Managing organisational change The case of Omega Industries - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2759 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Analytical essay Level High school Did you like this example? Section-1 Doggett (2005) believes that there is always a cause behind any problem and this cause must be identified and addressed to solve the problem or else the problem may continue. So, a consultant must use the diagnostic process as the initial step to identify the actual cause of the problem (Cope, 1999). This approach of continuous probing helps a consultant to differentiate symptoms from root causes. The symptoms of problems face by OI along with the root cause(s) can be: . Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Managing organisational change: The case of Omega Industries" essay for you Create order Low moral of the management and the work force. The root causes identified here are the policies of redundancy and cost cutting and also the low confidence of workforce in the newly appointed management. Poor communication between managers. This is possibly due to the conflict of interests and lack of trust among the general mangers. Low productivity. This is due to the lack of coordination between the departments and the poor warranty handling and client handling policies. Others causes include lack of innovation in designing product(s) and poor marketing strategy. Overstocking of products. This is due to the inaccurate demand forecasting, inadequate insufficient information about customer needs and the lack of understanding about the customer needs. Fischer, which made a cascading impact on the OI and thus resulted into most of the above mentioned symptoms and their respective root causes. Much of the chaos in Business Services is because of the complex departmental structure within it. One way of handling this structure is to integrate the Sales and the Marketing departments into one department under the director of the Sales as he has got the better client contacts and who can understand and address the customer needs better. Similarly, the Parts services department can also be brought under the GM Engineering support services by which overspending budget can be controlled and the demands of the parts can be met on time. This particular integration will handle the overstocking problem as well. Another structural approach for improving the salesmarketing interface or parts-engineering support is to form cross-functional teams composed of people from the two functional areas along by rotating managers and other workforce within the dependent departments. This approach can serve two purposes; first, through job rotation, employees develop a larger network of people with in the firm that can be called on when opportunities or challenges arise and second, through immersion in different functional areas, managers can develop a better understanding of their counterparts culture, activities, constraints, and objectives. The next piece of advice would be to implement Information System such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application software across OI or especially across Business Services, where information about customers, customer interactions, procurements, inventory etc can be entered, stored and accessed by employees across departments. The data thus maintained can be analyzed to determine the customer needs and forecast demand thus helping OI to improve its services, inventory management and products. Besides improving communication and coordination across different departments within Business Services, this application software will also help in attaining better customer satisfaction and retaining existing customers. The last advice would be to stop the redundancy program, as it builds fear and insecurity and can lead to lack of coordination and individualistic approach of departments. So, to encourage cooperation and coordination the HR department needs to strengthen the rela tionships between the inter-departments, by means of Appreciative Inquiry and thus encourage people to share the best practices in the organisation (Hayes, 2007). The above mentioned advices when implemented can face some serious resistances like the resistance from affected key stakeholders; the GM Marketing and the GM Part services, who would definitely resist this change as their positions would be affected directly. This resistance can be handled by making the GM Marketing redundant as this post is not directly in touch base with customers and always depends on sales and support department to make marketing forecasts. Similar approach can be taken for the post of GM Part services, which can be handled by the GM Support services. Other key stakeholders that may also resist the change can either be made redundant or can be given roles with better incentives or roles with more responsibilities within OI or in other companies under the same parent company. According to Clampitt et. al. (2000), the most effective way of communicating change is to underscore and explore, where the individuals are empowered to generate creative ideas and alternatively listen to potential misunderstanding and unrecognized obstacles rather than being forced to adopt the ideas of management. So, for this presentations or seminars can be organised where employees can be made aware of the change and its associated benefits and can be asked about their opinions. Cross department training and development programs can also be organised by the HR department to develop the necessary skills and minimize the resistance towards the change and to make a department such as sales or marketing, aware of the functioning of other departments such as engineering support services so that each of the departments communicate with one another on a longer run. Another problem can be in the implementation of the Information system where employees such as the sales personnel w ould be least interested and have the minimum scope of using computers to access the information system. In this case these employees need to be convinced about the potential benefits of using this IS and can be given gradual training to know more about the information system. The basic idea is to involve more people in the change process by making them understand their responsibilities in contributing to the transition process and thus minimising the resistances faced by the top management. Here the need of the hour is the strong leadership and commitment from the CEO and senior management, where they should ensure that the whole change process is in line with the new strategies of the company. Section-2 Management Consulting is defined as delivering skills from outside an organisation (Markham, 2004). It is important for an external consultant like Timothy to choose an appropriate model that delivers the real value for the client organization. A good consulting model should also allow a consultant to deliver his knowledge, skills and experience in an efficient way in improving the consultancy practice. Now, in the context of the case, the initial steps towards addressing the problems are by using consultancy and therefore calls for understanding of client-consultant relationship in depth using the below models and theories. Edward Scheins (1987) three models for consulting are commonly viewed as a starting point from which client expectations can be understood and consultant roles can be defined (Wickham Wickham, 2008). These are; purchase-of-expertise, doctor-patient, and process consultation. The Purchase-of-Expertise model is one in which the client hires the consultant to bring a separate and autonomous perspective to existing issues. The client communicates the problem to the consultant and he executes a solution by using specialist knowledge (Wichkham Wickham, 2008). This model may meet immediate needs or the efforts to put structural changes into place, but will do little to sustain development or the organisation over the time. The Purchase-of-Expertise model is one in which the client hires the consultant to bring a separate and autonomous perspective to existing issues. The client communicates the problem to the consultant and he executes a solution by using specialist knowledge (Wichkham Wickham, 2008). This model may meet immediate needs or the efforts to put structural changes into place, but will do little to sustain development or the organisation over the time. The Process Consultation model is a client centred approach in which the consultant acts as a facilitator and brings his own expertise to methods for directing potenti al organisational behaviours. The consultant works with the organisation to find internal methods for resolving the issues and for implementing change, and utilising existing resources within the organisation. This process is based primarily in the ability of the organisation to sort through its needs, discover its own resources and the best methods for change, and implement changes using its own internal resources. The consultant simply acts as a catalyst directing and redirecting activities to help the organisation achieve the best outcomes based on its needs and thus making the change happen (Schein, 1987). The consultant does not push a solution to the client and it is the client who makes the ultimate choice of implementing the solution (Wickham Wickham, 2008). Reason for selecting Process consultation model: In this case study, the initial attention is paid to the client-consultant relationship where, Timothy is hired for his expertise and for guiding OI, which has less clarity about its specific issues and concerns. Timothy works with the OI management through the diagnostic and intervention stages (Czander Eisold, 2003). In the diagnostic stage Timothy gathers the data required to understand the problem by meeting and interviewing managers and finally evaluates it to understand the root cause of the problem (Cope, 1999). The consultant then uses his expertise to plan an intervention model to address the root causes of the issues faced by the OI. As there is high risk involved, OI would look for solution which involves intensive analysis and is exclusively customized to its needs and for this the process consultation model provides OI the power and flexibility to decide and take action on implementing the intervention proposed by the consultant (Whittle, 2006). Five phase Model of Management Consulting Over the years researchers suggested various models and approaches to consulting, but they all seem to be built around the five phase consulting process or cycle model (Kubr, 2002). For instance, Markham (2004) also suggested model the CONSULT delivery process with five stages; Entry, Contracting, Diagnostic, Intervention and Closure. The five phase consulting model provides a systematic phase by phase framework to consultants about how to plan their approach to a particular assignment and for the same reason this model can be associated with the case of OI. This consulting model consists of five phases; Entry, Diagnosis, Action Planning, Implementation and Termination. Entry: It is the initial phase of consulting process cycle that involves the initial meeting of the consultant with the client and the discussion about the purpose of bringing in the consultant. The consultant prepares for the first meeting by gathering information about the client, their business, history and organizational culture and structure. The client tries to apprise the consultant of the problems it is facing and the consultant does a preliminary diagnosis of the problems. According to Kubr (2002), both the client and the consultant, together decide the scope of the assignment and the client ensures that it has approached the right consultant and the consultant has the necessary expertise to deliver the results as per the clients needs. In the case study, it is evident that the consultant Timothy Edwards has been appointed and apprised of the problems of the OI. He has a fair idea regarding what the firm is trying to achieve by taking his services. Diagnosis: This phase involves an in depth analysis of the root