Greed, Paranoia, and Love Destroying a Real Man :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Many things can destroy a man, but only three things that can destroy a real man, greed, paranoia and love†. I have no idea why I just wrote that last quote, I just thought it would be nice to start my book with something that sounds halfway smart. Anyway, my name is Ammar Barakat, born on the sixth of July 1980. I am not famous, gifted, smart, good-looking or powerful, as a matter of fact, I am not special in anyway. Nevertheless I have decided to write this book to tell my story to the world (hopefully), because believe it or not, I think I have lead an interesting and unique life. Before I go any further I guess I should start telling u about my first few years of life, or what I can remember from it.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  My first memory was when I was three years old; I remember it was me, my brother and my parents sitting in the car and stopping at a mini-market to pick up some chips on our way to the swimming pool. I have no idea why this memory is plastered in my head because there was nothing special about that day; we used to always stop at the mini-market with my brother and parents to pick up some chips on our way to the swimming pool. Although I was born in Syria, I spent the first four years of my life in the United Arab Emirates. My father had a good job, and we lived in a nice house and had a normal life, actually it was ironic since me and my family seemed to be living the American dream in an Arabic country. Since I don’t remember much of the UAE days I cant tell u much about it, all could tell u is that any parent would wish to raise their children in the environment that I was raised in. My father went to work, my mother took care of me and my brother, and al l me and my brother had to worry about was the amount of French- fries we were going to eat at the swimming pool that day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Then, everything changed. The day that I have always feared has come, it was my brothers first day of school. Don’t get me wrong, me and Tareq were never the best of friends, and I wasn’t upset that he was leaving me, oh no, I was jealous of him.

Leadership Management of the Virgin Group Essay

Change is the only constant in the world so when the world changes it is a must for an organisation to have the pace of change, to anticipate a success ahead. Virgin Atlantic has undergone many changes as the case in 1999 49% of Virgin Atlantic’s stake was sold to Singapore Airlines to have a partnership. (virginatlanbtic, 2010) and there was another change in 2008 where Virgin Atlantic started to use bio fuel instead of jet fuel(Virgin Atlantic,2011). When the organization faces challenges like these different situations, leadership styles canadapted to address the challenge. When Virgin Atlantic sold its 49% of stake to Singapore Airlines, it made the following challenges of merging, because now Virgin Atlantic is not fully authorized to change issues of it, it had to rely on Singapore Airlines too, so it can’t adapt an autocratic or bureaucratic leadership style, it should adapt the democratic where each party’s opinion is considered in the process of Virgin Atlantic. Since Richard Branson is a charismatic leader (Grant, 2004). He can easily adapt to any leadership style as it is required by the joint venture. In the case of bio fuel usage too the condition is the same. Being democratic the leader listens to the opinions from others too when there is an issue and can tell them the importance of change for an instance the bio fuel usage reduces green house gas emission in the environment, so it is an environmentally friendly activity. Task 2. 1 Virgin Atlantic is one of the successful products of The virgin Group whose organisational culture is quite complex, because this specific organisation has got more than 100 companies with often completely unrelated products. The Virgin Atlantic was too launched to expand the brand value of The Virgin Group, so having an understanding about The Virgin Group tells what kind of organisational strategy is followed in the Virgin Atlantic. It tries to create the loyalty of the customers; the innovative management inspires the employees to be actively engaged in the organisation (http://ivythesis. typepad. com/term_paper_topics/2010/07/case-study-richard-branson-and-the-virgin-group-of-companies-. html, 2010). Many leadership theories have influence over such organisational strategy of Virgin Atlantic. The transformational leadership can have positive impact on the development of the organisation. The possibility of having transformational leadership is assured where all united together as an organisation with sense of commitment (Naughtin), since Virgin Atlantic has a team work with the involvement of each employee, this leaderships favours the health of its organisational strategy, because here the group works under a common goal like increasing the image of Virgin Group in the world, which definitely increases the overall efficiency. Transactional leadership is something different from transformational, in transactional leadership personal performance of leadership is mainly concerned ,which can lead to greed and lack of team work. According to the organisational behaviour pattern of Virgin Atlantic this leadership theory won’t work well because, although the chairman is Richard Branson, he is not one, but million ones together who has the interest on Virgin Atlantic. So this style rarely helps to increase the performance of Virgin Atlantic. Task 2. 2 As stated above the vision of Virgin Atlantic is â€Å"to grow a profitable airline where people love to fly, and where people love to work†. Virgin Group has gone far in achieving this, but to be the one of the leading world’s airline, the organisation should have a realistic strategy with many features, that supports the direction of the organisation. Being a transformational and charismatic leader (Richard Branson) is the best to navigate Virgin Atlantic in the path of success (Virgin Atlantic, 2011).

