Languages Essays Italian Economic Miracle

Languages Essays Italian Economic Miracle The Italian Economic Miracle Exposed: The Use of Comic Effects and Irony in Calvinos Marcovaldo. The Economic Miracle that is said to have swept across post-war Italy in the 1950s has been attributed by many scholars to the decision to open up the economy. This, in turn, gave Italy the chance to undergo a growth spurt that would help it keep pace with the rest of the world. According to Foot, the decision, made in the 1950s, to open up the country to trade and to let it integrate into the world market allowed it to catch up rapidly with the leading economies (2001:110). The growth spurt in the economy had wide-reaching effects. It changed the lives of the Italian people, many of whom found themselves transplanted from familiar rural areas to modern urban environments essentially a brand new way of life. As Foot asserts, Italys economic miracle transformed the countrys cultural landscape (2001:19). This is the world that was the setting for Italo Calvinos collection of stories, Marcovaldo, ovvero,Le stagioni in città   (Marcovaldo, or The Seasons in the City). The protagonist of these stories, Marcovaldo, appears to be a good-hearted, hard-working man. He ekes out a living as a day laborer, providing for his wife and children, but it is clearly a marginal existence. The struggle of his daily life is eased by his imagination, which leads him to become entangled in a number of amusing adventures. Marcovaldo has been described by one scholar as a man with the heros nostalgia for nature and open spaces,   whose sensitivity to the changing seasons in a cityscape polluted by all kinds of objects and living things, make sense only within the context of an urban setting (Jeannet 1977:26). These stories, or fables, as they are sometimes called, can be read on a surface level as a delightful collection of misadventures by a well-meaning but misguided individual. However, when considered in the light of this stark urban setting, they stand out as comical and ironic, a vehicle used by Calvino to expose the negative sides of this so-called economic miracle. It has been suggested that alongside the depiction of urban corruption and pollution, Calvino also, through the lovable but haplessly inept protagonist, undermines the Romantic notion of a return to nature' (Gabriele 1994:21–22). Thus, it seems that Calvino has transplanted Marcovaldo this high-spirited, though misguided, representative of rural life into the hostile new terrain of urban life. In so doing, he wrote a book that can be read as a volume of entertaining tales, and at the same time an ironic critique of the results of the economic boom. Calvinos use of comedy and irony is present throughout the book, and starts at the beginning. In the initial story, Calvinos description of Marcovaldo is wry and amusing, and it sets up the contrast between Marcovaldos simplistic nature against the backdrop of the strange new city: Aveva questo Marcovaldo un occhio poco adatto alla vita di città  : cartelli, semafori, vetrine, insegne luminose, manifesti, per studiati che fossero a colpire lattenzione, mai fermavano il suo sguardo che pareva scorrere sulle sabbie del deserto (7). Apparently, Marcovaldo is oblivious to the eye-catching distractions of the modern city; to him, they are non-existent. Instead, he is alert to the signs, however few and however bleak, of the natural world. In fact, he spends his time searching them out. The paucity of these signs does not deter him or detract from his enthusiasm. This suggests that he longs for his former, simpler life, and that he misses the rural background that he knows best. The search for signs of the natural world is rewarded when Marcovaldo discovers, to his delight, the first mushroom: Si chinà ² a legarsi le scarpe e guardà ² meglio: erano funghi, veri funghi, che stavano spuntando proprio nel curoe della città   (7). The discovery of the mushroom fills him with hope. Suddenly the drab grayness of the city melts away, and the drudgery and struggle of his daily life becomes less oppressive: A Marcovaldo parve che il mondo grigio e misero che lo circondava diventasse tutta un tratto generoso di ricchezze nascoste, e che dalla vita ci si potesse ancora aspettare qualcosa, oltre la paga oraria del salario contrattuale, la contingenza, gli assegni familiari e il carpane (7). The exaggerated happiness at the discovery of a mushroom serves to highlight the stark contrast of the urban world with his rustic background. The double reversal that follows the discovery of the mushrooms is another example of the comical irony that Calvino employs to expose the negative aspects of the economic boom. We note that Marcovaldo carefully guards the location of his discovery until Sunday, when, wife and children in tow, he heads for the mushroom site to pick them only to learn that there are bigger, better mushrooms, and that he is not the only one who is gathering them. This is the first disappointment, followed by an evening in the hospital, because it turns out the mushrooms are poisoned! Although Marcovaldo here may simply appear to be a bumbling fool, it seems plausible that Calvino is demonstrating the potential for disaster that is a result of uprooting people from the country and setting them down into a new and unfamiliar environment. Gabriele asserts that Marcovaldo knows nothing about the natural world, as is evidenced by his mishaps with the mushrooms and the pigeons. Marcovaldo