Managing People, Finance and Marketing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Managing People, Finance and Marketing - Essay Example There may be organization-wide changes such as mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, leadership changes, and changes in technology. There may be the upsizing, downsizing and resizing that force organizations to change, and in some cases almost daily (Joyce, 2005). There are also changes needed in the culture of organizations or the way they do things. History is replete with many organizations changing for the better and organizations that did not and were doomed to failure in some parts of their history (Waldera, 2002). American Express. American Express, for example, had announced organization and management changes in mid- 2005. The reasons given were that changes were driven by several key developments including: the rapid growth of their Global Network Services (GNS) business in the United States and around the world; the expansion of their worldwide merchant network; the broader long-term relationships they are developing to build business with their merchant partners; and the recent entry of the Travelers Cheque business into the prepaid card arena ("American Express," 2005). Their company, they said, is in an excellent position. They would like to further strengthen their long-term position and propel the new American Express into the ranks of the most successful and most admired companies in the world ("American Express," 2005). IBM Integrated Supply Chain. ... IBM is not unique; its supply chain considerations impact upon many organizations as they attempt to find integrated solutions to complex problems. However, within IBM, this transition, which has affected organizational structure and alignment, process, and IT support, has not been without its problems. The drive to shift from a Functional to a Process control alignment has required a shift in the mindset of the organizations employees (McLaughlin, Paton & Macbeth, 2006). The IBM, as an organization needed to be able to develop flexible end-to-end (E2E) processes that can be "tweaked" and modified to meet changes in customer demand, product availability and overall performance. Performance to them is not simply down to the implementation of elaborate IT systems, but requires the alignment of key personnel in an understanding of the knowledge management aspects relating to the E2E processes. This required management to think about how the business operates from a process, as opposed to a function, perspective (McLaughlin, Paton & Macbeth, 2006). Hewlett Packard. Adizes (1988) postulated that as companies go through various life-cycle stages, their cultures need to change in order to adapt to different business challenges. Rigid adherence to a set of cultural norms can foretell disaster, especially in rapidly changing market conditions (Waldera, 2002) Consider the fate of a non-renewing organization as defined by Waldera (2002). The "HP Way" guided the success and development of this premier technology company since its inception in 1939. However effective the "HP Way" culture was in guiding the company's growth during the first fifty years of its history, it began

The Theory of Leisure Class Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

The Theory of Leisure Class - Research Paper Example The present inquiry is not concerned with the beginning of indolence, nor with the beginning of the appropriation of useful articles to individual consumption (Hinkrl and Fotos, 2002). The point in question is the origin and nature of a conventional leisure class on the one hand and the beginnings of individual ownership as a conventional right or equitable claim on the other hand. The early differentiation out of which the distinction between leisure and a working class arises is a division maintained between men and women's work in the lower stages of barbarism (Hodgson, 2004). Likewise, the earliest form of ownership is an ownership of the women by the able-bodied men of the community. The facts may be expressed in more general terms, and truer to the import of the barbarian theory of life, by saying that it is an owner of the woman by the man. There was undoubtedly some appropriation of useful articles before the custom of appropriating women arose (Michelman, 1969). The usages of existing archaic communities in which there is no ownership of women is warranted for such a view. In all communities, the members, both male and female, habitually appropriate to their individual use a variety of useful things; but these useful things are not thought of as owned by the person who appropriates and consumes them (Mitchell, 1936). The habitual appropriation and consumption of certain slight personal effects go on without raising the question of ownership; that is to say, the question of a conventional, equitable claim to extraneous things. The ownership of women begins in the lower barbarian stages of culture, apparently with the seizure of female captives (Rosenberg, 1936). The original reason for the seizure and appropriation of women seems to have been their usefulness as trophies.