause of predictable racism, an innocent African American man named Michael Brown was shot fatally by a police officer earlier in August this year. The protesting citizens of Ferguson remain at unrest until this very day due to the injustice that had occurred. In a nutshell, social racism has had many causes and effects throughout the years due to the growing complexity of the world around us. Racial prejudice is surely not a biological characteristic. In other words, humans do not  differentiate between races because of their genetic makeup. In an ideal world, racism would be eliminated and justice would take over. To cut a long story short, why should the amount of melanin is someone’s skin define them? Resources Mandela, N. (1994). Long walk to freedom: The autobiography of Nelson Mandela. Boston: Little, Brown. Mukherjee, R. (2014, June 18). Top 10 Reasons why Racism Still Exists – List Crux. Retrieved October 1, 2014, from http://listcrux.com/top-10-reasons-why-racism-

Adidas Motivation

An employer of choice Rewarding employees Performance-driven remuneration system We are committed to rewarding our employees with compensation and benefit programmes that are competitive in the marketplace. The cornerstone of our rewards programme is our Global Salary Management System which is used as a basis to set the value of employees' positions and salaries in a market-driven and performance-oriented way.In addition to a fixed base salary, we also offer our employees various variable compensation components. Bonus programme: In order to allow our employees to participate in the Group's success and to reward them for their target achievement, we have implemented a global bonus programme under the name ‘aim 2 score'.This programme combines individual performance (measured in the Performance Evaluation and Planning process) and corporate performance (actual financial results measured against Group, brand, channel, division and/or business unit targets). Profit sharing: For e mployees at our Group headquarters and our other locations in Germany who do not participate in the bonus programme, we have introduced a profit sharing programme called ‘Champions Bonus'.Additional compensation components: For senior management and Executive Board members we offer Long-Term Incentive Programmes (LTIP). Other benefits include our 401-K pension plans in the USA and the adidas Group pension plan for our employees in Germany. In 2010, 2,060 employees participated in the latter, which represents 58% of all eligible employees. Other Group subsidiaries also grant a variety of additional benefits to employees depending on locally defined practices and country-specific norms.