Narrative paper about Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Narrative paper about - Essay Example I could not wait for the heady rush of adrenalin, the wind whistling past my face, deafening me a little and making my eyes tear up, and the sheer energy that a pair of screeching wheels can bring. Most grown men love speed, but youngsters can be addicted to it. Mopeds were glamorous at the time, and in my mind's eyes I met a hundred admiring glances. In those times, renting a bike was a breeze, you did not need a license, proof of age, paperwork or insurance. If you could put money on the table, the bike could be yours for the day. I took myself to the nearest rental, and was immediately able to get my hands on what I thought a handsome blue mount. It was not able to exceed 40 miles an hour, but that did not deter me from pushing it to its limit. I was lost in my hour of glory, speeding along without a care in the world and a tune on my lips. As it happened, I should have been paying more attention. Because all of a sudden there appeared a small boy from nowhere and dashed across the road. Everything around me stopped for that moment, and went into an excruciatingly slow motion. I knew I was going to hit the kid before I actually did, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. My hands were paralyzed in the shock of the moment and did not make it to the hand brake on time.

Organizational Behavior Apple vs Scania Essay Example for Free

Organizational Behavior Apple vs Scania Essay Organizational Behavior is a field of Study which investigates the impact that individuals groups and structure have on organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving organization effectiveness. (Huczynsky, 2010) The way people behave individually or collectively in order to reach a common goal. Organizational behavior includes in it such issues as organizational design, culture, Group decision making, teamwork and leadership. (Dictionary of Business and Management, 2009) In this report two companies Apple and Scania are compared to each other in terms of their organizational behavior such as: design, culture, structure leadership and etc. The report is written based on the two key studies provided in the assessment and via additional sources and researches. The report starts with brief information about the background of the companies. Further the companies are compared by applying theories such as: Continuum leadership theory of Tannenbaum and Schmidt, Abraham Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs, Managerial grid Leadership theory of Blake and Mouton, and etc. The team-work approaches in both of the companies are highly focused, discussed and followed by recommendations. Companies’ background. ‘A truly magical and revolutionary product. What this device does is extraordinary. It is the best browsing experience you’ve ever had†¦ It is unbelievably great†¦ A way better than laptop, way better than a Smartphone.’ Steve Jobs 2010 We could not even imagine how our phones and computers would look like today. The bulky and considered luxury machines are now innovated and updated devices owned by every single person and even few by each. One of the major roles in evolution of IT technology during all these years has the multinational American company called Apple. Established in 1976, the company was initially named Apple computer, Inc, but later on in 2007 it was renamed into just Apple. The company’s products are known as iPad, iPod, iPhone and Macintosh Computers or simply Mac Books. Apple has a very strong global market position as it has penetrated world’s biggest markets. According to the data provided in 2011, Apple has 46,600 full time employees around the world and 2,800 temporary full time employees and company’s sales are getting higher seasonally. Meanwhile Apple is considered to be a very successful company with a very high performance quality of its employees. (M. A. Lusted, 2012) Another Successful company taken its origin in Sweden and founded in 1891 is Scania. Scania is one of the largest and best Swedish heavy truck and bus Manufacture Company with globally recognized reputation. Scania’s products are created just the way their customers wish including in it Maximum use and minimum harm to the environment. Scania’s products are designed to consume less energy, less raw materials and chemicals in order to have as lower impact on environment as possible. Along with its reputation Scania makes high profits operating in more than 100 countries worldwide and employing 35,000 people worldwide. (Scania web, 2012) Analysis based on theories. According to the case study provided by Robins S and Jude T.A, the hierarchy did not work in most of the companies, but it is effective in case of Apple. Was that because Steve Jobs was a unique leader who could manage the whole company by his consistent innovative ideas? At the very beginning, Apple had a relatively flat and informal structure, but later on when Jobs was back into company in 1997, it was totally changed. If before the employees and managers gathered on Friday for a beer to discuss some issues and express their ideas and even complain, after the market became more saturated with competitors, Apple was focused on changing its structure to be able to compete, keep brand and control costs. Since than company improved and became a