AIDS and Needles Essay Example for Free

AIDS and Needles Essay Becton Dickinson, one of the largest manufacturers of medical supplies, dominates the US market in disposable syringes and needles. In 2005, a nurse, Maryann Rockwood (a fictional name), used a Becton Dickinson 5cc syringe and needle to draw blood from a patient known to be infected with HIV (Human immunodeficiency virus). Ms. Rockwood worked in a clinic that served AIDS patients, and she drew blood from these patients several times a day. After drawing the blood on this particular day, she transferred the HIV-contaminated blood to a sterile test tube by sticking the needle through the rubber stopper of the test tube, which she was holding with her other hand. She accidentally pricked her finger with the contaminated needle. She is now HIV positive. A few years earlier, in 2000, Becton Dickinson had acquired exclusive rights to a patent for a new syringe that had a moveable protective sleeve around it. The plastic tube around the syringe could slide down to safely cover the needle. The Becton Dickinson 5cc syringe used by Maryann Rockwood in 2005, however, did not yet have such a protective guard built into it. The AIDS epidemic has posed peculiarly acute dilemmas for health workers, including doctors and nurses. Doctors performing surgery on AIDS patients can easily prick their fingers with a scalpel, needle, sharp instrument, or even bone fragment and can become infected with the virus. The greatest risk is to nurses, who, after routinely removing an intravenous system, drawing blood, or delivering an injection to an AIDS patient, can easily stick themselves with the needle they were using. Needlestick injuries occur frequently in large hospitals and account for about 80 percent of reported occupational exposures to HIV among health care workers. It was conservatively estimated in 2005 that about 64 health care workers were then being infected with HIV each year as a result of needlestick injuries. Although the fear of HIV had heightened concerns over needlestick injuries, HIV was not the only risk posed by needlestick injuries. Hepatitis B can also be contracted through an accidental needlestick. In 2000, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) estimated, on the basis of hospital reports, that each year at least 12,000 health care workers are exposed to blood contaminated with the Hepatitis B virus, and of these 250 die as a  consequence. Due to underreporting, however, the actual numbers may be higher. In addition to Hepatitis B, needlestick injuries can also transmit numerous other viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic infections, as well as toxic drugs or other agents that are delivered through a syringe and needle. The total statistics on needlestick injuries in 2005 are disturbing, although the exact incidence of contamination is unclear. It was estimated that each year, in the United States alone, between 800,000 and 1 million needlestick injuries occurred in hospitals of these, between 60,000 and 300,000 resulted in Hepatitis B infection. By one estimate, the risk of contracting HIV from a known contaminated needle could be as high as 1 in 1000, and the risk of contracting Hepatitis B, a serious and often life-threatening condition, could be as high as 1 in 6. These estimates would imply that as many as 600 to 1000 health care workers were at risk of contracting HIV and as many as 100,000 were at risk of contracting Hepatitis B. Several agencies stepped in to set guidelines for nurses, including the American Nursing Association, the CDC, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Food and Drug Administration (FAD), who all developed such guidelines. The most comprehensive guidelines were issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), who on December 6, 2001, required hospitals and other employers of health workers to (a) make sharps containers (safe needle containers) accessible to workers, (b) prohibit the practice of recapping needles by holding the cap in one hand and inserting the needle with  the other, and (c) provide information and training on needlestick prevention to employees.  The usefulness of these guidelines was controversial. Nurses work in high-stress emergency situations requiring quick action, and they are often pressed for time both because of the large number of patients they must care for and the highly variable needs and demands of these patients. In s uch workplace environments, it is difficult to adhere to the guidelines recommended by the agencies. For example, a high-risk source of needle sticks is the technique of replacing the cap on a needle (after it has been  used) by holding the cap in one hand and inserting the needle into the cap with the other hand. OSHA guidelines specifically warned against this two-handed technique of recapping and instead required that the cap be placed on a stable surface and the nurse use a one-handed spearing technique to replace the cap. (Note that recapping the needles in this more time consuming way presented no risk of needlestick injury to the user). As noted above however, nurses are often pressed for time (and are keenly aware of the added danger of walking around with an uncapped needles) and tend to take the ‘two-handed recapping shortcut’ when no suitable surface is readily available for the safer one-handed capping technique. This fact is known to Hospital administrators, who