10 Ways to be a Great Admin Assistant

10 Ways to be a Great Admin Assistant As a personal or administrative assistant, yours is one of the most important (and undervalued) components of a successful operation. Here are 10 ways to be a great admin assistant and get noticed for all the amazing, crucial work you do.1. Show core competenceThis covers the basics. You should be solid on everything from basic office and organization skills, necessary software, all word processing programs, database creation and management, communication skills, phone manner, spelling, grammar, punctuation, scheduling, payroll, budgeting, report generating, basic accounting, supply ordering, etc., etc. Think of this as your absolute minimum as far as skills and expertise go, then build on it, rather than thinking of it as a rudimentary checklist. You want all these boxes ticked, and well, before you can feel comfortable calling yourself good at your job. Then build on them and get even better and more competent.2. CommunicateThis is an absolutely key and crucial skill for assistants . Don’t just be good at it- be great at it. That’s where your bar should be set. Whether you’re speaking to clients or your boss’s boss on the phone, be personable, charming, and precise. Smile, even when you don’t mean it, and even when no one can see. They’ll be able to hear it in your demeanor and it can make all the difference. Be a pleasure to speak with on the phone and in person. Be someone people are relieved to go to when they have a problem that needs fixing.3. Dot your ‘i’sOrganization and attention to detail are two skills probably already on your resume- and everybody else’s! You must make these the keystones of your entire job outlook. Pay attention. Be meticulous. Find a system that is efficient, common sense based, and works for you. Be the best-oiled machine possible. When you’ve reached optimum efficiency, try and make it even better.4. Manage your timeAnother skill everyone likes to tout on their resumes. But you must absolutely own this one. Half the time you won’t just be managing your time, but your boss’s time. Or the company’s. You’ll have to manage all of this while also managing yourself and your projects and deadlines. Become a master juggler. Know when you can add another log to the fire and when you have to delegate or decline.5. Know your industryIt’s not enough to know your office inside and out. If you’re not thinking past your immediate workspace and your company, you’re only ever going to be an administrative assistant. A lot of industry-specific stuff you can learn on the job. Just make sure you learn fast. Pay attention. Ask questions. Bone up in your free time. After week two, you should be the one answering the questions. After another few weeks, be good enough to be a resource to your boss- rather than the other way around.6. Hone your toolsDepending on what your particular tool box contains, you’ll learn very quickly what you need to know. Whether it’s Quicken or Excel, take a training course, gain Jedi ninja skills that make you a wizard at that tool. There will come a time when your wealth of extra knowledge saves the day.7. Be a consummate professionalDon’t just dress nicely for work and be professional. Dress consistently and perfectly for what you’re doing and who you’re working with. Look good- the more professional you look, the more respect you’ll gain without having to do much at all. And be absolutely steadfast in your commitment to being a professional. This reputation for trustworthiness and respectability will only help you as you go.8. Be trustworthyWhether you’re dealing with twisty office politics or having to mediate concerns between coworkers or you’re just plain listening to people air their troubles, be a vault. Don’t speak ill of anyone behind their back. Earn people’s trust. Maintain integrit y and dignity. And always handle confidential documents, matters, and conversations with the utmost of tact. Be a vault. The trust of your colleagues and superiors is a valuable thing to have.9. Cultivate good judgmentUse all those skills from your undergraduate philosophy class. Hone your reason and critical thinking skills. Learn how to think through problems, anticipate complications and needs. Become deft at knowing how to delegate, whom to ask for help. And learn to do it without a lot of direction from above. Your boss will thank you for putting out so many fires on your own.10. Be a team playerThis sounds cheesy, but it really is a must. Pinch in when you can. Do the job everyone else is batting around like a hot potato. And do it with a smile on your face. You’ll have a bunch of favors you can call in in a pinch. Plus, you’ll impress your boss with your initiative. Try to never utter the words â€Å"but that’s not my job.†

Free Essays on “South Park’s Interpretation Of America”

, America should do one thing and say another. This way America can go to war yet protest it at the same time. Personally, I agree with the South Park theory. This strategy of indecision showed up in the Cold war when Johnson campaigned for presidency in 1964. When he ran, he declared that he was anti-war and claimed that he would pull our troops out of Vietnam. However, soon after he was elected an American ship was attacked and nearly sunk. It was later discovered that this incident, Gulf Tonkin, was fabricated by President Johnson. This shows that America wants to â€Å"have their cake and eat it to† because Johnson got everything he wanted: the image of being anti-war for elections and the ability to get involved in the war. Some other examples of America â€Å"saying on thing and doing another† were also during the Cold War. During this time period America was determined to promote capitalism all over the world. However, to do this we needed an image of being â€Å"liberators† so countries trust us and turn to capitalism. As a result, after the Geneva Peace Conference of 1954 Vietnam was supposed to have free elections and become an independent republic. Although, in 1956 the communist leader Ho Chi Minh was about to be re-elected so America decided not to recognize the elections. This shows that America is declaring to be liberators; however, they are refusing to recognize free elections if the country is communist. Together, these two instances show that America can manipulate the it’s people and other count... Free Essays on â€Å"South Park’s Interpretation Of America† Free Essays on â€Å"South Park’s Interpretation Of America† The South Park episode which we watched in class, gives an interpretation of America’s political system. In the show, the boys discover that the founding fathers couldn’t decide whether or not to go to war with England. After a heated discussion, John Hancock, the head of Congress, and the founding fathers decided that America should be based on a system which can, â€Å"have their cake and eat it too†. In other words, America should do one thing and say another. This way America can go to war yet protest it at the same time. Personally, I agree with the South Park theory. This strategy of indecision showed up in the Cold war when Johnson campaigned for presidency in 1964. When he ran, he declared that he was anti-war and claimed that he would pull our troops out of Vietnam. However, soon after he was elected an American ship was attacked and nearly sunk. It was later discovered that this incident, Gulf Tonkin, was fabricated by President Johnson. This shows that America wants to â€Å"have their cake and eat it to† because Johnson got everything he wanted: the image of being anti-war for elections and the ability to get involved in the war. Some other examples of America â€Å"saying on thing and doing another† were also during the Cold War. During this time period America was determined to promote capitalism all over the world. However, to do this we needed an image of being â€Å"liberators† so countries trust us and turn to capitalism. As a result, after the Geneva Peace Conference of 1954 Vietnam was supposed to have free elections and become an independent republic. Although, in 1956 the communist leader Ho Chi Minh was about to be re-elected so America decided not to recognize the elections. This shows that America is declaring to be liberators; however, they are refusing to recognize free elections if the country is communist. Together, these two instances show that America can manipulate the it’s people and other count...

