Ethical Scrapbook

In any profession unethical behavior can be present, it is ultimately up to the individuals. They have to decide what is ethically right and not take short cuts or engage in unethical behavior. The banking profession, such as bank tellers, is exposed to large amounts of money. They can choose to be ethical and not attempt to steal from their clients, or they can act unethically by choosing to steal money. Another profession is research, there are conditions that exist for unethical behavior. When researchers conduct experiments, they usually write a report about their results.If the results do not go in the direction that they wanted them to, this gives the researchers an opportunity to act unethically. They can either choose to act ethically, and report the true results from the experiment, or they can choose to act unethically, and report the results in a manner that will benefit them. â€Å"In the process of making decisions regarding their professional behavior, psychologists mu st consider this Ethics Code in addition to applicable laws and psychology board regulations.In applying the Ethics Code to their professional work, psychologists may consider other materials and guidelines that have been adopted or endorsed by scientific and professional psychological organizations and the dictates of their own conscience, as well as consult with others within the field. If this Ethics Code establishes a higher standard of conduct than is required by law, psychologists must meet the higher ethical standard.If psychologists’ ethical responsibilities conflict with law, regulations or other governing legal authority, psychologists make known their commitment to this Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner in keeping with basic principles of human rights† (American Psychological Association, 2014). Another profession is professional sports, the athlete could take enhancement drugs to improve themselves at the sport, like taking steroids which is also against the law.Most athletes choose to  do what is ethical and stay away from drugs to ensure that they keep their jobs and the respect of their fans. In medical professions, doctors could take the unethical route and give their patients their drug of choice just to satisfy them, but doctors that admire what they do will be ethical and give the patient what they need and get them help if they are showing signs of drug abuse. â€Å"Within the patient-physician relationship, a physician is ethically required to use sound medical judgment, holding the best interests of the patient as paramount† (The Patient-Physician Relationship, 2001).Pharmaceutical companies are a profession that also has to choose to be ethical or unethical. The individuals that work for pharmaceutical companies are tempted to take medication for their own use. They may steal medications to sell them to make money for themselves. Politics also can contribute to ethical or une thical behavior. If politicians do not like something, they try to hide it from Americans, or they may not tell the whole truth of certain facts. Politicians are famous for covering all of the facts up.