causes of the problems and collection of information to develop solutions to those problems. This phase is regarded as most value addition from consultants side as it involves understanding the issues further by establishing timelines, processes and the information needed to be gathered to work out solution. The main idea is to discover more about the issues faced by the client and what could be helpful in addressing them. More importantly, the client has to be involved actively. Kubr (2002) considers this phase as an important one as there is a need to maintain a positive client consultant relationship, where the client must be provided feedback about the consultants progress and investigation approach to prevent any confrontation from the clients side. The diagnosis phase ends with submission of report regarding the progress on the assignment and signing off the consulting contract. The case study indicates that Timothy has gathered information about the issues by interviewing the senior management and has provided the feedback to the CEO, who has given his consent to the consultant to further analyse and design a new structure for the Business Services. Action Planning: The action planning phase is the stage where the actual solutions are prepared and proposed by the consultant. The consultant generally finds more than one solution which he proposes to the client and helps the client understand and choose the one best ones suited to their need. The consultant makes sure that any factor that might be a risk to the change implementation is recognised and addressed in advance. He also explains about the conditions that might be necessary for the solution to be implemented and about the future plans/strategies of the organisation that might be affected by the change. The consultant also puts together a plan for implementation with details of key people involved and the way the solution will be implemented. The action plans identified in this case study include the change in the management structure of the Business services where merging of departments like the marketing and the sales will address the customer needs better and reduce the conflict of interests within those departments; the implementation of CRM application will result in better demand forecasting and customer service. Implementation: It is final phase of the collaborative approach between the client and the consultant, where the actual implementation of the agreed solutions takes place. The consultant may also be actively involved in guiding the client about the continuous improvements in a case where the client feels that the action plan requires a major change in the structure and the culture of the organization; and it cannot handle the change without proper expertise or guidance of the consultant. It is evident from the action plan phase that the Business Services would require a restructuring and an introduction of a new CRM technology. This type of change could evoke resistance from the key stakeholders such as the general managers or the employees of the company. Hence, the implementation phase may require guidance of the consultant to manage the key stakeholders and align their interest with the business strategy of the OI. The crucial thing here can be the change implemented with roles and expectati ons may require proper communication to the employees and for this consultant can play important role along with the HR department for designing a proper training program to enhance employees skills to fit them in the new organizational culture. Termination: This is the final phase which marks the end of the assignment, provided the project has served its purpose as per the satisfaction of the client and the consultant, which can be evaluated at the end of the implementation phase. There can also be a room for extension of the project if the client feels there is a need for revising some part of the implementation or for expanding the scope of the project to other parts of the organisation. In this phase, the client and consultant can take a call whether the implementation has been a failure, success or something in between (Kubr, 2002). The circumstances and situation under which the client consultant relationship terminates will determine the repeat business for the consultant. In the context of the case study of the OI, it is difficult to anticipate how the current assignment of the consultant, Timothy Edwards, ended. Conclusion: The above analysis has been drawn based on the information available from the case study and the models used should not be considered one that fit all solutions as these provide a framework that can be adapted depending on the situation. References: Clampitt, P.G., DeKoch, R.J., and Cashman, T., (2000) A Strategy for Communicating About Uncertainty, Academy of Management Executive, 14(4), pp. 41-57. Cope, M. (1999). The Seven Cs of Consulting: The Definitive Guide to the Consulting Process. London: Prentice Hall. Czander, W. Eisold, K. (2003). Pyschoanalytic perspectives on organisational consulting: Transference and counter-transference. Human relations. 56(4), pp. 475-490. Doggett, A.M., (2005) Root Cause Analysis: A Framework for Tool Selection. The Quality Management Journal, 12, pp. 34-45. Hayes, J. (2007). The Theory and Practice of Change Management. Second Edition. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan Kubr, M. (2002). Management Consulting: A Guide to the Profession, 4th edition, Geneva: International Labour Office. Markham, C. (2004). The Top Consultant: Developing Your Skills for Greater Effectiveness, London: Kogan Page Schein, Edgar H. (1987). Process consultation Volume II: Lessons for managers and c onsultants. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Whittle, A. (2006). The paradoxical repertoires of management consultancy. Journal of Organisational Change Management. 19(4), pp. 424-436. Wickham, P and Wickham, L. (2008). Management Consulting: Delivering an Effective Project. Third Edition. Essex: Pearson Education Limited. Managing organisational change The case of Omega Industries - Free Essay Example Sample details Pages: 9 Words: 2759 Downloads: 4 Date added: 2017/06/26 Category Management Essay Type Analytical essay Level High school Did you like this example? Section-1 Doggett (2005) believes that there is always a cause behind any problem and this cause must be identified and addressed to solve the problem or else the problem may continue. So, a consultant must use the diagnostic process as the initial step to identify the actual cause of the problem (Cope, 1999). This approach of continuous probing helps a consultant to differentiate symptoms from root causes. The symptoms of problems face by OI along with the root cause(s) can be: . Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "Managing organisational change: The case of Omega Industries" essay for you Create order Low moral of the management and the work force. The root causes identified here are the policies of redundancy and cost cutting and also the low confidence of workforce in the newly appointed management. Poor communication between managers. This is possibly due to the conflict of interests and lack of trust among the general mangers. Low productivity. This is due to the lack of coordination between the departments and the poor warranty handling and client handling policies. Others causes include lack of innovation in designing product(s) and poor marketing strategy. Overstocking of products. This is due to the inaccurate demand forecasting, inadequate insufficient information about customer needs and the lack of understanding about the customer needs. Fischer, which made a cascading impact on the OI and thus resulted into most of the above mentioned symptoms and their respective root causes. Much of the chaos in Business Services is because of the complex departmental structure within it. One way of handling this structure is to integrate the Sales and the Marketing departments into one department under the director of the Sales as he has got the better client contacts and who can understand and address the customer needs better. Similarly, the Parts services department can also be brought under the GM Engineering support services by which overspending budget can be controlled and the demands of the parts can be met on time. This particular integration will handle the overstocking problem as well. Another structural approach for improving the salesmarketing interface or parts-engineering support is to form cross-functional teams composed of people from the two functional areas along by rotating managers and other workforce within the dependent departments. This approach can serve two purposes; first, through job rotation, employees develop a larger network of people with in the firm that can be called on when opportunities or challenges arise and second, through immersion in different functional areas, managers can develop a better understanding of their counterparts culture, activities, constraints, and objectives. The next piece of advice would be to implement Information System such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application software across OI or especially across Business Services, where information about customers, customer interactions, procurements, inventory etc can be entered, stored and accessed by employees across departments. The data thus maintained can be analyzed to determine the customer needs and forecast demand thus helping OI to improve its services, inventory management and products. Besides improving communication and coordination across different departments within Business Services, this application software will also help in attaining better customer satisfaction and retaining existing customers. The last advice would be to stop the redundancy program, as it builds fear and insecurity and can lead to lack of coordination and individualistic approach of departments. So, to encourage cooperation and coordination the HR department needs to strengthen the rela tionships between the inter-departments, by means of Appreciative Inquiry and thus encourage people to share the best practices in the organisation (Hayes, 2007). The above mentioned advices when implemented can face some serious resistances like the resistance from affected key stakeholders; the GM Marketing and the GM Part services, who would definitely resist this change as their positions would be affected directly. This resistance can be handled by making the GM Marketing redundant as this post is not directly in touch base with customers and always depends on sales and support department to make marketing forecasts. Similar approach can be taken for the post of GM Part services, which can be handled by the GM Support services. Other key stakeholders that may also resist the change can either be made redundant or can be given roles with better incentives or roles with more responsibilities within OI or in other companies under the same parent company. According to Clampitt et. al. (2000), the most effective way of communicating change is to underscore and explore, where the individuals are empowered to generate creative ideas and alternatively listen to potential misunderstanding and unrecognized obstacles rather than being forced to adopt the ideas of management. So, for this presentations or seminars can be organised where employees can be made aware of the change and its associated benefits and can be asked about their opinions. Cross department training and development programs can also be organised by the HR department to develop the necessary skills and minimize the resistance towards the change and to make a department such as sales or marketing, aware of the functioning of other departments such as engineering support services so that each of the departments communicate with one another on a longer run. Another problem can be in the implementation of the Information system where employees such as the sales personnel w ould be least interested and have the minimum scope of using computers to access the information system. In this case these employees need to be convinced