Look Not Only at The Now Essay

Shinichi Hoshi tells a great tale of irony and human stubbornness in the short story, â€Å"He-y, Come on Ou-t†. A great storm that hits a small town and destroys their shrine which leaves a gaping hole where it once stood; the villagers quickly figure out that the bottom of the hole cannot be found. A concessionaire buys the hole and people pay to dump very terrible things into it such as nuclear waste and incriminating evidence, but in the end it all ends up getting dumped on the village from the sky. Humans like to and tend to throw away future worries and enjoy the immediate benefits of a situation regardless of how dire the future situation may be, Hoshi expresses this by using symbolism and irony in his short story â€Å"He-y, Come on Ou-t†. Humans have caused and will cause dire circumstances for themselves by overlooking potential future threats in any given situation; this is conveyed in the short story through symbolism. When the hole is first found a young man says, â€Å"‘I wonder if it’s a fox’s hole’† (Hoshi 1). The fox symbolizes the villagers because foxes are seen as sly and the villagers think they are sly when they make a scheme to dump everything in the hole and profit from it without consequence, there is further symbolism when it is technically the village at the bottom of the hole. Soon after the people, â€Å"cut down some trees, [tie] them with rope and [make] a fence which they put around the hole† (2). Sbrocchi 2 This symbolizes that the villagers already know the hole is a bad thing and they need to protect people from it by building a fence around it, much like a pit bull or Rottweiler; also this is foreshadowing because the hole ends up being a dangerous th ing. Perhaps greatest moment of symbolism in the story comes at the last line, when it is revealed to the reader that all that is dumped in the hole is going to rain down on the city, because a builder is taking his break when, â€Å"a small pebble skimmed by him and fell on  past. The man however, was gazing in idle reverie at the city’s skyline growing evermore beautiful, and he failed to notice (4). The theme of the whole story is explained in the builder’s actions, the builder symbolizes humans as a whole, they ignore the future threat that the pebble symbolizes and look out at the â€Å"success† that they have created. Irony is a powerful tool in literature that is used to get a message through to the reader. In this story it is used in many ways to show the stubbornness of mankind to only focus on the today not the tomorrow. Near the beginning of the story before the young man is about to throw a pebble in the hole an old man warns him by saying â€Å"‘you might bring down a curse on us. Lay off,’ [†¦] but the younger one energetically [throws] the pebble in.†(2). This is so ironic because in the end the older man was right, it did bring down a curse on them, all that garbage came right back down on them. This is so important because it is exactly the theme of the story, the young man failed to recognize the threat in front of him, he set it aside so he could have his fun right now regardless of what the future may bring and the future brought evil, which was self-inflicted. The panicle of irony in the story that really throws the theme at the reader is when the narrator says â€Å"Everyone disliked thinking about the eventual consequences† That is Sbrocchi 3 literally the theme of the story, it is ironic because the eventual consequences that everyone thought would come many years later ended up right at the doorstep of the village in not long at all, and these consequences came in a form much worse than what anyone could have ever expected. There is a lesson to be learned from this story and it is that if a situation arises for something good to come in the now, in the today, but it raises problems for the tomorrow, those problems must be dealt with in the today and not pushed aside because they are unpleasant to think about. No matter how great a success something may bring it could all be in vein if the same thing will also bring pain and suffering in the future; it will not be a success at all, it will be a giant failure. In the story, something fictional happens to the villagers, but things just as bad or worse will come from actions in real life, they just may not be as obvious or come as  fast. Humans like to focus on the good in situations not in the possible bad, this has to change.

The second danger is for the people of Alabama

Alabama faces two problems regarding race relations. One is tiring of the work just as the blonde girl in the old joke, who swims half-way across a lake, declares she is too tired to make it all the way, and then swims back to the side she started on. If the residents of Alabama grow tired of progressing, they too, might someday end up back where they started. The labor of generations, then, would be wasted.The second danger is for the people of Alabama to believe that enough progress has been made. It is easy to think of one's own generation as the most advanced in all of time. Yet, a look back at history shows that previous generations felt the same way. An examination of the attitudes and actions of the progressives in the past sheds some light on how far Alabama has come and how far it might still need to go.Many people today portray slave masters as wicked, violent men, who beat their slaves constantly and neglected their needs. This is not a completely accurate picture. Indeed, former Alabama slave Alice Gaston[i] (Gaston, 1941, p. 1) in a 1941 interview with Robert Sonkin the following:All the white folks that know me, they treats me nice. And if I want anything, I'll ask for it. I was taught in that a way by my old master. Don't steal, don't lie, and if you want anything, ask for it. Be honest in what you get. That was what I was raised up with. And I'm that a way today.Another former slave, Isom Moseley also said that he’d worked for, â€Å"might good white folks.† (Moseley, 1941) He remembered the white people having shoes for the children and the elderly.   Similarly, former slave Joe MacDonald recalled that his master had made sure he was educated, so that he would be treated well by other white people, once the master and his wife had â€Å"died and gone to heaven.† (MacDonald, 1940)One slave owner fathered a child by a black woman. Instead of denying his paternity, James T. Rapier’s father acknowledged him and hired a private tutor to educate him in secret, because Alabama law, at the time, did not allow blacks to be educated.[ii]   Rapier elected to the forty-third congress in 1873 as a republican.Yet, in some parts of the state, slaves were treated very badly – particularly in the earliest years. In 1824, slaves in Montgomery outnumbered whites. Around half of Alabama’s heads of household were slave owners.As the number of slaves in Alabama increased, so did per capita wealth. Indeed, in 1930, per capita wealth was $700, which was unmatched by any other part of the country.[1] These factors lead many whites to fear black insurrection. If Alabama blacks rose up against whites, the outnumbered whites might not be able to stop them.Therefore, many feared for their lives. Others feared losing their fortunes. If blacks were freed, once great southerners would have to compete with industrialized northerner families in the American economy. It would be extremely hard for them to compe te. [iii]White fear lead to increased oppression. While, for a time, there were free blacks in Alabama, the government chased them out in 1839. An article from The New-Yorker in 1839 declares, â€Å"By a law of the last session of the Alabama legislature, all free persons of color who remain in the state after the 1st of August next are to be enslaved.†[iv]If a similar ruling were made today, the newspaper editors would call for public outrage. In 1839, the note is simply followed by a warning about yellow fever in New Orleans. Clearly, neither the government, nor the media thought of blacks as equals.Yet, while the Alabama legislature tried to rid the state of free blacks, it also ruled, in 1852, that owners must properly clothe their slaves. According to Mary Jenkins Schwartz, however, the law was not enforced and frequently broken.[v] Jenkins states that because owners would not follow the law, slaves who had children had a difficult time keeping their children warm. Indee d, she says, on one Alabama plantation, mothers would cut holes in gunny sacks to clothe their sons and daughters.[vi]Slaves were treated on many plantations as animals. Jenkins reports that many slept on hay. Children were given blankets of inferior quality and expected to share with one another. Children who did not work in the fields on one plantation, were not given food allowances.Therefore their parents would have to catch animals like rabbits and raccoons to feed them. Indeed, says Jenkins, some children would look forward to working in the fields because they would be able to earn food for themselves to stop their hunger.[vii]The fact that plantation owners thought of slaves just as people think of animals is also evinced by a number of documents from Alabama in the 1800’s. For instance, in 1852, a Parks Landing plantation owner offered a reward of fifty dollars for the return of his runaway slave, Stephen. It reads like a lost pet poster. The plantation owner describ es his slave as, â€Å"A fine looking negro† who is â€Å"between twenty-five and thirty years of age,† â€Å"about six-feet high,† â€Å"copper-colored,† with a â€Å"high fore-head†. [viii][1] Jenkins reports that slave owners would use this to tempt slaves into putting their children to work in the fields. Those who did would receive, â€Å"one frock apiece.† One boy, who worked carrying water for workers, earned a shirt, two pairs of pantaloons and shoes.[i] Alice Gaston.   â€Å"Interview with Alice Gaston, Gee's Bend, Alabama,† Voices of Slavery. Library of Congress.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Washington, D.C. 1941. [ii] Eugene Feldman. â€Å"James T. Rapier, Negro Congressman from Alabama,† The Phylon Quarterly. Vol 19. No. 3    1958. [iii] Clayton W. Williams â€Å"Early Ante-Bellum Montgomery: A Black-Belt Constituency,† The Journal of Southern    History, Vol. 7, No. 4. Nov. 1941. [iv] â€Å"Free Negro es in Alabama,† The New Yorker. Sep. 14, 1839; 7 26. P. 411[v] Mary Jenkins Scwartz. Born in Bondage: Growing up Enslaved in the Antebellum South. (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 2000). [viii] Levi Parks. â€Å"Poster offering fifty dollars reward for the capture of a runaway slave Stephen,† American Memory. Library of Congress. Washington, D.C. 1852.