A Brief History of Hci

A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology Brad A. Myers Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science Technical Report CMU-CS-96-163 and Human Computer Interaction Institute Technical Report CMU-HCII-96-103 December, 1996 Please cite this work as: Brad A. Myers. â€Å"A Brief History of Human Computer Interaction Technology. † ACM interactions. Vol. 5, no. 2, March, 1998. pp. 44-54. Human Computer Interaction Institute School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3891 [email  protected] gp. s. cmu. edu Abstract This article summarizes the historical development of major advances in human-computer interaction technology, emphasizing the pivotal role of university research in the advancement of the field. Copyright (c) 1996 — Carnegie Mellon University A short excerpt from this article appeared as part of â€Å"Strategic Directions in Human Computer Interaction,† edited by Brad Myers, Jim Hollan, Isabel Cruz, A CM Computing Surveys, 28(4), December 1996 This research was partially sponsored by NCCOSC under Contract No. N66001-94-C-6037, Arpa Order No. B326 and partially by NSF under grant number IRI-9319969. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of NCCOSC or the U. S. Government. Keywords: Human Computer Interaction, History, User Interfaces, Interaction Techniques. [pic] 1. Introduction Research in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) has been spectacularly uccessful, and has fundamentally changed computing. Just one example is the ubiquitous graphical interface used by Microsoft Windows 95, which is based on the Macintosh, which is based on work at Xerox PARC, which in turn is based on early research at the Stanford Research Laboratory (now SRI) and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Another example is that virtually all software written today employs user interface toolkits and interface builders, concepts which were developed first at universities. Even the spectacular growth of the World-Wide Web is a direct result of HCI research: applying hypertext technology to browsers allows one to traverse a link across the world with a click of the mouse. Interface improvements more than anything else has triggered this explosive growth. Furthermore, the research that will lead to the user interfaces for the computers of tomorrow is happening at universities and a few corporate research labs. This paper tries to briefly summarize many of the important research developments in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) technology. By â€Å"research,† I mean exploratory work at universities and government and corporate research labs (such as Xerox PARC) that is not directly related to products. By â€Å"HCI technology,† I am referring to the computer side of HCI. A companion article on the history of the â€Å"human side,† discussing the contributions from psychology, design, human factors and ergonomics would also be appropriate. A motivation for this article is to overcome the mistaken impression that much of the important work in Human-Computer Interaction occurred in industry, and if university research in Human-Computer Interaction is not supported, then industry will just carry on anyway. This is simply not true. This paper tries to show that many of the most famous HCI successes developed by companies are deeply rooted in university research. In fact, virtually all of today's major interface styles and applications have had significant influence from research at universities and labs, often with government funding. To illustrate this, this paper lists the funding sources of some of the major advances. Without this research, many of the advances in the field of HCI would probably not have taken place, and as a consequence, the user interfaces of commercial products would be far more difficult to use and learn than they are today. As described by Stu Card: â€Å"Government funding of advanced human-computer interaction technologies built the intellectual capital and trained the research teams for pioneer systems that, over a period of 25 years, revolutionized how people interact with computers. Industrial research laboratories at the corporate level in Xerox, IBM, AT&T, and others played a strong role in developing this technology and bringing it into a form suitable for the commercial arena. † [6, p. 162]). Figure 1 shows time lines for some of the technologies discussed in this article. Of course, a deeper analysis would reveal much interaction between the university, corporate research and commercial activity streams. It is important to appreciate that years of research are involved in creating and making these technologies ready for widespread use. The same will be true for the HCI technologies that will provide the interfaces of tomorrow. It is clearly impossible to list every system and source in a paper of this scope, but I have tried to represent the earliest and most influential systems. Although there are a number of other surveys of HCI topics (see, for example [1] [10] [33] [38]), none cover as many aspects as this one, or try to be as comprehensive in finding the original influences. Another useful resource is the video â€Å"All The Widgets,† which shows the historical progression of a number of user interface ideas [25]. The technologies covered in this paper include fundamental interaction styles like direct manipulation, the mouse pointing device, and windows; several important kinds of application areas, such as drawing, text editing and spreadsheets; the technologies that will likely have the biggest impact on interfaces of the future, such as gesture recognition, multimedia, and 3D; and the technologies used to create interfaces using the other technologies, such as user interface management systems, toolkits, and interface builders. [pic] [pic] Figure 1: Approximate time lines showing where work was performed on some major technologies discussed in this article. [pic] 2. Basic Interactions †¢ Direct Manipulation of graphical objects: The now ubiquitous direct manipulation interface, where visible objects on the screen are directly manipulated with a pointing device, was first demonstrated by Ivan Sutherland in Sketchpad [44], which was his 1963 MIT PhD thesis. SketchPad supported the manipulation of objects using a light-pen, including grabbing objects, moving them, changing size, and using constraints. It contained the seeds of myriad important interface ideas. The system was built at Lincoln Labs with support from the Air Force and NSF. William Newman's Reaction Handler [30], created at Imperial College, London (1966-67) provided direct manipulation of graphics, and introduced â€Å"Light Handles,† a form of graphical potentiometer, that was probably the first â€Å"widget. † Another early system was AMBIT/G (implemented at MIT's Lincoln Labs, 1968, ARPA funded). It employed, among other interface techniques, iconic representations, gesture recognition, dynamic menus with items selected using a pointing device, selection of icons by pointing, and moded and mode-free styles of interaction. David Canfield Smith coined the term â€Å"icons† in his 1975 Stanford PhD thesis on Pygmalion [41] (funded by ARPA and NIMH) and Smith later popularized icons as one of the chief designers of the Xerox Star [42]. Many of the interaction techniques popular in direct manipulation interfaces, such as how objects and text are selected, opened, and manipulated, were researched at Xerox PARC in the 1970's. In particular, the idea of â€Å"WYSIWYG† (what you see is what you get) originated there with systems such as the Bravo text editor and the Draw drawing program [10] The concept of direct manipulation interfaces for everyone was envisioned by Alan Kay of Xerox PARC in a 1977 article about the â€Å"Dynabook† [16]. The first commercial systems to make extensive use of Direct Manipulation were the Xerox Star (1981) [42], the Apple Lisa (1982) [51] and Macintosh (1984) [52]. Ben Shneiderman at the University of Maryland coined the term â€Å"Direct Manipulation† in 1982 and identified the components and gave psychological foundations [40]. The Mouse: The mouse was developed at Stanford Research Laboratory (now SRI) in 1965 as part