about the potential benefits of using this IS and can be given gradual training to know more about the information system. The basic idea is to involve more people in the change process by making them understand their responsibilities in contributing to the transition process and thus minimising the resistances faced by the top management. Here the need of the hour is the strong leadership and commitment from the CEO and senior management, where they should ensure that the whole change process is in line with the new strategies of the company. Section-2 Management Consulting is defined as delivering skills from outside an organisation (Markham, 2004). It is important for an external consultant like Timothy to choose an appropriate model that delivers the real value for the client organization. A good consulting model should also allow a consultant to deliver his knowledge, skills and experience in an efficient way in improving the consultancy practice. Now, in the context of the case, the initial steps towards addressing the problems are by using consultancy and therefore calls for understanding of client-consultant relationship in depth using the below models and theories. Edward Scheins (1987) three models for consulting are commonly viewed as a starting point from which client expectations can be understood and consultant roles can be defined (Wickham Wickham, 2008). These are; purchase-of-expertise, doctor-patient, and process consultation. The Purchase-of-Expertise model is one in which the client hires the consultant to bring a separate and autonomous perspective to existing issues. The client communicates the problem to the consultant and he executes a solution by using specialist knowledge (Wichkham Wickham, 2008). This model may meet immediate needs or the efforts to put structural changes into place, but will do little to sustain development or the organisation over the time. The Purchase-of-Expertise model is one in which the client hires the consultant to bring a separate and autonomous perspective to existing issues. The client communicates the problem to the consultant and he executes a solution by using specialist knowledge (Wichkham Wickham, 2008). This model may meet immediate needs or the efforts to put structural changes into place, but will do little to sustain development or the organisation over the time. The Process Consultation model is a client centred approach in which the consultant acts as a facilitator and brings his own expertise to methods for directing potenti al organisational behaviours. The consultant works with the organisation to find internal methods for resolving the issues and for implementing change, and utilising existing resources within the organisation. This process is based primarily in the ability of the organisation to sort through its needs, discover its own resources and the best methods for change, and implement changes using its own internal resources. The consultant simply acts as a catalyst directing and redirecting activities to help the organisation achieve the best outcomes based on its needs and thus making the change happen (Schein, 1987). The consultant does not push a solution to the client and it is the client who makes the ultimate choice of implementing the solution (Wickham Wickham, 2008). Reason for selecting Process consultation model: In this case study, the initial attention is paid to the client-consultant relationship where, Timothy is hired for his expertise and for guiding OI, which has less clarity about its specific issues and concerns. Timothy works with the OI management through the diagnostic and intervention stages (Czander Eisold, 2003). In the diagnostic stage Timothy gathers the data required to understand the problem by meeting and interviewing managers and finally evaluates it to understand the root cause of the problem (Cope, 1999). The consultant then uses his expertise to plan an intervention model to address the root causes of the issues faced by the OI. As there is high risk involved, OI would look for solution which involves intensive analysis and is exclusively customized to its needs and for this the process consultation model provides OI the power and flexibility to decide and take action on implementing the intervention proposed by the consultant (Whittle, 2006). Five phase Model of Management Consulting Over the years researchers suggested various models and approaches to consulting, but they all seem to be built around the five phase consulting process or cycle model (Kubr, 2002). For instance, Markham (2004) also suggested model the CONSULT delivery process with five stages; Entry, Contracting, Diagnostic, Intervention and Closure. The five phase consulting model provides a systematic phase by phase framework to consultants about how to plan their approach to a particular assignment and for the same reason this model can be associated with the case of OI. This consulting model consists of five phases; Entry, Diagnosis, Action Planning, Implementation and Termination. Entry: It is the initial phase of consulting process cycle that involves the initial meeting of the consultant with the client and the discussion about the purpose of bringing in the consultant. The consultant prepares for the first meeting by gathering information about the client, their business, history and organizational culture and structure. The client tries to apprise the consultant of the problems it is facing and the consultant does a preliminary diagnosis of the problems. According to Kubr (2002), both the client and the consultant, together decide the scope of the assignment and the client ensures that it has approached the right consultant and the consultant has the necessary expertise to deliver the results as per the clients needs. In the case study, it is evident that the consultant Timothy Edwards has been appointed and apprised of the problems of the OI. He has a fair idea regarding what the firm is trying to achieve by taking his services. Diagnosis: This phase involves an in depth analysis of the root causes of the problems and collection of information to develop solutions to those problems. This phase is regarded as most value addition from consultants side as it involves understanding the issues further by establishing timelines, processes and the information needed to be gathered to work out solution. The main idea is to discover more about the issues faced by the client and what could be helpful in addressing them. More importantly, the client has to be involved actively. Kubr (2002) considers this phase as an important one as there is a need to maintain a positive client consultant relationship, where the client must be provided feedback about the consultants progress and investigation approach to prevent any confrontation from the clients side. The diagnosis phase ends with submission of report regarding the progress on the assignment and signing off the consulting contract. The case study indicates that Timothy has gathered information about the issues by interviewing the senior management and has provided the feedback to the CEO, who has given his consent to the consultant to further analyse and design a new structure for the Business Services. Action Planning: The action planning phase is the stage where the actual solutions are prepared and proposed by the consultant. The consultant generally finds more than one solution which he proposes to the client and helps the client understand and choose the one best ones suited to their need. The consultant makes sure that any factor that might be a risk to the change implementation is recognised and addressed in advance. He also explains about the conditions that might be necessary for the solution to be implemented and about the future plans/strategies of the organisation that might be affected by the change. The consultant also puts together a plan for implementation with details of key people involved and the way the solution will be implemented. The action plans identified in this case study include the change in the management structure of the Business services where merging of departments like the marketing and the sales will address the customer needs better and reduce the conflict of interests within those departments; the implementation of CRM application will result in better demand forecasting and customer service. Implementation: It is final phase of the collaborative approach between the client and the consultant, where the actual implementation of the agreed solutions takes place. The consultant may also be actively involved in guiding the client about the continuous improvements in a case where the client feels that the action plan requires a major change in the structure and the culture of the organization; and it cannot handle the change without proper expertise or guidance of the consultant. It is evident from the action plan phase that the Business Services would require a restructuring and an introduction of a new CRM technology. This type of change could evoke resistance from the key stakeholders such as the general managers or the employees of the company. Hence, the implementation phase may require guidance of the consultant to manage the key stakeholders and align their interest with the business strategy of the OI. The crucial thing here can be the change implemented with roles and expectati ons may require proper communication to the employees and for this consultant can play important role along with the HR department for designing a proper training program to enhance employees skills to fit them in the new organizational culture. Termination: This is the final phase which marks the end of the assignment, provided the project has served its purpose as per the satisfaction of the client and the consultant, which can be evaluated at the end of the implementation phase. There can also be a room for extension of the project if the client feels there is a need for revising some part of the implementation or for expanding the scope of the project to other parts of the organisation. In this phase, the client and consultant can take a call whether the implementation has been a failure, success or something in between (Kubr, 2002). The circumstances and situation under which the client consultant relationship terminates will determine the repeat business for the consultant. In the context of the case study of the OI, it is difficult to anticipate how the current assignment of the consultant, Timothy Edwards, ended. Conclusion: The above analysis has been drawn based on the information available from the case study and the models used should not be considered one that fit all solutions as these provide a framework that can be adapted depending on the situation. References: Clampitt, P.G., DeKoch, R.J., and Cashman, T., (2000) A Strategy for Communicating About Uncertainty, Academy of Management Executive, 14(4), pp. 41-57. Cope, M. (1999). The Seven Cs of Consulting: The Definitive Guide to the Consulting Process. London: Prentice Hall. Czander, W. Eisold, K. (2003). Pyschoanalytic perspectives on organisational consulting: Transference and counter-transference. Human relations. 56(4), pp. 475-490. Doggett, A.M., (2005) Root Cause Analysis: A Framework for Tool Selection. The Quality Management Journal, 12, pp. 34-45. Hayes, J. (2007). The Theory and Practice of Change Management. Second Edition. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan Kubr, M. (2002). Management Consulting: A Guide to the Profession, 4th edition, Geneva: International Labour Office. Markham, C. (2004). The Top Consultant: Developing Your Skills for Greater Effectiveness, London: Kogan Page Schein, Edgar H. (1987). Process consultation Volume II: Lessons for managers and c onsultants. Reading, Mass: Addison-Wesley Whittle, A. (2006). The paradoxical repertoires of management consultancy. Journal of Organisational Change Management. 19(4), pp. 424-436. Wickham, P and Wickham, L. (2008). Management Consulting: Delivering an Effective Project. Third Edition. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Discrimination And Oppression An Individual - 1710 Words