major part of the digital world. As a result of all these, the company’s plans and strategy was no longer discussed through the entire company and Jobs was the only generator of ideas proving the complete hierarchy. (Debra L. Nelson, James Campbell Quick, PH.D, 2011) Unlike Apple, Scania tens to rely less on hierarchy having a more flat company structure based on independent groups performances with the high concern on human factors and environmental issues. For example, Scania successfully uses the Sociothechnical systems theory where manager controls the environmental factors that influence the company’s internal operations and coordinates the social and technical subsystems. (Ricky W. Griffin, Gregory Moorhead, 2010) According to the Tannenbaum and Schmidt’s continuum theory of leadership behavior (1958, 1973) leaders should evaluate the situation before the implementation of a particular leadership styles. The continuum leadership behavior’s model theory is based on earlier studies focusing on the distinction of task versus employee or human orientations and demonstrates two types of leadership styles across the continuum: boss-centered (task) and subordinate-centered (relationship).( Borkowski, 2011). In the Apple’s situation, the decision maker or the decision ‘seller’ was Steve Jobs. During the all time when Jobs was the CEO of Apple, he was often called ‘dictator’ or ‘despot’. Jobs never asked anyone for feedback. However he could always instruct and simplify the capabilities of the complicated devices understandable only by its creators, he thought going around and asking his employees about the confusing functions of his product is useless. Instead, jobs played the device by, took notes of his reactions and considered it as the only necessary feedback required. (Leander Kahney, 2009) Whereas in Scania the entire company relies on customer feedback and development of stuff ideas so, if Apple has the structure where every single employee is responsible only for his part of job and has no chance to play any important role in making decisions, Scania has the structure there employees split into the groups brainstorm together on a certain idea or problem and together pick the optimal solutions. (Scania web, 2012) Based on all this we can assume that Apple is Boss-centered structured company and Scania is a more Subordinate-centered structured company. Figure 1.1 below demonstrates the locations of both Apple and Scania on a sample Continuum leadership behavior’s graph. According to the graph, where Apple is closely fitted in the total boss-centered area and Scania is fitted closer to the subordinate-centered area, the two companies are totally different in their structure and leadership, but at the same time both companies are successful and globally recognized and are in their maturity state today. In another words, Apple has an Autocratic leader, where he dictates and forces his employees or even threatens them to get the result his way, unlike Scania that has democratic leader who encourages participation in decision making and considers other’s feelings and seeks to satisfy most of parties.(Hungeryager and Heekman, 1967) Here comes the question: Despite the hierarchy and autocratic leadership in Apple and flat structured and democratic system in Scania, how come they both being so different be able to achieve goals having high employee performance? The best answer for this question would probably be the motivation which is present in both companies but caused by different factors. Humanity would not reach any level of development without the motivation. Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) introduced a theory focused on psychological need of employees divided into 5 levels forming a pyramid, and he believed that person needs all 5 to feel satisfied with his job. (Essentials of Management, 2009). Hierarchy: ‘Common, pyramid-like organization where one person is in charge of a functional area with one or more subordinates handling the sub-functions. In an hierarchical organization (whether business, military, political, or religious) higher levels imply greater superiority and domination than the lower ones, and the chain of command extends straight from the top to the bottom’. (Business Dictionary web, 2012) (Image extracted from googleimage.com) While applying the following theory on Apple, it is obvious that the employees in the company are approximately on the 4th level depending on their job position. But in general, with the reputation that Apple has worldwide everyone would be proud to be employed by such a company and motivated by the financial aspect. In fact, the way the pyramid narrows towards up, the same way, the number of people with those facilities narrows down. Even in case of Scania, though the employees might be satisfied with their job and status, they might be also distracted by family or any other personal issues which could make them feel de-motivated. Adam’s Equity theory states that, employees attempt to achieve some equity between input and output, and if there is a difference between input and output, such as output less than input, the employees performance quality tends to be lower due to his/her job dissatisfaction. In another words, all contributions should be fairly rewarded. Going back t o Apple can assume that there is a perfect balance between output and