JCS Technology Essay

I. Introduction JCS Technology is a small IT company that is owned by Steve Puzder. Steve employs ten employees of which six are full time, two are part time, and two are contractors. JCS Technology has been in business for 5 years. All the employees have been with JCS Technology for 5 years. The six full time employees are paid an hourly rate along with completion bonuses, the part time employees are paid an hourly rate, and the contractors are paid per job along with completion bonuses. JCS Technology has a small office and most of the work is done outside of the office. There is one full time person in the office all the rest of the employees work 95% of their time outside the office. Employees are paid every week with monthly bonuses. The IT field is always changing therefore JCS Technology offers education reimbursement which also includes any tests that need to be taken to get certifications that will keep the employees up to date in their skills. Each employee has a company issued laptop and cell phone. Flex scheduling is also offered along with one week paid vacation. We are going to look at adding paid mileage as most employees have to travel to get to the job site and the job site can change more than once a day. We will also look at medical care as we don’t know what is going to happen with Obama Care. Then lastly we are going to look at a 401k. All of JCS Technology’s employees are fairly young so we are going to see what it is going to take to make this company grow as they grow. I. Statement of Issues JCS Technology is a very small and young company which does not have a very high profit margin. Along with being a young company the employees are also young and all single males. With only ten employees and six of them are full-time Steve has not researched a benefit package other than the things that are needed to perform the tasks to complete their job. After looking at three other small IT companies JCS Technology seems to offer about the same benefits as his competitors. I did find that most IT companies do offer some type of car allowance as there is a lot of travel time. I did a survey of all the employees that Steve employs and found that there are some benefits that the employees would like to see and others that are not of immediate concern. I asked the employees to rank a group of benefits in order of importance to them. These benefits include more vacation time, flex scheduling, car allowance, health care, bonuses, and a retirement plan. II. Literature Review There is a wide range of benefits that may be offered such as educational, family, lifestyle, recreational, retirement, savings, and transportation. Other benefits that are mandatory are Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, COBRA, and FMLA. Benefits are incentives to attract and keep good employees and are also a way of meeting the needs and wants of employees. Another role of benefits is to provide income protection to workers lacking income. Five principal types of income protection delivered by benefits are: (1) disability income replacement, (2) medical expense reimbursement, (3) retirement income replacement, (4) involuntary unemployment income replacement, and (5) replacement income for survivors. (Dave Mote, 2011) Many consumers make random choices, follow the advice of others, or pick a plan that may include a particular medical group. A survey was conducted of 1,800 enrollees and patient in Iowa. It was conducted by the Health Institute at the New England Medical Center Hospitals, Boston, with a grant from the John A. Hartford Foundation. None of the plans received excellent ratings.†I think we’re headed toward more consumer choice among competing health plans, and the choice will be largely determined by survey results such as this one,† says Paul Pietzsch, HPCI president. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Iowa are reviewing the study and would like participate in another study but would like to revise some of the questions. [ (Bergman, 1993) ] Do consumer-driven health care plans offer a more affordable health care plan? Myth has it that CDH plans do not reduce the costs but rather shifts them. Data found that there was almost a 14% difference in favor of the CDH plans he study also showed that CDH plans do not â€Å"cherry pick† the youngest, healthiest, and richest. The data also shows that enrollment in CDH covers healthy along with chronically ill. It also looked at two chronic conditions and showed that the medical costs tend to less for customers of a CDH plan. [ (Reindl, 2010) ] III. Issue Analysis JCS Technology is a small company that does not offer any health care plans. Steve feels that he is a small company and cannot afford offer this type of benefit. With Obama care in the near future we looked at if heath care is something that can be offered now or in the near future. Right now the tax credit is 35 percent of the cost that a company paid premiums that increasing to 50 percent in 2014. After interviewing the six full time employees of JCS Technology I found that health care is not a major concern of the men right now. Bob, Joe, and Sam being the oldest of the group stated that they would like to have some type of retirement plan verses health care. Jesse, Cody, and Richard being the youngest of the group stated that they would like more vacation time. Over half the guys said they would like a fitness program. All of the employees stated that they would like a car allowance as there is a lot of travel time involved in their jobs. IV. Issue Analysis We are going to look into maybe offering AFLAC in the place of health care coverage right now. The employees are being paid a modest pay for the size of the company, but the men have expressed that they are not really sure about pay anything towards health care at this time. We have time before Obama care goes into effect so the men will begin to look more heavily at heath care next year maybe in place of the bonuses that they are getting right now. Since all the employees have been with the company for five years we will look at adding one more week of vacation also we may also give the men an opportunity to buy extra vacation days. We are going to look at the gas mileage that each of the employees are getting with their car and look at getting a company gas card for the crew to use. If the gas mileage is low on average then we will figure out a fair amount to pay per mile that each employee drives on monthly bases. Next we are going to look into a fitness program for the employees. Since all the employees are young and male we are going to hire a nutritionist and add a quit smoking program. We are going to check the local recreation center and the local gyms to get the best offer for memberships for all the employees this will also include the part-time employees. V Issue Solutions After some research we have found that there is wide range of health care programs. Rather than try to set up a company program we looked at individual plans. The plans run from 93 dollars a month for a very high deductable ($10,000) to $610 a month for a low deductable. The men are young and healthy, but are on the road for about 30% of their time. It would be nice if the men had a health care plan just in case but do we offer the high deductable with the company paying the premium or offer a lower deductable with the employees paying part of the premium. When questioning the men they did not want to give up any pay to get better health benefits. If the company stops the bonus program then there is room for some health care. If we stop the bonus program the men will be up-set as each one of them as expressed that they do not want to give up any money for health care. Bob, Jesse, Richard, and Cody said that they would really like a fitness program, Frank, Sam, Terry, and Jack said that they would like a car allowance of some kind. All the men expect for Richard and Bob would like more vacation time. None of the men are interested in a retirement plan. Five of the men smoke and only two would like to quit. With little impact to the bottom line we can add a fitness program. For the men that wish to quit smoking we are going to offer them and incentive to reward them upon them completing one year of non-smoking. VI Solution and its Implementation I have found it hard to work out a plan that all the men would be happy with. With an annual salary of $50,000 plus a year the men are quite happy the way things are as far as their salary goes. As of January 1, 2012 the company will no longer be offering completion bonuses which will equal to about $5,000 a year. Each man will be offered a yearly membership to the gym of their choice. The men that smoke will be offered help to quit smoking. We have decide that if the men are interested in a health care plan that they can get one on their own and the company will pay 50% of the premium up to $3,000 a year. Each of the men will be given a $100 a month gas allowance as we found that each person drives about 500 miles a month. Those employees that choose not to get health insurance the company will reimburse 50% of their car insurance as a replacement. We have decided not to add any more paid vacation time at this present time but we are going to offer a buy vacation time: each employee will be able to buy three vacation days at the rate of $50 per pay period. The men are giving up a little when it comes to the bonus that they will not longer receive but Steve and I feel that we have come up with a plan that everyone can live with. VII Justification Steve really wanted to try and offer his men the best things that he could and things that would make a difference to each one of the men. The men that work for Steve are like family to him and he tries to make his company one that each man can take pride in working for. We fell that we took what each person had to say and applied it to the decisions that we made. The men really did not want to give up any cash that they were making but we think that what we are offering will make up any money that we may have taken away. We looked to see what the changes would cost the company and the benefits to each the company and the employees and feel that we did the best for everyone. VIII Reflection Meeting with Steve and his employees was very enjoyable. I have not had the chance to meet with a company and discuss things that could change a year or more of a person’s life. The thought of making life changing decisions for someone else is pretty scary. You try to make everyone happy but you can’t you have to make the best decisions for the company. If you make the wrong choices for the company it could be devastating. I have learned that it would be wonderful if you could please everyone which for a small company like the one that I looked at it may be possible but not probable. Large companies have to look at the bottom line where I think that some smaller companies may have lee way in their thinking. All the men that work for Steve were get in giving me their honest feed back about what they would have like see happen with their benefits. I had to take a step back and stop and think what was best for the company in the end. I wanted to give the men what they were asking for but then I knew it was my job to do the best thing for the company. I know that it was a small company that I worked with and a larger company is going to have more issues to look at and I look forward to the day that I can put to work what I have learned in this class and doing this project. I know that my research will not end here because there are so many more benefits that I want to take a closer look at. Such as the tax credits for health care and other credits that larger companies receive.

Group-Work Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Group-Work - Essay Example After the experiment was over, members of Group A and Group B were asked to reflect upon their experiences and share them with the rest of the class. On one hand, members of Group A said that factors that helped them win the contest included friendship among the group members, assignment of roles and responsibilities to one another with mutual consensus, mutual respect and harmony among the group members, and good use of time because of lack of conflicts. On the other hand, members of Group B said that factors that obstructed their way to success included but were not limited to lack of understanding of the group members, interpersonal conflicts because of differences of views and opinions, and the waste of time because of assignment of roles to incompetent group members. Members of Group B were further asked to suggest ways to improve the effectiveness of their group since they had had a bad experience working as a group. They said that it is very important for the group members to take some time at the start to understand one another's strengths and weaknesses in general and those related to the task assigned in particular. This might not apparently seem a very good idea since it is a little time-consuming and exposes the weaknesses of the group members along with their strengths, but it saves a lot of time and energy in the long-run that is otherwise wasted when the weaknesses show up at the eleventh hour. The process can be as simple as conducting a meeting on day one.

Social and economic impacts on health care in present day related to Coursework

Social and economic impacts on health care in present day related to budget - Coursework Example Inadequate funds also lead to inadequate drugs to administer to their patients. A society will eventually have an inadequate health care thus leading to loss of lives to people who played vital roles in boosting the state’s GDP either directly or indirectly. Budgetary cut hinders health organization from expansion. A health institution might not be able to improve its structures or have more branches due to lack of enough funds. It also discourages innovation, since there will be no sufficient funds to support any project such as offering ambulance services to both its incoming and outgoing patients (Wang, 2006). Lastly, budgetary cut lowers morale of health workers. There will be no funds to employ new health workers despite the increasing rate of patients. It forces the old health workers to work extra hours in regardless of compensation. Health workers experience salary cut-off or even payment delays since some urgent projects needed immediate funding that took time to bring back the income (Khan & Hildreth, 2002). In summary, every state should put more emphasis on sensitive sectors that often require more funds during budgetary allocation despite the budget

To what extent does the Children Act 1989 achieve its aim of Essay

To what extent does the Children Act 1989 achieve its aim of protecting children that have been or may be harmed by their families - Essay Example Once the child goes into care, there is no doubt that the legal effect is that the local authority gains parental responsibility for the child while the order is effectively in force. It should be noted that a care order automatically brings to an end any residence order that may exist. The Children Act 1989 contains provisions relating to the services that a local authority must or may provide for children and their families. It’s very important to note that for the first time services for children in need and disabled children are brought together under one statute. The government’s voice in protecting the children is very loud and clear. There is no doubt that the Children Act 1989 came into being specifically for the protection of children, and the intention of parliament seems to have been obvious. â€Å"To safeguard and promote the welfare of children in their area who are in need; and so far as is consistent with that duty to promote the up bringing of such children by their families, by providing a range and level of services appropriate to those† â€Å"(a) he is unlikely to achieve or maintain, or to have the opportunity of achieving or maintaining a reasonable standard of health or development without the provision of him of services by a local authority under this part; In cases where a particular local authority has information regarding a child likely to suffer harm outside its area, it is expected to inform the local authority in the area where the child lives or proposes to live. Guidance and Regulations 2008 adds: â€Å"If the child is assessed as being in need and the local authority is concerned that the child is suffering, or is at risk of suffering, significant harm, the authority is under a duty to make, as soon as practicable and, in any event, within 48 hours of the authority receiving the information, such enquiries as it considers necessary to enable it to decide whether it should take action to safeguard or promote the welfare