regularly warn against such practices, and offer ongoing training and retraining opportunities to their nursing staff. Several analysts suggested that the peculiar features of the nurses work environment made it unlikely that needlesticks would be prevented through mere guidelines alone: The problem was not the worker, but the design of the needle and syringe. Experts on needlestick injuries argued that, rather than trying to teach health care workers to use a hazardous device safely, the focus should be on the hazardous product design and that a whole new array of devices in which safety is an integral part of the design was required. Regulators also urged manufacturers to provide the health care worker with devices in which safety was built into the design. The risks of contracting life-threatening diseases by the use of needles and syringes in health care settings had been well documented since the early 1980s. Well over half of all the needles and syringes used by U.S. health care workers since 1980 were being manufactured by Becton Dickinson. Despite the emerging crisis, however, Becton Dickinson decided not to modify its syringes, although it did include in each box of needled syringes an insert warning of the danger of needlesticks and of the dangers of two-handed recapping. On December 23, 2000, the U.S. Patent office issued patent number 4,631,057 to Charles B. Mitchell for a syringe with a tube surrounding the body of the syringe that could be pulled down to cover and protect the needle on the syringe. At the time, at least four other patents for needle-shielding devices existed. As Mitchell noted in his patent application, those devices all suffered from serious drawbacks. One of them  would not lock the protective cover over the exposed needle, one was extremely complex, another was much longer than a standard syringe and difficult to use, and a fourth was designed primarily for use on animals. It was Mitchells assessment that his invention was the only effective, easily usable, and easily manufactured device capable of protecting users from needlesticks, particularly in emergency periods or other times of high stress. Unlike other syringe designs, Mitchells was shaped and sized like a standard syringe so nurses already familiar with standard syringe design would have no difficulty adapting to it. Shortly after Mitchell patented his syringe, Becton Dickinson purchased from him an exclusive license to manufacture it. A few months later, Becton Dickinson began field tests of early models of the syringe using a 3cc model. Nurses and hospital personnel were enthusiastic when shown the product. However, they warned that if the company priced the product too high, hospitals, with pressures on their budgets rising, could not buy the safety syringes. With concerns about HIV rising fast, the company decided to market the product. In 2001, with the field tests completed, Becton Dickinson had to decide which syringes would be marketed with the protective sleeves. Sleeves could be put on all of the major syringe sizes, including 1cc, 3cc, 5cc, and 10cc syringes. However, the company decided to market only a 3cc version of the protective sleeve. The 3cc syringes account for about half of all syringes used, although the larger sizes-5cc and 10cc syringes-are preferred by nurses when drawing blood. This 3cc syringe was marketed in 2002 under the trademarked name Safety-Lok Syringe. It was promoted as a device that virtually eliminates needlesticks. The 3cc safety syringe with the protective sleeve was sold in 2001 to hospitals and doctors offices for between 50 and 75 cents. By 2003, the company had dropped the price to 26 cents per unit. At the time, a regular syringe without any protective device was priced at 8 cents per unit and cost 4 cents to make. Information about the cost of manufacturing the new safety sy ringe is unavailable but is estimated at between 13 and 20 cents each. The difference between the price  of a standard syringe and the price of the safety syringe was an obstacle for customers. To switch to the new safety syringe would increase the hospitals costs for 3cc syringes by a factor of three. An equally important impediment to adoption was the fact that the syringe was available in only one 3cc size, and it was perceived to be of limited application. Hospitals are reluctant to adopt and adapt to a product that is not available for the whole range of applications the hospital must confront. In particular, hospitals often needed the larger 5cc and 10cc sizes to draw blood, and Becton Dickinson had not made these available with a sleeve. For 5 years, Becton Dickinson manufactured only 3cc safety syringes. During that period, Becton Dickinson did not license its new safety syringe technology to another manufacturer that might have produced a full range of syringe sizes. Most hospitals and clinics, including the medical facility where Maryann Rockwood worked at drawing blood from many patients with Hepatitis B or HIV, did not stock the Becton Dickinson safety syringe. Most nurses in the United States continued to use unprotected syringes. Maryann Rockwood sued Becton Dickinson, alleging that, because it alone had an exclusive right to Mitchells patented design, the company had a duty to provide the safety syringe in all its sizes, and that by withholding other sizes from the market it had contributed to her injury. The case was settled out of court.