Discovery Rules

Criminal or civil litigation is the last resort for seeking justice from the system. Given the large number of litigation suits filed in democratic countries as the United States, there is a need to seek recompense in justice outside the legal system or before parties concerned agree to bring the issue to a court of law. These measures however need to be institutionalized so that both parties are satisfied with the processes and are encouraged to resolve the matter outside the court of law.The mechanism of discovery rules is one such instrument which has provided for pre-trial phase in a law suit. The discovery procedure allows the parties in a law suit to request for evidence including documents from the other parties. The law provides for making such requests which could be for production as well as depositions. If required sub poenas can be issued for production of evidence. The discovery rules if used purposefully can lead to minimizing litigations as well as provide justice to l itigants.The aim of the prosecution is to collect sufficient evidence to establish veracity of the case and to ensure justice. However frequently the prosecution acts as an instrument to prove guilt of the accused. This mistaken notion results in subverting the very process that is required to be undertaken under the discovery rules. To avoid this anomaly it is essential that the prosecution discloses all evidence to the accused in a criminal case prior to the trial.Having so displayed information in all respects, be it exculpatory or inculpatory by the prosecution, the defendant will be able to establish culpability of the offence and in turn decide either to challenge the case or to disclose as much evidence as possible for the prosecution to assess if the case is to be pursued or will achieve the ends of justice. The defendant is granted very justifiably protection under the Fifth Amendment, a privilege of attorney-client relationship as well as against self recrimination because of which he should not be required to disclose evidence to the prosecution.This ensures that practical problems of implementing discovery rules are overcome. Prosecution can misuse discovery rules to extract maximum evidence regarding the case to strengthen arguments rather than seeking ends of justice. As Stracher (1998) has indicated the best legal minds are involved in manipulation of evidence rather than seeking ends of justice. Thus it would be appropriate for the defendant is able to exercise privileges granted in the present socio-legal environment.