of the NLS project (funding from ARPA, NASA, and Rome ADC) [9] to be a cheap replacement for light-pens, which had been used at least since 1954 [10, p. 68]. Many of the current uses of the mouse were demonstrated by Doug Engelbart as par t of NLS in a movie created in 1968 [8]. The mouse was then made famous as a practical input device by Xerox PARC in the 1970's. It first appeared commercially as part of the Xerox Star (1981), the Three Rivers Computer Company's PERQ (1981) [23], the Apple Lisa (1982), and Apple Macintosh (1984). Windows: Multiple tiled windows were demonstrated in Engelbart's NLS in 1968 [8]. Early research at Stanford on systems like COPILOT (1974) [46] and at MIT with the EMACS text editor (1974) [43] also demonstrated tiled windows. Alan Kay proposed the idea of overlapping windows in his 1969 University of Utah PhD thesis [15] and they first appeared in 1974 in his Smalltalk system [11] at Xerox PARC, and soon after in the InterLisp system [47]. Some of the first commercial uses of windows were on Lisp Machines Inc. (LMI) and Symbolics Lisp Machines (1979), which grew out of MIT AI Lab projects. The Cedar Window Manager from Xerox PARC was the first major tiled window manager (1981) [45], followed soon by the Andrew window manager [32] by Carnegie Mellon University's Information Technology Center (1983, funded by IBM). The main commercial systems popularizing windows were the Xerox Star (1981), the Apple Lisa (1982), and most importantly the Apple Macintosh (1984). The early versions of the Star and Microsoft Windows were tiled, but eventually they supported overlapping windows like the Lisa and Macintosh. The X Window System, a current international standard, was developed at MIT in 1984 [39]. For a survey of window managers, see [24]. 3. Application Types †¢ Drawing programs: Much of the current technology was demonstrated in Sutherland's 1963 Sketchpad system. The use of a mouse for graphics was demonstrated in NLS (1965). In 1968 Ken Pulfer and Grant Bechthold at the National Research Council of Canada built a mouse out of wood patterned after Engelbart's and used it with a key-frame animation system to draw all the frames of a movie. A subsequent movie, â€Å"Hunger† in 1971 won a number of awards, and was drawn using a tablet instead of the mouse (funding by the National Film Board of Canada) [3]. William Newman's Markup (1975) was the first drawing program for Xerox PARC's Alto, followed shortly by Patrick Baudelaire's Draw which added handling of lines and curves [10, p. 326]. The first computer painting program was probably Dick Shoup's â€Å"Superpaint† at PARC (1974-75). †¢ Text Editing: In 1962 at the Stanford Research Lab, Engelbart proposed, and later implemented, a word processor with automatic word wrap, search and replace, user-definable macros, scrolling text, and commands to move, copy, and delete characters, words, or blocks of text. Stanford's TVEdit (1965) was one of the first CRT-based display editors that was widely used [48]. The Hypertext Editing System [50, p. 108] from Brown University had screen editing and formatting of arbitrary-sized strings with a lightpen in 1967 (funding from IBM). NLS demonstrated mouse-based editing in 1968. TECO from MIT was an early screen-editor (1967) and EMACS [43] developed from it in 1974. Xerox PARC's Bravo [10, p. 284] was the first WYSIWYG editor-formatter (1974). It was designed by Butler Lampson and Charles Simonyi who had started working on these concepts around 1970 while at Berkeley. The first commercial WYSIWYG editors were the Star, LisaWrite and then MacWrite. For a survey of text editors, see [22] [50, p. 108]. †¢ Spreadsheets: The initial spreadsheet was VisiCalc which was developed by Frankston and Bricklin (1977-8) for the Apple II while they were students at MIT and the Harvard Business School. The solver was based on a dependency-directed backtracking algorithm by Sussman and Stallman at the MIT AI Lab. †¢ HyperText: The idea for hypertext (where documents are linked to related documents) is credited to Vannevar Bush's famous MEMEX idea from 1945 [4]. Ted Nelson coined the term â€Å"hypertext† in 1965 [29]. Engelbart's NLS system [8] at the Stanford Research Laboratories in 1965 made extensive use of linking (funding from ARPA, NASA, and Rome ADC). The â€Å"NLS Journal† [10, p. 212] was one of the first on-line journals, and it included full linking of articles (1970). The Hypertext Editing System, jointly designed by Andy van Dam, Ted Nelson, and two students at Brown University (funding from IBM) was distributed extensively [49]. The University of Vermont's PROMIS (1976) was the first Hypertext system released to the user community. It was used to link patient and patient care information at the University of Vermont's medical center. The ZOG project (1977) from CMU was another early hypertext system, and was funded by ONR and DARPA [36]. Ben Shneiderman's Hyperties was the first system where highlighted items in the text could be clicked on to go to other pages (1983, Univ. of Maryland) [17]. HyperCard from Apple (1988) significantly helped to bring the idea to a wide audience. There have been many other hypertext systems through the years. Tim Berners-Lee used the hypertext idea to create the World Wide Web in 1990 at the government-funded European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN). Mosaic, the irst popular hypertext browser for the World-Wide Web was developed at the Univ. of Illinois' National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA). For a more complete history of HyperText, see [31]. †¢ Computer Aided Design (CAD): The same 1963 IFIPS conference at which Sketchpad was presented also contained a number of CAD systems, including Doug Ross's Computer-Aided Design Project at MIT in the Electronic Syste ms Lab [37] and Coons' work at MIT with SketchPad [7]. Timothy Johnson's pioneering work on the interactive 3D CAD system Sketchpad 3 [13] was his 1963 MIT MS thesis (funded by the Air Force). The first CAD/CAM system in industry was probably General Motor's DAC-1 (about 1963). †¢ Video Games: The first graphical video game was probably SpaceWar by Slug Russel of MIT in 1962 for the PDP-1 [19, p. 49] including the first computer joysticks. The early computer Adventure game was created by Will Crowther at BBN, and Don Woods developed this into a more sophisticated Adventure game at Stanford in 1966 [19, p. 132]. Conway's game of LIFE was implemented on computers at MIT and Stanford in 1970. The first popular commercial game was Pong (about 1976). 4. Up-and-Coming Areas Gesture Recognition: The first pen-based input device, the RAND tablet, was funded by ARPA. Sketchpad used light-pen gestures (1963). Teitelman in 1964 developed the first trainable gesture recognizer. A very early demonstration of gesture recognition was Tom Ellis' GRAIL system on the RAND tablet (1964, ARPA funded). It was quite common in light-pen-based systems to include some gesture recognition, for example in the AMBIT/G system (1968 — ARPA funded). A gesture-based text editor using proof-reading symbols was developed at CMU by Michael Coleman in 1969. Bill Buxton at the University of Toronto has been studying gesture-based interactions since 1980. Gesture recognition has been used in commercial CAD systems since the 1970s, and came to universal notice with the Apple Newton in 1992. †¢ Multi-Media: The FRESS project at Brown used multiple windows and integrated text and graphics (1968, funding from industry). The Interactive Graphical Documents project at Brown was the first hypermedia (as opposed to hypertext) system, and used raster graphics and text, but not video (1979-1983, funded by ONR and NSF). The Diamond project at BBN (starting in 1982, DARPA funded) explored combining multimedia information (text, spreadsheets, graphics, speech). The Movie Manual at the Architecture Machine Group (MIT) was one of the first to demonstrate mixed video and computer graphics in 1983 (DARPA funded). †¢ 3-D: The first 3-D system was probably Timothy Johnson's 3-D CAD system mentioned above (1963, funded by the Air Force). The â€Å"Lincoln Wand† by Larry Roberts was an ultrasonic 3D location sensing system, developed at Lincoln Labs (1966, ARPA funded). That system also had the first interactive 3-D hidden line elimination. An early use was for molecular modelling [18]. The late 60's and early 70's saw the flowering of 3D raster graphics research at the University of Utah with Dave Evans, Ivan Sutherland, Romney, Gouraud, Phong, and Watkins, much of it government funded. Also, the military-industrial flight simulation work of the 60's – 70's led the way to making 3-D real-time with commercial systems from GE, Evans, Singer/Link (funded by NASA, Navy, etc. ). Another important center of current research in 3-D is Fred Brooks' lab at UNC (e. g. [2]). Virtual Reality and â€Å"Augmented Reality†: The original work on VR was performed by Ivan Sutherland when he was at Harvard (1965-1968, funding by Air Force, CIA, and Bell Labs). Very important early work was by Tom Furness when he was at Wright-Patterson AFB. Myron Krueger's early work at the University of Connecticut was influential. Fred Brooks' and Henry Fuch's groups at UNC did a lot of early research, including the study of force feedbac k (1971, funding from US Atomic Energy Commission and NSF). Much of the early research on head-mounted displays and on the DataGlove was supported by NASA. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Doug Engelbart's 1968 demonstration of NLS [8] included the remote participation of multiple people at various sites (funding from ARPA, NASA, and Rome ADC). Licklider and Taylor predicted on-line interactive communities in an 1968 article [20] and speculated about the problem of access being limited to the privileged. Electronic mail, still the most widespread multi-user software, was enabled by the ARPAnet, which became operational in 1969, and by the Ethernet from Xerox PARC in 1973. An early computer conferencing system was Turoff's EIES system at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (1975). †¢ Natural language and speech: The fundamental research for speech and natural language understanding and generation has been performed at CMU, MIT, SRI, BBN, IBM, AT Bell Labs and BellCore, much of it government funded. See, for example, [34] for a survey of the early work. 5. Software Tools and Architectures The area of user interface software tools is quite active now, and many companies are selling tools. Most of today's applications are implemented using various forms of software tools. For a more complete survey and discussion of UI tools, see [26]. †¢ UIMSs and Toolkits: (There are software libraries and tools that support creating interfaces by writing code. ) The first User Interface Management System (UIMS) was William Newman's Reaction Handler [30] created at Imperial College, London (1966-67 with SRC funding). Most of the early work was done at universities (Univ. of Toronto with Canadian government funding, George Washington Univ. with NASA, NSF, DOE, and NBS funding, Brigham Young University with industrial funding, etc. . The term â€Å"UIMS† was coined by David Kasik at Boeing (1982) [14]. Early window managers such as Smalltalk (1974) and InterLisp, both from Xerox PARC, came with a few widgets, such as popup menus and scrollbars. The Xerox Star (1981) was the first commercial system to have a large collection of widgets. The Apple Macintosh (1984) was the first to actively promote its toolkit for use by other developers to enforce a consiste nt interface. An early C++ toolkit was InterViews [21], developed at Stanford (1988, industrial funding). Much of the modern research is being performed at universities, for example the Garnet (1988) [28] and Amulet (1994) [27] projects at CMU (ARPA funded), and subArctic at Georgia Tech (1996, funding by Intel and NSF). †¢ Interface Builders: (These are interactive tools that allow interfaces composed of widgets such as buttons, menus and scrollbars to be placed using a mouse. ) The Steamer project at BBN (1979-85; ONR funding) demonstrated many of the ideas later incorporated into interface builders and was probably the first object-oriented graphics system. Trillium [12] was developed at Xerox PARC in 1981. Another early interface builder was the MenuLay system [5] developed by Bill Buxton at the University of Toronto (1983, funded by the Canadian Government). The Macintosh (1984) included a â€Å"Resource Editor† which allowed widgets to be placed and edited. Jean-Marie Hullot created â€Å"SOS Interface† in Lisp for the Macintosh while working at INRIA (1984, funded by the French government) which was the first modern â€Å"interface builder. † Hullot built this into a commercial product in 1986 and then went to work for NeXT and created the NeXT Interface Builder (1988), which popularized this type of tool. Now there are literally hundreds of commercial interface builders. †¢ Component Architectures: The idea of creating interfaces by connecting separately written components was first demonstrated in the Andrew project [32] by Carnegie Mellon University's Information Technology Center (1983, funded by IBM). It is now being widely popularized by Microsoft's OLE and Apple's OpenDoc architectures. 6. Discussion It is clear that all of the most important innovations in Human-Computer Interaction have benefited from research at both corporate research labs and universities, much of it funded by the government. The conventional style of graphical user interfaces that use windows, icons, menus and a mouse and are in a phase of standardization, where almost everyone is using the same, standard technology and just making minute, incremental changes. Therefore, it is important that university, corporate, and government-supported research continue, so that we can develop the science and technology needed for the user interfaces of the future. Another important argument in favor of HCI research in universities is that computer science students need to know about user interface issues. User interfaces are likely to be one of the main value-added competitive advantages of the future, as both hardware and basic software become commodities. If students do not know about user interfaces, they will not serve industry needs. It seems that only through computer science does HCI research disseminate out into products. Furthermore, without appropriate levels of funding of academic HCI research, there will be fewer PhD graduates in HCI to perform research in corporate labs, and fewer top-notch graduates in this area will be interested in being professors, so the needed user interface courses will not be offered. As computers get faster, more of the processing power is being devoted to the user interface. The interfaces of the future will use gesture recognition, speech recognition and generation, â€Å"intelligent agents,† adaptive interfaces, video, and many other technologies now being investigated by research groups at universities and corporate labs [35]. It is imperative that this research continue and be well-supported. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I must thank a large number of people who responded to posts of earlier versions of this article on the announcements. hi mailing list for their very generous help, and to Jim Hollan who helped edit the short excerpt of this article. Much of the information in this article was supplied by (in alphabetical order): Stacey Ashlund, Meera M. Blattner, Keith Butler, Stuart K. Card, Bill Curtis, David E. Damouth, Dan Diaper, Dick Duda, Tim T. K. Dudley, Steven Feiner, Harry Forsdick, Bjorn Freeman-Benson, John Gould, Wayne Gray, Mark Green, Fred Hansen, Bill Hefley, D. Austin Henderson, Jim Hollan, Jean-Marie Hullot, Rob Jacob, Bonnie John, Sandy Kobayashi, T. K. Landauer, John Leggett, Roger Lighty, Marilyn Mantei, Jim Miller, William Newman, Jakob Nielsen, Don Norman, Dan Olsen, Ramesh Patil, Gary Perlman, Dick Pew, Ken Pier, Jim Rhyne, Ben Shneiderman, John Sibert, David C. Smith, Elliot Soloway, Richard Stallman, Ivan Sutherland, Dan Swinehart, John Thomas, Alex Waibel, Marceli Wein, Mark Weiser, Alan Wexelblat, and Terry Winograd. Editorial comments were also provided by the above as well as Ellen Borison, Rich McDaniel, Rob Miller, Bernita Myers, Yoshihiro Tsujino, and the reviewers. References 1. 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Meteor Proposal