Case Analysis of OD Letter Study Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Analysis of OD Letter - Case Study Example Is that true? I could sure use someone to bounce some ideas off. I’d appreciate any insights. Sorry to have missed your call but I was in Oklahoma City doing some work with one of my new field teams. And now that I’m back, your secretary said you were out of the area on company business. So this is what we get paid the big bucks for! I thought I’d zap this e-mail off instead of waiting for you to get back at headquarters. Your e-mail triggered some old memories. Excuse my rambling in what I will share with you. I’ll add the details when I see you. Please keep this confidential. Yes, you were right about me working with the XRS project team. I looked in my records and it was three years ago that I worked with XRS. I have been indirectly keeping in touch with how things are going there through one of my old contacts. Their project manager, John Everet, had been under a lot of pressure from his department head, Kate Pringle, to get the project moving at a faster pace. It seems that the team was not turning out any results, and John had been the team manager for over two years. Kate talked to me about the team. She seemed to think there was some friction among members andmaybe that John was causing some problems.†¨Anyway, Kate contacted me to see if I would go along on the team’s annual retreat and maybe help them with severalissues—mainly personnel stuff—and, me being an outsider, bring in a new perspective. Because the company requires an out- sider from another division to go along and help with the training on team retreats, John didn’t have much choice about me being there. He sure didn’t go out of his way to make me feel welcome. I decided it would be wise to go easy at first until I got the lay of the land, and retreats generally have gone pretty well. Most teams have gone away from the retreat thinking they have worked out some team issues. Well, this retreat broke the mold. Anyway, the three-day retreat was weird. The retreat

The Movie Fight Club Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Fight Club - Movie Review Example Although one can argue that the narrator makes more use of his mental capacity as evidenced by his imagining Tyler to the point that he thinks Durden is a real person, in the Narrator’s mind it is still the use of the body thru fighting and having sex which is dominant. Furthermore, this also serves as proof to the disorganized thoughts of the person.An important matter that faces us now is how to make sense of the narrator’s creation of Tyler. Was he trying to project himself as a hero? Deep inside, was he actually a person fond of out-of-the-norm sexual practices? These are questions that must be addressed because these characteristics are for an Eros person and not for Thanatos.For sure, the Narrator made Tyler as a hero who gave meaning to the life of other persons. We argue that this is not the case. Tyler is a separate entity and not the narrator himself. It is not the Narrator consciously projecting himself as the hero. What the Narrator is actually committing wa s an act of transference where he transfers his reason or ‘consciousness’ to Tyler. Due to his desperation because of the flaws in his character, he tries to endow another person his consciousness and make that individual make the world know of his angst. Since Tyler was only a product of the subconscious and is therefore unreal and since the dominant behavior of the person is as the Narrator in real, conscious life, we can, therefore, say it was Tyler who was an Eros while the Narrator was a Thanatos.... Was he trying to project himself as a hero Deep inside, was he actually a person fond of out-of-the-norm sexual practices These are questions that must be addressed because these characteristics are for an Eros person and not for Thanatos. For sure, the Narrator made Tyler as a hero who gave meaning to the life of other persons. But the question is, was Tyler essentially the Narrator We argue that this is not the case. Tyler is a separate entity and not the narrator himself. It is not the Narrator consciously projecting himself as the hero. What the Narrator is actually committing was an act of transference where he transfers his reason or 'consciousness' to Tyler. Due to his desperation because of the flaws in his character, he tries to endow another person his consciousness and make that individual make the world know of his angst. Since Tyler was only a product of the subconscious and is therefore unreal and since the dominant behavior of the person is as the Narrator in real, conscious life, we can therefore say it was Tyler who was an Eros while the Narrator was a Thanatos. Having an Eros mentality leads to many worries and frustrations while having a Thanatos character results to a life devoid of meaning. Being a rebellion can be fulfilling but only for a short time. In the end it leads to regret and what-could-have-been statements. What then could lead to a happy life There many ways in which people can be happy. Some achieve it by adding zeroes to their bank account while some consider the lack of conflict in interpersonal - especially marital- relationships as a happy life. Whatever form it may assume, happiness can be achieved if a person is successful in his endeavor - whether

Alphonsus Church Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Alphonsus Church - Research Paper Example The historical back ground of St. Alphonsus Catholic Church dates back to 1861 when Archbishop Peter Richard Kenrick made an invitation to the Redemptorists to construct a permanent home in St. Louis. Following the invitation, the Redemptorists bought three and one-half acres of land at Grand and Cook Avenues, and Father Francis Xavier Seelos paid a visit to the construction site of the future of St. Alphonsus â€Å"Rock† Church who was still in St. Louis in a parish mission preaching. On May 1st 1867, ground was broken for the church and on November 3rd the same year the cornerstone was put up in and blessed by the Rev. Joseph Melchers who was then the vicar general of the archdiocese. In 1887 the 22nd date of November, Rev. Augustus Tolton – the first African-American Roman Catholic priest – visited the St. Alphonsus â€Å"Rock† Church and met the Redemptorist Community then offered a mass which was meant for the School of Sisters on Notre Dame in their convent chapel within the church compound. Between the years 1887 to 2006 several invents that included the expansion of the activities of the church and alteration of the priests, clergy, deacons and pastors occurred. On 16th of August 2007, lightning struck the roof of the church resulting into a five alarm fire forcing the parish to celebrate their mass in the gym thereafter. This same year ( 2007) it was recommended that the church be closed to the fear of its structural deficiencies that in other words risked the lives of those who worshiped in it. This move was due to the concerns of human rights and need for worshippers safety that were considered as very important. Since then, worries have on people as if the church could be restored. Among the individuals who crucially expressed their concerns were the former parishioners of the church such as Terry Pittman, veteran harbor pilot and the current chairperson of the Sydney Ports Corporation who also had a better understanding of the historical building materials that had been used in the construction of the church.