input. Having high salary makes the employees feel right about not taking any part in making decisions; in fact they might feel more relaxed for not having big responsibilities. But in Scania, while taking part in discussions and decision making, employees feel more important, motivated but on the other hand they feel more responsibility pressure because in negative outcomes they all will have to share the loses. Looking at it more general, the only fact that might motivate the employees in both companies is the money. Due to the economic downturn which caused high rate of unemployment, the fact that one has a job, already makes him/her feel satisfied, but not for long. Once people get used to their job and salary they start getting bored and de-motivated. According to Guardian 2012, ‘many of those who worked for Apple, feels cut off from the real world, suspended in a cultural vacuum inside the walls of the company’. The lack of communication with cooperatives, socializing and team-working leads to employees’ dissatisfaction. To avoid such errors, Scania depending on foreign labor, in order to keep high productivity level, created a humanization program which was to apply a new group assembly approach. The program was all about team-work and group decisions called Saab-Scania. The groups consisted of 5-12 people and were given the power to make decisions within the given limits. Along with production groups Scania formed development groups each composed of foreman, industrial engineers and representatives. Such groups were responsible for innovating and developing the new working methods favorable for the employees. As a result, such team-working approach saved productivity time, increased products’ quality and raised job satisfaction of the employees, so since this experiment Scania finds its success in team-working structure. (A.. Rashid, 1982) Coming back to apple, one could only add, that high productivity and quality with the lack of team-working, is being reached only by having continues innovations and strong brand position, simply strong marketing. Further analyzing the case of apple we can add that, a huge multinational company where everyone is responsible only for his bit of work, simply being a tiny replaceable detail of a mechanism, and where the main responsibility is on CEO, team-working is not that important as long as the company’s goals are being reached. The Managerial Grid or the grid theory now called as Leadership theory of Blake and Mouton states that there are two types of managers: concern for production and concern for people , and the perfect manager would be the who could exhibits both people and production concern. The leadership grid is graded from 1 to 9 from both axes identifying 5 main types of leaders: country club management, team management, middle-of-the-road management, impoverished management and authority management. (Miller, 2012) The grid looks as follow: Relying on the leadership grid, we can assume that Apple with the autocratic approach and higher concern on production and lower on people, is classified as a company with the Authority-Compliance Management leadership and Scania, deserving to be placed on the other side of the grid is a company with Team-management leadership, having high concern on people rather than on production. The modern team system of Scania is highly relied on cluster managers. The cluster manager is the manager who has overall responsibility for the team consisting of 20-25 employees. Each cluster consists of people with different experience and skills and trained before becoming fully operative. Often there are also small temporary teams. Thought the cluster has a manager, the employees have the sense of belonging to a team and having major role in it. A centered team-working structure helps the company to keep strong Company-oriented company culture. ‘No one must be able to say that is not my concern, I am not responsible for that’ said the senior manager of the company. Although Apple cannot boast with its tem-work management Leadership as Scania, it motivates the employees providing the opportunity to get promoted from an intern into a manager. The trainings provided free by Apple itself makes the process much easier for the employees. In addition, small competitions such as answering the most difficult question of the customers are followed by rewards. Another important fact is that, Apple provides large job opportunity to young students employing them, full-time, part-time or making them student representatives at their schools. (Apple Inc.’s Ethical Success and Challenges web, 2011) Conclusion While summing it all but, it is right to mention that, while comparing the companies and analyzing their organizational behaviors the total difference of the companies has been identified. Apple is a multinational autocratic company having high concern on production and lower concern on people, despite this it is able to motivate the employees by rewards, bonuses and promotion opportunities demonstrating itself as a creative company challenging for innovations with the strong belief in its successful bright future and seeking for the genus employees from young generation, to take part in those innovations. The case of Apple has proved that, the employees are not pressurized by dictator, as it is expected in an Authority-Manager company, but inspired to work