OWNERS’ BRAND PERCEPTION RESEARCH PROPOSAL Prepared for Meteor Motorcycle Company Good Stuff! Dated: September 7th, ____ EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Currently, Meteor needs to understand how its customers regard four brands relative to each other: Meteor, Comet Chopper, Harley, and Big Dog. Also, because of the unexpected sales success of the Comet Chopper motorcycle, Meteor needs to understand the major factors for the appeal of the Comet Chopper. Meteor’s marketing team also needs to update the demographic profile of its customers.This is because Meteor sells through a network of dealers, some of whom do not always record details about the demographics of motorcycle buyers. BACKGROUND On September 11, 200_, the Meteor marketing team met researchers from Good Stuff! at the Meteor headquarters. The presentation included the history of the Meteor Motorcycle Company, its founders, the brand types and other useful inputs. The Meteor marketing team was open to allowing the Good Stuff ! researchers to participate in the Harvest Biker Fest event to be held in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Details of the event and other issues were discussed during the same session.It was also agreed that Meteor would provide a list of existing Meteor Chopper owners to help Good Stuff! in its research. Problem definition / RESEARCH OBJECTIVES Problem definition The research team at Good Stuff! will 1) study Meteor and Comet Chopper owners’ brand perceptions of heavyweight cruiser motorcycles, 2) so that the Meteor marketing team can better understand the appeal of these brands to specific customer segments, 3) so that the Meteor Motorcycle Company can improve the positioning of its brands in the marketplace and achieve a 30 per cent annual growth in sales revenues in the coming year.RESEARCH OBJECTIVES Accordingly, four modules of research will comprise the joint research project. †¢ To identify and gather information about existing competitors that buyers consider when buying a Comet Chopper. Good Stuff! will gain an understanding of who in terms of competitors are Comet Chopper owners’ considering during the buying process, and why. †¢ To understand the appeal of the Comet Chopper. Good Stuff! will explore the demand for the Comet Chopper by examining the appeal. Good Stuff! ill determine what the appeal of the Comet Chopper is, to further understand the feelings, stories and attitudes behind the Comet Chopper customer. †¢ To understand the level of brand awareness between Meteor and the Comet Chopper. Good Stuff! will research the customer’s perception of the brand relation between the Meteor brand and the Comet Chopper (made by Meteor). Good Stuff! will research customers’ awareness levels, identify degrees of brand awareness and examine issues related to dual branding. To describe both the Meteor owner, and the Comet Chopper owner in terms of demographics and psychographics thereby gaining a better understa nding of the existing customer profile. Good Stuff! will explore the demographics of the Comet Chopper owner in terms of age, sex, income, occupation, and education level in addition to psychographics such as attitudes, beliefs, consumption habits and interests. APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM Meteor Motorcycle Company was previously involved in similar projects with Good Stuff!. In the Fall of 1998 and in the Spring of 2000, Good Stuff! onducted Meteor’s first dealer and customer satisfaction phone surveys. Both of these surveys included a module on brand perceptions of Meteor and its competitors in the marketplace. The results had immediate operational impact for Meteor. Since the 1998 research project, sales for Meteor have increased 1800 per cent. The current research project will give primary focus to Meteor owners’ brand perceptions, with lesser emphasis to customer satisfaction of Meteor owners. Only Meteor owners will be surveyed. RESEARCH DESIGN For the purpose of thi s research Good Stuff! ill undertake primary research to execute a conclusive design using web-surveying methods , as well as an exploratory design employing observation and in-depth interviews at a regional motorcycle rider’s fest. For the web survey, all scale responses will be used. The ranking of the four focal brands on 12 different personality traits will be a core part of the research project. However, all other types of scale responses will be used. FIELD WORK / DATA COLLECTION In this effort, respondents will be recruited by phone to take the survey on the internet.For those without internet at work or at home (estimated to be less than 5 per cent of the sample frame), the interview will be conducted by phone. †¢ Web Surveys: Primary source of data collection will be through an internet site Surveytime. com; that will host the electronic questionnaire. One hundred Meteor owners and 200 Comet Chopper owners will receive a letter from Good Stuff! explaining the pu rpose of the study and inviting their participation. This 2:1 ratio of Comet Chopper to Meteor owners reflects the current sales ratio of these two brands.The letter will direct them to the website and request then to complete the survey. A $2 cash incentive will be included in each recruiting letter. Importantly, those taking the survey will be entered into a raffle for a leather Meteor varsity jacket. †¢ Phone Interviews: A concerted effort will be made to identity and approach those Comet Chopper owners that failed to complete the web survey. The contact details of the current Chopper owners would be provided by the Meteor marketing team. †¢ Observations and Interviews: Good Stuff! esearchers will attend the Harvest Biker Fest on September 19 and September 20. It is believed that the Rally will provide us with an opportunity to observe chopper owners in their environment and to interview them, as well. Coding and Data entry †¢ Survey Time. com allows the researcher s to download data into Excel spreadsheets. †¢ After conducting the phone interviews, the responses will be transferred into the excel spreadsheets, as well. †¢ Numerical data will be entered for close-ended questions. †¢ Entered data will be checked for accuracy and edited if necessary.After the spreadsheet has been edited and checked for accuracy, it will be converted into an SPSS data file. After completing the coding and data entry for the closed and open-ended questions, results will be tabulated. DATA ANALYSIS Some of the various techniques that will be utilized to analyze the data are †¢ Descriptive statistics in tabulated form using percentages †¢ Graphical analysis of the data †¢ Correlation Analysis The following are some examples of results of data analysis that Meteor’s marketing team can expect to see in the final report. . [pic] [pic] Timeline ACTIVITY |EXPECTED COMPLETION DATE | |Meeting with Meteor marketing team |Sept 11 | |Har vest Biker Fest |Sept 19& 20 | |Proposal & Questionnaire Submission |Oct 7-10 | |Survey Loaded in the Web Server |Oct 10-20 | |Letters mailed to Comet Chopper owners |Oct 10-14 | |Data Collection |Oct 14-30 | |Follow up Telephone Interviews |Nov 1-7 | |Coding, Data Entry and Data Cleaning |Nov 7-14 | |Preliminary Analysis |Nov 14-21 | |Final Analysis and Report |Nov 22-30 | |Presentation to Client |Dec 4 | Information Investment COST ESTIMATION – TASKS* |HOURS |COSTS (*) | |Upfront Consulting Work and Design |——– |$ 8,000. 00 | |Designing & Producing Questionnaires ($55/hr) |80 hours |$ 4,400. 00 | |Research & Compilation of Name List ($55/hr) |8 |$ 440. 00 | |Final Analysis & Reporting ($75/hr) |100 |$ 7,500. 0 | |Internet Survey** |——– |$18,000. 00 | |Phone Line / Calling Cards (1 min @ $0. 10) |250 |$ 1,500. 00 | |Telephone Interviewers (150 phone interviews @ $10 per interview) |——– |$ 1,500. 00 | |I ncentives to Respondents ($2 @ X 300 respondents = $400 jacket) |——– |$ 1,000. 00 | |Data Entry (1 survey @ 10minutes @ $6. 50/hr) |50 |$ 325. 0 | |Coding the Data (programming work & compatibility of data) |——– |$ 2,500. 00 | |Other Overhead Cost (Office Supplies-binders, photocopying) |——– |$ 500. 00 | | | | | |TOTAL | |$45,665. 00 | Note: Other operating expenses encountered during the conduct of the project will be invoiced additionally to Meteor at the conclusion of the project. Hours and hourly rates are presented for Good Stuff! ’s internal use. These would be deleted in the version of this proposal given to the Meteor marketing team. ** The Internet Survey cost includes the programming and the designing of the Web module, server and usage fee and data retrieval. REPORTING At the conclusion of the project, the following will be delivered to Meteor: †¢ Three copies of the final written report with al l the appendices. The final report will include an annotated survey with the percentage of responses for each possible question response. Detailed data tables will be included in the report to summarize important information found in the research.It will also include the final conclusions and recommendations made based on the research study. †¢ Three CD’s with the electronic version of the final report, the PowerPoint slides and the SPSS data files. PROJECT PERSONNEL Mark Peterson Research Team Leader Mark Peterson received his Ph. D. in Marketing from the Georgia Institute of Technology in March 1994. Mark received the Academy of Marketing Science’s Alpha Kappa Psi Dissertation Award for his lab and field study of consumers’ emotional responses to television ads. Mark’s scholarly works have been published in the Journal of Business Research, the Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, the Small Business Management Journal among others.Prior to launching Good Stuff! , Mark was a statistical methods consultant for SDR, Inc. in Atlanta, and an associate professor of marketing at the University of Texas at Arlington where he taught in the Masters of Science in Marketing Research program. Jim McGee Research Team Associate Jim McGee received his MSMR degree from the University of Texas at Arlington in 1996. Since that time, Jim has worked as a project manager for a variety of marketing research firms including Campbell Research and Global Mapping International. Jim is pleased to be reunited with Mark Peterson at Good Stuff! , as both were members of the legendary â€Å"Gold Team† at SDR, Inc. in the mid-nineties.Jim regards his most rewarding skill to be applying conjoint analysis – a multivariate statistical technique – in survey research to solve problems for client firms. APPENDIXES [If available at this time in the development of the project, a draft of Meteor Survey A would be attached. ] —†”—————– 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% &ages 1 States Geographic Distribution of Comet Chopper Owners TX FL CA WI Others 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% %age 1 Brands Brand Awareness Consider Comet Chopper Thought to be a Separate Company Comet Chopper is a Meteor brand Comet Chopper is a West Coast Chopper brand Comet Chopper is a Harley Brand Others