Leadership and Organisational Climate Effect on Innovation

Leadership and Organisational Climate Effect on Innovation Access the respective contributions of leadership and organisational climate to promote innovation. 1. Introduction Now more than ever, companies are putting more attention to innovation that make their products and services more competitive, thereby enable them to survive and flourish in the changeable and challenging global environment. There is vast number of articles and papers supporting that innovation can significantly enhance sustainable competitive advantage (Porter, 1998; Shoham and Fieganbaum, 2002; McEvily et al., 2004). Tidd Bessant (2009, p.4) also stressed that innovation is regarded as a key driver of competitive advantage in the manufacturing sector. Innovation is seen by Fagerberg (Fagerberg,et al 2006, p.4) as the first attempt to carry out a new creative idea, and translate it into practice. However, it isnt easy; its a difficult and complex task. According to Tidd and Bessant (2009 p70), there are two primary factors influencing the success of innovation: technical resources (people, equipment, knowledge, money, etc.) and the abilities in the organisation to manage these resources to encourage innovations. However, LAM (Fagerberg,et al 2006 et al 2006, p.115) points out that the latter is the precondition which can place high premiums on innovation. Organisation is a kind of breeding ground for generating creative idea and capturing new opportunities. According to Tidd and Bessant (2009 p.100), an innovative organisation has several key components: appropriate structure, effective team working, external focus, leadership, key individual, creative climate and etc. All the factors are absolutely essential. All innovative organisation needs leadership at every level. Wenger and Snyder (2000) shows that there is a positive relationship between leadership and innovation. There are increasing evidences to prove that unique leadership asserts great importance to innovation efficiently and effectively (Oke et al. 2008). In an organisation, half of the changes in performance are attributable to leadership directly and indirectly (Tidd and Bessant 2009, p.103). Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, who has led Apple to become the giant in the technology market with innovative products, is a typical example to illustrate how important and influential of leadership to innovation and creativity, in order to make his organisation a household name within the industry and worldwide alike. Leadership is becoming more and more popular nowadays. There are many articles, discussions and forums in newspapers, TV shows about how a CEO joining a badly performed company makes the company stop losing money and even regain profit in few years time. And with successful leadership, company has successfully developed a new product. Undeniably, leadership capabilities are the paramount element to sustain an organisation to top the innovative rank and achieve remarkable revenue. One of the most important roles that the leaders play within organisation settings is to create the climate for innovation (Bessant Tidd 2009). Organizational climate for innovation is crucial. West (1990) proposed that when in an organization, peoples creative ideas can be presented without worry about the refuse and ridicule, and can be highly valued and supported, and then innovation can be encouraged. The essay will go through to respectively access the contributions of leadership and organizational climate for innovation. 2. What is leadership? There are many definitions of leadership. Most researchers probably would agree that leadership can be viewed as a group process rather that a role, which is conducted by the group leader through leading and managing his or her followers to influence the process so that they can successfully accomplish their tasks and meet desired common goal (Northhouse 2009, p.3; Jacobs Jaques 1990, p281). No matter the size of a company or an organisation, leadership is vital (ORegan Ghobadian 2006). With poor or no leadership, an organisation will be chaotic. Plenty of examples show that strong leaderships can reverse the worsening business situation. Apple former CEO John Sculley replaced Steve Jobs as the new Apple CEO in 1985 with a high salary plus big bonuses guarantee. During his tenure, he made a big mistake that was to give Microsoft the authority to use Apple Macintosh graphical user interface in Microsofts windows operation system. The wrong decision opened the door to Microsofts Windows Vista and Window 7 operation system, for which the graphical user interface is similar to Macintoshs look and feel, to compete with Apple, and resulting in the latter losing in the lawsuit of plagiarism. Also because of his inaccurate perceptions to Apples product line, Apple launched the world first PAD Newton, which produced disastrous sales because of the high price and bad software pro blems. Under his leadership, Apples market share and stock prices continued to slide, and could not recover for several years until the current Apple CEO Steve Jobs took control of the Company again (Hormby 2006). Similarly, 3M is known for years as an innovator. However, several years ago, under the leadership of former CEO James McNerney, 3M shifted its strategy from innovation to quality control by implementing Six Sigma. Thousands of budgets were cut, hundreds of RD engineers were laid off, and many innovative projects were suspended. Although 3M had had a sound financial balance sheet at the beginning of his tenure, however the long-term damage is detrimental to the whole business. 3M has slided downward from the top rank of innovator ever since (Hindo 2007). 3. Type of Leadership Leadership may touch on all the employees in an organisation, and can be found in every level (Bass Riggio 2008). According to Northouse (2009), there are two different forms of leaderships, which are assigned leadership and emergent leadership. The people get the formal position to be a leader in an organisation, such as the team leader, department manager, CEO, etc, which are called the assigned leadership. Nevertheless, those people with nominal position sometimes are not the real leader but a figurehead for the team in some particular circumstances because of the lack of sufficient personal competence. On the opposite, some people who have not been officially assigned to a leader position, but they perform as a leader with the chief characteristics for a real leader, they can take the challenge to fulfil the team goal, and be regarded as a leader by the people in the organisation, which Northouse call them emergent leadership. IBM e-business real leader Dave Grossman is an examp le. When Dave Grossman came to IBM as a programmer, he found the importance of open internet to expand IBMs business, therefore, he tried to convince IBM top management the bright future of the new e-business. Eventually, IBM accepted his proposal and started opening up their e-business. With his effort, IBM successfully developed its e-business under his leadership, which transformed IBM from a broken up big blue-chip company to a new dot-com company (Tidd Bessant 2009; Hamel 2000). Dave Grossman was only a programmer, but he has the characteristics that leader should have such as vision and passion. No doubt, Grossman, at the time, was an innovative leader, who had a clear vision and successfully turned around and transformed an underperformed company from its old business model to a brighter future. 4. Characteristics of Innovation Leader Leadership always has some visions on bringing about the organisation better prospects. In this sense, leaders are necessarily innovators, who facilitate inventions to materialize their visions of better future (Selman 2009). A leader is not necessarily a great man or hero type of figure, and do not necessarily have university certificate. We heard a number of innovation leaders, who did not graduate from college but still have achieved great successes. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, they both did not finish their college (Although they tried to get degree after their successes). Nevertheless, they have devoted most of their lifetime to pursue their goals, and have secured unprecedented achievement. Its the passion to their business and success, which keeps driving them. Although there are no universal characterises that an innovation leader should possess, generally, other than passionate about the business and success, people usually think a good leader should possess good communication skill, administrative and social capability, skills in their task domain, responsibility, and energetic, initiative, flexibile (Tidd Bessan 2009, pp.104-105). Importantly, an innovation leader must be a good communicator, who is able to help their followers to fully understand the strategy of the organisation, and make sure all of his or her followers will be able to implement the leaders strategy correctly. At the same time, this can guarantee that all followers be timely informed of the progress of the organisation and what the progress of each individual. This can ensure the whole process be smoothly and precisely completed task by task and therefore achieve the common strategic objective (Zerfass Huck 2007). Internally, a innovation leader should administrate well the process of implementation of each task, and make sure the team can complete the task in time and meet all requirements. Externally, the leader should take the responsibility to build up a social network that can promote the product or service on behalf of the company, so that the product and service can be developed and commercialized successfully, which requires the social skill of the leader. (Storiti 2006). Therefore, a innovation leadership should be a good communicator, a good administrator, and a good social swinger. To lead an innovative team, innovation leaders should have substantial knowledge of his given domain. Yuki (2006) points out that expertise can be taken as a power by leader to influence their followers. Other than expertise, cognitive-processing skills are crucial factors to an innovative leader. Combination of expertise and cognitive-processing skills can allow leaders to communicate more clearly with their followers, to better understand the exact needs from their followers, and provide them with prompt and correct support (Tidd Bessant 2009, p.105). Outside, the expertise leaders can present their team more effectively. We can look back to the earlier example of the Apple former CEO John Sculley, his inability to Apples product line is the big reason of his failure. There are thousands of reasons to determine how innovation leaders should be responsible for their task and willing to take the responsibility for all the actions during the innovation process. To get respect and trust from the followers, the most important thing to do is to give them the credit for all achievements and successes, and take the responsibility for any fallings or mistakes. Therefore, followers will be motivated and will be more willing to be led. Due to the dot com bubble in 2001, Cisco had suffered a lot, sales has plunged largely and stock price fells down sharply, more severe, the employee has became very anxious and lost their desire. During the rough time, Cisco CEO John Chambers, took this as his responsibility, requested to reduce his salary to one dollar annually without any bonus until the recovery of company performance. Urged on by his behavior, employee has cheered up and work harder so that Cisco could return to profitability by 2004. 