with such unique leaders. Scania, along with its rich Swedish culture totally relays on the team-working manager Leadership with the ability to balance both concern for people and production and giving the employees the chance to feel themselves part of a whole mechanism. The management in Scania believes that, every employee in the company despite the job position should feel the responsibility and share it with the collogues and feel that he/she does not work for someone, but works together with everyone. Fortunately, for Scania being further from hierarchy unlike Apple, adds advantages in terms of organizational behavior, proving the democratic structure of the company, whereas Apple proves to be really a unique company for being able to success with deep hierarchy in it. Recommendations Thought Apple is satisfied with its production and the company in whole, it should also pay attention to its employees by providing them some other activities to make them feel as a team. For example, Apple could create groups or teams responsible not for the main operations of the organization, but side operations or project such as charity, where the employees could take part in decision making process without the involvement of CEO. Another option for Apple could be organizing research teams with team leaders, as employees feel more motivated when they are committed in the changes. Because the managers in Scania are very multinational, the company should pay attention to cultural difference of the employees. It would be very relevant to educate the cluster managers in terms of culture of the other members of the team and than sent them to the Angers plant. Obviously the expansion of company by creating more teams in Scania is advantageous on one hand, but on the other hand it makes the company’s structure too sophisticated and too massive and moreover, adding a new cluster may reduce the space of other clusters. That is why Clusters should be added within the limitations, or smaller groups should be created as smaller groups make better performance and make faster decisions. References Buchanon D. Huczynsky A. (2010) Organizational behavior, 7th ed. Harlow: Pearson/FT Prentice Hall Oxford, 2009, Dictionary of Business and Management, Oxford University Press, 5th ed. New York Leander Kahney (2009). Inside Steves Brain. US: penguin Group Debra L. Nelson, James Campbell Quick (2011). Organizational Behavior: Science, the Real World, and You. PhD Ricky W. Griffin, Gregory Moorhead (2010). Organizational Behavior: Managing People and Organizations. 10th ed. US: South-western Nancy Borkowski (2011). Organizational Behavior in Health Care. 2nd ed. LLC: Jones and Barlett Publishers Andrew Durbin (2009). Essentials of Management. US: South-western. Anwar Rashid (1982). organizational Behavior. 2nd ed. Canada: Methuen. 76-78 Katherine Miller (2012). Organizational Communication and Approaches and Processes. 6th ed. US: Wadsworth. M. A. Lusted (2012). Apple: The Company and its Visionary Founder, Steve Jobs. USA: ABDO. 9-22 A. Preston (2012). The Apple Revolution: Steve Jobs, the Counter Culture, and How the Crazy Ones Took Over the World by Luke Dormehl – review. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/aug/10/apple-revolution-luke-dormehl-review. Last accessed 18th Dec 2012. Scania official web site. (2012). H istory. Available: http://www.scania.co.uk/about-scania/history/. Last accessed 22nd Dec 2012

Ethical And Legal Aspects On Organ Transplantation Essay -- Organ Dona

Ethical And Legal Aspects On Organ Transplantation Recent reports of public figures receiving life-saving transplants have brought renewed attention to the scarcity of organs and the importance of organ transplants. Although more transplants are being performed in the United States each year the transplant waiting list continues to grow. It has been considered that the decrease in organ donors is due to the unsuccessful measures taken by health care professionals. This is a limited view of the matter because health care professionals are not directly responsible for the policies and other guidelines for procuring organs. The general population does not have the interest of suffering individuals at heart when it comes to donation. Instead, the interest lies with respecting individual autonomy and dead bodies. I strongly believe that the attention needs to focus on the next-of-kin or health care proxies communication with an individual who wants to be a donor. Health care proxies are designated individuals who speak on one's behalf, an d agree to put forward the type of medical intervention one wishes to have when one is no longer able to speak for oneself. The focus of public policy related to organ donation has been solely on the individual donor and recipient. However, there is a dire need to analyze and recommend changes to some of the current guidelines. For example, one of major reasons for the decrease in organ donation is the next-of-kin's ability to override the decision to donate. Secondly, current policies for distributing organs favor a pattern least likely to save lives: The allocation guidelines give top priority to the sickest patients regardless of their prognosis. I interpret the allocation guidelines as som... ...iteria for Evaluating Potentail Transplant Recipient Vary Among Centers." JAMA 269 (1993): 3091-3094. "Organ Donation: Social and Cultural Issues." Nursing Standards 41 (1995): 25-29. "Legal Framework for Organ Donation and Transplantation." Nursing Clinic of North America 24 (1989): 837-849. The Partnership for Organ Donation. "Hospitals Can Do More to Increase Donation." http://www.transweb.org/partnership/press.html ubc. (March 1996). The Public Health and Welfare, Chp. 7, subchapter 11, part A of 1986, 42 U.S.C.A. Section 1320b-9. University of Chicago Hospital's Policy. "UCH Organ and Tissue Donation Policy." http://www.hooked.net/users/chartsf/txp/txphome. htm # chrono. (27 Feb. 1996) Yale Biomedical Text. "Organ Trafficking Perspective from UNOS." http://www.info.med.yale.edu:70/11/disciplines/disciplines/transplant.htm (5 Aug. 1995).