Discrimination and Oppression: When discussed what, it means to be a discriminated or oppressed as an individual, especially a person with an intellectual disability, we must first look at the terminology and how it will be relatable for their circumstances. For discrimination, it is described as people or groups of people, which include race, class, gender, age, sexual orientation, who are and continued to be defined as â€Å"other,† when they are perceived through â€Å"dominant† group values. These groups are treated in exclusionary ways, and subjected to all kinds of social injustice and economic inequality, (Anderson Collins, 2013). In other words, persons with intellectual disabilities tend to be treated less favorable, or not given†¦show more content†¦Racism, is the prejudicial, or antagonistic way someone of a different race, holds on to the belief that they are superior over others. Often equated with â€Å"hatred,† defining it as a hating of people, because of their race or color. Classism, are those classes of people belonging to one social class of people, noting that their class of people is better than all others. Ableism, a prejudice of a people due to their disabilities to move, work, or even comprehend like other â€Å"normal† people. Sexism, is the oppression of women, (this can include the LGBTQ community), where there is an enforced belief in male dominance and control. Where women â€Å"exist for men or not at all† type theory. Ageism, is just as the word suggests, a prejudice against the aging population. Then there is religious imperialism, the active suppression of other religions, or forced conversions, (Andersen Collins, 2013). According to the statement in Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, â€Å"that [a]ll human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights,† contained no footnote that stated, â€Å"except for persons with an intellectual disability.à ¢â‚¬  In fact, in 1971, The U.N. 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Using academic research, the goal for this essay will be to discuss the characteristics of oppression and how those characteristics are connected to its origin. The research will develop major themes that will serve to define agents, including classism, discrimination, and the intersectionality of different types of oppression. Discussions onRead MorePrimary Roles Of A Grade 7 And 8 Teacher1519 Words   |  7 Pagesultimately, our actions† (Brooks and Brooks, 1999). The seeds of racism, sex ism and oppression, I believe are planted at an early age of childhood. The parents of grade 7 and 8 students, of an elite private school of a higher social economic status, presented an objection to their children learning about social inequalities. Parents of the students feel their adolescent children are not ready to tackle these issues of oppression, rather continue to focus on learning skills they feel will lead to future successesRead MoreDiscrimination And Discrimination977 Words   |  4 PagesDistinction between prejudice and discrimination is attitude versus action. Prejudice refers to negative attitudes or feelings toward or about an entire category of people (Mooney p. 289). Whereas discrimination refers to the actions or practices that result in the differential treatment of categories of individuals (Mooney, p. 292); individuals act on their prejudices which result in discrimination. It is critical to analyze the relationship between prejudices and discrimination as to they affect societyRead MoreDo Professional Athletes, Today s Society, Deal With Racial Inequalities And Oppression? Essay1555 Words   |  7 Pagesfocused on in this paper is â€Å"Do professional athletes, in today’s society, deal with racial inequalities and oppression?†. Specifically, three peer articles were reviewed while assessing this question and helped to determine the detrimental affects that these racial discriminations can have on athletes and, individuals in general. Articles reviewed include examples of direct discrimination of athletes through physical altercations as well as society’s internal beliefs. These internal beliefs steamRead MoreWhat Is Meant by the Term Equality Essay1054 Words   |  5 Pagesorientation, religious belief or cultural differences. What is meant by the term discrimination? Discrimination is often seen as a negative attribute when actually it can be a positive. Being able to identify the difference for example when the milk has gone off is seen as positive discrimination. It is only when there is a degrading comment attached against a person, group, or race that it turns into negative discrimination. This often happens when there is seen to be one stronger person, group,