Eugene Smith Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Eugene Smith - Essay Example He began taking photographs in 1932 and early subjects included sports, aviation and the Dust Bowl. After studying at Notre Dame University for a year he joined the staff of Newsweek. In 1938 Smith became a freelance photographer working for Life Magazine, Collier's Weekly and the New York Times. In 1942 Smith became a war correspondent and spent most of the next three years covering the Pacific War. His most dramatic photographs were taken during the invasion of Okinawa in April 1945. On 23rd May Smith was seriously wounded by a Japanese shell fragment. He was taking a photograph at the time and the metal passed through his left hand before hitting the face. Smith was forced to return to the United States and he had to endure two years of hospitalization and plastic surgery. In 1947 Smith joined Life Magazine and over the next seven years produced a series of photo-essays that established him as the world's most important photojournalist. These included essays entitled: Country Doct or, Hard Times on Broadway, Spanish Village, Southern Midwife and Man of Mercy. Granted a Guggenheim Fellowship (1956-57), Smith began a massive picture essay of Pittsburgh. Smith's last great photo-essay, Minamata (1975), deals with the residents of a Japanese fishing village who suffered poisoning and gross disfigurement from the mercury wastes of a nearby chemical company. While photographing this project he was severely beaten by several local factory workers who were opposed to the revelations that his camera exposed. An extensive collection of his work was acquired by the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in 1976. Smith severed his ties with Life again over the way in which the magazine used his photos of Albert Schweitzer. Starting from his project to document Pittsburgh, he began a series of book-length photo essays in which he strove for complete control of his subject matter. This was followed by another large project on New York (1958-59). Smith also taught photojournalism at New York's New School for Social Research and was president of the American Society of Magazine Photographers. Complications from his consumption of drugs and alcohol led to a massive stroke, from which Smith died in 1978. Today, Smith's legacy lives on through the W. Eugene Smith Fund to promote "humanistic photography," which has since 1980 awarded photographers for exceptional accomplishments in the field. Of him, he says: "I am an idealist. I often feel I would like to be an artist in an ivory tower. Yet it is imperative that I speak to people, so I must desert that ivory tower. To do this, I am a journalist-a photojournalist. But I am always torn between the attitude of the journalist, who is a recorder of facts, and the artist, who is often necessarily at odds with the facts. My principle concern is for honesty, above all honesty with myself..." His Works and Analysis: "A Walk to Paradise Garden", 1946 Smith's war wounds cost him two painful years of hospitalization and plastic surgery. During these years he took no pictures and whether he would ever be able to return to photography was doubtful. Then one day, during his period of convalescence, Smith took a walk with his two children and even though it was still intensely painful for him to operate a camera, came back with one of the

Marketing 4580 International Transportation Essay - 1

Marketing 4580 International Transportation - Essay Example Postconsumer recycled content are environmental friendly and a firm could use these materials in packaging. Another environmental friendly strategy that a firm could apply would be the reduction of packaging materials used and instead use just one material for packaging. In order to keep the cycle going the firm should also have an environmental friendly system to collect the materials used in packaging for recycling. The last effective strategy would be to use materials that could be under use again after cleaning like refillable beverage bottles. Logistics have been existent since civilization and it is both exciting and challenging. If the packaging inefficiency were under reduction, there would be a great ease because logistics deals with getting products wherever they are in need at the right time. This is only possible; by the way, the products are stored. The first principle that states that materials should be handled as less as possible surprises me most. I fail to understand the aim of handling materials without really handling them, but the results of this principle stand out for themselves. The other principle that surprises me is the principle of moving optimum units in one package. I would argue that it is more risky to move a huge number of goods in one unit due to risk of destruction and huge losses. In fragmented logistics, activities are under management in many different offices in an organization while in unified logistics as the name suggests multiple activities under execution in one department and managed as a single unit. Every participant in the network organization has their specific duty to carry out under their department. If everyone is doing their duty, then the agility of the whole system should be precise and accurate on timing and coordination. One principle of logistics is not to affect the production of the product. If a network is efficient the relevancy, responsiveness and flexibility is under

Effects of Economic Recession on American Jobs Research Paper

Effects of Economic Recession on American Jobs - Research Paper Example This was the most severe form of economic recession that US had experienced in decades. A vast majority of industries in US were affected by this economic recession. US could not find any way to escape the economic recession when the whole world had actually completely soaked in it. The circumstances took a fortunate turn in the last three months of 2009, and the economy began to grow and become strong, though the graph soon took a downward turn specifically in the later half of 2010 when the growth of GDP in US fell to 2 per cent. â€Å"The federal stimulus money that has added at least 1% but likely 2% or more to the GDP growth will be winding down and that could put at least as much of a drag on the economy as the boost it gave† (Hall). When the recession was at its apogee, the years were full of pain for a lot of Americans because they had lost jobs. According to an estimate, as many as three quarters of a million jobs were being lost on a monthly basis in US in the years of recession (Bureau of Labor Statistics†). The rate of unemployment in US reached 10.2 per cent by October, 2009. Since then, it has shown a slight decline and has reached 10 per cent. Before stabilizing, the unemployment rate in US is expected to go up till the end of 2011. A loop of negative feedback was introduced by the economic recession which is expected to keep dragging the US economy for a while in the near future despite the fact that the economic recession has largely declined. Some of the components of this loop are high rate of unemployment, inability of the unemployed to pay their mortgages and bills, and weakened wealth from loss of equity. People in US are suffering from lack of income. Their lowered financial status is causing them to save more and spend less. Owing to the tightness of the credit, people in US are finding it hard to purchase homes or establish new businesses. As a result of the declined consumer spending, businesses have lowered their producti on in an attempt to improve their efficiency. A lot of companies in US have downsized in the past two to three years and the rate of recruitment has declined accordingly. US government has shown a similar trend. The value of property has steadily gone down along with the property tax revenues. Accordingly, the sales have been lowered together with the sales tax revenues. Owing to the lowered incomes, and a lot of losses, income taxes have been lowered. On the other hand, US government is spending much more than ever before in order to cater for the needs of the unemployed. This has caused the US government to increase the payable fees as well as cut back services. As a result of this, governmental contracts and government employees have reduced in number. The Federal governments have plunged into the scenario in a very aggressive manner with a view to distorting the loop of negative feedback. The Federal governments aimed at minimizing the downfall of the global economy so that the loop of negative feedback would be reversed. However, as a consequence of the massive spending and increased involvement in economy, the US government now feels the need to retract itself so that the debt that has thus been incurred could be paid back. This can be easily achieved by if the US economy continues to grow like it did grow by 5 to 8 per cent after the end of economic recession. However, it is important to realize that the recovery of economy is not occurring in a