Operations management Essay

McDonald’s Corporation is the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants. They’ve proudly served more than 46 million customers in 59 different countries and currently have more than 30,000 different locations worldwide. The fast food industry is booming at a rapid rate, especially the health conscious food options. With this in mind, McDonald’s has a strategic plan to stay on top of their competitors by providing consumers with affordable prices, great service, and more healthy meal options. McDonald’s is competitive in many categories, including price, quality, management and employee training. Consumers trust McDonald’s products because they use many of the same trusted brands that families buy at local grocery stores. Operations Strategy â€Å"In many companies, the key to success is often an operations-based advantage. Superior operations effectiveness not only serves to buttress a company’s existing competitive position, but, when based on capabilities that are embedded in the company’s people and operating processes, is inherently difficult to imitate.† –R. H. Hayes and D. M. Upton, â€Å"Opeations-based Strategy.† California Management Review, Summer, 1998. McDonald’s utilizes an excellent operations strategy in order to gain a larger market share and increase value to the shareholders. The corporation specifically focuses on speed, standardization, quality, and affordability. McDonalds has moved ahead of the competition by focusing on these factors. McDonald’s competes on three main bases, such as speed, affordability, and standardization, mainly to make their customers happy. Through extensive market research and surveys, the organization discovered that its customers desired speed as one of the restaurants’ top priorities. Therefore, McDonald’s vision aims to â€Å"provide fast, friendly and accurate service† (â€Å"McDonald’s Worldwide†). McDonald’s realized that specific targets are necessary to measure the performance of speed; therefore, they continuously take relevant measurements to compare actual performance with desired targets. From the customer’s order, to the making of the burger, and till the customer leaves the restaurant, speed is a key factor in McDonald’s operation strategy. To reduce the amount of time it takes to provide services, the company uses standardized training processes for its employees and new drive-thru layouts. Along with speed, McDonald’s also competes by offering prices at a low cost. McDonald’s organization recently underwent drastic strategy changes to better serve their customers. Under their previous system, the company would make several sandwiches at once, and hold the sandwiches in a warming bin until purchased by a customer. Under this system, management had to precisely predict how much food had to be put on hold. Precise prediction had to be used because if there were not enough food placed on hold, this would create the problem of increase waiting times for customers, and too much food would cause waste of expired items. McDonald’s dramatically changed their strategy in order to stay competitive with other fast food organizations. Product development Organisations exist to provide products and services which can be purchased by other organisations or an individual. Therefore planning of products and services is one of the most important operations of any organisation. It involves designing products with both economy and quality in mind, which a customer will find attractive, be able to understand and quickly able to use with minimum risk and which delights him or her by its performance or flavour or durability etc. (Bicheno, 2002; p51) In McDonald’s Restaurants, product development is a key operation. It has to keep on adding new products to its menu so as to meet the needs of the customers as their needs and preferences are constantly changing. For instance, the increasing preference of consumers towards healthy food made the restaurant add healthier food items to its menu. Similarly it has to add new products for different seasons, for examples hot coffee in winter and milkshakes in summer. Capacity Control The second operation decision important for organisations is capacity planning. Capacity planning and control is the task of setting the effective capacity of the operation so that it can respond to the demands placed upon it. This normally means determining how the operation should respond to fluctuations in demand. Operations managers usually distinguish between short, medium and long-term capacity decisions. For short- and medium-term capacity planning, the capacity level of the operation is adjusted within the fixed physical limits that are set by long-term capacity decisions. This is also referred to as aggregate planning and control because it is necessary to aggregate the various types of output from an operation into one figure. (source: http://www.mas.dti.gov.uk/content/resources/categories/fact/FACT_Capacity_planning.html) In McDonalds Restaurant, the operations managers have to set its capacity of making food items in such a way that it responds quickly to the demands of those items in peak hours which is very important for a fast food restaurant like McDonalds. It also have to make sure that it has enough stock of ingredients to prepare food items which is very important because if one ingredients fall short then the whole process of making food may halt. For instance if the buns required for making hamburgers falls short then the restaurant may not be able to sell any hamburgers even if it has enough quantities of other ingredients. Facility location Location planning is one of the important operations that every organisation carries out and it is essentially one of the critical success factors for any organisation. Success or failure of any organisation may well depend on the location where it is situated. Therefore it is very important for businesses to choose an ideal location. Businesses may choose location on the basis of various factors such as proximity to the source of raw material, cost-effectiveness, proximity to customers or suppliers, competition in the area, transportation availability and cost, availability of resources, and availability of right labour. McDonalds Restaurants also have to plan their location in such a way so that maximum customers visit their