5. Innovation Leadership and Doing the right things Leadership is very important in every step of innovation process (Waldman and Bass,1991). Although some innovations are created by the employees, who are not in the positions as nominal leaders or anyone in the management board, generally speaking, almost all the innovations emerge from a clear strategy and all-around support from the leadership. By assessing the right things a leadership should do such as making long-term strategy, dealing with turbulence and uncertainty, serving and supporting their followers, etc (Isaksen Tidd, 2006, p136), we can generate an outline that explains how leadership contributes to the promotion of innovation. Mapping out a visionary strategy is the fundamental task for an innovative leader to guide the followers to think and behave in a right direction and thus complying with the organisations specific goal. Creative teams have clear and common goals (Tidd and Isaksen 2006, p186). Although freedom is one of the most important part to creativity, which is an essential part of innovation, generally, creativity stems from peoples reaction to a specific goal rather than waiting for peoples affective appeal (Jaussi Dionne 2003). Goal-setting has been viewed as a motivational technique to creativity (Locke Latham 1990). Firstly, it gives the followers a general framework of what kind of idea that will be appreciated and applicable in the organisation in a specific time; Secondly, Gladstein (1984) found that in an organisation, a common goal can make all the members work more closely that can enhance the communication in organisation and facilitate information sharing so as to ignite the spark of creativity and innovation. As Lazonick (Fagerberg,et al 2006, p.20) mentioned, there are many uncertainties in innovation process. An effective leader should have the ability and sight to forecast and preview possibilities that may occur during the process. As for the existing uncertainties and turbulence, leadership can solve these problems by several strategies including buffering, smoothing, adapting, and rationing, at the same time, the leadership can give followers some directions, encouragement and trust to motivate them, so that the process can operate as efficiently as possible in every aspect (Gemin Tarondeau 1982). A great leader understands the perspectives of uncertainty and turbulence as full of opportunities and as the outcome of innovation. In 2001, after dotcom bubble busted, Apples CEO Steve Jobs launched hard disk based iPod, with a high storage of 1000 music songs, and entered the much crowded MP3 player market. This was viewed by many as bad entry timing. Previously, this market sector was dominated by flash memory based MP3 players from Sony and many small manufacturers around the world, with 512MB storage much less than iPod. iPod was a user-friendly, click-wheel interface driven by a powerful marketing campaign overseen by Jobs personally. Jobss vision was realized in 2003 when Apple opened its first iTunes store, selling licensed music tracks to consumers. This demonstrates that Jobs understood the competitive edge of his iPod and launched it in the aftermath of crash of dotcom bubble. The success of iPod and iTunes has shown a great example of the combination of innovation and strategy at work. Of course, it further enhances the position of Jobs being the leader of innovative product in IT world even at the time of uncertainty. Robert Greenleaf (Isaksen Tidd 2006, p133) proposed the concept of servant leadership which means the leaders firstly should serve and help their followers, and understand their needs and provide the support, which is essential for innovation. For example, in order to gain market place through innovative products, an organisation must commit strategic resources, which are controlled in the hands of top management, in another word, the leadership. This is obvious that when a leadership is reluctant to commit resources, innovation can hardly be nourished. We can see the release of Betamax in 1970s, the first generation of video cassette recorder, was the strategic initiative of Akio Morita, the late founder and chairman of Sony Corp at the time. Akio dedicated resources to the RD team for the Betamax development (Oke et al. 2008). Leadership is about transformation and has largely to do with challenging the way business have been achieved so far. They usually do things differently, rather than do things better. Transformational Leaders will have the encouragement to rebel the stereotypes, and spend time to thinking out of the box. Beside, they like to taking thoughtful risks and building strong teams of people to work across boundaries. By doing things differently or unconventionally, distinguishes innovative leader from ordinary leader. 6. Organisational Climate As mentioned earlier, the other crucial factor the innovative leadership needs is to create an organisational climate for innovation. Klein and Sorra(1996) stressed that organisational climate is a key factor in innovation implementation. Building up an innovative climate or culture in an organisation is one of the important tasks of an innovative leadership. At the same time, creative organisational climate is one of fundamental elements that leads to success of innovation. Doing so successfully will certainly further secure and strengthen the leadership, which initiates innovative climate in the first place. This success will also bind more followers to the leadership because of its respective contributions for innovation, or in another word future success. A leadership should have a quality and skills to manoeuvre the internal environment of an organisation to create a favourable climate for innovation. Ashkanasy et al (2000) maintained that although there is no direct influence between organisational climate and innovation, a favourable climate can naturally drive people to seek innovation. Schneider (1990) stressed that organisational climate is generally defined as employees affection to their working environment and the anticipation of what kind of behaviour can be rewarded. Climate more concerned to the individuals feeling, behaviour and attitude in an organisation, however, it has been regarded as an attribution of the organisation (Ekvall, 1996). It can influence the communication, problem solving, decision making and the way of learning (Isaksen Tidd 2006, p.328). Unlike the culture, which is concerned with deeper and more enduring values, norm and beliefs, the climate is easier to be observed and changed(Isaksen Tidd 2006, pp.308-309) There have been many dimensions of organisational climate such as trust and openness, challenge and involvement, idea time and support, conflict and debate, risk taking and freedom, which have been identified as the most critical factors for supporting creativity and change (Isaksen Tidd 2006, p329). We will look into the following aspects of climate for innovation and their interactions with leadership contributions trust and openness in an organisation challenge and involvement support and space of ideas conflict and debate risk taking freedom 6.1 Trust and Openness Trust and openness concern more about the emotional level. Trust can increase resource-exchange and combination between business units, which contribute to produce innovation (Fagerberg,et al 2006). Ewicki et al (1998) contested that trust can be treated as a fundamental ingredient for the organisation to collaborate with each other; consequently, the collaborative climate can nurture innovation (Ruppel and Harrington, 2001). With strong level of trust and openness, people in the organisation will feel safe so that they can speak out their minds and raise some divergent points. They dont fear their ideas will be stolen. If employee feels that the management and leadership always are there to criticize new idea or comment, employee wound not take the risk to put forward their new ideas. For Instance, in order to avert such fear, in 3M, they have set up the Genesis Grants for people who have proposed new ideas even though these ideas are deemed not suitable to his or her current work d ivision or office department. In doing so, this has encouraged employees to present their thoughts and ideas freely. At the same time, to take balance between useful ideas, and unwanted, wild cat and time wasting ideas, 3M has the 15 percent rule that can uphold employee to explore new idea by doing the project they are interested in. Furthermore, with openness, the employee can learn from others experience so as to avoid some unnecessary attempts or mistakes which may save a great deal of time and money; at the same time, employee can get some clues from the others mistake and generate some new ideas. What 3M does here, is to provide a safety net for staff to freely express their ideas and comments, whilst keeping certain degrees of control over the commentary process of avoiding intentional or unintentional abuse of the trust and openness between leadership and staff, or among fellow staff and their peers. 6.2 Challenge and Involvement Challenge and involvement means the degree that people are involved in daily operations, long-term goal and visions (Tidd Bessant 2009), which can emotionally influence the peoples enthusiasm for their work which can contribute to the success of the organisation. During the stickiness to a same task, people may feel dull and lack of interest, however, certain challenge such as a new task or a new position which can inspire people to exert their capability on creative thinking and intrinsic motivation. 