Reflection Journal Essay Example for Free

Reflection Journal Essay This is the first time I have had the opportunity to study this subject. Being a science student, I have a very basic understanding on the different aspects of Organisational behaviour. I am interested in learning the different theories, concepts and practises that are a part of this course and relating the same with experiences I have had in the past at my previous workplace. This course would also benefit me at my future workplace by honing my job-related and inter-personal skills. Management is an art of getting things done through and with the people in formally organized groups. The five major functions of management are planning, organising, staffing, directing and controlling. Planning refers to the process of setting goals and how best to achieve them, organising refers to evenly distributing resources so that the plans can be carried out successfully, Staffing pertains to recruitment, selection, development and compensation of subordinates aiming to place right people in the right job, directing refers to the process in which the managers instruct, guide and oversee the performance of the workers to achieve predetermined goals and controlling refers to the process of regulating organisational activities so that actual performance conforms to expected organisational standards and goals. Organisational behaviour can be assessed at three major levels At the individual level, of analysis, At the group level and At the organization level. Even though the basic skills required for a manager are networking skills, traditional management skills, HRM skills and communication skills, the focused skillset is different for different management levels.There are five basic trends in managing contemporary organisations. Globalization refers to the company’s desire to be a part of the global market. Changing workforce implies increased diversity among the working population, primarily more women being part of it. Employment relationship refers to the flexibility and ease of work schedule and culture. Information technology refers to the increased ease with which employees interact and how organisations are configured. Values and ethics refer to important long-lasting beliefs and moral principles for the benefit of the company. Based on these trends, there are many challenges and opportunities for organisational behaviour.An organisation’s Intellectual capital is of three types – human capital, structural capital and relationship capital.The process of knowledge management can be broadly classified into acquisition (learning and experimenting), sharing (communicating) and use (application). In my last workplace, My organisation overcame many challenges related to various aspects of organisational behaviour. Emphasizing on the final result, they allowed the employees to have a flexible work schedule and/or to work from home. This made it very convenient for the employee. We also used trends in Information Technology and scheduled a Video call between a particular project team and our most potential clients once a month. This improved communication and strengthened our relationship with the client.My previous company had its major clientele in the US but it made a lot of attempts to go global. They were trying to pursue projects in the Middle East, UK, Australia, Canada, Singapore, and India and succeeded establishing a clientele in the Middle East. This was an advantage for the employees as it gave us opportunities to experience the work culture in different markets.| 11/12/2012| Unit 2:Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values| There are various factors that influenced my behaviour at my workplace. I can particularly relate to the MARS model in this instance. Positive and negative (that I would look at from a positive angle) motivation from others throughout the tenure of my work has help me become more passionate about my career. Early on in my career, I had not defined my set of goals properly. As a result, the amount of time and effort invested into achieving those unstable goals was wasted. It is very important to have a sound understanding of our work tasks from every angle. During the last few months of my work, I was simultaneously allocated to three projects. I was not able to concentrate on any project properly as my roles and tasks were not clearly defined. Now, after having a clear, sound understanding of the MARS model, I have realized the importance of clearly defining my goals to get self-motivated and my tasks to increase productivity. With respect to my personality, I am responsible for things that happen to me. I am a little low on self-esteem but realizing that future failures will decrease it all the more, I will take considerable steps to improve the same. I am more of a Type-B person by nature and will take that as an advantage in my life as I love setting aside time for leisure and moving at a normal pace. With respect to the CANOE personality model, I am a combination of the Agreeableness and the Extraversion type. With every company trying to become a part of the global market, it is good for everyone to be able to adapt to all cultures. In my previous workplace, I was deployed in the US on a short-term assignment. It would have been great if someone had emphasized the importance of globalization so that I would have mentally prepared myself to adapt to the culture there instead of going there and taking time to get adjusted. Cross cultural issues are predominant in every workplace though a lot of companies are striving hard to get rid of the same. My company has recently acquired a clientele in the Middle East. A few of my colleagues who were deployed on projects there were not aware of the work culture and practises there. They took a while to get used to the culture there. It would have helped them a lot had they had been given a nugget on the importance of being open-minded and flexible.| 17/12/2012| Unit 3: Perception| Perception is an apprehension or intuition that a person has about somebody or something. The world plays a major role in influencing perception. Perceptions in most cases are superficial and far from reality. Perceptions are generally a result of trends, emotions and trying to fill in missing information. Stereotyping is also a kind of perception that and it refers to assigning traits to people based on their social category. It is possible to minimize the trait of stereotyping but is difficult to prevent it. Stereotyping causes unnecessary discrimination and generalization. Perceptions can be more accurate by being wary of perceptual biases, improving self-awareness and increasing meaningful interactions. The self-fulfilling prophecy cycle refers to the way an employee reacts to his leader’s expectations and the way the leader reacts back to the employee’s performance. Leaders should maintain realistic positive expectations towards their employees. A person is an achiever if he does a particular task differently, better than others and maintains his performance consistently. The Johari window improves self-awareness and understanding between colleagues. It asks an individual to be more expressive and also be open to feedback from others so that people are aware of the individual’s level of perception.A global mindset refers to a person’s ability to perceive, interact and get along with people from other cultures. We can cultivate a global mindset by getting to know about other cultures, cross-cultural trainings and understanding oneself and comparing the mindset of people from different cultures. Emotional intelligence refers to a person using his emotions intelligently while dealing with other people. It can be used to motivate oneself and work well with others. Consequences refer to results of a particular behaviour. If the consequence is positive, a reinforcement strategy is applied and if the same is negative a punishment strategy is applied. Perceptions demotivate leaders and the people working with them. In my previous workplace, I had a perception that freshers did not have sufficient technical knowledge to play a major role in challenging projects. But many freshers working with me excelled their tasks well within their deadlines. Therefore, perception is not reality but what we see of reality.Emotional intelligence is an important leadership quality. The project manager at my previous workplace never motivated any of her subordinates and we always had a very negative view of her managerial skills. Now, since I have a fair idea about how to motivate my peers and subordinates using Emotional Intelligence and setting realistic goals, I will learn from my ex-project manager’s mistakes and do the right thing when I become a future leader. | 18/12/2012| Unit 4:Motivation| Motivation refers to the processes that arouse and sustain a person’s desire to attain a particular goal. The main reasons for a person being motivated in a workplace are money, opportunity, belonging, involvement and satisfaction. There are many theories related to what motivates a person. Taking an example of the Maslow’s theory, it applies when one wants to be motivated to succeed in his job and further, but the same does not apply when one wants to be motivated to play a role in Social Responsibility. The other theories are ERG theory where the main reasons for motivation are existence, belonging and growth and McClelland’s theory where the main reasons for motivation are the need for affiliation, power and achievement and Herzberg’s theory where the reasons for motivation are the factors involved in performing a job that lead to satisfaction. All the above content motivation theories confirm that rewards are what play an important role in motivating a person. There are process theories that emphasize on why and how a person gets motivated in the workplace. These theories emphasize on factors that managers have more influence over. If managers get their employees to love their jobs by clearly defining their roles and setting their goals to give them a strong support system and encouraging them, that will be the best form of motivation. Goal setting plays a major role in motivating an employee. A manager and employee should work together and set the employee’s goals. A goal that is moderate to challenging will generally result in a higher employee performance. An employee will also perform better in his job if he is trusted by his manager, given the right level of independence, allocated well-defined tasks and exposed to increased client interaction. The other aspects that motivate an employee are providing them with options like telecommuting, flexible timing and job sharing. Remuneration and rewards do motivate people to a great extent. But that form of motivation does come with a few disadvantages as well.My first team lead at my previous workplace was very stringent with respect to us putting in long hours of work. That demotivated the entire team and decreased our work productivity in the long run. Had he not insisted on long work hours, the team would have achieved its required targets much faster. Opportunity is a key motivation factor as well. One year into my job, my manager promoted me and gave me the opportunity to interact directly with my client. Interacting with the client directly for the first time, I took it up as a challenge and was determined to perform well. The client was very happy with me and gave me a very positive feedback at the end of the project. Unnecessary pressure from the senior management is not a motivating factor. When my project was going through very tight deadlines, the senior management would never be satisfied with our work. Lack of satisfaction and appreciation from our leads made us very disinterested in our work. Had they understood the amount of pressure we were going through and motivated us the right way, We could have gotten through that rough phase a lot more easily. | 7/1/2013| Unit 5:Team Dynamics| Team work is one of the most important aspects of corporate culture. A team is a group of people who are together to achieve a common goal. Teams motivate employees, increase the ease of information sharing and increase work productivity. The major disadvantage of a team is social loafing. In order to minimize social loafing, smaller teams should be formed and individual performance needs to be measured. It is a good idea to plaster the walls of a team space with key issues. This will give instant access to information to quickly resolve issues. Teams are better at complex, structured issues that require a lot of co-ordination. Good team members must be able co-operate, resolve conflict, co-ordinate, comfort and communicate. There are four stages of team development – forming, storming, norming and performing. The better performing team is always a cohesive one. Virtual teams are teams that operate across time, space and organisational boundaries. These teams are more necessary because of factors like globalisation. Brainstorming is a practise that is followed amongst the world’s most creative firms.Team work has always played an important role in my work life. I am a very strong team player. I was working with this client called Toyota and we were a sixteen member team. Though we completed our project successfully at the end, there were many cases of dismal individual performance. People took advantage of the fact that they were part of a team. Had I known then that smaller teams were more productive, I could have suggested to my manager to split us into sub-teams and designate individual tasks at that level. I have been part of a brain storming session many times. Those sessions would have been much more valuable and productive had we defined a set of rules that needed to be followed while brainstorming.| 8/1/2013| Unit 6:Power and Politics| Power is the ability of a person, team or organization to influence others. Power can be legitimate or otherwise. An example of legitimate power would be Obama. An example of misuse of power would be historic Adolf Hitler. The other types of power are reward, coercive, expert and referent power. Reward power is when someone has the power to control rewards and remove negative sanctions. Coercive power is power that can be used to punish. Expert power is power resulting from possessing valuable knowledge or skills. Referent power is power that arises out of respect. Non-substitutability refers to power that comes out of being unique in an environment or industry. Centrality refers to the interdependence between the power holders and others. Centrality is a phenomenon that will strengthen the spirit of a team to a large extent. Influence refers to any behaviour that alters someone else’s behaviour. A person can influence or get influenced positively or negatively. The person can resist, comply or commit to influence. Politics exists at every level of the organisation. Politics increases as management hierarchy increases. It exists at the upper management level the most. People trigger politics to make things easier for themselves. It disturbs the peace and cohesion in a team. Politics cannot be abolished but depending on the individuals in the organisation, it can definitely be minimized and controlled. As with any other organisation, abusive power and politics existed at my previous workplace as well. It existed at a more intense level as we were a very small organisation. We were terribly understaffed when compared to the amount of projects that needed to be completed. Managers used their power and over worked the employees to get work done. Had they been taught to use their authority and power properly they would could have used their power in the right way and implemented long term solutions to the understaffing problems. Politics probably brought individual gain to the person responsible for it but brought about a very negative atmosphere in the team. | 14/1/2013| Unit 7:Leadership| Leadership refers to the process of guiding someone in a work environment to achieve organisational objectives. Followership refers to the process of following a leader. A leader need s to have the drive to lead, integrity, motivation, self-confidence, emotional intelligence, intelligence and a sound knowledge of the business. A leader’s style can be rigid (autocratic), understanding (democratic) or unsuccessful (Laissez-Faire). A leader can be production-oriented or employee-oriented. Though the former will ultimately get the work done, the latter will get the work done bearing in mind the needs and concerns of the employee. For a manager to be successful, It is very important for him to have leadership qualities. He will be able to inspire and drive the team towards reaching its necessary targets. There was gender discrimination with respect to leadership. But now, female leaders have been rated more favourably than male leaders. There have been very few leaders in my previous workplace who have had the right leadership traits. Most of the others were very bossy and managerial by nature. They did not have the right Emotional Intelligence to understand their employees, nor did they have any integrity and did not have the leadership drive in them. It would have been easier for us to complete our tasks without them interfering and troubling us.| 15/1/2013| Unit 8:Change| Change is the only thing that does not change. Change in an organisation is inevitable and is intended for the betterment of the organisation. In the conventional perspective, change had three stages recognizing the need for change and fighting those resisting it, making the change and finally confirming the change. But this model does not promote continuous change. Lewin’s force field analysis model classifies two forces with respect to change – there are restraining forces that oppose change and driving forces that encourage change. People resist change due to fear of the unknown, saving face, breaking routines and loss in current perks. We can minimize the resistance to change by communicating the change well in advance, implementing the change over a stretched period of time and involving everyone necessary to be a part of the change. Change can also be made through social networking. Change agents refer to anyone who can facilitate the change correctly. Typically, change agents are consultants from outside the company who diagnose the change, introduce it, stabilize it and finally collect feedback. Change in an organisation will take its employees some time getting used to. Initially, my company had an attendance register that we used to sign every time we got into the office. Then, the management implemented a policy asking us to swipe our access cards insisting on us clocking a minimum of eight hours in our office. A lot of people suffered salary cuts because of forgetting to swipe in or swipe out. This change was sudden and took us quite a while to get used to. | 16/1/2013| Unit 9:Organisational Culture| Organisational culture is the backbone of every organisation. It is the company’s DNA, invisible but the most important part of the organisation. It is important for an employee to be comfortable and adapt to the company’s culture. A strong organizational culture involves innovation, stability, respect for people, outcome orientation, attention to detail, team orientation and positive aggression. Culture can be defined at the organisational, local, regional and national level. The basic artefacts of organisational culture comprise of rituals, ceremonies, language and physical structures/symbols. A company with a strong culture has better performance. When one company acquires another company or merges with another company, the cultures of both the companies are usually combined into one corporate culture. An organisation’s culture becomes stronger by attracting applicants, selecting applicants to become company employees and the employees finally quitting the company. Socializing refers to learning and adjusting to strategic and cultural dynamics of an organisation. An employee goes through three general stages of socialization first being an outsider, then a newcomer and finally an insider (employee) of the organisation. | | Overview Summary| This course has stressed on the significance of various concepts that are a vital part of organisational behaviour. I have realised the significance of motivation, managerial leadership, minimizing workplace politics, team building and cohesion, knowledge management, change management, efficient use of authority, perception evading, emotional intelligence, modern organisational trends and overcoming of cross cultural issues amongst others. In my previous workplace, I was deployed on an onsite assignment in the US to work at Twentieth Century Fox. There, I was allocated to work for two projects at the same time, all of which involved getting work done from my inexperienced subordinates in India. I can relate to a lot of OB concepts that could have helped me manage my all aspects of my work better. The work culture in the US differed a lot from that in India. It took me some time to adjust to the differences. At Fox, My challenge was to interact with people from all cultures at a global level. Also, my senior management had not defined my roles in both the projects properly. Since I had freshers working with me from India, I perceived them to not be capable of working in such critical projects and hence did not motivate them. That did not spread any team spirit among our project members. If I had been enlightened with the importance of workplace motivation, it would have been easier for us to complete the project tasks. I have also understood the pertinence of positive leadership. I lacked the leadership qualities to drive the project in a positive manner even though I had a sound understanding of the business. In the future, I will motivate my subordinates and address all their concerns so that they contribute better to the project. My company did not have a knowledge management process in place. When I was leaving the company, since there was nobody else competent enough to replace me, we lost one project to a competitor. This loss could have been avoided if there had been an efficient knowledge management and succession planning strategy in place. In future, as a leader, I am very sure all the concepts learnt as part of this course will help me overcome a lot of organisational level obstacles at my workplaces and make my road to success a lot easier.