Mark Zuckerberg Management Style

Mark Zuckerberg Management Style Managers of an organization need multiple skills to perform their duties and act consequently. Their job is assorted and complex. A research by Robert L. Katz, he found that the managers need three essential skills: conceptual, human and technical in order to perform the four management functions; planning, organizing, leading and controlling. According to Forbes Magazine, Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of phenomenon Facebook and one of the youngest billionaire ever share the ability of great conceptual skills. Conceptual skills are thus said to be one of the crucial of all managerial skills. Managers with conceptual skills are able to see the organization as a whole, to conceptualize about abstract and complex situationsÂÂ ´ (Robbins, S., Coulter, M. 2005) and to think strategically. Conceptual skills stands out from others skills that required by a manager as the ability to use information to solve organizational problems, identification of opportunities, implementing solutions and selecting critical information from masses of data to direct the organization in the world of overflowing information. He should be able to agonize the problem areas and enforce solutions selecting critical information from masses of data, understand the business. Mark Zuckerberg has managed the facebook quite efficiently and has put the doubts of many people to rest. He uses to prepare the organization for the contingent events in the rapid changing environment. He recognizes problems, identify opportunities and implement solutions. He maximizes the use of information, ideas and concepts. Simultaneously with conceptual skills he uses other skills such as human and technological skills which it is necessitates organization to achieve its goals effectively and efficiently. Human skills, being controversially regarded as the most important set of skills have always been the root of all skills. Conceptual skills is not all that are required by a manager but it is a combination of competencies in various skills which conceptual, human and technical skills jump out from others to be more vital. Top managers use conceptual skills while making a decision since it affects the entire organization. He needs human skills which involve the ability to work well with other people both individually and in groups. Being chief executives officer he should look for to motivate the employers of the organization. Human is the most important asset of an organization and human (interpersonal) skills are regarded as the most important set of skills for a manager in todays competitive environment. Creating culture, building the senior management team, financing road shows and indeed, the delegation itself is done by Mark Zuckerberg. In Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg plays an extensive role in the decision making process. In the organization he deeply and inextricably involved with every major decision that it undertakes. He uses to negotiate and help the subordinates and rest of the employees to produce new ideas and make the final decision. He usually focuses on the technological side and innovation. He plays quite big interpersonal role in the general public by giving speeches and talking in the conferences. He uses to give information to the outsiders through the meetings and speeches conducted by facebook. Besides this he use to visit certain sessions and interact with other business managers and sign the business documents. During such interaction he asks the Sheryl Sandberg COO formerly via president of Google chief of staff for the U.S to assist him and offer some guidance. In general Mark Zuckerberg plays extensive role in all informational, interpersonal and decisional roles in the facebook which allows and makes it to be the leading social media today. (583 words) Q2) Discuss the various dynamics of the external environment Facebook presently operates in. What do you see and understand as real challenges Facebooks management team must grapple with in the days ahead if the company is to succeed in its mission to connect the whole planet? The only thing that would not change in the world is: the world is kept on changing. Although Facebook currently rank as the top social networking sites in terms of revenue and number of users, they still have to persist in innovating to hold on the honor. Facebook always encourage their users to share information public to offer better product to users, marketers and developers who wants to reach them. When so much of data is publish online, it can be a threat to Facebook. It forced by Canadian privacy commissioner to make changes to privacy changes and streamlined permissions dialogue. Just as estimated, Facebook confront disputation on privacy issue after the security researcher Wednesday once Beacon is launched. There are more than 100 million Facebook users personal information is being used or spread out to the public without users authorization. This issue is not just about data leakage for user but also for developers and marketers who uses Facebook as a tool to operate their business. Beacon is a platform which takes data from 44 web destinations and mashes it up with Facebooks internal information to help build more focused advertising messages. It was a system which allowed third parties site being posted on the wall of the users profile. People found out that it actually tracking every single thing people done online even they had logout their Facebook account. Facebook data leakage which disclosed by Wall Street Journal is said to be unintentionally. Press coverage and European Commission have their investigation on their own. The Beacon platform had breached the federal wiretap and video-rental privacy laws. A federal judge on Wednesday approved a $9.5 million settlement to a class action lawsuit challenging Facebooks program that monitored and published what users of the social networking site were buying or renting from Blockbuster, Overstock and other locations. (David Kravets) Under the settlement, Facebook agreed to terminate Beaon platform s tarted from November 2009. Facebook should provide a more user friendly privacy settings for the user to avoid the issue above to happen again. A table containing Top 30 countries with highest number of Facebook users was shown in appendix. Data is updated to 1st of April 2011. The table indicate the number of users is increasing tremendously every year. The figure 154,226,960, is the numbers of users in USA which is surprisingly high and own the first place in the ranking. Although China and India has the largest population in the world but India only own the fifth place at about 22,956,220 users. However, a statistic updated on 6th May 2011 indicates that India is the leading country which owns the highest audience growth rate. It is strange that China is not in the ranking, because Facebook is being banned by China. In the New Era of Management ninth edition by L. D. Richard predict that China will overtake United State economy as number one by midcentury. Unfortunately, China banned FB really bring down a lot registration and opportunities to generate profit. Without