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Research Paper on Human Resource Diversity Essay

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Principles of Economics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Principles of Economics - Essay Example Inflation has different components, phases and forms. For example, deflation and inflation are often defined in relation to the amount of general supply of money viz a viz the economys ability to generate goods and services This article will aim at discussing the causes, effects, impacts and importance of inflation in an economy There are various causes of inflation which have been put forward by various economists. The first type of inflation is the Cost Push Inflation. This type of inflation occurs when firms respond to the increase in production costs, by increasing prices in order to retain their profit margins. When general costs increase the firms have few options on how to absorb the costs from within, this situation forces the organization to pass on this cost to the consumers. The rise in prices may be triggered by several factors, these factors being an increase in the cost of imported raw materials. This may occur in countries which heavily rely on exports of such products. On the other hand, this may also occur by a fall in the rate of the pound in the international currency exchange a market which raises the UK price of imported products. An illustration of cost push inflation occurred when British gas and alternative energy suppliers decided to increase the prices of gas and electricity. This strategy made energy producing firms to charge different prices for the domestic and foreign markets during the period between years 2005 and 2006. The other cause associated with cost-push inflation is due to the increase in labor costs. When labor costs increase, the effects of this measure on the company production is passed over to consumers.   This cause is significant in those firms and organizations which are labor-intensive. Some industries may opt against passing this high cost to the consumer since they might be able to cover cost in other ways but in the long run they may be forced to increase

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A Personal Definition of Innovation, creativity and Invention Essay

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Concept analysis Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

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Work life - Research Paper Example On the other hand, an organization is capable of attracting and retaining new employees due to this attractive policy. According to Harris (2007, p.33), many organizations are interested in retaining productive employees; therefore, they offer various programs that allow them balance between their work life and their families. In addition, such organizations feel that work life initiatives foster employees’ commitment thus enhancing productivity. However, the challenge with the work life programs such as flextime is ensuring that employees use their freedom responsibly. Therefore, supervision and training programs are necessary in ensuring flextime is well managed. Harris (2007, p.34) insists on the importance of work-life initiatives both on the employees and on company, however, he opposes on strict supervision that companies apply on the employees under such programs. He emphasizes on applying listening skills while dealing with employees, and giving them control over their flextime; this strategy improves the employees’ accountability. Nevertheless, for work-life initiatives to be effective, they should work for both the employers and the employees. Harris adds that flexibility amounts to accountability, especially in modern organizations, while flextime programs enhance loyalty in employees, as well as job satisfaction. IBM is one such company that has introduced the flextime program; the company attests to the effectiveness of flextime as one of the reasons why it manages to retain its employees (Harris, 2007, p.36). Flextime is most valued by working women, since they are the homemakers and engage in numerous domestic responsibilities; therefore, retaining such women can be difficult unless favorable programs such as flextime are available. Some types of flextime programs may include telecommuting, which allows employees to work from some hours at home using a

Field trip Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Field trip - Essay Example The road features supermarkets and roadside stations for travelers entering Blue Mountains via this method. At times, it is difficult to enter the Blue Mountains by road as there are many large vehicles which can hamper entrance and exit from the area, particularly tourist vehicles such as coaches and delivery vans for the many businesses in the area. Because of this factor, it is worth noting that the area is accessible by train and bus for those who don't wish to navigate the roads. The area is, however, very well signposted and this makes navigation from Sydney and beyond simple and finding routes between the individual attractions is also simple. Once in Blue Mountains, there are many different options for traveling around. There are dedicated buses and tours for tourists, as well as general public transport for city residents. There are also a number of scenic options; a walkway, a railway, a cableway and a skyway. These are all in place to provide great views to tourists. All o f these can be found in dedicated tourist maps online or in the information center located by the entrance to the Blue Mountains (see Appendix 1) On my trip to the area, I used the walkway and the Katoomba Scenic Railway, which is particularly notable for being the steepest railway in the world. As previously mentioned, the main point of this field trip was to see the Three Sisters, a famous sandstone rock formation in the area. The Three Sisters is part of an Aboriginal legend which suggests that three sisters from the local tribe fell in love with men from a neighboring tribe, something forbidden by tribal law. This led to a huge battle which resulted in the three sisters being turned to stone by an elder who was killed in the battle and unable to turn them back. Whilst this story itself perhaps is not a true example of Aboriginal legend, it adds a certain mystery and history to the area which is undeniable. It is possible to explore the area further by using the Giant Stairway, a nother major geological tourist attraction that leads to many of the nature walks that it is possible to undertake in the area. From a tourism point of view, the trip was well organized and enjoyable because of the sheer amount of information available both online and in the the local tourist office. It made the area easily navigable, and all the tourist attractions could easily by found using a map or one of the many tours and guides found in the area. This meant that much of the stress associated with traveling was removed, because there was no risk of being lost because of this useful signage and helpful staff and locals. From a personal point of view, the area was an example of breathtaking natural beauty and provided spectacular views as well as a lot of local history. Appendix 2 shows some of the views of the area. Literature Review As with any academic analysis, it is necessary to find theories and models to apply to the excursion to help fully understand the area and the tou rist potential. As previously mentioned, Blue Mountain is well signposted and has good transport links both to and within the area. This has been shown to be an important factor in increasing local tourism by the by the GJM council (2002). This study shows that giving good transport li