Approaches To Teaching EFL Writing

Approaches To Teaching EFL Writing Feedback in writing has recently received a growing interest from SLA researchers due to its instrumental role in second language education. Literature suggests that as an important component of language, writing skill in a second language can greatly benefit from teachers comments particularly in the form of written feedback on learners written products. Previous research has investigated the role of teachers corrective feedback on learners written assignments (e.g., Ferris Roberts 2001, Ferris 2004; Harmer, 2001) and learners expectations on teachers error correction in their written work (e.g., Lee, 2009; Nunan 1999; Williams, 2001). These studies suggest that for improvement of learners writing skills in a second language teacher feedback is indispensable. With this in mind, this chapter discusses the importance of feedback in development of EFL learners writing skills in tandem with key issues and previous studies related to corrective feedback in the literature. It first discusses the nature of writing as one of the four main skills in language acquisition/learning (i.e., listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and common approaches undertaken to teaching writing in EFL contexts. It then discusses what feedback entails and identifies different types of error correction followed by a discussion of the role of feedback in EFL education in classroom setting. Finally, this chapter summarizes and concludes the literature review which provides insights into understanding better feedback practices in EFL classrooms. What is Writing? For any study that involves investigation of learners written work, it seems necessary to establish a working definition of writing. Numerous assumptions and definitions have been proposed to specify the concept of writing in the literature. Customarily, writing refers to a set of visible signs representing elements of a language which are arranged systematically. This system is referred to as writing system of the language. Coulmas (2003) defines writing as a set of visible or tactile signs used to represent unit of language in a systematic way, with the purpose of recording messages which can be retrieved by everyone who knows the language in question and the rules by virtue of which its units are encoded in the writing system. Bryne (1979) views writing as transforming our thoughts into language; a very complex skill that requires both physical and mental activity on the part of writer. Bryne (1979) further notes that writing is the last and perhaps most difficult skill learners l earn if they ever do. While these definitions provide an understanding of the nature of writing and its qualities, what is obvious is the fact that writing is a complex and demanding process that is difficult to master particularly for those who want to produce accurate and precise pieces of writing in a second language. Among various reasons cited for complications attributed to writing, Bryne (1991) suggests three main causes that make writing an arduous task. The first, that he calls psychological problem, is caused as a result of lack of interaction and feedback between the reader and the writer. As such, to tackle this kind of problems writers rely to a great extent to their readers feedback and evaluation of their written product. Understanding this problem is of importance for language learners to improve their writing since they need to take into account their audiences likes and dislikes. The second complexity is language related; that is, lack of adequate linguistic knowledge prevents us from fully monitoring what we intend to say. This shows that linguistic competence in dominantly instrumental in developing writing skills. The third problem is cognitive, whose causes can be linked it instructional inadequacies. This emphasizes the role of writing courses in framing learners writing abilit ies as well as language teachers central roles as providers of appropriate input and feedback in such courses. As such, in light of this short review on the nature of writing task and what factors might influence a second language learners attainment of this skill, it can be inferred that teaching writing can be informed by the teachers perspectives towards such a practice in instructional settings. To further illustrate this point, the next section presents two of the most common approaches to teaching writing in a second language. Approaches To Teaching EFL Writing Writing as a Product The first approach to teaching writing, which has been known as traditional approach, is product approach, which focuses on the final product, the coherent and the error-free text (Nunan, 1999).This approach has been practiced widely since the 1950s well into 1970s. Britton (1996:30) noted that product approach emphasized correct usage, correct grammar and correct spelling in the language and that it stressed overwhelming attention toward à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦topic sentence, the various methods of developing the paragraphà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ and the holy trinity of unity, coherence and other aspects of writing. Additionally, in this approach, composing is primarily viewed as a linear process that predictably starts with a topic selection to pre-writing activities, followed by actual writing and editing. The teacher only looks at the paper when it is done. Selection of topic Pre-writing activities Writing Rewriting, editing, proofreading Figure 1: Process Line (Product Approach) There are basically two main concerns with the product approach: the written product, and the grammatical accuracy. The emphasis on written product is clear in the fact that the teacher only responds to the composition once it is finished, and not before or while it is in progress. According to Jordan (1997:11), during the practice of product approach, à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦a model is provided with various exercises undertaken for learners to be able to internalize the prescribed patterns. Then, learners are à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦required to product similar or parallel text. Nunan (1999) mentioned that the composing process in the traditional approach is viewed as linear process. It proceeds systematically from the planning or prewriting stages, to composing stage, to the revising stage (usually nothing more than copy-editing), and the final draft stage, with the writer progressing from one stage to the next without backtracking. The piece of writing handed in by the learners is the final text and is supposed to be his/her best piece of work where further revision in not needed. The feedback and correction made on the texts by the teachers would not make any difference at this stage. The focus of this approach is on the final, the coherent, error-free text, thus it is also known as the product oriented approach (Nunan 1999). As such, looking at this direct effect, the product approach does not appear to fulfill the true nature of writing. It stops short at considering writing being a skill by itself, not just a manner to attain linguistic competence. It is lacking in terms of interaction between the teacher and the text, where teachers will only see the final product, not knowing how it was developed. Lastly, as it assumes that writing is a linear process and that learners know exactly what to write about in their writing, it fails to consider how learners develop their ideas and meaning. Writing as a Process The second approach of teaching writing that has been dominant over the recent years and is opposed to traditional ways of teaching writing is process approach. The predominance of process approach has given rise to the role of feedback as an essential component of writing courses. The notion of writing as process was introduced to EFL studies by Zamel (1976), who argued that advanced EFL writers are similar to L1 writers and can benefit from instruction emphasizing the process of writing. As opposed to the view of writing as a reproduction of previously learned syntactic or discourse structures, the process-based approach emphasized the view of writing as a process of developing organization as well as meaning. In light of this view, invention strategies, multiple drafts, and formative feedback from by the teacher and/or the peers are also considered important parts of writing instruction in EFL writing classrooms. A research conducted by Zamel (1983) has revealed that composing is a non-linear, exploratory, and generative process whereby writers discover and reformulate their ideas i.e., writers often backtrack and revise from the moment they start till they finish the final draft. Writers go back and forth from one stage to another is a non-systematic way. Written texts under this approach are not treated as a final and fixed product but as part of complex process, which is recursive. There would be many drafts written by the learners on a single topic and teachers would response to every draft in order to help improve their writing and finally attaining the best written piece. The whole process begin by the learners writing their first draft and submitting later to their teacher for feedback. After writing their feedback on the learners essays, the teacher returns them to the learners . The learners write another draft by taking into consideration teachers feedback. The process then is repea ted with draft going back and forth between the teacher and the learners. If a learners draft is still not satisfactory to both the learner himself/herself and the learners draft would be repeat. That means the additional draft would be the final piece of learners writing to be submitted to the teacher. Hence, what is evident here is that in traditional approach (i.e., product approach) response is given once, whereas in the process approach, responses would be given in many drafts. The intention is to build up learners confidence and also slowly attain the best piece of writing. In this approach, the main concern of the teacher is to help learners develop their ideas, therefore, throughout the earlier writing stages; the teacher would be stressing more on content. Nunan (1999) notes that the teacher focuses less on a perfect final draft product than the development of successive drafts of a text. He further states that the focus in the first instance is on quantity rather than quality, and writers are encouraged to get their ideas onto paper without worrying too much about formal correctness in the initial stages. Because of this, the traditional way of responding to a composition would not be suitable to the process writing approach. In the same token, Nunan (2001) clearly states how very different the process approach is from the traditional product-oriented approach. He contends that whereas the product approach focuses on writing tasks in which the learner imitates, copies and transforms teacher supplied models, the process approach focuses on the steps involved in creating a piece of work. The primary goal of product writing is then an error-free coherent text while process writing allows for the fact that no text can be perfect, but that a writer will get closer to perfection by producing, reflecting on, discussing and reworking successive drafts of a text. In sum, this body of literature indicates that that most scholar nowadays advocate the process approach to teaching and learning writing, and perhaps most of them would agree on this important point that: good product depends on good process. What is Feedback? The term feedback in this review and incidentally in this study embraces the notions of correction, marking, evaluation and responding. It includes what Diab (2006) terms as correction feedback which refers to the editing type and evaluative feedback with reference to the judging type. In effect, the term feedback in this study refers to any information provided to learners about the appropriateness of their performance or the general accuracy of their answers (Diab 2006). As these definitions imply, the notion of feedback on writing was traditionally understood as error corrections teachers made to learners writings. Hence, a brief review of the corrections customarily provided on learners writing errors is in order in the next section. Error Correction When learners have completed their written assignments, teachers are expected to correct them. The corrections then serve to help the learners language development by showing where their knowledge is lacking. Truscott (1996) defined error correction as the correction of grammatical errors for the purpose of improving a learners ability to write accurately (329). This definition can be broadened to include lexical errors, including word choice, word form, capitalization, and typing conventions (Truscott, 1996). However, in terms of second language writing, this definition focuses on the mechanical and form-focused aspects of writing and showing little concern for the organizational types of corrections made by the teachers. Thus, error correction should cover feedback on both linguistic and non-linguistic skills of writing. Non-linguistic features could include instructions on paragraph development, topic string (consistent links throughout the text to relate all parts to the topic), suitable transitions between paragraphs, inclusion of preambles and signposts to increase the overall readability of the written work. Thus, these concepts indicate the extensiveness of the scope of error correction indicating its vital role in developing learner writing in a second language. Learners have a mental picture of how they think a certain grammar rule works, and the corrections should help learners to adjust that picture when they are mistaken (Krashen Terell, 1985:177). Many teachers look at learners errors as part of learning process. But how do we know the extent to which we can let errors recover on their own? What types of errors are to be given more attention to? Therefore, while providing corrections on learners assignments several essential factors should be taken into account. Hendrickson (1980) arguing that simply providing all the correct forms in learners imperfect sentences is an ordeal that can be frustrating to teachers outlines four critical learner factors that have to be considered in error correction. First, one needs to be aware of learners purpose and goals for communicating in writing. Second, the teacher must take into account the learners proficiency in the target language at any given time. The third critical factor is the teachers awareness or error types and frequencies as well as how these aspects relate to the learners goals. The final and probably the most critical factor is the learners attitudes towards the nature of correction. Feedback, whether it is given through corrections or comments, has the purpose of supporting learners learning. Race (2005:95) cites four purposes for feedback: (1) It should help learners to make sense of their work in some way, (2) It should clarify the need of learning by showing the learners what they should be trying to achieve; what the outcome of their work should look like, (3) Its should enhance learners willingness to learn, and finally yet importantly, (4) Feedback should motivate the learners to develop their skills. What becomes evident from the above stated aims is that feedback is highly instrumental in helping language learners improve their level of awareness in learning by making as less mistakes as possible. At the bottom of this reasoning is the fundamental belief that by making the learners aware of the error they make and by getting them to