China, FB was like losing one of his leg or hand. Chin a Mainland population which is about 1,330,141,295 (July 2010 est.) [Source: CIA World Factbook, Jan 2011 ] China government always being tight to the access of internet, information flow and media censored Facebook because of the fatal riots happen in western region of Xinjiang in province of China. Perhaps they believe that such an action will contain the reports or discussions of the riots or stop them from happening completely. News updated on 28th April 2011 said that, Mark Zuckerberg still wanted to get connected to China and is now creating some sort of localized version of site to fit Chinas government and hope to launch it in China. (622 words) Q3) How would you describe and classify the corporate culture at Facebook? What are the elements and symbols that showcase FBs culture? In this context, how effective is Mark Zuckerberg as a cultural leader for FB? Ravasi and Schultz (2006) define organization culture as a set of shared mental assumptions that guide interpretation and action in organizations by defining appropriate behaviour for various situations. In the past, the hierarchy of management is vital for a corporate. However, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook has created a relaxed, unstructured and open corporate culture that emphasizes more on equality. At Facebook, there are no cubicles, no walls, just mainly office furniture. This enables the employees to work in a relaxed and comfortable environment as they can come and go as they please, with no standard work schedules, thus more employee freedom. Furthermore, the managers at Facebook also practice this working environment. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebooks Chief Operating Officer, and even Zuckerberg himself has no office. They work among the employees in the open workspace that could enhance openness and problem solving process. Besides, Mark holds a public question-and-answer session for the entire organization for an hour every Friday. This session has created a great deal of openness in the organization. The openness, according to Zuckerberg, encourages collaboration, team-work and an informal atmosphere and communication. Zuckerbergs company is ballooning into an empire, but it remains scruffy, funky and slightly adorable. That is partly attributable to a workplace that combines playful start-up culture with muscular ambition and bite. Facebooks goal is to be viewed as a hip geek culture in order to attract the best talent.ÂÂ   Zuckerburg is responsible for the foundations of this culture, creating a fun environment by banging a gong when someone finishes a big coding project.ÂÂ   Facebook even hired well-known graffiti artist David Choe to paint murals in the first Facebook offices.Theres a block of meeting rooms named after inventors at the far end of the Facebook ground floor, with one given to Al Gore, who invented the internet. Facebook is creating an intrinsically social culture, rather than enterprise software or geeky, engineer-driven algorithms. At Facebook, the employees can play video or table tennis games whenever they need to unwind on the job. This fun working environment has i ncreased the job satisfaction of employees in the Facebook organization. Job satisfaction is the primary factor in intrinsic motivation. Therefore, due to the corporate culture recognized by Zuckerberg, Facebook employees are satisfied with their jobs and as a result do their jobs well and raise the productivity of Facebook. Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you is the slogan of Facebook. This slogan says quite a bit about the social platform. Facebook has taken a very utilitarian stance on providing a social network. They have created a framework and are expecting you to do most of the work. When we used to wear suits to work, organizational hierarchy was indicated through the price of your suit. With Facebook, Mark forever altered our norms of privacy: our information is now public, our break-ups broadcasted, and our drunken shamings eternalized. However, Zuckerberg has changed this culture by only wear T-shirts, jeans and Adidas flip-flops to work. Mark Zuckerberg shows effectiveness as a cultural leader for Facebook by able and willing to take the risks in hiring the executives for the company, motivate employees to achieve Facebooks goals by established a relaxed, fun and unstructured corporate culture, and think strategically in the incident of refusing to bring Facebook, as a company, public. (555 words) Q4) In what ways does Facebook, as an organisation, fit in with traditional and current, modern-day management thinking and theories and in what ways is FB challenging them? As time passed, many professions had developed several management theories as a guide for manager to run the organization. There are Classical Perspective, which occurred during the nineteenth and early twenty, Management Science Perspective, which emerged during the world war two, The Recent Historical Trend which happen after the world war two and The Modern Management which combine all different theories. In today business world, different management thinking and theory are required by the manager to fits in different industries and achieve their organization goals. Facebook is the new trend in the twenty-first century, which manage and lead by the founder name Mark Zuckerberg. Humanistic perspective was conducted by Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard. They believe that manager need to first value peoples feelings, needs, thoughts and social relations. (Daft, n.d). Mark Zuckerberg had this management thinking of creating a social network that allowed people all over the world to engage which each other and get their updates even faster. He found out that as a human, when they disclose feelings and thoughts to their friends will make them feel closer to the person, and also behaviour on understand others emotions and opinions that surrounding. Besides, Mark Zuckerberg also adapting this theory to his employees by providing those free meals along the day, bottomless finger foods and unrestricted dry cleaning service. He allowed subordinates to express themselves, motivate them to have the same goals as the organisations goals by giving opinions on improvement of the organisation. Studies developed by Hawthorne state that in order to increase output, managers firstly need to improve human relation with the subordinates. Managers need to make employees feel respects, appreciated and have the sense of belongings to this organisation. (Daft, n.d). Mark Zuckerberg claim that an office is only just a place to gather people to brain storming to generate profits and human are the most important resources for the organisation. Therefore, Mark Zuckerberg design his headquarter with no wall between departments and the meeting rooms are located at the middle of the work space and separate by glass walls so that all the people can see through the meetings. Besides, Abraham Maslow theories, a study that claim that people are influenced by several needs and by hierarchy order. This has been used by Mark Zuckerberg, firstly, he fulfil the physical needs by providing