has not been transplanted from a rural environment into an urban one; rather, he chases a rather indefinite dream of paradise (Gabriele 1994:21–22). Calvino might also be suggesting here that the time Marcovaldo has lived in an urban environment may have obliterated the common country logic he once had. Alternatively, perhaps this incident is used to demonstrate that Marcovaldo is, after all, a simpleton who simply does not know a good mushroom from a poisonous variety. Another possibility is that Calvino is trying to say that Marcovaldo, now an urban dweller, has taken on the greed associated with the rise of the city, and that this greed overpowers his natural instincts. The move from country to city, then, is portrayed as having deleterious effects on new urban dwellers. As Olken suggests, Calvino implies here that all growing things undergo corruption in the noxious atmosphere of the city (1984:121). Starting with the first story and continuing throughout the book, Marcovaldo embarks on a variety of ill-fated adventures, and each of them ends with a reversals or double reversal. Thus, it appears that Calvino reinforces the message albeit in a comical way that the financial prosperity that has been called the economic miracle is not a miracle for everyone indeed, it has a dark side. The final story has a twist that goes beyond this, suggesting that although Marcovaldos integration into urban life has been less than successful, that the lives of his children show a level of promise. Calvino describes a typical urban Christmas with clear irony: Tutti erano presi dallatmosfera alacre e cordiale che si espandeva per la città   festosa e produttiva; nulla à ¨ pià º bello che sentire scorrere intorno il flusso dei beni materiali e insieme del bene che ognuno vuole agli altri: e questo, questo soprattutto come ci ricorda il suono, firulà ­ firulà ­, delle zampogne, à ¨ cià ² che conta (118). Rampant materialism is juxtaposed with the feeling of good will it supposedly inspires, and the ugliness of the city clearly debases the sentiments of good cheer. In this story, Marcovaldos children must complete a school project that requires them to bring gifts to a poor child When Marcovaldo comes upon them in the midst of their preparations, he asks what they are doing and they respond Dobbiamo cercare un bambino povero e fargli dei regali (119). It occurs to him to remind them that they are poor children themselves, but apparently the spirit of materialism overcomes him and he responds Bambini poveri non ne esistono pià º (119). When the children do eventually find a poor child upon whom to lavish their gifts, it turns out to be none other than the child of   the president of the Union for the Implementation of Christmas Consumption (il presidente dellUnione Incremento Vendite Natalizie). This very spoiled child, dissatisfied with the hundreds of toys he has already amassed, is delighted by the gifts of Marcovaldos children, and he embarks on a wave of destruction that culminates in the burning down of the family home. Calvino turns the horror and humiliation that Marcovaldo feels when he learns of this incident into a clever and telling reversal. When Marcovaldo shows up for work the next day, he is certain there will be repercussions from the exploits of his children. After all, it was their actions that led to the mischief of Gianfranco and the ensuing destruction. In addition, although Marcovaldo is correct in his assumption that there will be fallout to contend with, he is wrong about the nature of that fallout. Therefore, when approached by high company officials the next day, he is not surprised, and girds himself for the worst-case scenario. However, when he arrives, he is told by the officials that there has been a change in the gift-giving program. Apparently, Gianfrancos destructive deeds have been seen in a far different light by his father: in the act of destroying everything in his wake, Gianfranco finally appeared, for once, to be happy. This has inspired the president to change the course of the gift-giving campaign. The officials inform Marcovaldo of this, exhorting him to hurry, because   LUnione Incremento Vendite Natalizie ha lanciato una campagna per il lancio del Regalo Distruttivo (123). Thus the actions of his children, for which he expected a certain and swift punishment, have actually turned around into a new commercial venture based on destruction. Calvinos portrayal of Marcovaldo as a bumbling peasant in the city can be seen as a vehicle through which he presents the negative aspects of the Italian economic miracle. He does this by setting this transplanted character into the foreign and often hostile urban environment. This volume is versatile: the adventures of Marcovaldo can be read as a series of delightful childrens tales or as a treatise exposing the dark side of the miracle. Cannon points out that Calvino had high aspirations for a literature autonomous but not divorced from political concerns (1989:33). The duality of Marcovaldo suggests that was his intention with this book. The image projected b the fiction of Calvino, suggests Cannon, seems to have become that of an increasingly indecipherable world (1989:38). She discusses the crisis of reason that is a recurrent theme in Calvinos fiction (1989:39). Oaken suggests that Marcovaldo represents the modern immigrant who tries desperately to adapt and conform. He will never really succeed, as his children may do; he is too divided between the two