Interprofessional Education Free Essays

This assignment will be about my thoughts and feelings relating to the Interview that I have conducted with a healthcare professional. According to Bud, Gogh Walker (1985), they defined reflection as â€Å"the context of learning as a generic term for those intellectual and affective activities in which individuals engage to explore their experiences in order to lead to new understandings and appreciations,† (as cited in Androgynous Davie, 1997, Para. 4). We will write a custom essay sample on Interprofessional Education or any similar topic only for you Order Now Through this reflection, I hope to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the Interview and how I could make It a learning experience for future application, 2. Reflection of the Interview 2. 1. Description My group, consisting of 4 pharmacy and 2 nursing students, was assigned to Professor Bad. He researches on the ethical issues concerning biomedicine, combining his past specialization in philosophy to formulate his thoughts and writings. He was part of an advisory committee in many notable International organizations such as UNESCO and WHO to name a few. In addition, he Is an editor- in-chief for his own Journal publication, called Salsa Bioethics Review. My group managed to get some help from his assistant to secure a meeting room for the interview. The interview questions were aimed at finding out about his roles and responsibilities, a clearer insight into bioethics with case examples and his inter- professional communication experiences. During the interview, I was tasked with note-taking alongside another pharmacy student, while there were 2 audio-visual crew manning 3 digital cameras and 1 photo camera. We delegated a nursing and a pharmacy student to conduct the Interview with the Intention of providing 2 different viewpoints from the questions asked as well as to provide a more focused and centered conversation. 2. 2. Feelings Before the interview started, we realized that 2 out of the 3 digital cameras had roughly 30-40 minutes worth of video recording capacity which might not be enough. My feelings then were that of disappointment because I had planned to combine different angles of the Interview Into our video-making. However, my Initial apprehension was short-lived as the interviewee was amiable and enthusiastic, and I felt relaxed and warmed up to him quickly. During the interview, I was tensed because I was typing rapidly but my group members’ poise and confidence in their roles made me reassured. Overall, the interview was a success as everyone executed heir roles expertly and I felt a sense of accomplishment for our efforts in planning and executing the interview. 2. 3. Evaluation The Interview was an eye-opening experience as have never done an informational interview before. After reviewing the video recording, I noted down the strengths and weaknesses of the interview. Firstly, using Jean’s ‘SOLES’ model, the interviewers were sitting squarely, had an open posture, leaned forward, maintained eye contact, but were a little tensed. One of the interviewers, Celia, kept twirling his pen and even dropped It at one point. Arc, on the other hand, kept spinning in her Secondly, the content of the interview covered multiple areas and it helped us to understand the health professional better. However, the questions did not transit well from the preparation to the exploration stage. An example was the quick transition of understanding the interviewee’s roles and responsibility to finding out about abortion. Lastly, the interviewers displayed sufficient communication skills. They responded to the interviewee’s answers with nods and verbal cues such as â€Å"uh- huh† and â€Å"yes†. The questions asked utilized the social penetration theory to explore and create self-awareness through self-disclosure. Alton and Taylor (1987) highlighted that self-disclosure and social penetration was co-related: Self-disclosing and learning about others is the process of penetrating deeper into the selves of those people?and enabling others to penetrate ourselves and gain a deeper understanding of us. This process of penetration is a gradual one, in which each communicator reveals layers of personal depth. (as cited in Doyle, 2004, Para. 6) However, the interviewers could have slowly crafted out the phrasing of the question in their head before asking the question, especially if it was impromptu. This would low the interviewer to understand the main intention of the question without multiple questions asked. 2. 4. Analysis After evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the interview, I decided to explore how these factors might have affected the interview. Firstly, prior to the interview, we did our research into the interviewee’s background and tried to understand his roles and responsibilities as well as the concept of bioethics. This enabled us to craft our questions according to how the interviewee responded to show that we had listened and understood his perspective. According to Minnie 2005), he described it as â€Å"active learning† and added that â€Å"it involves using the communication cycle and the ability to demonstrate what you have understood when you listen to another person† (peg. 86). This concept is further supported by Egan (1986) who theorized that â€Å"the goal of listening is understanding† (as cited in Minnie, 2005, peg. 86). Hence, this was an area of communication skills which we executed well, albeit some minor fidgety body language which I had highlighted earlier that could have been misinterpreted as being inattentive. Fortunately, the interviewee did not Jump to conclusions and continued to speak enthusiastically. Secondly, the usage of the social penetration theory to encourage self-disclosure was a good way to explore and create self-awareness in the interviewee. Skunk, Meadows, Interring, Tooth Sooner (2011) defined self-disclosure as â€Å"the act of opening one’s self up and revealing information not available otherwise† (slide. 3). Levine, Marshall, Wood, Elliott Wright (n. D. ) illustrated the stages of the theory as â€Å"an orderly process which goes through different stages over time. As interpersonal exchange gradually progresses from the superficial to the more intimate our real selves are revealed† (Para. 3). The four stages to this process are Orientation Stage, Exploratory Affective Stage, Affective Stage and Stable Stage. As we moved from stage to stage, our questions became more personal. For example, in the exploratory affective stage, he revealed how he was a cradle Catholic. When we reached the affective stage where questions were more personal, we asked him if there were any conflicts between his religion and his bioethics research, such as abortion. Finally, at degree of trust and understanding was established, he revealed his personal relationships with his wife, who is a Catholic too, over his line of work. In addition, he as not afraid to display his emotions such as frustration. In the end, he showed self- awareness as he could distinguish between the ethical issues of work and his religion. I felt that this was proof that we had managed to fulfill the intended objectives of this model which was to â€Å"escalate a relationship, and moving it from one stage to another. † (West Turner, 2009, peg. 81) Lastly, the initiation stage to the exploration stage could have transited better. West Turner (2009) highlighted that â€Å"self-disclosures occur in the context of time- that is, self-disclosures get more intimate as a relationship progresses, and time effect the meaning of disclosure. (peg. 289) Hence, questions related to the interviewee’s present life could be asked first before delving into the past. 2. 5. Implication/Conclusion Although I was not conducting the interview, however, I imagined myself to be in the shoes of the interviewer and thought out what could been done differently. With the insight I have gathered after evaluating and analyzing, I felt that asking multiple questions could have been avoided as it confused the interviewer hence some of his reply did not address the question. Snow (2012) revealed that â€Å"when people are reverse, they tend to ramble, and their questions tend to trail off into series of possible answers† (Para. 8). Thus, the interviewer could have avoided this by taking some time to craft out the question before asking it. Rattail (n. D. ) highlighted that â€Å"stopping a conversation to ask the right questions is far superior to nodding along in ignorance,† (as cited in Snow, 2012, Para. 8). Hence the interviewers could have used linking sentences to steer the interviewee back to the right direction. 2. 6. Action plan After reflecting on the interview, I thought of an action plan to integrate my experiences into future interviews, especially with a patient, since I will become a nurse. Firstly, I will continue to use Jean’s â€Å"SOLES† model to show attentiveness to the interviewee and in the case of the patient, display that I am able to empathic with him/her. Secondly, preparation is crucial. Prior to any interview, I will ensure that if equipments are needed, I will check for its usability. The questions planned will be formatted correctly to ensure proper transition and if the reply does not answer the question, I would not hesitate to rephrase and repeat the questions again to get a more definite answer. More importantly, I will give the interviewee time to process and answer the question without bombarding him/her with multiple questions. Lastly, Multiprogramming’s (2012) highlighted some criticisms of the social penetration theory, â€Å"gender, age, religion, social experience (maturity), and ethnic background could greatly influence resistance to certain self-disclosures† (Para. 2). In that situation, I will utilities other exploration skills such as the Shari Window model, which consists of 4 stages; open, hidden to others, blind to oneself, and unknown to oneself and others. 3. Conclusion of the reflection This assignment is a reflection of my inter-professional experience with a healthcare professional and the communication skills that I have appl ied to ensure an effective communication. I was exposed to various methods to enhance exploration skills, such as social penetration theory and Shari Window model. In addition, I learnt about the understanding. It is with this insight knowledge acquired that I hope to apply to patients in future to show empathy and improve the nurse-patient relationship. How to cite Interprofessional Education, Papers