Promote equality and inclusion in health, social care or children’s and young people’s settings Essay

1. Explain what is meant by Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Equality Equality is the term for treating people fairly and offering the same chances, it’s not all about treating everyone in the same way, but recognising everyone is different, and they all have very different needs, but making sure they are met. These different needs could be race, age, physical health, mental health, gender, sexual orientation, beliefs and creeds. In the workplace, there are many service users, 13 altogether, and each of them have a variety of needs. Some with dementia, others with epilepsy, a group of down syndrome, people of the age of 20 rights through to 70, people with diabetes. DiversityWhere equality is about recognising differences, diversity is about valuing these differences, for example not to along ago a service user came in on respite, he was of an Islamic background. With this there were certain values that came part and parcel of the religion, these were the consumption of Halal meat, praying five times a day and wearing specific clothing. InclusionInclusion is the term used to define the ability to adapt and place measures so that everyone, no matter what their needs are they can participate. see more:equality and diversity in health and social care Many service users hope and want to lead extremely active lifestyles. So with regards to an activity such as the gym, as part of our responsibility 2. Describe the potential effects of discrimination To see the possible effects of discrimination fully, it’s best to look at how it affects from a holistic perspective. With regards to discrimination affecting physical health, this can be a by product of stress and depression. A lot of physical problems can be stress induced such sleeplessness and from this you can end up with a lack of energy, headaches, ulcers. Depression can affect eating habits, getting into the routine of comfort eating; this then would cause weight problems. For those suffering from severe depression it can lead to self harm. From this you can get a massive lack in confidence in one’s own ability, this can then begin to impede on emotional aspects and mental well being. One can almost feel that they lack a voice or authority, a feeling of people unwilling to listen to them. Inducing low self esteem, insecurity, lack of confidence and sudden changes in behaviour. Social effects can include isolation, lack of friends, withdrawing one’s self from society, unrecognized as an individual, feel like a stranger and inability to build relationships. If being discriminated against, the intellectual effects can be massively restricted; this could be a lack of access to education, leading to poor grades in exams or portfolios, a loss of motivation which can impede a wide variety of skills and a lack of self belief. 3. Explain how inclusive practice promotes equality and supports diversity As my role of activities co-ordinator it is absolutely vital that the service users like you or I have the same opportunities. One activity where the organisation is clearly demonstrating is a club called Gresford Scottish Bowls. This club is unique in the sense that there are only about 3 in the UK. However it is not an exclusively LD group. The club opened its doors to about 5 service users. It is a game intricate skill, now it is very rare, and I have had lots of problems with group allowing service users to join. The service users have taken to it very well, one is a sub-skip of a team, one service user won the singles championship. By allowing them this opportunity it breaks the negative barrier held by mainstream society and in this example by including them they have an equal opportunity, and demonstrate that they are more than capable of holding their own. Another example is getting two service users enrolled into the local college, it is a basic human right that every human is allowed to have an education. Though specific measures need to be taken, such as support staff, assistance with the work, they get that equal opportunity. On a larger scale however, the organisation has just taken a massive step forward. This is to do with the funding for one on one hours. The manager has managed to gain equal one on one hours for every service user. This means that for once in the organisations existence they can provide an equal service, to each individual and the will all have an equal amount of support. This is demonstrates inclusive practice leading to equality, however each set of hours can be different for each service user which embraces diversity.