them free meals and considerable income. Secondly, he satisfied the love and sense of belongings seeks by the employees which allowing them to disclose their thoughts and opinions. Thirdly, he will appreciate them by contribute many ideas and plans to run the business, this will increase employees esteem needs and belief that they are the proper source in helping make the world improve. Lastly, Mark Zuckerberg will somehow challenge the employees to meet certain goals. This will not only increase the improvement of organisation growth, it also acknowledges employees to fulfil their self-actualization needs. Moreover, Contingency View is the modern perspective that managers have no actual plan and managers will base on the situations or industries and economic to lead the organisation. This theory mostly utilize by organisation with structure of effective in an internet company which need to depend on the new technology. (Daft, n.d). Because Facebook is always dealing with trends of the world, and create new trend for the world. This required innovations, inspiration and new technology from the employees. Therefore, it is hard for Mark Zuckerberg to always follow the plan. Furthermore, quality seeking by the user was also a challenge face by Mark Zuckerberg. He use Total Quality Management to deal with it by improving the convenience of user to easily sign up as a user and also create software which allow user to use their mobile phone to log in and keeping on improving the privacy settings of each user. He also create benchmark of user can tag others pictures and status make them to have the same picture and comments. He also came out with the `like button allow user to like the status and which his competitors like Friendster and MySpace does not have. Learning Organisation is a modern theory which allows people not afraid to make mistakes and hope they can learn from the mistakes. It allows managers to raise the capability to discover and grow. (Senge.P. n.d). When Facebook dealing with the mistakes they made in beacon, they understand that not all people like to disclose their thoughts to the public, certain privacy are required from them. Facebook has learnt from this mistake and change their privacy settings. Q5) Describe the personality, leadership and management style of Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg. Discuss his most cherished values and how they govern his life, work, relationships, and the way he leads and manages his people. It is undeniable that Mark Zuckerberg is the key player of the successful of Facebook in the global nowadays. Therefore, the personality and cherished values that he holds are strongly affected his life, work and relationship. As a young billionaire, Mark did not dress himself up with branded clothes and accessories. In fact, he always wears jeans, T-shirt and North Face fleece. Besides, he rents a house with his girlfriend and drives an entry-level luxury car. Yet, his life is nothing more than meetings and talking to people due to the expansion of Facebook. He is a simple man and has showed no concern to spend much money or make money. Perhaps, these are the reason why he rejected offers from big companies such as Yahoo and Microsoft. People think that he was wrong and questioned him why would he refuse the offer because the field that he involves is unpredictable. However, from the interview with Diane Sawyer, he saying, We really just believe in what were doing. This showed that, making money is not the primary motivation of the formation of Facebook but the vision is simple as to attach people from different countries or even culture and share their life to people that they care about. Mark, as a stud ent of computer science and psychology definitely has a great sensitivity of vision. He knows that the most powerful thing in this world perhaps is the connection of people and the usefulness of the Internet. Therefore, Facebook achieved success in just few years because people like the ideas of sharing their feelings and life to their loved ones. Such personalities that Mark had affected the way he presents in work. He said everyone has a voice and people can organise whatever they want. For that reason, the open floor plan in the headquarters of Facebook allows all the workers know each single thing that happens in the buildings. Also, he holds a public question-and-answer meeting for the company for an hour on each Friday. Giving thought to these seemingly minor issues has the potential to drastically improve the working environment and employee engagement. Furthermore, although Mark is a young and rich leader, he never behaves arrogantly and still sincerely apologizes due to the mistakes that he have made. For example, membership of a group named Students against Facebook news feed that formed by Ben Parr has increased to 750,000 users within a week. Instead of being enemy with him, Mark actually posted a letter on Facebook and promised that they will come out with privacy controls. This is a leader quality that Mark had, which is problem solving. On one hand, he did not mention to make changes to the new features and support the usefulness of News Feed to know more about close friends. On the other hand, he promised to strengthen the privacy control. It seems like two-way benefit to him and Facebook without throw the new features away that causes losses and at the same time can settle the negative comment on Facebook. The tough-minded that Mark Zuckerberg had also affected the way he held the position as CEO in Facebook. Mark will improve each role in the organization each six months and performance of employees is being rank from one to five. He valued those hardworking and brilliant employees that can make him success. Some co-workers said that it is stress and fear when working in Facebook. However, the situation has been changed when Mark hired Sheryl Sandberg and people now are regretting they did not join the company. Nevertheless, Mark hire people not only because of their talent but also follow through and do things creatively such as hiring the former Firefox developer, Blake Ross. Mark showed his tough-minded completely when he turned the offer from Yahoo down. The former CEO of Yahoo, Terry Semel said, Id never met anyone-forget his age, twenty-two then or twenty-six now-Id never met anyone who would walk away from a billion dollars. But he said, Its not about the price. This is my baby , and I want to keep running it, I want to keep growing it. I couldnt believe it. (695 words)

What Is The Mckinseys 7s Model Commerce Essay