International Economics Midterm Exam free essay sample

Points allocated to a question are shown in brackets beside the question for a total of 100. Answer ALL questions. Calculators and other electronic devices may NOT be used during the exam. 1. Wages differ greatly across countries and they depend, to some extent at least, on productivity differences. Suppose Canada and Japan produce two types of goods: agricultural goods, such as wheat, and manufactured goods, like cars. In Canada it takes a worker 1 day to produce a ton of wheat, and 2 days to produce a car, while in Japan it takes 3 days to produce a ton of wheat and 1 day to produce a car. Canada has a comparative advantage in the production of wheat, so with free trade Canada will produce and export wheat and Japan will produce and export cars. (20) (a) Suppose the free trade price of a ton of wheat is 1 car. (i) (ii) (10) What is the pre-trade wage in Canada, measured in tons of wheat? What is the pre-trade wage in Canada, measured in cars? What is the free trade wage in Canada, measured in tons of wheat? What is the free trade wage in Canada, measured in cars? What is the pre-trade wage in Japan, measured in tons of wheat? What is the pre-trade wage in Japan, measured in cars? What is the free trade wage in Japan, measured in tons of wheat? What is the free trade wage in Japan, measured in cars? (b) Suppose now the free trade price of a ton of wheat is 3 cars. We will write a custom essay sample on International Economics Midterm Exam or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page What is the free trade wage in Canada, measured in tons of wheat? What is the free trade wage in Canada, measured in cars? What is the free trade wage in Japan, measured in tons of wheat? What is the free trade wage in Japan, measured in cars? (10) age. in. Canada when the price of a ton of wheat is 1 car? What is it when wage. in. Japan the price of a ton of wheat is 3 cars? Is it possible that the wage in Canada could be maintained at a level 4 times as high as the wage in Japan? Explain why or why not. In your answer, consider whether Japan would want to import Canadian wheat in this case. (c) What is the ratio  © 2010 C Smith 1 2. A number of countries, particularly in Asia, have pursued development strategies of exportpromotion. By selling in world markets, which are much larger than the domestic market, firms can gain economies of scale. (10) a) Describe in words what it means if an economy exhibits the technological situation of â€Å"increasing returns to scale. Explain the difference between economies of scale that are internal to the firm, and economies of scale that are external to the firm but internal to an industry. (5) (b) (i) Say the domestic country produces two goods, computers and televisions, with increasing returns to scale. Draw the domestic country’s production possibilities frontier (PPF). In your figure, denote the country’s level of output of when all factors are allocated to computers as C , and when all factors are allocated to televisions as T . On the axes, show the points ? C , and ? T . Finally, denote as point P on the PPF the point where half the country’s resources are allocated to the production of each of computers and televisions, and on the axes denote these points as C0 and T0, respectively. (10) (ii) Suppose the pre-trade or autarky price of televisions in terms of computers is the same as the world (free trade) relative price. Can there be gains from trade in this case? Explain why or why not. Do you think export-promotion can be successful at increasing economic output of a country? 3. Gains from trade can be categorized into consumption gains and production gains. Suppose the domestic country produces two goods, food and clothing, with increasing opportunity cost. (5) (a) Draw the production possibilities frontier for this country. Denote the pre-trade or autarky production point as point A. How do you know this is the optimal production point? (15) (b) Suppose the world relative price of food in terms of clothing is higher than the domestic country’s autarky price. Show the new optimal production point, and denote it point P. Denote the new, optimal consumption point as point.

Condorcet Essays (247 words) - Philosophes, Girondists,

Condorcet Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat, better known as Marquis de Condorcet, was born in Ribemont, Paris. He studied at Jesuit schools and the college de Navarre and later became a French philosppher, political leader, and mathmatician. He published a book titled Essai sur le calcul integral and in 1769 he was elected to the Academie des Sciences. He was very fasinated by probality and the philosophy of mathematics and this is where most of his famous work evolved from. He wrote Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probabilty Majority Decisions which was very important work in the development of probablity. Condorcet was very opposed to the church and to show his opinions on this he wrote Vie de M Turgot and Vie de Voltaire. Both of these works showed how he agreed with the economic ideas of Turgot and the ideas of Voltaire, who was also opposed to the church. He is most known for his method for electing people in single-seat elections. His method Marquis de Condorcet became involved in politics and was in great favor of the French Revolution. He became the president of the Legislative Assembly. During the revolution he fled due to his strong disagreement with the Girondists. While he was hiding he wrote Esquisse d'un tableau historique des progres de l'esprit humain. He used nine stages to show the progress of the human race. He also showed another stage which showed the human perfection can be established with the help of education. He was soon discovered and was found dead the following day. Mathematics

Health Fair Essays

Health Fair Essays Health Fair Paper Health Fair Paper It is true that not everything we learn comes from the four corners of the classroom. Just last week, we conducted a health fair to a nearby community, and it was both fun and a great learning experience for me. Both the seniors and the people in the community were benefited from the activity, as the health fair served as a tool for us senior students to learn and impart learning as well. I was personally moved by the health fair because the second Nursing Home/Independent living facility that we visited housed a mostly queer community. For me, it felt closer to home since I am gay. One of the benefits that we seniors got from the fair is when we were given a chance to teach the people about blood pressure, immunization, fall risks, and nutrition. For some, the ones who would benefit from this would be the people in the community, but for use seniors, we were able to interact with other people and teach them what we know. Somehow, this simulates the life outside school, wherein we would have to deal with different people and try to teach them technical concepts, where we should make sure that they are able to understand what we’re saying. This health fair actually prepares us for the things to come, and equips us with the experience of dealing with people in similar instances. On a more personal level, I was touched when a lesbian couple introduced themselves to me as â€Å"partners†. I thought, â€Å"Wait, do they mean lovers?† And yes they did. We talked a lot and out conversation included things about the health fair, and other personal matters. Standing on the same footing, we compared the opportunities that I have and the opportunities that they didn’t have. It was very relaxing to know that more people are open to these things nowadays as compared to how the society view people like us before. It was such a great experience, and I feel very satisfied because I was able to share some of the things that I know. I am also glad that I was able to interact with different kinds of people, something which I have to face after school. Personally and academically, the health fair was really satisfying for me.

Personal case study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Personal - Case Study Example Most human being are unique in many ways hence psychology tends to explains the similarities through understanding of their respective societal ethics. In understanding different human traits, personality psychology explains how human differ from others. This school of psychology also explains why some of aspects contradict or complement on human life. According to research, this field of discussion came later after all other schools had been discussed by psychologists. Stages of Development According to Freud’s explanation on the theory of psychodynamic, personality is structured in three major categories namely; Id, Ego and Superego and psychosexual stages of development. Whereby Id explains the basic instincts of all human beings, Ego refers to the stage which connects an individual’s Id and superego. Superego depicts human morals acceptable behaviors while psychosexual stage is the last stage in this theory which paves way for behavioral stage. The first stage of de velopment starts immediately after birth to 1 year of age. This is the stage where infants tend to acquire pleasure from sucking. At this stage, the infant may be at a position of chewing pencils, rubbers, thumbs, finer nails biting as an affixation. The next stage is the anal stage (1-3years). At this stage, young children enjoy releasing urine and other waste products from the body. Parent have difficult work in training their children how to use toilets because if they are not well trained they will end up becoming anal retentive. Cleanliness is the major affixation at this stage or messiness. In that a child may hold urine for quite sometime and release it at his or her own will. The enjoyment at this stage is crucial to parents for the development of their children. Between the years of 3 to 6 refers to as the phallic stage. At this stage, the Id of an individual focuses on the genital impulse which explains why children find pleasure from their genital stimulation. Parentsâ₠¬â„¢ major worry is the Electra conflict and oedipal conflict for both girls and boys respectively. The child tries to explore his or her body needs with the opposite sex hence may result to wrong sex forcing the parent to have anger towards them. Parents tend to take much time with their children so as to teach them on the various life outcomes but not in depth since they fear they are not grown enough to follow their parents’ restrictions. At the latency stage, the child’s superego develops. At this stage it is believed that there is no much change as of developmental happenings. Lastly is the genital stage of development. It also takes place at the adolescent stage where the child tries to find pleasure through sex or they may have the need for sex. Parents have enormous task of advising their children intensively so as not to indulge in unwanted pregnancies and unhealthy relationships which may affect their later lifestyles. Bandura explains cognitive theory as a s chool of thought which gives an individual the right to socialize free within the given environment which helps in the developmental learning due to the immediate environment. The psychologist believed this theory is the connector between the environment and the human behavior. The theory focuses most on the observations or imitation of others behavior thus triggers an individual to behave the same. For example