Literary Analysis Essay Example for Free

Literary Analysis Essay To write a good story, not only ideas take place. You need to use literary devices in order to provide a good story. The best mentor to look up is Sue Monk Kidd. She used a lot of literary devices in her story which is called The Secret Life of Bees. The three main literary devices which she used throughout her story are: epigraphs, character development and allusions. â€Å"Heat would make a person do strange things.†(112).Specially we see this when is described Lily’s hard life without the main person of her, without her mother. Since her mother died she is an orphan and her father doesn’t care for her even though she has her nanny that loves her. Not only she needs her mother to care for her or love her, but also she needs her in daily life to help her going through her childhood and teenage problems that every single person goes through. The most common literary device which you will see, while you read the book are epigraphs. This is shown in the beginning of every chapter, giving the readers many hints and some sort of warning of what might be happening in the story. This is an optional device which you choose to use. But it put epigraphs to give you clues on what she will talk next. This is one example: â€Å"A worker [bee] is just over a centimeter long and weighs only about sixty milligrams; nevertheless, she can fly with a load heavier than herself.† –The Honey Bee (257) The Secret Life of Bees. This foreshadows you that the main character who is Lily, a 14-year-old girl, is carried too much responsibility on her shoulders, about what she’s going through. Other device that develops ones story, being the most important device in my opinion, is the character development. It pictures the things that the character goes through and how they change throughout the story, most of the characters change a lot during the whole book .Character development explains every detail, until the final touch that that character goes through. We see the main character Lily develops so much through this story. In the beginning we see her as an innocent girl, which she does everything to find out more about her mother. Last but not least†¦allusions. Why is it important to put them in your story? Allusions as you know, is the reference of something that has happened in history,that everybody knows about. If you put them in your story, you make  your story real. You make the readers feel it, actually live it. Sue Monk Kidd uses allusions to help you understand what is going on in more details. That’s what you should do. Some of the allusions which are very important to be named is where the author put in THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. This automatically touches your brain by telling you that this was in the 60’s and that the colored people where fighting to win their rights. Also adding, it brings you that feeling that you think you’re living in the story, being able to relate in anyone’s everyday life. Another allusion is the WAILING WALL which May writes on it every time somebody dies. In conclusion to this, Allusions help the story by allowing the audience to relate and apply these reasoning’s in their lives. Briefly explained, the three literary devices which would be good to include in stories are: epigraphs, character development and allusions. This brings your story to a point that the reader believes they are actually living the story, feeling every single detail of it. So, all in all, literary devices increase more use of detailed writing and allows people to understand what is going on.

Digitalization Evolution Of Digital Music Media Essay

Digitalization Evolution Of Digital Music Media Essay Digitization is defined as the representation of sound, image, object document or signal (usually an analog signal) by a discrete set of its points or samples. The result of this process is a digital format of whatever is being digitized. More specifically digitization is detaining an analog signal in a digital form. Evolution of Digital music Digital music production became famous few decades back. It was prompted because of less user friendly nature of analog music arrangement. Analog recordings had many pros like while recording analog saturation was introduced also during mastering and mixing processes and also helped to smooth the results of audio tracks but still the cons of analog recording was that it was very time consuming and there was fear of tapes being scratched or damaged as they were in physical form (Battino Richards, 2005). Digital music making was started in 1960s but the starting was not that great because the recordings sounded poor compared with analog and that was because the sampling rate they used was of low quality. It was not until 1978 when the optical readings were introduced which enhanced the quality of digital music and so the demand of digital music grew. In 1983 digital music was formally launched with compact discs and CD player which yielded fruitful returns and became very famous in the short time (Cohen Rosenzweig, 2008). The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the launch of recordable CDs which significantly dropped the price of CD players and CDs themselves and also created a new market for themselves and attracted many investors towards its creation. The demand for recordable CDs was high due to the fact that people could now not only buy music but also record it themselves and thus could have a bunch of their favorite songs in one CD. DVD technology was also the next invention and he nce digital music gained its strength and left analog music far behind. Then came the portable digital players in the late 1990s, with Sony launching digital player and Apple launching their iPods and then kept on giving new versions of their products. Hard disks becoming cheaper and introduction of flash drives has made the life easier for music lovers and hence with more space and portable drives digital music has gained its recognition worldwide (Earnshaw Vince, 2008). External portable hard drives have increased the amount of downloading from internet to increase by million times and hence now people can get their favorite song in their requested quality any time from internet. Implications Impact of Digitalization of Music Digital technology is embossed in music industry these days and is an essential part of it. Technology has done wonders in to every industry it has stepped in and has changed the whole structure of it and similar is the case with the music industry. The music which was hardly available in far flung rural areas is now available to them in just one click. It has changed the performances of singers; target market has changed from a few listeners to every music lover in the world (Colson Throp, 2010). It has made production more affordable and reliable and even more profitable. Advertising and promotion for music has become cheaper and approachable to masses through digital media and hence communicating your music to people has become easier. This revolution of digital technology advancement has, is and will keep on impacting the music industry. Some implications of digitization of music are: Recording Before the advent Digital Audio Workstation, all the stuff which can be done through computer i-e; mixing, mastering and sound adjustment required separate set of hardware devices to handle all this stuff and hence made the life of a musician hectic and troublesome. The hardware required now days is just a microphone and mixing board attached with a computer and the remaining activities like mixing, mastering sound adjustments etc can be handled through computer and the music can be fine tuned more easily then before. Computers allow the musician to recreate the studio environment with a minimum of additional hardware because mostly and this allows them to produce a high quality output, thus making the musicians studio more portable and easy to handle. Performance Musicians have been given a new way to perform on the stage, in the crowd in fact anywhere they want as they can carry their portable studio with them. Medleys can be made within no time with the help of software and Laptop computers and other portable forms of technology can bring a list of endless possibilities of performances that can be executed on a stage (Burkart McCourt, 2006). Real time effects can be added in performances by attaching guitars, keyboards and drums to computers and hence it makes live performances more attractive as musicians can perform on audience request at real time. DJs doesnt carry huge bucket of tapes to nightclubs because single simulation platform makes its possible for them to control the digital music in an exact same manner as they do with recorded music. Concerts can be filled with lighting and effects and also with real time changes in tones etc of the songs to make it more energetic and entertaining for youth. Selling and Distribution Evolution of internet has changed the whole scenario all-together in the music industry as it has opened a new medium to launch the music and access customers from all over the world. A song which took months to come to the market and then to final customers can now be uploaded on internet and can be sold immediately after it has been completed and is available to everyone in the world. Advertising or promotion has unlimited possibilities due to these social networks such as Facebook, Orkut, twitter etc. A musician can launch his promotion campaign on any of these networks and get recognized throughout the world and without paying expensive costs for that. Internet branding of music and selling has caused the musicians to save money and time as it was very hard work to make a physical copy of music and sell it to people in markets. MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) is a most common way to create never-ending collection of music through digital signals. MIDI controllers are usually build inside the keyboards but they can also be seen as simulated woodwinds, MIDI processing centers and velocity-sensitive drum pads (Battino Richards, 2005). MIDI keyboardist can create any sort of music of his liking using any instrument conceivable. Collaboration Musicians from all over the world can come on one platform with the help of internet and can discuss their new concepts with each other. This is the reason why we are seeing so many new songs which features multiple singing sensations; an example is the song I love the way you lie which features to singers who Akon and Rihanna and there are many other examples available. Rapid share file sharing has made it easy to transfer files to each other so musicians take benefit of facilities like these and collaborate to create a new sensational music which will rock the world. There are online music creation websites available too on which musicians from all over the world can come and collaborate without being physically present at one place and create music (Patrick McCourt, 2006). Contentious Issues and the Affect of Digitizing Music There are always both sides of technological change. Music industry has faced some real issues after the digitalization of music has taken place and these are: Pirate Websites Pirated websites allows the user to download songs for free and hence people dont really have to pay for the music they get to hear. This has created huge losses for musicians etc. Intermediaries Another problem which is faced by musicians is that the intermediaries which help users to locate free MP3 songs websites and etc. File sharing websites Websites like RapidShare, 4shared etc allow users to upload file and hence they can upload songs of their liking and people can download them without having to pay for them. The patents, illegal duplication of original songs and pirated websites are the biggest problems which are unresolved till date and hence they should be dealt with some reforms worldwide which will stop piracy of original music. Despite all these problems being faced by music creators, digitization of music has affected almost every music lover from musicians to listeners; it has opened new market for music and has led the music industry to globalization (Earnshaw Vince, 2008).