What Is The Mckinseys 7s Model Commerce Essay The McKinseys 7S Model was created by the consulting company McKinsey and Company in the early 1980s and subsequently has become the de facto standard used by practitioners and academics alike in analysing the performance of an organization. (Pascale Athos, 1981; Peters Waterman, 1982). There are seven variables in the model which include structure, strategy, systems, skills, style, staff and shared values. All beginning with s, justifying why it was termed as the 7S model. This treatise evaluates each of the seven components of the model and the links between them with respect to the Big I of Enterprise Integration using a case study approach. The model is as shown in figure 1 above, showing the interdependency of the variables. This is illustrated by the model also being termed as the Managerial Molecule. It was found that several organisations using the model pay more attention to those variables they consider changeable (e.g. structure, strategy and systems) rather than the other variables (e.g. skills, style, staff and shared values) considered to be soft variables. For long-term benefit, they feel that the variables should be changed to become more congruent as a system. Description of 7 Ss Strategy: Strategy is the plan of action an organisation prepares in response to, or anticipation of, changes in its external environment. Strategy is thought-out, well-structured and often practically rehearsed and is differentiated from tactics or operational actions. It sought to answer three questions; where the organisation is at this moment in time, where the organisation wants to be in a particular length of time and how to get there( ). Thus, strategy is designed to transform the firm from the present position to the new position described by objectives, subject to constraints of the capabilities or the potential (Ansoff, 1965). Structure: Business needs to be organised in a specific form of shape that is generally referred to as organisational structure. Organisations are structured in a variety of ways, dependent on their objectives and culture. The structure of the company often dictates the way it operates and performs (Waterman et al., 1980). Traditionally, the businesses have been structured in a hierarchical way with several divisions and departments, each responsible for a specific task such as human resources management, production or marketing. Many layers of management controlled the operations, with each answerable to the upper layer of management. Although this is still the most widely used organisational structure, the recent trend is increasingly towards a flat structure where the work is done in teams of specialists rather than fixed departments. The idea is to make the organisation more flexible and devolve the power by empowering the employees and eliminate the middle management layers (Boy le, 2007). Systems: This refers to some systems or internal processes to support and implement the strategy and run day-to-day affairs. Different systems exist in companies for procurement, recruitment, promotion and so on. The traditional approach is bureaucratic which are intended to achieve maximum effectiveness but however creating bottle neck. The emerging trends in organisations are to simplify and modernize organizational processes by innovation and use of new technology to quicken decision-making process, especially those involving customers with the intention to make the processes that involve customers more user friendly(Lynch, 2005). Style/Culture: refers to distinct culture and management style in organizations. It generally includes the dominant values, beliefs and norms which develop over time and become relatively peculiar to the organisation. It consists of the way companys top management interact the employees. Traditional approach has been largely military style of management and culture where strict adherence to top-down management, concentrating power at the centre, thereby creating bottlenecks which invariably leads to time wastage and ineffienciecy. Recent efforts have sought to change culture to a more open, innovative and friendly environment with fewer hierarchies and smaller chain of command. Culture remains an important consideration in the implementation of any strategy in the organisation (Martins and Terblanche, 2003). Staff: Organisations are made up of humans and its the people who make the real difference to the success of the organisation in the increasingly knowledge-based society (). The importance of human resources has thus got the central position in the strategy of the organisation, away from the traditional model of capital and land. In order to ensure quality staff, organisations put considerable efforts into hiring the best staff, providing them with rigorous training and mentoring support, and pushing their staff to limits in achieving professional excellence, and this forms the basis of these organisations strategy and competitive advantage over their competitors (). It is also important for the organisation to instil confidence among the employees about their future in the organisation and future career growth as an incentive for hard work (Purcell and Boxal, 2003). Shared Values/Superordinate Goals: All members of the organisation share some common fundamental ideas or guiding concepts around which the business is built. This may be to make money or to achieve excellence in a particular field. These values and common goals keep the employees working towards a common destination as a coherent team and are important to keep the team spirit alive. The organisations with weak values and common goals often find their employees following their own personal goals that may be different or even in conflict with those of the organisation or their fellow colleagues (Martins and Terblanche, 2003). CASE STUDY Rescuing Troubled Software Projects by Team Transformation: A Case Study with an ERP Project, Kim Man Lui and Keith C. C. Chan Strategy. This companys direction and scope over the long term is to be market-leading international beverage brand. This is one of the main motivations necessitating SAP R/3, an ERP system to replace the existing IBM A/S400 owing to growing competitions. Structure. The hierarchical team structure is adopted though a change in the composition and communication flow was effected to ensure success of project team. Functional areas of expertise was key to inclusion in the project team. Systems. In the case study, Accelerated SAP (ASAP) was adopted to implement the new ERP system. ASAP is comprised of five phases. The phases are project preparation, Business blueprint, realization, final preparation and Go Live and support. Skills. There are some issues in the staffing and learning process of the staff in the company. There are some weakness in the staffing and there is no clear cut way of training and assessing the competence of an individual staff in the project team. There is lack of adequate knowledge in the staff included for implementation of the project. The two programmers in the project team are not well experienced in ASAP. Shared values. The core value and belief of this organization is to become the leading international beverage brand. This is the motivation behind the approaches and efforts of all staff involved with the project. Staff. Staffing and training has not been properly developed. Obviously, inclusion of inexperienced programmers is a pointer to the shortcoming. This would definitely impact the success of the enterprise integration project. Style. There is a sign of leadership maturity in the company. The company was rescued majorly because there was a transformation of the team. In spite of the fact that there were a number of issues as mentioned above, the approach adopted to rescue the team was to transforming the project team.