3M CEO have applied the mechanism renewal to encourage the innovation. Under such circumstances, new businesses are branched out from old or existing businesses. New management teams are then assigned to new business units. As a result, these new units are able to grow quickly. When these new businesses are under new managements, the newly established business unities have to develop new products and find new markets to achieve their growth objectives to make up for contributions from the old or existing businesses, which they have become segregated from. As stated by Carmeli and Schaubroeck (2007), creative work involvement is important to employee to create achievements and innovation. Involvement in a task can make people think that they are important, they will have the sense of commitment and ownership, therefore, they will delegate more to the task. In 3M, the role of employee is valued as a strategic partner, everyone has the responsibility for leadership and can empowered to act on the vision of the organisation, which have given the employees a sense of commitment that can, to a great extent, stimulate the them to work hard and be more innovative too. 6.3 Support and Space for Ideas Innovation is a time-consuming process (Fagerberg,et al 2006, p 349). Idea time and space give the people amount of time to think, plan, discuss or even test before having an action, which, to a great extent, foster new ideas within the working period. In a supportive climate, people can gain enough resources such as people, time, and money for innovative ideas. At the same time, they may realize there are values and respond to their creative potential and contributions so that they may exhibit higher levels of creative performance (Madjar et al 2002). Oldham and Cummings (1996) showed that supportiveness can significant enhance the creativity and contribute to the number of patent. A key strategy in 3M to allocate resources that allows staff to play with ideas with their own space and time. The 15 percent rule provides the staff in 3M with certain time and space in activities, which are not related to their current core business tasks. Some activities are curiosity-driven, which hav e sometimes resulted in breakthrough products such as the ever-popular Post-itÂÂ ®, which is the typical product initiated from the 15% rule. The development process in Google has a 70-20-10 rule. Google staff must spend 70% in the core business, the other 20% allow staff to roam free to encourage creativitywhere all the most interesting products emerge. The rest 10% is for crazy and radical ideas that might not work out but feel worth pursuing. 6.4 Conflict and Debate Conflict concern more about the relationships between people in an organisation, and debate focused on issues and ideas (Tidd Bessant 2009). Some researchers such as Moscovici (1980) and Nemeth Nemeth-Brown (2003) have stressed the value of conflict in that it can provoke people to think and find out creative or new viable solutions. More creative ideas can be stimulated by encouraging debates or even criticisms (Nemeth et al, 2004). Adequate conflict and debate can help company to create new capabilities by gathering diverse ideas that reflect multiple opinions to generate new options which could help company out of the old practices (Mitchell 2009). In a conflicting climate, people may be driven to strive finding the argument to support his or her own position, therefore, they need to concern the all-around of his or her opinion, or otherwise, they will lose their argument. However, the conflict and debate only can be effective in an organisation with open and collaborative clima te; otherwise, the conflict and debate will generate negative effect such as personal insult and attack (Tidd Bessant, 2009). 3M has recognized the utility of conflict in organisation can help creative thinking. In 3M, once an innovative idea came out, a conflict-free gestation and critical discussion are necessary before it is turned into an actual business product. 6.5 Risk Taking Risk taking refers to the tolerance of uncertainty and unknown situation in an organisation (Tidd Bessant, 2009). Risking-taking is one of the important ways to creative performance, because it can make good use of the opportunities for creativity-relevant resources on experiments, without experimenting things, there will be no inventions. In an organisation with high risk-taking culture, people will be rather free to try their new ideas without fear of the possible failure and they are more willing to express their new ideas freely in the first place (Tidd Bessant, 2009). 3M explicitly implements the strategy to encourage risk-taking and accept mistakes. They value employees who take wise and reasonable risks that helps to keep 3M business viable. 3M encourages employees to focus on solutions rather than placing blame. Under the risk-taking valued climate supported by the leadership, many employees are taking the initiatives, which constantly contribute to the boost of business gr owth of 3M. Dave Girouard, the President of Enterprise of Google, concedes that not every idea may bear fruit, but says there is an internal formula to assess new ideas. Google has a 70/20/10 model, which is 70 per cent of staff efforts are to be focused on core business, 20 per cent of staff efforts should be focused on related but new areas, and the rest of 10 per cent of staff efforts should reserve for radical ideas, some of which may turn into great advancements and many of which may not even be workable at all. The above examples of tolerance of wasting company resources on innovative activities, are considered to be successful only with the full supports by innovative leadership, otherwise, a company will never justify wasting resources on non-workable ideas. Only when the leadership is willing to take such risk, then those innovative processes will be allowed in an organisation in the first place. It should be emphasized that risk-taking has to be performed in a climate with full extent of openness and trust, where staff dare to try new things without the fear of punishment for the failure, or possible defeats and wastes (eg. money, time) during the risk-taking process. 6.6 Freedom Ashforth and Humphrey (1995) state that freedom means allowing people to use their own consideration to evaluate and respond to particular event and situation during the activities of product and process developments. The freedom in an organisation, concerns whether an organisation can allow its people to decide the process to achieve the specific objectives. Creativity is a result of people where they are free to decide what technique they will use to reach the particular task. This will encourage a sense of motivation to create an ownership of what has been created. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of Google Inc, fundamentally believethat staff working on what they choose to work on, what theyre passionate about, have higher productivity than someone, whom is being directed and told what to do. It is a very central motto of innovation at Google. 7. Conclusion Just as the Apple CEO Steve Jobs said, innovation is about the peopleand how youre led. People are the key assets to an innovative organisation. No matter the size of a company, leadership is vital. Without a good leadership, an organisation will fall into chaos. Poor leaderships will have adverse effects on an organisation. Talent is scarce and creative people are highly in demand. Innovative leadership integrates innovation processes with talented people, in another word, to change organisation climate and deploy people to facilitate innovation in organisations through behaviours of leadership, by various leadership styles, or leadership priorities. Being visionary is a typical behaviour of an innovative leader. Innovation leader always has some visions of lifting up prospects of an organisation. In this sense, innovative leaders are necessarily innovators, who facilitate inventions to materialize their visions of better prospect of an organisation. Creating visionary strategy is t he fundamental task for an innovative leader that can guide the followers to think and behave in the right direction and can give the organisation a specific goal to achieve. It is up to the innovative leader to set clear and common goals. The defined goals must be unequivocally presented to the followers. An innovative leadership should have a quality of communication and more skills to manoeuvre within an organisation to create a favourable climate for innovation to strengthen the leadership itself. In other words, an innovation leader must be a good communicator, who can get his message across to his/her followers and motivate them to achieve common objectives through some creative processes. To promote innovation within an organisation, the leadership has to facilitate innovations among its people based on trust, support, openness, and risk taking. Since everyone has freedom to express ideas, it is unavoidable to have conflict between leadership and employees. Innovative leaders hip should be capable in turning debates to stimulation of innovative ideas and thoughts, at the same time, preventing and protecting employees from personal abuses. By doing things differently or in an unconventional way, an innovation organisation truly differs from other ordinary organisations. It is an encouragement for the followers that if the leaders behaviour is innovative. Within a group of people, most people imitate the behaviours of their leaders. The linkage between the role model and followers creativity is that the more creative behaviours the leader performs, the more creative their follower can produce in return. The successful innovations will also bind more followers to the leadership because of its respective contributions for innovation, or in other words, to encourage the innovation leadership and the innovative organisation to seek more innovative successes in the future. This cycle will further enhance intrinsic organisational climate for more innovations in order to facilitate competitive advantage and sustainable growth for the innovative organisation. References: Ashforth, B.E., Humphrey, R.H.,(1995). Emotions; Organisational-behavior; a reappraisal, Human Relations 48 (1995), pp. 97-125 Ashkanasy, N.M., Wilderom, C.P.M., Peterson. M.F. (2000). Handbook of Organisational Culture Climate. London, Sage publications, Inc. Bass, B. M. Riggio, R. E., (2008). Transformational leadership. New Jersey, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc Carmeli, A., Schaubroeck, J., (2007). The influence of leaders and other refer