Unended War and Intervention in Iraq

Iraqi people might find already immuned of the uproar in different areas in Iraq. The tragedies that were happened more than two decades ago and are still happening nowadays are really marked the history of Middle Eastern conflict. Such bombings, bombarding, invasion, and protests are really taken the big part of the history of Iraq.It was during 1980 when the Iraq tried to invade the Iran, but of course, the Iran did not let it happen(Shalom, 1993). Though the Iraq made its initial success, the people of Iran used their man power as many population they have.At the middle of the 1982, the Iran was triumphant with their goal of pushing out the invasion of Iraq. But considering the fact that Iran has much weaponry, they were able to prevent the moves of the Iranian, and it was year 1988 when the silence screams of the gun and war men were off heard.However, though the war was ended (temporarily), the blame was on the both government of the two countries when in Saddam Hussein was the one who was ruling the Iraq. Letting the bloodshed among Iraqi citizens was considered as one of his callous in leading   his constituents.This was the time when the United States (US) started to intervene so as to help out the Iraq in settling the untapped war that had been started before and to help the people of Iraq to recover from the hell of war and from the ruthless government of Hussein.The US sent military troops in Iraq whereas they created several bases in different regions in Iraq. And nowadays, the US is continuing lurking around the Iraq. They are doing they ‘surge’ (Reuters, 2007) together with the British troupes. According to the report of the Philippine Daily Inquirer (2007), the rush forward being done in Iraq is nearly unsuccessful such that an insurgency is more likely to happen again.The critical condition of the mission of the US in the Iraq together with the British government pertained that war between the Hezbollah and Israel last August 2006 . The war between them was hardly to ceasefire. The criticism of the event is more likely on former Prime Minister Tony Blair since he was the one who refused for a call of an immediate stop fire between the Israel and Hezbollah (Lebanon) in their war last year.I have chosen this event to be use as application in theoretical analysis since this is widely known by everybody and that the lives of the people living in the countries involved are severely affected by the war that is happening.(Part B)The clash between Iran and Iraq seemed more likely though during the early 90s. However, since the Iraq was suffered under the Hussein’s regime, lots of militant groups and civil underground rebels emerged and rebellion took place.And it is in nature of the United State, being considered as the most powerful country in the world, to help, in any way, those who are in depth recovery of the war. But in the case of Iraq, the peace seemed not finding its place. Until now, clashes are stil l going on, but not necessarily war against another nation, but war among civil there.The surgency that the US has been doing and trying to imply in the Iraq, does it really pure surgency? As we all know, the US is one kind of imperialist in the world. Widely, it colonized a lot of country in Asia, explicitly and implicitly. Once one touched the hand of Uncle Sam, you would definitely touch it along the way.The reason why Iraq still has its internal conflict between civilians is not because they rebel with each other, it may probably because of the intervention of the US in their nation. Come to think of it: whose nation would like to handle by different hands instead the hands of its people?Politically speaking, this could be a way of euphemizing the real intention of the US. We could deny the fact that the US wanted to hold more power, and imperialism is the instrument and effective tool for them to accomplish their goal.