act on those errors in some way, then it is believed that the learners will assimilate the mistakes and eventually not make them in future. In other words, correction is closely linked to language acquisition and particularly to the idea of accurately acquiring the language. This statement itself is making sweeping statements about everything from the quality of the feedback to the ability for learners to acquire language through the feedback we offer them. However, it seems to be the heart of why we do provide feedback. Indeed one could argue that institutions and learners demand feedback and that this is the reason why we provide it, but even these two groups fundamentally believe that correction in some way leads to language acquisition and demand it for that reason. Writers such as Ashwell (2001) have pointed out that with the increased importance of the writing process there may be other reasons for including feedback and these include improving the communicative effectiveness of a given written piece. In other words we correct learners and guide learners so that the written piece they eventually produce communicates their ideas as effectively as possible. This is linked closer to feedback that looks at the content of a written piece rather than the grammatical forms within it. He also points out that an additional reason for correcting learners work is simply because formal accuracy of a written piece matters and that people generally are a lot less accepting of mistakes in written pieces. Having looked at the nature of the concept of feedback, what seems to be of importance in the classroom setting is the appropriateness of the type of feedback provided for certain purposes and for certain recipients. That is, teachers should use appropriate written feedback in order to get effective learners reaction. This goes through motivating learners using their teachers written feedback. There are many types of writing feedback and there are different types of learners reactions. Since every learner has his / her own personal attributes, the type of teachers written feedback given to learners will possibly affect learners state positively or negatively. Accordingly, it is central to look at these different types of teaches written feedback and their influence on learners attainments. Types of Written Feedback Ellis (2009) in his article titled A typology of written corrective feedback types suggests a variety of feedback types for correcting learners written work. He illustrates the types of feedback by examining the various options (both familiar and less familiar) from studies of written feedback that have examined the different options of feedback to date. Ellis (2009) outlines six main methods for providing written corrective feedback. This classification is also adopted to identify the types of feedback in this study. Ellis has categorized the various types of written corrective feedback into six major categories (see Table 2.1). Table 2.1 Categories of Written Corrective Feedback (adopted from Ellis, 2009) Written corrective feedback type Description Direct CF This occurs when the correct form is given in place of an incorrect form. It is the direct correction of error. Indirect CF 1) Indicating only 2) Indicating the specific location Indirect CF occurs when an error is indicated but the correct form is not given. Ellis identifies two types of indirect CF: 1) Indicating only is when an error is noted, such as in the margin, but the exact location is not provided. 2) Indicating the specific location is when the error is underlined or given specific reference. Metalinguistic 1) Error codes 2) Brief grammatical description Metalinguistic feedback occurs when the writer is given a linguistic clue of the error. This can take two forms: 1) The use of abbreviations or error codes 2) A brief grammatical explanation usually given at the bottom of the text or on an attached form The focus of the feedback 1) Focused 2) Unfocused Feedback can take a variety of forms in the way it is given, such as the level of focus. 1) Focused feedback occurs when a limited number of language features are concentrated on. 2) Unfocused feedback occurs when many or all language features are addressed in the feedback. Electronic Electronic feedback occurs via computer mediated methods when a hyperlink is used to indicate an error has occurred. Reformulation Reformulation occurs when a first language user rewrites or reformulates the targeted second language learners text. Due to the significance of Elliss (2009) classification of feedback types in informing the analysis of the data and providing insights into this study the most important feedback types outlined in the proposed scheme will be illustrated in the preceding sections. Direct Versus Indirect Feedback A first distinction in Elliss (2009) classification is made between direct and indirect feedback. Direct feedback refers to highlighting the errors and providing the correct forms to the learners. That is, the correct form is given in place of an incorrect form. Ellis (2009) states that direct feedback has advantage because it will explicit guidance for the learners about how to correct their errors. Similarly, Bartram and Walton, (1991: 84) mentioned that direct corrective feedback, is implemented through underlining the errors and providing the right forms in the learners written work. Examples (1) and (2) below illustrate the direct and indirect types of feedback respectively. (1) at is health Sleeping late in night are very bad for our heelth and brain. As demonstrated in example (1), direct feedback can be provided by indication of the errors accompanied with their correct forms and explanations while in case of indirect corrective feedback, learners errors can be indicated by underlining the errors without any explanation or correcting it. This is can be done by indicating where errors are located only. Example (2) shows indirect feedback. (2) Sleeping late in night are very bad for our heelth and brain. Concurring with Ellis (2009), Ferris and Roberts (2001) suggest that direct corrective feedback is better than indirect corrective feedback with learners/writers of low levels of proficiency, but conversely, Hedge (2000) argues that the dangers of its spoon-feeding effect are that learners overlook their own role in the correction process and may become passive. This is because learners can just mechanically copy the ready-made correction without figuring out the reasons. To make full use of the advantages of direct feedback and indirect feedback and avoid their disadvantages, teachers can consider combining them together. Focused Versus Unfocused Feedback A second distinction in feedback typology is made between focused and unfocused corrective feedback. Ellis (2009) states that in focused corrective feedback much attention is given on one or two types of error which assists the learner to examine several corrections on the same type of error. In unfocused corrective feedback, on the other hand, the learner or the learner is asked to engage in different type of errors, which may confuse the learner focusing on the error. Focused and unfocused correction feedback can also involve all other types of feedback such as direct, indirect, metalinguistic, focused versus unfocused and electronic corrective feedback (Ellis, ibid). Written corrective feedback studies (e.g., Bitchener, Young Cameron, 2005; Truscott, 2009; Sheen, 2007) suggest that when written corrective feedback is focused it is likely to be more effective in promoting acquisition, than unfocused corrective feedback. Sheen (2007), for example, in his study using focused corrective feedback found that such approach is effective in promoting more accurate language use. In a similar vein, Sheen at el.s (2009) studied six intact language classrooms in a pre-academic non-credit EFL program in a US college. The researchers seem to be more focused on two types of written correction (focused and unfocused) and they attempted to investigate the effects in using use adult EFL learners accurate use of English articles, use of grammatical features other than that which is the focus of the correction and the effect for written narrative tasks without error correction on the accurate use of grammatical features other than that which is the focus of the correction. The results confirmed the effectiveness of unfocused corrective feedback on learning English articles. As such, the findings from these studies recommend the teachers to select focused feedback with one or two errors types at one time rather than selecting too many types of errors. The Role Of Written Feedback In EFL Development The importance of feedback lies in quality, not frequency. There are some important aspects to consider before feedback is given. First, whether the provided feedback takes the learners development into account since demonstrating their progress through feedback can create extra motivation to work more efficiently. Motivation is an important part of feedback and lack of enough motivation can lower learners self-esteem. Giving feedback should be about motivating learners and at the same time focus on what they need to improve. This is a difficult balance to keep (Hyland Hyland, 2001:187). As such, the teacher needs to emphasize the efforts the learners made; that is highlighting the learners effort rather than the outcome or the effect it has had on the teacher. There is a difference between I see that you have worked very hard, good job! and I appreciate the hard work you have done! As the latter suggests that the work was done for the teacher, while the former focuses on the learne rs effort. The learners should feel that they work for themselves, not for the teacher (Good and Brophy, 1994:147). A second important aspect of feedback deals with whether the given feedback is based on a conscious strategy or it is provided without any consistent pattern. What this means is that teachers need to establish a consistent and conscious strategy in providing written feedback, so that learners become aware of the patterns of writing that is pointed out consistently by the teacher. However, a third aspect of feedback comes into play when tutors need to provide as various feedback as possible. Only writing Wow! does not say much about the work the learners have carried out. It is better to point out the parts that are impressive and explain why. Also, variation is necessary because if a teacher, for example, constantly writes Good job! the learners might not find it genuine and disregard it (Good Brophy, 1994:147). In the same token, as Harmer (2005) contends, there are more effective ways of correcting than underlining, crossing-out and putting question marks in learners written assignments. Keeping these points in mind could help to make feedback more useful for the learners, and also more appreciated. Variation may also be created through different ways of providing corrections on learners works. For instance, they may use selective correction which means not correcting every mistake the learners make. For selective corrections, the learners must be told before they start writing. If a teacher announces that, for example, only punctuation will be corrected, the learners might concentrate harder and make fewer mistakes in that area. Using correction symbols may be another way adding to variation and effectiveness of correcting. This reduces the amount of red ink all over the essay, which often lowers the learners motivation. Additionally, Harmer (2005:111) mentions reformulation, which means that the teacher shows how a particular sentence can be formulated in another way. That enables the learner to compare a correct version with an incorrect one. Moreover, referring to a dictionary in the feedback is yet another way to make learners learn. They have to look something up with a pu rpose in mind. In this way, they learn as they correct. For instance, if a mistake is difficult to explain, teachers can write ask me next to it so they can explain the mistake to the learner face-to-face. The fourth and final point central to providing effective feedback is to note whether it is restricted to form or it provides insights into the content as well. Gray (2004) suggests that effective feedback should concentrate on content, rather than form; check to see if the learners write fluently. Have they tried to use new words? Do they have the knowledge of going around the problems when their vocabulary is not extensive enough? There are more aspects to look at than only grammar. Hence, it would be a misconception if teachers focus only on mechanical error correction instead of seeking excellence in the learners writing development. With this in mind, the next section presents relevant issues in and appropriate methods of error correction in writing courses. In sum, this brief review indicates that in order to provide effective feedback, EFL teachers need to take into considerations different factors including learner motivation, teacher awareness of his/her feedback strategy, implementation of various types of feedback, and inclusion of both form-focused and content-related corrections in their feedback. These methods of providing feedback can be contrasted to traditional practices of error correction that focused mainly on formal or grammatical aspects of language. Williams (2001) suggests two main shortcomings of traditional methods of correcting grammatical errors. First, correction of learners errors has been found to be unclear and inconsistent when it deals with teachers written feedback. Second, using the traditional methods, learners simply copy their teachers feedback correction and use it in their subsequent drafts. Majority of the learners do not take their teachers written feedback into consideration and study those errors. Rewriting or copying the mistakes without recognizing the essence of the error will create a passive action preventing learners to learn from their mistake. Thus, giving the learners the correct feedback will motivate them with their writing task in a new piece of writing. 2.8 Research Into Types of Feedback on Learners Writing Feedback is just one aspect of EFL education; the other piece of an effective EFL learning programme would be feedback. Feedback occurs between teachers and learners in particular cultural, institutional, and inter-personal contexts, and learner responses are affected by different aspects of the context (Lee, 2009). In the context of EFL education, Lee (2009) examined learner perspectives on teacher feedback, wherein it has been established that in EFL education feedback anchored on the learners personality and personal needs are perceived to be more effective. Hence, the perception of learners with regard to feedback mechanisms often depends on the manner by which the EFL teacher conducts both assessment and feedback mechanisms. In another study, Diab (2005) examined the teacher preferences with regard to error correction and feedback. Through a thorough review of literature, Diab (ibid) was able to observe that more often than not, foreign language learners have different responses to feedbacks regarding pronunciation, error correction, and the importance given to grammar and vocabulary are often different from that of their tutors. Furthermore, Diab (2005) also indicted in his article that foreign language learners are more responsive to corrective feedback, both written and spoken than tutors. This is a good point raised in the sense that effort for a successful EFL programme should not only emanate from the willingness of the learners to learn but also in the ability of the tutors to be efficient and effective in performing their functions. Hy