Religion at the time of the Communist Manifesto Essay -- Karl Marx Rel

Religion at the time of the Communist Manifesto Following the Industrial Revolution in 19th century Europe, change was in full swing and religion began to have different meanings for different people. The upper-class citizens used Religion, namely Christianity, and the power that it possessed in an attempt to keep their high status in society, while the lower class turned to faith so that their lives could possibly improve. Instead of religion being the cornerstone of faith and worship amongst all people, it was being used for power and money by the upper class. Even worse, religious leaders were using the upper class people as well, gaining money and authority from their endorsement. A man by the name of Karl Marx saw what was happening and thus spoke out about it, declaring religion as â€Å"the opium of the people.†[1] He had a vision for equality, and wrote it down in the form of the Communist Manifesto; however nowhere in this document were aspirations of religious harmony. Religion was becoming the c atalyst for class separation and social mayhem in 19th century Europe, and according to Karl Marx, equality was only possible with the abolition of it as a whole. In a time where industry was at a peak, and the wealthy citizens, or bourgeois, were getting richer and richer, religion was being used as a way to make money and ensure the power of the upper class, while the lower class proletariats could but watch their lives fade away into the horrific conditions of the working class, with little hope due to the lack of lower class education.[2] As religions spread out freely, the authoritarian peoples frequently used their power to embrace religion as a moneymaker, and prevent liberty from turning ... ...eger, 1961.) 33 [4] Armstrong, 178 [5] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, trans. Samuel Moore (Chicago: Charles H. Kerr Publishing Company, 1989) [6] Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1892) 45, 48-51. [7]) McClellan, 63 [8] Sherman, Dennis , and Joyce Salisbury. The West in the World. (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2001.) 617 [9] Lichtheim, 42. [10] Butterfield, Herbert. Christianity in European History. (London: Collins, 1951) 5. [11] Sherman, Salisbury, 617 Links: Professor Santamarina's webpage http://www.marxist.com/Theory/marxism_and_religion.html http://www.faithnet.freeserve.co.uk/marxism.htm http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/bookchin/comman.html http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/index.htm