An Analytical Essay on the Double-edged Sword in Hamlet :: The Tragedy of Hamlet Essays

An Analytical Essay on the Double-edged Sword in Hamlet   Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hamlet's tale is a tragic one because it presents a man who is in the center of a moral dilemma. It is difficult enough for a man to face what is making him angry even under normal circumstances. Hamlet's circumstances are certainly not normal.   Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hamlet's dilemma, whether or not he should kill the king, is compounded by three things. He is extremely angry and hurt over the murder of his father. He cannot express that anger to others because in his position it would be political suicide. Finally, human nature demands that he express that anger somehow. Thus Hamlet faces a double-edged sword, he must express his anger somehow and that will lead to his downfall.   Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Hamlet (correctly) blames his uncle, Claudius, for the death of his father. Further compounding the issue is the fact that Claudius is now the King of Denmark and is married to Hamlet's mother, Gertrude. Hamlet feels robbed of his both his father and his birthright. There is no doubt that Claudius is responsible for the crime, the next course of action would, of course, be to kill him.   Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   But it is not that simple.   Gertrude seems quite happy in her life with her new husband. Although Hamlet is infuriated with her as well for marrying Claudius so soon after her husband's death, he still loves her and does not wish any harm to come to her. Furthermore, if Hamlet were to kill Claudius, especially at this point, the people of Denmark would no doubt suspect the truth. This would only anger Hamlet even more since he feels that he would get caught for his 'justifiable homicide' and Claudius did not get caught for his crime. All Hamlet can do is keep quiet, and that only makes him even more frustrated.   Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   However, Hamlet cannot continue to hold his strong feelings inside for very long. Like shaking a bottle of soda, the pressure builds and builds until, eventually, the bottle will explode. Hamlet begins exploding with his passive-aggressive behavior towards the king and queen. He puts on a play that almost exactly displays the crime of which Claudius is guilty right before his eyes. However, even knowing beyond any doubt now that Claudius is guilty, Hamlet still cannot bring himself to kill him. The bottle does not explode completely until the duel at the climax of the play.

Analysis of A Description of New England by John Smith Essay -- John S

Analysis of A Description of New England by John Smith The author John Smith, a pilgrim who arrived to the Americas, wrote a description of the new land in his book â€Å" A Description of New England †. In this book Smith shows a wonderful world of vast food and pleasure. Also, William Bradford another pilgrim who arrived to Plymouth on the coast of Massachusetts, wrote a book called â€Å" Of Plymouth Plantation † in which he describes what really happened, how the pilgrims actually lived. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast both authors and their books. John Smith wrote about the wonderful place the New World was, on the other hand, William Bradford wrote about the realities and difficulties of the New World. In â€Å" A Description of New England †, Smith starts by describing the pleasure and content that risking your life for getting your own piece of land brings to men. On the other hand, Bradford reminds us how harsh and difficult the trip to the New World was for the p...

Introduction for a Chemistry Essay

The average University student has many tasks to accomplish and much studying to do while combating the onslaught of sleep. Students at the University of the West Indies Mona are no different and recommended amongst themselves a highly rated and popular health supplement â€Å"Yeast-Vite† [8]. Yeast-Vite is a health supplement pill which helps people fight fatigue and improve alertness. The active ingredients in Yeast-Vite are caffeine, vitamin B1, vitamin B2, vitamin B3. The other ingredients are: dried yeast, lactose, powdered cloves, colouring E124, E104, E132, colloidal anhydrous silica, maize starch, and microcrystalline cellulose. [1] Yeast-Vite is a good energy supplier when taken according to the directions. The Manufacturer recommends taking 12 pills in a day [1] to eliminate fatigue and improve concentration. The â€Å"alert† effect can be attributed to Caffeine, a major compound that has been proven to stimulate the central nervous system, heart, muscles, and blood pressure control centres [2]. Each pill contains 50mg of Caffeine according to the label created by the manufacturer. The following structure represents that of caffeine. Though effective, research has shown that the intake of more than 300mg of Caffeine on a daily basis is harmful to the body. Symptoms such as caffeinism, insomnia, irritability, palpitations, Nervous symptoms, upset stomach etc. are experienced and consuming more than 500mg may cause death.[3] Theoretically, the recommended dosage of Yeast-Vite tablets daily can create such harm, since the suggested daily dosage of up to 12 tablets[1] adds up to 600mg –if caffeine content of 50mg per tablet holds true. A problem exists. The recommended daily dosage of Yeast-Vite contained too much caffeine for the human body. It was hypothesized that the caffeine concentration in Yeast-Vite pills could cause negative health effects and that the manufacturer’s idea of the caffeine content may be inaccurate. Three analytical chemistry students decided to test the hypothesis, and over a four week period, conducted the determination of the caffeine content of Yeast-Vite pills using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. The researchers expected the actual caffeine content of pills to be 10mg more/less than 50mg of caffeine and also that Vitamins B1, B2 and B3 could cause significant interference. The analysis was conducted entirely as a group by dissolving pills in water, preparing calibration standards, and determining the concentration of caffeine in the pills via external calibration and standard addition (single spike). High performance liquid chromatography was chosen as the analytical method because caffeine did not fit the criteria for analysis by Gas Chromatography and Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy i.e. caffeine’s volatility was negligible and it had no metal ions.