What does the bible mean to me Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

What does the bible mean to me - Essay Example w the bible differently but I believe it to be a sacred collection of books that Christians use as a reference to God’s command during their worship as well as in their lifestyles. It provides the means of communication with God the creator who Christians believe is supernatural and whom they revere. The bible directs man on the kind of life that he should live. It is God’s way of instructing, encouraging and correcting Christians, as well as making his plan known to them. Moreover, it explains the destiny of man in the life after death, consistent with the life that one lived. The bible connects the reader with God at a deeper level so that the communication is one on one with the help of the Holy Spirit who is described in the bible as Christians’ intercessor before God. In order for the fellowship of man with God to manifest fully, it is essential to have the Holy Spirit’s intervention since the sinful nature of man separates him from God who in His nature is Holy. This is well outlined in the scripture in Isaiah 59:1-12. I consider the bible to be a very vital holy book in the life of a Christian since it gives him/her reference for their lives and enables them to connect to God and this way, they are able to know His will and purpose for their lives. As mentioned earlier, the bible clearly states the kind of life that man should live while on earth and his ultimate fate after death consistent with the life that he chose to live. Everyone should therefore seek to know the bible and obey the commands

Racism in America Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Racism in America - Research Paper Example The history of racism faced by the African American population in America is interconnected with colonization of Africa by different European nations and slave trade from the African mainland to the different parts of America. In the initial stages, the African Americans served the European settlers in America as ‘sharecroppers’. Later, some of them were allowed to own property. Besides, most of the African Americans served in vast agricultural lands in America. So, the low social status of the African Americans in the earlier days limited them from entering the public domain of the American society. Later, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 helped the African Americans to gain political rights in the American society. Till 1865, slavery prevailed in America. For instance, the 13th Amendment, which was against slavery in America, helped the African Americans to extend their struggle for equality in the mainstream society. The Emancipation Proclamation helped the African American slaves to be free but it did not help them to gain equal status in the society. Martin (2009), makes clear that â€Å"During the early 1950s, the movement –at first led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People- forced an end to segregation on trains and interstate buses by successfully appealing several federal lawsuits to the U.S. Supreme Court† (419). The Civil Right Movement was another innovative step taken by the African Americans to gain equality in the mainstream society. ... Martin (2009), makes clear that â€Å"During the early 1950s, the movement –at first led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People- forced an end to segregation on trains and interstate buses by successfully appealing several federal lawsuits to the U.S. Supreme Court† (419). The Civil Right Movement was another innovative step taken by the African Americans to gain equality in the mainstream society. Nenty (2008), states that â€Å"The Civil Right Act of 1964 achieved a substantial number of rights for African Americans since the 19th century’s Reconstruction† (68). One can see that racism and discrimination based on skin color still prevail in the American society. This eventually drags the African American community to educational disparities and criminal acts. For instance, the origin and growth of groups like Ku Klux Klan put forth racial supremacy and eventually led to large scale violence against the members of African Americ an community. So, the African American population was forced to face racial riots, discrimination and segregation. This hindered the economic development of the African American population in America. B. Hispanic Americans The racial problem faced by the Latin Americans (generally known as Hispanic Americans) is interconnected with the history of Mexico. To be specific, the Mexican-American War led to the annexation of some of the areas of Mexico by the American forces and this eventually led the Mexicans to face racism and discrimination. Later, the after effects of the Great Depression forced the Mexicans to return to their native place (say, Mexico). This did not solve the problem of discrimination