Marks And Spencer Employee Relations

Marks And Spencer Employee Relations Marks and Spencers has been one of the largest retail markets in the UK and the employee relations that exist within the company have both positive and negative aspects. Marks and Spencers employee relations have always been influenced by the conventional system of industrial relations. The company now has 65000 employees all around the world out of which 80% of the staff works directly on the sales floor. MS is amongst the top 6 retail suppliers in the UK and have extended their operations in 29 different countries. Most of the stores are mainly franchises but it also owns a huge number of stores in Hong Kong. The profit turnover of MS is close to 7.3 billion. MS not only caters to clothing but has also widened the market by offering other products that range from furniture to food and financial services. (Marks and Spencer, 2000) Initially there were problems and issues with the employee employer relationship and hence the company had to adopt a different employee relation approach. The company adopted some changes and principles within the management such as: Change in working hours Competitive rate package Employee discounts Pension schemes Bonus and extras (Yvonne, 2010) Change in work timings: With the introduction of Sunday trading in the UK, Marks and Spencer had to create flexible shift timings in order to work on Sundays. Most of the staff work 36-38 hours per week and currently some of the staff work more than normal work schedules. (Yvonne, 2010) Competitive performance related rate packages: The salaries are frequently matched with the market to keep up with the changes in the market. Employee discounts: The staffs and employees of Marks and Spencers receive a discount of 20% on all the purchase made. Pension: Marks and Spencers provide secure retirement benefits for its employees if they have worked in the company for more than a year. The company also provides additional health and dental care for its employees. They also provide SAYE for all the employees across the world. (MS, 2007) The company is not represented by any trade union. The employee relation of MS is taken care by the Human Resource Management (HRM) and it is closely aligned to the business objectives and strategies. The trade union in the UK is the most influential association for protecting employees rights. In 2001, Marks and Spencers had announced closing down stores in Europe especially Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal and Spain. The company had planned to close down some of the stores in Europe as a part of cost cutting measure which would help in saving 250 million GBP in 2006-07. The UNI commerce and the national trade Union had raised concerns and had tried to reverse the company decision as it had breached the laws. The Marks and Spencer staff members and the trade union had demanded to reverse the decision to close the stores in Europe and also to initiate and establish talks with the trade union. The trade union actions (TUC) had advocated Marks and Spencer to revisit and change some of the employment policies and practices. Currently Marks and Spencers are not under any governed trade unions. In 2005, trade union ` which mainly focuses on employee relations mainly in the retail sector had started campaigning and informing the employees and staffs of MS about the advantages that trade union can add and also serve the employees with vast knowledge. (Georgina,2006).To deal with these employee related issues, Marks and Spencer had hired a consultation company Business Involvement Group (BIG) (HRM in Marks and Spencer, nd) The stakeholders involved in the employee relations processes of the Organization: MS has always been known for having strong human resource strategies with the help of Human Resource Management (HRM).The HRM helps in laying down strong internal policies and procedures which helps in achieving business objectives of the company. The managers in MS are allowed to adopt appropriate strategies that will help in improving the companys productivity. MS HRM policies also help in contributing to commitment and loyalty of the employees. The HRM also initiated a new change in the company to help the employees and staffs change their attitude towards how they work and perform. Therefore, MS had commenced feedback sessions with its employees on the performance and the areas of improvement and these constant interactions with the staffs had helped the company in changing and developing new skills, increase competence and improve productivity. What is the orientation of the organization to industrial relations? If its not unionized, how does MS maintain communication with the employees? MS follows a sophisticated paternalistic approach which refuses to recognize any trade unions but they have strong internal HRM policies which will help in ensuring that all the employees goals and grievances are taken care of without the involvement of the trade union organization. MS also have a network of elected employee representatives known as BIG (Business Involvement Group) which aims at resolving issues that affect the employees. BIG provides an opportunity to voice their individual opinion, concerns and grievances. The employees also have a great opportunity to positively affect the organization by providing ideas which will help in improving the working conditions and the productivity of the employees. Every store across the globe has BIG representatives who are usually elected by their staff members to help the other employees resolve the issues. The national BIG aims at- Better communication between management and staff Continuous development of the employees BIG also aims at engaging the employees in discussing and debating the various changes that are required which can change the employees working condition and improve efficiency. MS also have a wide range of learning and development which helps the employees to grow with the company and also achieve their goals. (MS, Employee Handbook, 2009) How does MS handle collective grievances? MS procedure is available for all the employees to address any issues, grievances and complaints. Work well programme was also introduced in MS which help in creating and maintaining a productive and healthy environment. The grievance can be in any form such as workload pressure, employee employer relationship, roles and responsibilities, work stress, organizational environment or even personal relationship. In case, the complaint is with respect to a generic company policy, then the internal BIG will handle such issues. The employees line manager provides all the necessary information to the local BIG and the local BIG flags the issue in the common forum with the national BIG. If the issue is collective and if the complaint is common among other employees, the national BIG contacts the policy owner or the HR to revise the policy and a written response will be sent to the employees who had raised the grievance. MS believes in treating its employees with dignity and any form of discri mination or harassment will be dealt very seriously. The company has now 3500 BIG representatives covering all its stores. The company also provides workshops to the employees to help in performing the role better. (The Marks and Spencer WorkWell Programme, 2002) How does MS establish fair pay and conditions? The company is periodically audited which is part of the ethical trading initiative which helps the company, government, trade unions and human rights department. The company believes in providing good working conditions and fair rates of pay. Development of standards between the company and the employees suppliers help in achieving continual improvement for the business. The employees and staff working in MS are treated with respect and without violating the human right law. The company complies to the local governments regulations in the below areas- Working hours and working conditions Minimum age of employment provided Terms of employment Health and safety of the employees Free from discrimination Right to collective bargaining Rate of pay with par with the local labor law Regular checks in all production and sales sites are made periodically to ensure the working conditions of the employee are as per the rule (Ethical Trading ,2002) If MS is not unionized, how does it regard its relationship with the trade unions? The company has 80% of its employee workforce as women and the company now is 98% unionized in Ireland and there are 2 collective agreements with 2 different unions- MANDATE and SIPTU. The governing reasons for MS to have the company unionized are- Some of the management policies and procedures do not suit the local government as the culture of UK is not always compatible with the other countries. The conventional system did not help in the change strategy established by the business. Marks and Spencer are not affiliated with any trade union currently in the UK but many trade unions have been convincing the company to permit trade unions within its operations. The government has also been involved very closely with the operations of Marks and Spencer as it is one of the largest employers in the UK. M S has to comply with all the rules and regulations laid by the government. The company was also asked to submit a report on internal controls and risk management by the government and this had helped the company to detect some issues and obtain control. The company has also faced allegations from trade union called UNITE criticizing the employee relations implemented by the company. There have been a number of advantages for the employees owing to the partnership with the 2 trade unions in Ireland- Flexible working hours introduced for its employees to have a better work life balance. Profit sharing pension scheme has been introduced Better medical facilities available for its employees for free checkup Training and development in technical aspects, job analysis and problem solving areas which has helped employees improve their productivity and efficiency These changes have helped MS ensure a positive feedback in Ireland and as a result have also attracted number of candidates for employment. (Marks and Spencer, 2000) The problems in the companys industrial relations culture and practice? The company should allow its employees to join trade unions because the company can discharge a separate internal team BIG working on employee relations which is not very effective. MS also needs to realize that any decisions taken impact many of its own employees which can cause more fiction. The employee problems need to be addressed by a neutral governing body who are not affiliated to the company so that the employees problems are addressed and necessary actions are taken. The pension scheme established by the company has also raised concerns among employees. The company has not matched up the profits directly to the employees and the pension scheme introduced by MS was not taken well by the employees. The employee turnover is also high in Marks and Spencer as the employees are not satisfied with the working conditions, changes that take place within the organization and other factors. (MS, 2007) Recommendations: The company needs to introduce a knowledge management process which can be an advantage for the employees and the company. This helps the company to handle the jobs effectively and efficiently. The company should also allow the employees to join trade unions as the internal consultation system BIG is not effective on employee relations. BIG representatives do have the technical competence to handle issues put forward by the employees. (Brunes, 2004) MS definitely need to work on the employee relations area as the competition within the retail sector is high and the employees play a very important vital role towards contribution of a profitable company. Although the company provides a good remuneration package, refined human resource management strategies and good training development for its employees, the external factors such as constant unconstructive media reports and from the trade unions make it difficult for MS to provide good employee relations. (HRM in Marks and Spencer, n.d) To obtain a good employee relationship, it is very essential for the MS management to be involved. MS need to have the below HRM approach- Good management leadership to take necessary decisions Clear understanding of policies and procedures by the management to prevent any conflicts arising. Management should also consider the employee involvement in case of any change in process MS management should also build a good rapport with its employees by encouraging and motivating with rewards and recognition. MS should also focus on improving the interpersonal communication skills of all its organizational members. Well defined strategy and contingency plans in place to handle any unforeseen event. More employee participation in various events so that it helps in improving the responsibility and commitment. MS management to be more transparent with the policies and decisions made which will help in growth and development of the company (HRM in Marks and Spencer, n.d) CONCLUSION: MS have been very successful in implementing changes in a very effective technique. MS needs to build on its own strength and try to overcome the threats. MS needs to understand the work related issues and try to work on them. Work Well Programme has cited that one of the biggest issues in MS was the presence of good management. Literary References Brunes, B. (2004) managing Change: A Strategic Approach to Organizational Dynamics, London , Prentice Hall Ethical Trading (2002), [online], available from http://www.examstutor.com/business/resources/companyprofiles/marksandspencer/ethicaltrading.php [8th May 2010] Georgina Fuller (2006), Union Udsaw Seeks recognition at Marks and Spencer, personneltoday, 20th Oct 2006 HRM in Marks and Spencer,[online] Available from http://www.ivoryresearch.com/sample13.php [8th May 2010] MS (2007) Marks and Spencer to revamp final pension Scheme, accessed, available from http://www2.marksandspencer.com/thecompany/mediacentre/pressreleases/2007/fin2007-01-23-00.shtml [8th May 2010] MS, Employee Handbook (2009),[Online] available from http://corporate.marksandspencer.com/documents/specific/howwedobusiness/our_people/employeehandbook [8th May 2010] Marks and Spencer (2000) [online], available from http://www.ncpp.ie/dynamic/docs/markspencer_cs.pdf [8th May 2010] Stanley Chapman (2004), Socially Responsible Supply Chains: Marks and Spencer in Historic Perspective, Research paper Series: International Center for Corporate Social Responsibility, The University of Nottingham Staff Writer (2007) Marks and Spencer: Neat Pension fund arrangement , Insurance Business Review The Marks and Spencer WorkWell Programme (2002), [online] , available from http://www.resourcesystems.co.uk/Conferences/WorkWell%20Handouts.pdf [8th May 2010] UK Government (2007), Turnbull Report, available from http://www.frc.org.uk/corporate/internalcontrol.cfm [8th May 2010] Yvonne Miller (2010) An Analysis of Employee relations at Marks and Spencer, available from http://www.articleblast.com/Advertising_and_Marketing/General/An_analysis_of_employee_relations_at_Marks_and_Spencer__________________/ [8th May 2010]

Good Things About Oregons New Driving Law :: essays research papers

  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Oregon’s new driving law is going to make a major difference The new law changes the ages of becoming a fully licensed driver. The new program goes in three steps instead of two like the current program. It works like this: When a potential driver is 15, he can get his learners permit. He must have a licensed adult with him at all times while driving. When he turns 16, he can get a license that only allows him to drive during the day and never with any other teenagers in the car when by himself. Then, when he turns 18, he can get a full license. The law is designed to foster the development of maturity in teens, , and the new law has worked successfully in other states.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The new driving program is made to fit the maturity level of teens better than the current one. It gives teens a chance to learn to drive, but during the period of time in a teens life that causes, cuts out some of the most major distractions that cause accidents like night driving and when there are other teens in the car. This, many lawmakers believe, should help reduce the number of accidents and car-related deaths drastically. Many young drivers, like myself, hope it will help lower the price of insurance so that we will have a little more money in our pockets for the future. This is one reason why the new law is going to make driving safer.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another big distraction eliminated with Oregon’s new driving law is the presence of other teenagers in the car. Studies have shown that the chance of an accident by a teen driver is greatly increased with the presence of teen passengers. The main theory behind that is that teens like to show off to their piers and in so doing so can kill them because of inexperience or plain stupidity. Many politicians, lawmakers, and drivers hope this will help eliminate a fair amount of the wreckless driving that takes too many peoples lives each year.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another hopeful sign of the new law is that it has already been used in other states showing promising results. Car-related teen deaths and accidents dropped a significant amount in other states like Georgia and South Carolina. Many people are looking forward to seeing those same results here.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many teens don’t agree with the new law because they want to get their drivers licenses