Perfection Definition Essay

Too often we aim for perfection and berate ourselves when we fall short. Some of us avoid that humiliation by simply giving up. I don’t want you to give up. I want you to aim high, certainly, but don’t stop simply because you didn’t achieve perfection. There are two points I will make tonight. Firstly, perfection for us mere mortals is by its very nature impossible to achieve. Secondly, to achieve perfection is not actually a desirable thing. Firstly, why is perfection impossible? Perfection – being correct in every detail – escapes our practical attempts to achieve it. Firstly – much like beauty – perfection is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s perception of the perfect meal is only fit for pigs in the view of another. Notions of perfection are therefore relative – relative to the individual, to their culture, to their notions of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. Thus, perfection defeats any notion of an objective definition. As well, we humans are not created for perfection, we are created to survive. Humans learn by making mistakes and surviving. It simply does not make sense to be a race that seeks to perfect a single thing whilst all else goes to pot. We do have feet of clay and so every thing we do carries that fatal flaw in its making. Consider the very highest works of art. The Mona Lisa – often considered a towering achievement of art – was painted by Leonardo da Vinci over the course of 17 years, and it only came to its current state when he died. So clearly that painting is not perfection. Consider also the dangers and rigours of the space race and its complete intolerance of imperfection. Billions upon billions have been spent in the space race, and yet, despite monumental effort, despite the world’s brightest minds and most developed systems, tiny flaws come into the machinery that powers the astronauts aloft, and when that occurs, people die in disasters such as the Columbia and Challenger disasters. Perfection requires far too much work and is unattainable. We cannot define perfection objectively, and in any case as flawed and frail humans our creations must also be imperfect. Perfection is impossible. Secondly, even if perfection were possible, would it be good for us? As we know, George Douglas Duke of Argyll said, â€Å"Every advance has a new horizon.† Even the very best, having achieved the highest levels of excellence that humans are capable of eventually see their high water mark eclipsed by competitors or, sometimes, by themselves. Nadia Comaneci obtained perfect scores in the 1976 Olympics in Montreal, only to have those performances surpassed by later athletes. If perfection were achieved, we would, perversely, stagnate and fail. As humans, we need to progress and grow, to strive to achieve and to fly above our flawed nature. The myth of progress, of ‘higher, faster, better’, caresses the ego of each of us to exceed the performance of those that went before. Were it not possible – were perfection attained – we would not strive with our own personal arrogance to better our betters and succeed. Perfection would become a straitjacket colouring our world with the blandness of mediocrity, where our will to succeed would be sapped by the knowledge that we can do no better. Perfection is not desirable. Now consider the original question. Who needs perfection? The simple answer is that no-one needs perfection. Perfection is not possible due to our flawed and fragile natures, and in any event we cannot agree what perfection is. Perfection is also not desirable, as knowing that we can do no better than our predecessors removes our desire to strive to succeed. In fact we need imperfection. We need to see an opportunity to better the world, to break new grounds of excellence. We need to set the challenge, to stake our claim in the ground and ask all before us to better that mark of excellence. In doing so we must recognise that what we have done is not perfect, and that what we have done contains flaws. Imperfection allows us to advance our small corner of the world, and it allows us to challenge our successors to build upon our work. There is nothing perfect in this world, but the world can be made better by our own actions. Ladies and gentlemen, perfection is neither possible nor desirable. Who needs perfection? No-one needs perfection. There will always be a flaw, some minute imperfection, that will allow us to advance. In that imperfection there is hope. As men with feet of clay, should you aim for perfection, you will assuredly fail in that endeavour. That is no reason to abandon the task, though, as you will leave the world in a better state than before you took up your tools. Stand firm, stand proud, and say â€Å"no-one needs perfection†.