Business in China Essay

There are many cross cultural differences that would need to be taken into consideration if a US company were to expand into China. Language is an important cultural difference that has to be taken into consideration. It would be wise to consult a native speaker. Due to various dialects and local slang a translation of something would have to be understood by all and to not offend a particular market. An American advertisement in English would be understood by all of the US but a Chinese advertisement in one of the seven Chinese dialects would not be understood by everyone in China. An American advertisement or product info that is mistranslated could make it off putting to consumers or investors. The legal system in China is vastly different than in the US. Corruption is rampant in China when doing business and often times bribes are necessary in order to ensure that your operation runs according to plan. The legal system in China is more difficult to navigate and lacks neutrality as the China Communist Party is in complete control of it. The US legal system has more neutrality, transparency and it is easier to file court cases. Bribes in the US would be completely illegal and never permissible. Gender is another cultural difference between the US and China. Gender inequality in China has existed throughout history and just recently laws are being passed in order to ensure equality but discrimination is still experienced. Women are still expected to do all housework even if they have a job and they normally make less than their male counterparts. Although the situation is improving, males are more favored in business dealings. A US company would need to be hesitant in sending a female executive to China to do any new dealings as Chinese companies might not be as comfortable compared to if they were dealing with a male. B The safety of products in the US is very different as compared to China. China is known for their cheap goods but they come at a health cost as low quality standards often lead to toxic or unsafe products. Many US companies outsource their production in order to lower costs and US products are often  recalled due to lead or other chemicals being found in the products after they have been purchased by the consumer. In the US this would not happen due to high industry quality standards and regulations. In China companies must strictly implement their own safety standards and monitor that they are being followed in order to ensure quality products up to standards. In the US, food and medical related products would need to follow the strict guidelines of the FDA in order to be able to sell the product on the market. In China, a food or medical product by the same company would not have as strict guildelines as compared to the US, but the FDA has been training Chinese companies on how to produce safer products. Products are often cheaper in price in China due to cheaper labor and production. China is able to produce products on such a large scale that it further decreases the price of each individual product. Workers are paid significantly lower wages as compared to the US. Chinese companies often receive the taxes they paid on products back if it is exported and this also keeps prices low. In the US products are not commonly advertised with a price ending in zero such as $10 or $20. Instead the product would be advertised one cent less at $9.99 or $19.99 because having the product price at the lower dollar amount makes the product seem more att ractive. In China there is much emphasis on the luck of certain numbers and 8 is one of the luckiest number in Chinese culture and many companies use this to their advantage by advertising products with prices ending in 8. Products are often promoted very differently between the US and China. Advertisements in the US often make it seem as though a particular product such as vodka will give you the adventurous life of the model in the advertisement. In China, advertisements for luxury products are banned as it doesn’t fit with the China Communist Party’s want to promote thrifty values and not promote extravagance. In China, a company new to the market must advertise its product with an emphasis on affirming its products safety due to the rampant counterfeiting and low product safety in China. In the US, a new company to the market would advertise its product with an emphasis on its distinguishing features or cheaper price as product safety is not an issue in the US. There is a large portion of China’s population that lives in rural areas and products have not normally marketed towards them due to the lack of infrastructure to effectively reach them. Recently, companies are marketing outside of major cities as  infrastructure is improving. This is compared to the US where the USPS can send a package to any address in the country in a few days. In the US businesses utilize large semi trailers to effectively distribute large batches products across the country as all city streets are able to accommodate the large trucks and the US highway system reaches to every part of the country. In China, businesses send out smaller batches to each store as space is often more limited but most major cities limit the use of trucks. Shipments must then be sent by vans or cars which is less efficient. Although the situation is improving, bribes are very common when doing business in China. Bribes are expected in order to cut through bureaucratic red tape. Not giving bribes would put a company at a disadvantage to their competitors. Any sort of bribery or corruption is highly illegal in the US and illegal for all US companies. In the US, workers must normally be at least 16 with permission or 18 to hold a job in order to not exploit children in the workforce. Child labor is a huge problem in China due to lack of enforcement of policies. Due to poverty, families are letting their children which can be as young as 5 years old be exploited by working in extreme conditions and long hours. If a US company was caught hiring child workers not only would it be ethically wrong but it would be a major hit to the companies reputation.

Free Essays on The Jungle

The Jungle Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is the story of a Lithuanian family that immigrates from their home city in Lithuania to the city of Chicago. The novel begins with the strong description of a wedding in which Ona Lukoszaite and Jurgis Rudkus are united in Holy Matrimony. The two of them then move to Chicago, to live their American dream. Soon after the wedding, Ona and Jurgis have many great debts to pay due to both the wedding, and a large debt that Ona’s father left them after he died. Due to Jurgis’s large size and strong will he found a job in Chicago within only a half an hour of waiting in the unemployment line. Back in the newlywed’s hometown of Lithuania, Ona and Jurgis’ family anticipated a move to America. America uses the image of the â€Å"American Dream† to lure immigrants to this land of opportunity. The family desperately desires higher wages and true freedom. For months and months, Jurgis works very hard to pay for the families travel to Ona and Jurgis’ new hometown, Chicago. When the family finally makes it to America, their funds are very low. They met with a well off man named Jokubas Szedvilas who placed the family in a run down youth hostel. Jokubas takes the family to the meatpacking factory. He makes jokes about the sanitation of the operation (due only to the lack of quality of the meat). The family finds an advertisement for a housing complex that is very cheap. They talk to a real estate agent and they go see the housing complex. The houses aren’t as big and luxurious as they are pictured in the advertisement, but the price is right. The real estate agent swindles them, and they are pulled into the contract. Sinclair emphasizes the corruption of upper class society during this era. Jurgis’s father, Dede Antanas, is promised a job by a grubby worker, but only if he pays that worker one third of his wages. He takes the job despite the disgusting working co... Free Essays on The Jungle Free Essays on The Jungle The Jungle Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle is the story of a Lithuanian family that immigrates from their home city in Lithuania to the city of Chicago. The novel begins with the strong description of a wedding in which Ona Lukoszaite and Jurgis Rudkus are united in Holy Matrimony. The two of them then move to Chicago, to live their American dream. Soon after the wedding, Ona and Jurgis have many great debts to pay due to both the wedding, and a large debt that Ona’s father left them after he died. Due to Jurgis’s large size and strong will he found a job in Chicago within only a half an hour of waiting in the unemployment line. Back in the newlywed’s hometown of Lithuania, Ona and Jurgis’ family anticipated a move to America. America uses the image of the â€Å"American Dream† to lure immigrants to this land of opportunity. The family desperately desires higher wages and true freedom. For months and months, Jurgis works very hard to pay for the families travel to Ona and Jurgis’ new hometown, Chicago. When the family finally makes it to America, their funds are very low. They met with a well off man named Jokubas Szedvilas who placed the family in a run down youth hostel. Jokubas takes the family to the meatpacking factory. He makes jokes about the sanitation of the operation (due only to the lack of quality of the meat). The family finds an advertisement for a housing complex that is very cheap. They talk to a real estate agent and they go see the housing complex. The houses aren’t as big and luxurious as they are pictured in the advertisement, but the price is right. The real estate agent swindles them, and they are pulled into the contract. Sinclair emphasizes the corruption of upper class society during this era. Jurgis’s father, Dede Antanas, is promised a job by a grubby worker, but only if he pays that worker one third of his wages. He takes the job despite the disgusting working co...