Banking, Corporate Governance and the 2007 Financial Crisis

Banking, Corporate Governance and the 2007 Financial Crisis Throughout the world, by the end of 2008, many banks had seen most of their equity destroyed by the crisis that started in the US subprime sector in 2007. Yet, not all banks across the world performed equally poorly. In this paper, we investigate how banks that performed better during the crisis, measuring performance by stock returns, differed from other banks before the crisis. Academics, journalists, and policy-makers have argued that lax regulation, insufficient capital, excessive reliance on short-term financing, and poor governance all contributed to making the crisis as serious as it was. If these factors did contribute to making the crisis worse, we would expect that banks that were more exposed to these factors performed more poorly during the crisis. We investigate the relation between these factors and the stock return performance of large banks during the crisis, where large banks are defined as banks with assets in excess of $50 billion in 2006. With our definition of la rge banks, 32 countries had at least one large bank and our sample includes 164 large banks from these countries. Many analyses of the crisis emphasize the run on the funding of banks that relied on short-term finance in the capital markets for a substantial fraction of their financing (see, for instance, Adrian and Shin, 2008, Brunnermeier, 2009, Gorton, 2010, and Diamond and Rajan, 2009). We would expect banks that rely on short-term finance before the crisis to perform worse during the crisis. We find that this is the case with two different approaches. First, we find strong evidence that banks that relied more on deposits for their financing in 2006 fared better during the crisis. Second, following Demirg ¨ ucKunt and Huizinga (2010), we use a measure of short-term funding provided by sources other than customer deposits. We show that performance is strongly negatively related to that mea-sure both for the sample of large banks and the sample extended to include large financial institutions that are not depository banks, such as investment banks. These analyses also emphasize how losses fo rce banks to reduce their leverage, perhaps through fire sales of securities, and how this effect is greater for banks with more leverage. We find that large banks with less leverage in 2006 performed better during the crisis. An Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report argues that ‘‘the financial crisis can be to an important extent attributed to failures and weaknesses in corporate governance arrangements’’ (Kirkpatrick, 2008). More recently, the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States concluded that ‘‘dramatic failures of corporate governanceyat many systematically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis.’’ (The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, 2011, pp. xvii). Some academic studies also emphasize that flaws in bank governance played a key role in the performance of banks (Diamond and Rajan, 2009, and Bebchuk and Spamann, 2010). The idea is generally that banks with poor governance engaged in excessive risk taking, causing them to make larger losses during the crisis because they were riskier. We use two proxies for governance. The first one is the ownership of the controlling shareholder in 2006. The second one is whether the bank had a shareholder-friendly board. To the extent that governance played a role, we would expect banks with better governance to have performed better. It is generally believed that greater ownership by insiders aligns their incentives more closely with the interests of shareholders. However, a powerful controlling shareholder could use control of a bank to benefit other related entities, so that it is not necessarily the case that greater ownership by the controlling shareholder means better alignment of interests of management with shareholders. Some limited evidence shows that banks with higher ownership by the control-ling shareholder performed better. In contrast, a strong and unambiguous relation exists between the extent to which a board was shareholder friendly in 2006 and a bank’s performance during the crisis. Banks with a share-h older-friendly board performed worse during the crisis. The hypothesis that the crisis resulted from excessive risk taking made possible by poor governance would imply the opposite result, so that our evidence poses a considerable challenge to the proponents of that hypothesis. We also investigate whether banks with better governance were less risky in 2006 and find no evidence supportive of that hypothesis either. Banks with more shareholder-friendly boards had a lower distance to default in 2006 but did not have higher idiosyncratic risk or higher leverage than other banks. Like Laeven and Levine (2009), we find that banks with higher controlling shareholder ownership are riskier, as these banks had greater idiosyncratic risk and a lower distance to default before the crisis. Governance and board characteristics are endogenously determined (see, e.g., Hermalin and Weisbach, 1998). In the context of our study, an important form of endogeneity stressed in the literature seems to have little relevance. Though taking into account the possibility that good governance could be caused by expectations about future outcomes generally is important, the banks with more shareholder-friendly boards are highly unlikely to have had such boards because they anticipated the crisis and expected to require better governance during it. At the same time, the concern that governance is significantly related to performance because it is associated with unobserved bank characteristics is important in the context of our study. In fact, the existence of such a relation is the only way to explain the results we find. In other words, shareholder-friendly boards created more value for shareholders through their decisions before the crisis, but during the crisis these decisions were associated with poor outcomes that could not be forecasted. For this explanation to work, these risks must not have been captured by traditional measures because accounting for these measures does not eliminate the relation between governance and performance we document. An example that could explain what we find is that banks with more shareholder-friendly boards invested more aggressively in highly-rated tranches of subprime securitizations. Such investments did not appear risky in 2006 by traditional risk measures, but they did work out poorly for the banks that made them. An alternative explanation for our results is that certain banks optimally chose more shareholder-friendly governance before the crisis because they were exposed to risks that required more independent board monitoring. With this view, the risks were not chosen by the board but instead led to the choice of a shareholder-friendly board. These risks had adverse realizations during the crisis, but because the banks had a shareholder-friendly board, they performed better than they would have had otherwise. With this explanation, banks with good governance had poor returns because of the risks they had, but they would have had even lower returns had they had worse governance. Governance is negatively related to performance in this case because it is correlated with risks that had adverse realizations, but it led to better performance nevertheless. Though we find some support for the latter explanation, neither explanation is consistent with the view that po or bank governance was a first-order cause of the crisis. We use the 2008 World Bank survey on bank regulation to examine the hypothesis that lax regulation led banks to take excessive risks that caused large losses during the crisis (see, e.g.,Dooley, Folkerts-Landau, and Garber (2009), Stiglitz (2010)). We use indices for the power of the regulators, oversight of bank capital, restrictions on bank activities, and private monitoring of banks. There is no convincing evidence that tighter regulation in general was associated with better bank performance during the crisis or with less risky banks before the crisis. In all our regressions, only the index on restrictions of bank activities is positively related to the performance of banks during the crisis.Barth, Caprio, and Levine (1999) show that the banking system is more fragile in countries where banking activities are more restricted. However, some observers, perhaps most visibly the former chair-man of the Federal Reserve System Paul Volcker, have blamed the difficulties of banks during the crisis on their activities not related to making loans and taking deposits. Though we find that large banks in countries where bank activities were more restricted suffered less from the crisis, no evidence exists that such restrictions made banks less risky before the crisis using common measures of risk. Most likely, therefore, to the extent that restrictions on bank activities are associated with better performance of banks during the crisis, it is because traditional bank activities were less exposed to the risks that turned out poorly during the crisis than were newer or less traditional bank activities. In addition, we find that stronger regulations for bank capital were associated with less risk before the crisis. Given the attention paid to the moral hazard resulting from deposit insurance, we investigate whether banks in countries with a deposit insurance scheme performed worse and find no evidence supportive of this hypothesis. However, banks in countries with formal d eposit insurance schemes had higher idiosyncratic risk before the crisis. If banks are impeded from making loans because of poor financial health, economic growth is weaker. It is therefore important to understand whether the variables that help predict returns during the crisis also help explain loan growth. In a related paper,Cornett, McNutt, Strahan, and Tehranian (2011)find that US banks with more exposure to liquidity risk experienced less loan growth during the crisis. We have a much smaller sample than they have, so that our tests do not have as much power as theirs and are less definitive. Nevertheless, we find evidence that is supportive of their results on an international sample composed of much larger banks than the typical bank in their study. Banks with more shareholder friendly boards have lower loan growth during the crisis. Finally, a strong positive relation exists between loan growth and restrictions on bank activities. We also estimate regressions excluding US banks. With these regressions, we can evaluate whether the worse performers were banks from countries where the banking system was more exposed to the US according to the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) statistics. These regressions allow us to assess whether holding US exposures was a contagion channel [see, e.g.,Eichengreen,Mody, Nedeljkovic, and Sarno (2009)for the view that assets were a contagion channel]. We find that banks from countries where the banking system was more exposed to the US performed worse. Our main results hold up in a variety of robustness tests. Our study is limited by the data available. Ideally, we would like to have data on the nature of holdings of securities by banks. However, such data are generally not available. Another limitation of our study is that, in the fall of 2008, countries stepped in with capital injections and other forms of support of banks. Such intervention might have distorted returns. Yet, our results generally hold for returns measured from mid-2007 to just before the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008. Moreover, Panetta, Faeh, Grande, Ho, King, Levy, Sigboretti, Taboga, and Zaghini (2009) show that the announcement of rescue packages did not have a positive impact on bank stock prices across countries. We estimate our regression that includes the indicator variable for whether the board is shareholder-friendly for a sample that includes investment banks and other financial institutions not subject to the Basle Accords (i.e., financ ial institutions that do not report Tier 1 capital and are not subject to the regulations forming the basis for our regulatory variables). We find that our results hold for that sample. The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2,we introduce the data that we use. In Section 3, we examine how the performance of banks during the crisis relates to governance, regulation, balance sheet composition, and country characteristics other than regulation. We also show how these attributes are related to bank risk before the crisis. We conclude in Section 4.

William Wordsworth and Robert Frost - Views on nature. Essay -- Englis

William Wordsworth and Robert Frost - Views on nature. To many people Nature is something of little thought, but when we take time to "stand back" and acknowledge it we can actually see its beauty. Until now a meadow or a tree in a forest to me, was little more than something of everyday life. Now having come to realise the power and force it has upon mans emotions and actions, I realised the thoughts of other people when studying the work of William Wordsworth and Robert Frost. Both poets see Nature in different ways although there are some aspects of the subject which are clearly the same. This view is such a vast subject which is an always changing thing. From the changing seasons to the day- to- day weather Nature never ceases to amaze. For both poets Nature brings the same thing, yet in very different ways. For Robert Frost, the simple scene of a wood (forest) filling slowly up with snow. As for Wordsworth the scene is very much a more vibrant picture as he describes the daffodils in their 'sprightly dance'. To you or me, to see these things is just something that happens and we don't notice it. In today's society such events are not even acknowledged, and there fore people don't normally take the time to experience the occasion. We realise that both Wordsworth and Frost where alone as Wordsworth states 'I wandered lonely' and Frost states-: 'Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though;' Both quotes indicate a sense of loneliness and isolation. Frost looks very deep into Nature as does Wordsworth. Frost sees an escape from life, and Wordsworth sees an escape from feeling down and 'pensive'. For Wordsworth his encounter with Nature gives him a constant thought ... ...nd company' we see a sense of communion here. The use of onomatopoeia makes both poems more homely. 'Fluttering' the delicate movement of the flower. 'Gazed' long sound to emphasise his movement. 'Glance' a swift sound to indicate a quick look. 'Sprightly' energetic and lively sounding. 'Bliss' relaxing sounding. In 'stopping by woods' Frost uses the word 'sweep' to give the soft feeling of how the snow drifts through the trees. 'Downy' indicates again how the flakes slowly drifted down. The word 'down' could refer to the movement of duck down as it falls to the ground. The phrase 'sounds the sweep' make me think of how the wind whispered through the trees carrying the snow. 'sounds the sweep' is also a perfect example of assonance and soft alliteration. There are a few more points I would like to add to this essay after the first draft has been marked.