restaurants. Therefore McDonalds prefer locations such that it can have large customer base, transport access and availability of parking space. Moreover it also prefers locations that are suitable for raw material delivery that is availability of ample space for deliveries of raw material. Process design: After developing the product the businesses have to develop processes for making and supporting the product. Organisations have to identify appropriate processes which will be needed to achieve required level of output of the planned goods and services at right quality standards. Organisation considers both the traditional methods in which the organisation has handled and processed its products and services and the possible alternatives which currently present themselves. That is, it considers the advancement of technology, computing power, and evolving managerial expertise. Bicheno, 2002; p99 In McDonalds restaurant also, the operations manager develop and establishes the process of cooking food items so that food is prepared using that method which helps them to maintain the speed and the quality of the food. Moreover it also designs processes so that the health, safety and hygiene issues are taken into consideration. Also the managers keep on introducing latest equipments with the advancement of technology so as to bring pace, perfection and quality in the product. Layout Design Layout is the arrangement of facility to provide working, service and reception, storage and administrative areas. The layout is designed by traditional techniques using templates, scale plans, string diagrams, and travel charting as they have been proved as low-cost methods of achieving either optimal or near optimal layout plans. Poor layouts can greatly reduce the overall capacity and overall productivity. Therefore care must be taken by organisation when designing layout. (Bicheno, 2002; p121) In McDonalds Restaurant also layout designing is a very important operation. A proper layout of the equipments in the kitchen is very essential to ensure preparation of quality food in less time. It also designs its layout keeping in mind the health and safety issues. It also designs layout in such a way that needs of supervision is minimised. Another factor that is considered is the cost of production which also depends on the layout. . Inventory Management Inventory management is another important operation of any organisation. It involves choosing the best method of inventory control. While choosing the method of inventory control, the organisations must keep in mind the expected demands of the products. The basis on which the organisations choose their methods of inventory control may differ but the common idea is to ensure that the mix of inventory types is able to satisfy customer needsand deliver the required profitability and cash flows. In McDonalds the inventory is managed on the basis of First-In-First-Out basis. This is because most of the inventory consists of perishable items. Therefore delivery of inventory happens thrice or more times a week depending on the business of the restaurant. Moreover inventory is stored in freezer with proper packaging so as to ensure freshness of the food items. All this activities comes under inventory management of the organisation. Quality Management Quality management consists of maintaining the quality of the goods and services so as to meet the minimum requirements laid by the industry. Moreover it is important so as to keep up the reputation of the organisation. To manage and maintain the quality of the products and services the organisation may adopt a number of practices like quality checks procedure etc. Quality in McDonald restaurant is very important because of two reasons. Firstly because of the legal requirements of the quality of food served. Secondly ,to keep up the good reputation which McDonalds restaurants have earned over the years. Quality of food can be very difficult to maintain and therefore McDonalds restaurant carry on a number of practices to make sure that quality food is served. Some of these practices are the visits by the food inspector from the head office, supervisor checks etc. Maintenance Maintenance means preservation of the things in the organisation. In simple words, maintenance is way of protecting your production workers, office workers, drivers, and all the other users of your organization’s assets. (http://www.maintenanceresources.com/ReferenceLibrary/MaintenanceManagement/The_Battle_of_Maintenance.htm) In McDonalds, there are several equipments that are used for the preparation of food. Therefore it is very important to maintain and service those equipments so as to maintain the quality of the product, safety of the employees and to avoid further costs of repairing machines. Another important things that needs maintenance are hygiene, costs, quality etc. CONCLUSION: Therefore we conclude that operations management is very important for any organisations as they have a relationship with the overall strategy of the organisation. Operations management contributes to the strategy and therefore helps the organisation to gain competitive advantage. For instance, process planning can help the organisation reduce cost and gain cost advantages and therefore gain competitive advantage. Therefore the organisations must effectively manage the operations of the business as it has a massive effect on the strategy of the organisation Bibilgraphy Chase, R., Jacobs, F., Aquilano, N. Operations Management for Competitive Advantage (10th Edition). McGraw-Hill Irwin; Boston; 2004. Howard, Lisa. â€Å"Suppliers.† June 19, 2003. Accessed online on November 8, 2004 at: . Kerin, R., Berkowitz, E., Hartley, S., Rudelius, W. Marketing (7th Edition). McGraw- Hill Irwin; Boston; 2003. Lessnau, Ronald, Current McDonald’s Owner. Personal Interview â€Å"McDonald’s Worldwide Corporate Responsibility Report 2004.† Accessed online on October Phillips, Eddie, Prior McDonald’s Manager, Personal Interview, Phillips, Kenny, Current McDonald’s Manager. Personal Interview, October 27, 2010 â€Å"Restaurant Management.† McDonald’s Restaurant Management Careers. Accessed online Zuber, Amy. â€Å"Big Mac, Big Value: McD to Lower Prices;† Accessed online at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles /mi_m3190/is_50_35/ai_80748686. View as multi-pages Topics in this document