My Sad Life Essays - Blood, Free Essays, Term Papers

My Sad Life Essays - Blood, Free Essays, Term Papers My Sad Life The sun was setting. Far to the east, threatening black clouds arose from the fumes of pollution from the several smoke stacks towering over the city. The streets were pock marked and dented with the recent shower of acid rain. Hot boiling steam from the sewers made the temperature of day much hotter than it really was. Just outside the borders of the city is a lake covered with muck and crude oil spills. Death and despair floated aimlessly on the surface of the unhospitable body of water. Corpses of dead fish, seagulls... bobbed just under the rim of the black slime. The black slime sensing fresh prey, extended it's corrupt and revolting tendrils farther...until it caught another unsuspecting victim, choking and engulfing, destroying, leaving just another emtpy shell behind, devoid of any life. Night set in, the stars were obscured by thick blankets of smoke. The day was done. Stores got ready to lock up and street lights were turned on to aid the bread winners, so they may travel safely. Few were fortunate enough to own automobiles so they could avoid the cold dangerous streets and dark alleyways. Most shops were already abandoned, finished for the day. Yet few doors were still open, desperate for any last minute customers. One such shopkeeper was Phil Anderson. Anderson had worked as a pharmacist for most of his life. At forty, he had little to show for. The pollution that caused the gradual decay of the city had had negative effects on business, as well as the environment. Phil, though by all means not an old man, showed signs of premature aging. His skin was pale and dry, wrinkled by the everyday punishment of the deteriorating sorroundings. Few strands of grayish white hair lined his almost bald, dandruff infested scalp. Looking at Phil with his characteristic limp, slouched posture and bulging belly one might think him an extremely unathletic person. But then again it was not entirely his fault. His eyes were red and bloodshot, the glasses he wore only made these features more obvious. With shaking skinny hands, Phil slowly put away the last of the items on top of the counter. Finally done, he flicked off the lights and rummaged through his pockets for his keys. Looking one last time to make sure the shop was in order, Phil locked up the store and left. He failed t o notice a dark shadow spying on him as he counted the bills he had earned today, and put it away into his black leather wallet. The tall dark figure studied the pharmacist a while longer before trailing him. The narrow dirty street smelled of weeks old garbage and animal wastes. Smog was still thick in the air causing him to cough repeatedly. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath. Remembering his air filter in his pocket, Phil gingerly took it out and put it on. Feeling much better Phil continued down the street, heaving a sigh of relief. Bibliography none

Summary of readings Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Summary of readings - Essay Example At this time the government also started taking other initiatives regarding the social rights of the people. The government started allocating a certain amount of budget for social security, which was yet another significant contribution to the social rights of the people. Currently Japan is facing a serious problem of population decline. The population growth rate of Japan has been declining for three years in a row. As announced by the Japanese government the population decline in 2012 was 212,000, which has not been recorded before in Japanese history. The number of children born in Japan has fallen drastically. According to projections made by the Japanese government, if the current decline in population continues then the Japanese population in 2030 will decline from 127.5 million to 116.6 million. The number of aged people in Japanese population surpassed over 30 million in 2012, which was yet another record. The number of increased elderly population means that the government has to increase the health expenditure in order to help the aged with their health issues. The government also has to pay certain amount of money to the aged which will further burden the national exchequer. The trend of taking interest in human rights began in 20th century, when a drastic increase in the social welfare activities of the state was seen. Major amount of the Japanese annual budget was allocated to health insurance for its people. It was at this time that labor union started emerging whose mere concerns was to rise the demands of the workers and speak for any kind of violation in labor rights. The Japanese employers also started introducing medical insurances that were given to the prominent employees of the company. All these events were contributions to the rights of the employees and to humanity as whole. The Japanese government while designing the human rights policies follows the Universal Declaration of Human rights. The policies implemented by the Japanese gover nment and employers are somewhat a successful contribution to the human rights, however there are certain drawbacks associated with it. The Japanese government has failed to make people understand the true meaning of human rights. However it is the major focus of the government to protect the social rights of their citizens and for this purpose the policies of the government are being updated, based on the changing demand of the population. The current alarming issue for the Japanese government is the decline in birth rate. There are several reasons behind this decline in birth rate. One of the reasons is low pay rates in Japan because of which the married couple usually works more. They are also aware about their increasing needs and that they have to work more if they want to afford more than the basic necessities. Therefore Japanese couples do not desire for more children. This is one of the main reasons of low birth rate in Japan. The other reason is that because of high literac y rate in Japan the Japanese women easily find well paid job which makes them less dependent on men for their needs. This further oppresses their need for a husband. The increasing number of old age population also highlights the issue of decreased labor force in Japan. The number of people in the Japanese labor force is predicted to decrease in the coming years. This can be a drawback for the Japanese

Identify and outline the benefits and problems of using psychological Essay

Identify and outline the benefits and problems of using psychological tests as part of the selection process within an organisation - Essay Example At the same time a person performs many roles at the same time the happenings in one role are bound to affect the behaviour in others' roles of the person. At this point of time, it may be noted that inspite of all human beings being similar in the outer case, each one is different from the other taking into consideration each one's mind. Every individual is to be treated differently although two persons may have the same behavioural problems. Everyone has a different quality of nature, different quality of intelligence, different perception and even different ways of behaviour. This is the most important reason that the organisations need to study the individual's psychology, so that they come to know about the nature of the individual as the psychological tests are the best possible means to know about the mind of the person who will be joining the industry. This has become even more essential with the huge competition in the market where the organisations are always in the fight to have the most competent professionals in their company who would take the company to new altitudes. The psychometric tests (1) are the tests which are specifically designed to gauge the ability, personality and the aptitude of the persons. The objective of the psychometric tests is to have the complete knowledge and information about the style of behaviour that one has. These tests are the guide to the employers to know about the person as to how he relates himself to his work and even the other employees. This apart the employer also comes to know of the style of work that the person can do and as to what kind of motivation does he have. The questionnaires that are prepared for such tests are basically untimed and there are no right or wrong answers in it. The employers in this way will can choose their right candidate as they have the most appropriate profile of the person that they want to get involved in the company and the results of such psychometric tests along with the others selection tools, enable the employers to make the right decision as to how does one fit to the requirements of the role. The process of the psychological testing or the psychometric tests are made a part of the selection process by the employers in order to test the ability, motivation, potential and the style of their behaviour of the candidates. These tests may be used in the first step in the recruitment process along with the first and/or the second interview. The psychometric tests provide the employer with evidence that are normally missing in the application forms and which also can not be judged by an interview. These evidences give the correct opinion ass to which person is the most capable for the organisation and who can take the organisation through all the roughs and toughs that it may face. Because of the psychometric tests that are conducted, the employers have the opportunity to get the best for their organisation as they can study about the personal qualities, abilities, potential and the motivation to effectively carry out the job given to him. The selection process will consist of various kinds of tests and interviews etc, along with the psychometric tests and there needs to be a comparative grade taken or one has to perform well in