Engaging Employees In Organizational Change Management Essay

Engaging Employees In Organizational Change Management Essay Let it sink in: Rosenberg (1993) states that people need time to adapt to the idea of change. It is best to announce the change management plans much before the actual implementation begins rather than springing up the announcement as soon as the actual transition is about to take place; in most cases it has been noted that individuals were unhappy with the rapidity at which the change management course was employed rather than the idea of change itself. If for example a company plans to layoff 20% of its staff by the end of the week; no prior announcement of this action might result in severe chaos, anger and frustration by the employees who would have to deal with the situation there and then which could result in severe emotional and mental trauma. Teach the staff well: People are usually comfortable with the familiar and suspicious of the unfamiliar. For this purpose individuals might resist changing over to a new system or procedure of doing things simply because they are afraid of making mistakes and would prefer to work according to the tried and tested procedures. Management here needs to ensure that individuals are encouraged to experiment under the new system and are allowed to learn from their mistakes rather than being reprimanded for their behavior. Relinquish some control: Rosenberg (1993) has mentioned time and again in her article that to bring about an effective change, it is necessary to give autonomy to individuals so that they feel that they are also in control and play an integral role in the course of managing change. Again resistance is not necessarily to the change itself; rather than the way the change was implemented. A good manager would always involve his employees in the change management process to garner their full assurance and support to the change being implemented. Communication is the key: This is a very important aspect as employees want to be constantly kept in the loop regarding what changes are taking place in the organization. Both the employees and their managers have to keep an fluent mode of conversation so that the queries and grievances of the employees can be addressed by the managers and the managers are also aware of the strategies they would have to use in order to compel their workforce to remain committed to the cause. If managers want to successfully overcome resistance to change then these are some of the few viewpoints they have to keep into consideration when being involved in a change management process. Kimberling (2006) has suggested four simple steps for overcoming resistance. For todays management one of the growing challenges is overcoming employees resistance to change. It is widely assumed that people dislike change. There are some ways of overcoming employees resistance to change as given below: Identify change agents early in the project/program Train, train, train Involve employees in the change enabling process Over-communicate According to Brown Cregan (2008), Cynicism tells regarding employees opinion of their organizations management and it is derivative of employees familiarity with the environment, it may require considerable efforts by management to trim it down. Engaging employees is one of the ways of managing Organizational Change Cynicism (OCC). Sharing information has been considered as the approach is suitable top-down form of engaging employees which has important and negative association with OCC. It is believed that information passed down by the management is based on employee accepting of management decisions and thus reducing level of OCC. Taking inputs from employees validates that employees and employers have differing interests in the employment relationship. Delegating the role of decision making reflects shift in the form of employment terms. Managers and employees work in a cooperative environment where solutions/ decisions may emanate from either side and no more managers are the only authority holders. Engaging employees in decision making reduces levels of OCC. This helps employees in understanding the fall out of managerial decisions as nothing comes to them as a surprise this undermines the potential of cynicism to develop. This point of view is further supported by other researchers who state that constant communication and employee involvement is the key to a successful change management process. Communicating decisions justifies change, improves sense of employee effectiveness, and makes clear the changes to employee responsibilities (Young and Post, 1993). Besides, it provides employees information on how the intervention will happen and its fall out and hence allowing them greater control over the process of change. Successful Change: Paying Attention to the Intangibles Adams (2003) asserts that though bringing about any sort of change is a challenging and daunting task, confrontation to change can be combated and an organization can make the transition to a new environment successfully. Adams (2003) further states that while there would be approximately 10-15% of an organizations employees who would be resisting change; there would also be another 10-15% who would be supportive of the change. Organizations who have implemented the change management program successfully in their vicinity have done so by involving these proponents of the change management program from the beginning stages in order to garner their full support. This does not mean that these organizations did not face any sort of resistance; resistance to change was there just like any other change management program but it was dealt with in a smart manner so that the hostile and negative feelings of the employees did not take over the entire process. The basic factors that have been identified by Adams (2003) for successful change implementation are: accepting the need for change, faith that change is both favorable and probable, enough fervent assurance, explicit deliverable goals and a clear starting strategy, structures or mechanisms that require a repetition of the new pattern, feeling supported and safe, patience and perseverance, clear accountability, the responsibility of others in the organization (not just change agents) and rewarding of new behavior. All of these factors combined have worked together in bringing about a successful change program in various organizations that applied these theories or factors either entirely or used combinations that supported their organization structure. The basic premise of bringing about a successful change program has been that it is possible to overcome resistance if a clear strategy if firstly identified and secondly people are managed in such a way so as to develop feelings of en thusiasm and commitment towards the process of change. It is how these intangible factors of change are managed that determines the successful implementation of any change management program in the world. Simultaneously, with fast pace of change organizations are currently experiencing, there is parallel increasing interest in the role of organizational trust within these processes. (Mayer et al., 1995). Lower level of trust in organization will make change look doubtful and upsetting. Change agents need to take a closer look at trust and control factors in order to comprehend better how a constructive association among employees and employers can be continued. Triumphant organizational change can take place if employees stick to the processes sketched by organizational leaders. Non-acceptance or refusing attitude towards change may harm the relation between individual and organization (Ferguson Cheyne, 1995). On the other hand, control is seen as a regulatory process by which the basics of a system are made more foreseeable by making standards in the pursuit of some preferred goals or state (Leifer Mills, 1996, 117). This means that when employees have a high sense of control over a change intervention, it means they predict the result associated to it, hence they feel comfortable increasing the probability of sticking to the change. Some authors have treated trust and control as substitutes (e.g. Inkpen Currall, 1997; Leifer Mills, 1996), such that the more trust there is in a partner, the less need to control its behavior. A different approach is presented by Das Teng (1998) which state that these parallel phenomena hold a supplementary character. According to them, If employees perceptions of control over change represent how comfortable and familiarized employees are concerning the change, what is the impact of lower or higher control in the relationship between employees and organizational agents? Although the stronger is employees trust in their supervisor, the more committed these employees are to their organization, we believe trust has differential effects on work outcomes depending on how employees perceive change (i.e. how much they feel they control the change process). For this purpose Das Teng (1998) explain the concept of organizational change interventions. Organizational change interventions are situations in which both perceptions of trust in the supervisor and control over change are high stake factors because of the risks entailed in them. A situation in which employees have low perceived control over an organizational change intervention is a situation where trust concerns are increased. If an employee has lower control over the change, a trusting relationship with his supervisor will help him maintain his level of commitment to the organization. As a consequence, not only employees with low perceived control over change and low trust in the supervisor are expected to have the lowest levels of organizational commitment, but also the relationship between trust in the supervisor and affective organizational commitment is stronger for employees with lower perceptions of control over the change intervention. Brockner et al. (1997) found that when trust concerns become more prominent, the level of employees trust in organizational authorities is more likely to influence their support for the organizational authorities and their organizational commitment. The Hard Side of Change Management The DICE Factors Sikrin et al. (2005) has a different opinion on which factors to focus on when bring about the change. Recently the gurus of change management tend to pay more attention and emphasis on soft factors such as culture, leadership and motivation. These factors play an integral role in making an organization attain success but one cannot focus on these factors only when an organization needs to be transformed. Such basic factors do not always affect the change management programs in organizations. For example, a good leadership is essential to the success of any organization but is not the sole affective factor. Communication plays a major role when bringing about any change but again, is not the only factor to severely affect the change process. The most difficult factor to change is changing the mindsets of individuals; individuals and organizations have certain perceptions and behaviors that are so deeply inculcated in their personality that it is very difficult to steer them in a diff erent direction. Sikrin et al. (2005) also states that while surveys can be conducted to understand the effect of such soft factors such as culture and leadership, it is difficult to quantify such soft factors. An emphasis on the unconventional outlook of change management, the hard factors, is also important to be taken into consideration. These factors have three important characteristics which are as follows: Organizations are capable to evaluate them in straight or circuitous methods. Organizations can simply correspond their significance, both inside and outside of the organizations. And possibly mainly vital businesses are able to influence those essentials rapidly. Such important factors that directly affect the change process are the time span taken to undergo a process, the individuals necessary to carry out the various job requirements and ultimately the financial returns that such an activity leads to. There are numerous researches that depict that hard factors play an essential role in bringing about any sort of change process, else the organizations face failure. (Sikrin et al., 2005). On the other hand it is also necessary for the management to pay an equal amount of attention to the soft factors. However, if organizations do not firstly emphasize on the hard factors, the entire change process would result in severe failure. Sikrin et al. (2005) write in their article that they gained an insight into a new aspect when they studied and identified the basic factors of change that all processes shared. They conducted a hypothesis that studied how various organizations conducted similar transformation programs. For this purpose the authors studied various industries in various countries in order to take out the common elements. 225 companies were part of the research conducted where it showed that there was a directly related relationship between the outcome of a change process and tough four elements: plan life span, specifically the time between plan feedbacks; performance veracity, or the abilities of project teams; the dedication of both higher staff and the lower staff whom the transform will influence mainly; and the extra attempt that peoples must make to manage with the alteration. They named these factors as the DICE factors since we could stack them in support of projects accomplishment (Sikrin et al., 2005). According to Sikrin et al. (2005) We finished our learning in 1994, and in the 11 years since then, the Boston Consulting Group had used those four elements to forecast the results, and direct the completion, of more than 1,000 change management stances globally. Not only has the association held, but no other elements (or combination of these factors) have forecasted results as well. The Four Hard Factors Organizations work with the four factors in different ways in order to create new combinations. On one end of the continuum, there are projects that will ultimately face success than the ones that are going to face failure on the other end. For example, Sikrin et al write, At one end, a small plan led by a capable, ambitious, and consistent team, led by top management and implemented in a division that is open to the change and has to put in very little further attempt, is destined to thrive. On the other end, a lengthy, designed plan implemented by an unskilled apathetic, and incoherent groups, without any higher management sponsors and aim at a function that disapproves the alteration and has to do a excessive efforts, will be unsuccessful. Through this process the organizations can then find out which change program fell at which end of the continuum. However, most of the change processes ended up in a neutral position where it was difficult to find out if they were a success or if they had failed. It is the responsibility of executives to conduct an in-depth analysis of the DICE factors to decipher which direction the change program go. Following are the DICE factors: D. The time span Duration required concluding a transformed plans if it has a limited duration; if not limited, the longevity of time between feedbacks of objectives. I. The plans teams performance Integrity; that is, its skills to finish the program on time. Which are linked to teams abilities and expertise as per plans necessities. C. The Commitment to revolutionize that top hierarchy (C1) and staff affected by the transformation (C2) display. E. The Effort other than the routine work that the transformed initiative necessitates from staffs (Sikrin et.al., 2005). This study therefore goes