Historical significance of the US Airline Deregulation and the Open Essay

Historical significance of the US Airline Deregulation and the Open Skies Treaty-future international deregulation of the Commercial Airlines Transport - Essay Example In 1978, the US Congress deregulated the airline industry. The underlying principle of airline deregulation was that struggle among airlines would substitute government regulation in deciding fare and service assistance. The initial years of airline deregulation were distinguished by era of strong rivalry among the main airlines in addition to by competition from new-entrant airlines and from airlines previously restricted to intrastate markets.In the years between the inception of airline deregulation in 1978 and the upsurge of mergers starting in 1985, most of deregulation's advantages to customers came in the form of enhanced service and reduced fares as a result of contest from new participants and from the major network airlines themselves.The capacity to supply new and emergent markets, to shape broader route networks, and to charge low fares had been firmly controlled by regulation. These restructured services could be put into practice in no small degree as a result of advanc es in technology that facilitated the growth of advanced yield management systems. Such systems help airlines to present and to rapidly change the combination of high and low-fare seat capacity on a particular flight, in addition to manage both origin and destination and emanate traffic over the whole complex.As the restrictions on airline operations were raised by deregulation and the airlines promptly employed their new route and fare choice, customers in many markets acquired considerable gains. After the late-1980s mergers, nonetheless, the source of deregulation's gains started to change. The gains progressively became less caused by the actions of the main network airlines and more due to the actions of a small number of low-fare carriers. In the late 1990s, the major airlines' domestic route networks had become quite established and were built around hub airports usually dictated by a single carrier. These hub-based networks created geographic zones in which each key network airline has large presence and market power, particularly in short-haul, smaller markets. Consequently, the advantages of deregulation have all the time more come from contest among major network airlines in long-haul markets and from reduced fares in short-haul markets operated by low-fare airlines. In many of the markets not operated by low-fare airlines, the advantages of deregulation may well be eroding. Certainly, entrance by a low-fare carrier either into the industry or into a new market is not simple. Nevertheless, it is significant that new airlines have a prospect to vie for business on the strength of the product or services they present, rather than be required to deal with predatory practices by the serving carriers. Significance of the US Airline Deregulation: An Introduction The Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 acted for the government's authority over fares and service and facilitated market dynamics to decide the price and scale of domestic airline service in the USA. Despite the fact overall fares have dropped and service has improved since deregulation, these gains have not been uniformly distributed all over the markets. In reality reported on the weak assets of some airlines that have caused insolvency and pension termination, 1 particularly among those airlines whose operations pre-date deregulation. Opponents of deregulation, that include some researchers, have named industry

Proposing to work flextime Case Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Proposing to work flextime - Case Study Example It will aid the bosses on getting to the right decision whether to approve the said proposal or not. For this reason, the employee should mash up all his or her efforts in order to present a well documented template. If he or she really wants to get the approval of the boss, then he or she should clearly define the things that he or she would be able to do given the chance to telecommute. In any other circumstances, in order for one to arrive at an excellent decision and the right choice, he must first look on different sides. He should weigh the consequences whether that would bring him a great deal or it would just cause him trouble. And in business, managers always choose the one that would of course, bring him triumph. So if an employee wanted to get his proposal approved, then he should provide the things that he thinks would be beneficial for the growth of the company. A manager would resist a proposal that would seem to jeopardize the company’s operations. A manager would not approve a proposal if he thinks it would mean less productivity on the employee’s part. Telecommuting might not be applicable for everybody. An employee must show why he deserves to get the approval for his proposal and it must be on the positive side. Else, the manager may think he is just wasting time on trying to convince him that such employee needs to telecommute. As stated earlier, telecommuting might not be applicable for everybody. It might be because the proposal does not seem right. But most of the time, it is only because of the employee’s doings. For everything we do, there is what we call ethics or the norms on how things should be. Even in work, ethics is present. And according to Ferrell and Fraedrich (2008), work ethics should be properly exhibited. This would most likely be the criteria as to how well you can do work. It is the basis to which all are dependent to – promotion, salary increase, incentives and so on. Some of

E-Recruiting Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

E-Recruiting - Essay Example Several measures exist in which human resource professionals can use online recruiting to support recruitment effectively and at lower costs. One of such measures is by completing the recruitment exercise faster. Online recruitment is faster as information can reach target people instantly to facilitate faster response. This helps human resource department to meet its urgent human resource needs such as overcoming the challenge of abrupt and significant employee turnover. Shortening the recruitment period also saves money in case of use of recruitment consultants and saves time and associated cost that an organization’s personnel would use in recruiting over a longer period. Human resource professionals can also use online recruitment to eliminate intermediaries such as recruitment firms. Personal interest in an organization, which internal human resource professionals have, is likely to improve diligence and limit the recruitment process to an organization’s financial potentials by eliminating additional human resource cost of recruitment. Reliance on computerized approaches also improves validity and reliability of the recruitment process to ensure effectiveness and reduce possible future costs in repeating recruitment processes (Leung, Nkhoma, and John, 2013). Other ways in which human resource professionals can utilize online recruitment to support recruitment and reduce associated cost are widening target number of applicants, expanding target geographical regions at no extra cost, and reducing administrative procedures that challenge recruitment processes. Expanded target population increases the probability of obtaining best personnel and there is the benefit of no extra cost in the expansion. Administrative processes in recruitment exercises such as meetings and travels are also costly in terms of allowances and lost time that could be used in other