to show that there are multiple methods that could be adopted in order to bring about an effective change management process. Furthermore, case study research shows that there are multiple methods adopted for managing change. While many prescriptions, guidelines and models exist, managers responsible for executing the changes are selective in the way they use these ideas (Storey, 1992). Keeping in mind the above mentioned point of view we can assume that to a major percentage of the change varies from person to person. Those who see themselves as creating organizational change as an intentional process (i.e. top management formally leading change) will have a different perspective to those who are on the receiving end of change (Kanter et al., 1992). Change Management Around the World Change Resistance in Bureaucratic Organizations in Jordan To understand why employees resist change Khassawneh (2005) highlights the reasons and causes behind employees resistance to administrative change in various bureaucratic organizations in Jordan. There were eleven factors, were identified as being major causes of change resistance in bureaucratic agencies. These factors include: inadequate financial and non-financial incentives offered to government employees, lack of employees participation and involvement in the change process, distrust between employees and higher management, expectation of more control and supervision from higher management, expectation of additional job demands and requirements, comfort with status quo, disruption of stable work standards and social relations, lack of goal clarity, lack of employees conviction in the goals of change, fear of loosing job and/or job prerogatives, and the sudden and confused manner in which change is introduced (Khassawneh, 2005) According to Khassawneh (2005) the most significant reason of resistance to change was found out to be lack of employees participation in the change process. This factor was assessed on the basis of two parameters: seniority in organization and number of training programs attended by employees. Senior employees who were part of the organization for five years or less resisted strongly due to lack of participation in the change process than their seniors who had served in the organization for periods ranging from 6-20 years. Employees who had served for five years or less in such government institutions made up 32% of the sample (133 respondents). These individuals were involved in activities concerning of an executive nature and therefore played a significant role in the running of the bureaucratic organizations. Employees who had not attended any training program felt that lack of involvement led to resistance to change. Therefore this attitude goes to show what an important role the training programs play boosting employee morale and involvement as training enables individuals to discover their strengths and weaknesses and also instill in them a sense of belonging in their organization. Therefore the respondents who did not get an opportunity to participate in any training programs claimed to have low sense of involvement with the organization treated the management with greater suspicion, than those who took part in certain training programs. Another major cause of resistance to change was as found out by Khassawneh (2005) was lack of proper incentives for employees. This lack of proper incentives was correlated to five of background characteristics of respondents which were namely; seniority, administrative rank, number of training programs attended, age and level of education (Khassawneh, 2005). Younger, low level ranking employees resisted more due to lack of proper incentives. Employees who have served for longer periods of time tend to receive greater incentives as the longer they remain in a government organization. Resistance to change also came about when the employees viewed the management with suspicion and distrust (Khassawneh, 2005). Younger employees working at a low level position who did not get adequate decision making authority or those who did not attend enough training programs were mainly the individuals who highly resisted any sort of change. Khassawneh (2005) states that if such low ranking employees are also not given enough information regarding the change process, then such employees would always create issues in the organization. Change Management in Indian Banks Hegde George (2002) in their study further highlight reasons of why employees resist to change of shifting towards automated services in the banks. Before the privatization wave began in India, the public sector commanded a major chunk of the economy. Though there was excessive regulatory mechanism there was widespread corruption, a high cost economy and poor performance from the state owned enterprises. State-owned banks were also run in an extremely inefficient manner due to interference from political quarters and as a result these banks were frequently caused to go through bankruptcies. Employees in these banks too were not ready to accept any new changes as they preferred the old practices and lived happily under the umbrella of State protectionism. Hegde George (2002) conducted this at Goa, in which a sample of 100 branch managers (BMs) with the objective of finding out the factors that motivate or inhibit BMs in servicing customers. They also focus on the reasons why employees resist any sort of new change taking place in the organization. Transition to a new work methodology was cited as a major factor contributing towards employee resistance. Since the traditional bureaucratic banking practices did not focus so much on customer service, the employees had to be given intense training in how to deal with the customers, how to respond to their queries regarding new services and how to respond to complaint situations. This required a whole new work ethic and attitude to be developed among employees as well as they were not equipped to deal well in the customer dealing sphere. Along with this the staff had to also be trained in the new technological aspects of the innovative banking solutions as well (Hegde George, 2002). Secondly the researchers found out that lack of technological know-how/training also contributed to resistance to change. Branch managers admitted that they were not aware of all the workings of the new banking system and could not answer customer queries regarding ATM machines as they were not knowledgeable about the workings of ATMs. Added to this computerization was another major woe of the employees as they employees were give inadequate training where they learned through a trial and error process which resulted in delay and frustration with the work at hand. Furthermore the top management frequently decided to change the software being used so the employees had to go through the whole process of learning through trail and error again. Lack of communication and inadequate training resulted in a high level of de-motivation and resistance from the employees who were not willing to accept the new changes as they felt that the new process created more confusion and damage rather tha n resolving the issues. Hegde George (2002) also discuss how the staff was downsized by the management in order to cut down on its cost where a Voluntary Retirement Scheme was introduced in order to let the staff go. This resulted in paucity of staff a the branches where the few remaining staff was overworked and underpaid which led to further resistance and de-motivation of the staff, many of whom quit their job as they felt exploited by the new change management process introduced by the top executives. Through the course of their study, Hegde George (2002) find out that the key to customer satisfaction is firstly employee satisfaction as employees who feel de-motivated and discontented of their jobs and companies exhibit their feelings via not serving the customers properly and even by speaking bad about their company in front of the customers. The main reason why employees resist changing is because the reasons and benefits of the change are not communicated to them, adequate training to deal with new procedures is not provided and furthermore staff is laid off without any prior warning which creates feelings of insecurity and mistrust towards the organization. Finally resistance to change could have been overcome if the management proceeded to bring about the change process in a systematic manner. If all the employees were communicated the plans of the management right in the beginning and the benefits of the change to the employees and the organization were made common knowledge, then the employees would be more emphatic towards the change process. An organization is nothing without the support of its employees and in order to bring about any sort of change the organization has to make sure that its internal customers are satisfied before the external customers are serviced. The IBM Making Change Work Global Study IBMs (2008) research department addressed the issues as to why most organizations cannot bring about a change successfully in an organization. IBMs research was conducted using a sample size of more than 1,500 key practitioners through surveys and detailed interviews. The purpose of the research was to find out why implementing a change management program was met with resistance by the employees and why the program failed to be implemented in most organizations successfully. The study revealed that 44% the projects failed to be completed on deadlines, or within budget or without decided quality of end goals, while 15 percent either ceased or failed to meet any of the objectives. The reasons cited for these failures range from lack of clarity of goals, failure to execute the project successfully from the perspective of the top management and lack of employee involvement, age factor, educational level and fear of new change from the perspective of the employees. The major challenges to change were divided on two parameters; soft factors and hard factors. The soft factors of resistance to change included: changing mindsets and attitudes, corporate culture, complex nature of the change process, lack of dedication from the side of upper level management, and deficiency of motivation of employees involved. While the hard factors of resistance to change included: shortage of resources, lack of change information, not much transparency because of incomplete or unreliable information, change of process change of IT systems, technology barriers. Its was found out from this study that while the hard factors play an important part in hindering the process of change, surprisingly it was the soft factors that was harder to get right. Altering thinking, behaviors and norms of an entity typically need different methods and skills that are applied time after time and over the time. Sometimes they require being applied over a series of consecutive assignmen ts and even some of them often continue after the project has been finished formally. (IBM, 2008). In order to overcome these resistances, the study then focused on the parameters that made a change successful. While leadership, employee engagement and honest communication were cited as the major areas providing impetus for change; again the list was divided into hard and soft factors that made a change management process successful. The soft factors comprised of: higher managements commitment and support, employee motivation and participation, open and accurate communication on timely basis, organization environment and culture that motivates and promotes change. The hard factors included: efficient training programs, adjustment of performance measures, efficient organization structure and monetary and non-monetary incentives. The major responsibility of implementing the change was that of the top management. The results of the research revealed that Practitioners firmly place key responsibility for the fate of change projects in the executive suite an overwhelming 92 percent na med top management sponsorship as the most important factor for successful change (IBM, 2008). Therefore it can be concluded from this study that while employees would always be suspicious of any kind of change and would resist the efforts of the management out of this fear and suspicion. It depends upon the top management to ensure timely communication, encouragement of employee involvement and appointing of professional change agents would pave the way for a successful change management process for any organization. Factors Affecting Resistance to Change: A Case Study of Two North Texas Police Departments Gaylor (2001), tried to explore the issues that affect conflict with change. For this purpose a law enforcement agency was chosen as the case in point i.e. two North Texas Police departments where the police consequence of mature education and expectation on the police teams level of opposition to change and the results of contribution and mutual understanding on reliance were examined. There were 5 factors that were identified as very influential on organizational change. These factors were: 1) Employee participation in resistance to change, (2) Trust in management, (3) Communication process, (4) Quality of information available and (5) Education (Kent, 2001) Research resulted that factors that affect resistance from employee side are involvement in the process, believe in management, processes of communication within organization, and exchange of information. The synopsis by Kent (2001) states that employee involvement in the process of change encourages him to feel to be owner for the new system and therefore, boosts the level of comfort and trust between employees and the management. Secondly, the organization needs to have a proper system of communication for employee remedy and support. This also increases the level of trust between the two stakeholders. Third, employees must be provided with accurate and timely information so as to reduce the level of chaos that is normally created at the time of change in any organization. And finally, to feel secure about their jobs and statuses and other issues of change process, employees have to have a high level of trust in management. Leading and Coping with Change Woodword Hendry in 2004 undertook 2 surveys to look at different perspectives in research on how change is being managed in financial services institutions of Londons. These involved representatives of senior management personnel who were responsible for initiation of change in the organizational and all other employees inclusive of managers experiencing change while serving at different levels. The aims of the study were: To define the skills and attitudes required to lead change and those needed effectively to cope with change and To develop a model to show how change is absorbed within the organization They organized their findings in five parts as described below, which have been arranged in the following manner. In the 1st section, as people keep on seeking to explore that what is going on in their organization, states what the employees and employers consider as the main pressures for change, their formal boss responses, and in what ways these changes have impacted them. Then, as conventional ways of working are tempered, in parts two and three they show how people cope and what different resources are required in terms of skills and competencies to perform well in this new changed environment. Then in part four they describe specific qualities required by the change managers to cultivate with respect to employee needs. Finally, they state what the organizations do in order to support their employees through out the change process, and how senior management and employees percieve this. The results of