worlds, ill-prepared and therefore victimized (Olken 1984:122). The victimization of Marcovaldo, however amusing and ironic, is a tool Calvino uses to bring to light the negative repercussions that the sudden growth of prosperity brought with it. The final chapter does offer a glimmer of hope, in that the adaptability of Marcovaldos children, and of children in general, will better equip them to integrate into the new world. They have already done so, in fact, and with much more facility success, even than their parents. Whether Calvino believes this is positive or negative, he does not indicate here, perhaps because that has become a moot point. Change, for better or for worse, is inevitable. References Bloom, Harold, ed. 2001. Modern Critical Views: Italo Calvino. Broomall, PA: Chelsea   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   House Publishers. Calvino, Italo. 1963. Marcovaldo, ovvero,Le stagioni in città  . Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a.,    Torino. Cannon, JoAnn. 1989. Postmodern Italian Fiction: The Crisis of Reason in Calvino, Eco,    Sciascia, Malerba. London: Associated University Presses, Inc. Foot, John. 2001. Milan Since the Miracle: City, Culture and Identity. Oxford: Berg. Gabriele, Tommasina. 1994. Italo Calvino: Eros and Language. London: Associated University Presses, Inc. Jeannet, Angela. 1977. Italo Calvinos Invisible City. Pp. 25–36 in Bloom, Harold, ed.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   2001. Modern Critical Views: Italo Calvino. Broomall, PA: Chelsea House   Ã‚   Publishers. Olken, I.T. 1984. With Pleated Eye and Garnet Wing: Symmetries of Italo Calvino. Ann   Ã‚   Arbor, Michigan: Universit of Michigan Press. Signorini, Luigi Federico. 2001. Italys economy: An introduction. Daedalus, Spring. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3671/is_200104/ai_n8929681

Onus of Ethical Lapses Lies on Business Schools

Concept Paper Seminars in HRM Final Project Bushra Fatima, MBA 2k8 13 May, 2010 th Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 2 Ethical Lapses in Businesses: Onus lies on B Schools? I joined NUST Business School two years back, after I did my engineering degree. The logical premise, I gave to justify my choice to enter a Business school was not that I was passionate about studying business administration in anyway, but was the fact that the MBA is a good add-on to my degree, ensuring better and well paying career options in the long run. In my view back then, a business school was meant to churn out managers, like so many medical and engineering schools that churn out doctors and engineers. By the end of my first semester of MBA, my perception was changed. Getting an MBA doesn’t make you a manager. Management is more of a practice, something that needs to be done outside the safe environment of Business school. According to one of my professors: â€Å"It’s like swimming; you cannot learn it by sitting cozy in an air-conditioned classroom listening to the lecture†. However, like most professions you need to understand the theory behind the practice. Hence, the case with teaching ethics in business schools and the responsibility of the institute to instill ethical values in the students is challenged. Business people act in unethical ways when they start evaluating the risk and rewards of being a moral person. Business school should teach that economic analysis is only helpful and proper when all of the options being considered are morally correct. Aristotle believed ethics was more than just learning a set of rules. Ethics was a way of living. â€Å"One becomes a lute player by playing the lute, one becomes a builder by building; likewise, one becomes courageous by doing courageous acts (a virtue for Aristotle)†¦ † Before I hold the business schools responsible for the ethical lapses that happen in the business world, let us delve into some reality check. Can ethics be taught? Studies show that MBA alters how students view businesses and their roles and responsibilities as managers. Students bring in their ethics and moral values which may be hard to transform all together but a slight change in attitudes may be infused in them during the course of study. However, even if the student learns complete theory associated with ethics, there is no guarantee that what he does outside the class would be in conformance with what he has learnt in class. Unless, the class learning is supported by a value structure of the student’s environment on campus and at home, a message of double standards is sent. That brings me to what the student really learns in the business school and what is emphasized upon during his tenure there. When a student is taught about leadership for example, the emphasis is on business leader’s gain in terms of wealth and building multibillion dollar enterprises rather than what they have contributed to the society or what change they have made for the betterment of humanity. The business schools tend to give a myopic view of success and leadership to the students equating success with monetary gain thus monetization of the concept of leadership. A profitable enterprise according to the business schools are ones which works towards increasing short term monetary gains for the shareholder instead of emphasizing on sustainable growth and benefiting all stakeholders in long term. Thus, indoctrination of money mindedness in done to the extent of poisoning the young mind to think ethics as old school philosophy which stands in the way of success. Overall business schools convey a subtle but lethal message of privilege. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 3 The business school teaching methodology that puts too much emphasis on case study system gives a false confidence to the student that he knows how to solve real life problems. He is encouraged to make use of the economic models without taking into account the variety of problems and issues that may arise as a result of those decisions. The application of the knowledge is taken as a means to a definite end without enabling him to do critical analysis. He is taught how to solve problems but he is not taught think about the side effects of his decisions. The cases highlight success stories and emphasize on numerical and financial aspects without focusing much on the nitty gritty humanistic details. Another problem is that each dimension of business is taught more or less in isolation. The marketing people emphasize on marketing aspects, the finance people emphasize on the financials and the human resource people see things through their own colored glass thus isolating the student from the intricate details of implications resulting from their skewed decisions. The ethics aspect in most case discussions is never emphasized and students are seldom told what not to do. It is important for the students to come up with smart solutions and strategies and they should be able to state their financial viability but nobody questions the ethical viability. For many students ethics equals to norms. Norms they say is how things are done usually which can mean that people can justify their actions just because it is largely acceptable. This leads us to the bandwagon and group think mentality which exists among students. As a society we function collectively. So if it is socially acceptable to bribe, people are going to do it without questioning morality of the action. Business schools, or for that matter any school of learning is responsible to bring a change in the trend of blind followership and enable critical thinking; thus, contributing to evolution of societies. We live in an ethically dysfunctional society. We don’t teach our children to be responsible citizens; instead we emphasize on competing and being the best. We teach children that it’s a jungle out there where survival is that of the fittest. When it comes to making a career choice, we impose that career is one which gives a better return on the money invested on education; thus, forcing them to take up careers not out of passion but out of economic need. This vicious cycle which starts at home makes young minds believe that being successful is equivalent to how much money somebody makes. The educational system also reiterates the same fact, when children are divided into art and science group, on the basis of the grades they get. Aptitude and intelligence is quantified by how much marks a kid gets. If somebody is in a profession such as teaching it is undervalued, because it pays less, and is often the perception that somebody who is a failure otherwise, ends up teaching. Little emphasis is placed on how one can benefit the society by adopting a certain profession; same is the case with people going to business schools. Business school students are there to benefit themselves. Through their induction systems business schools hunt for the overtly ambitious, people who are aggressive and who seek to reach the top at all costs. People who once out of the rigorous and fierce system seek quick success and try to win position of importance in top of the line firms. While business schools have excelled at producing graduates that demonstrate competence in engineering investment products based on complex mathematical models and implementing students exceptional ability at marketing and optimizing productivity, little has been done to enlighten the Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 4 student as to how to use his/her acquired intellectual virtues in a manner which promotes morality. Although students leave the university environment excelling with intellectual resources, there is no attempt being made to demonstrate how these attributes can be used to habituate excellence of character. Business schools tend to minimize their responsibility to indoctrinate students with a sense of moral obligation or a proclivity towards the pursuit of moral excellence. I am not saying that being ambitious is wrong. Somebody who is taking up MBA is supposed to be ambitious but that ambition running into raw greed is dangerous. The lust for success and narrow selfish gain is when a person is forced to resort to unethical behavior. The economic models taught at most business schools take away the humanistic element and talk about bottom line and how important is it to achieve that. It infuses a dog-eat-dog attitude among students. Altruism and social responsibility is ridiculed and called soft aspects and are often ignored. The responsibility of business schools starts from the induction process of candidates. They need to assess that people they are lining up to take up positions of power are ethically sound people and are bent on doing good for all the stakeholders instead of just making money and fame for themselves. Ethical values should be made part of the selection criteria and should have more weightage than brilliant academic credentials and qualifications. This is under the premise that you cannot transform ethical values of a person by teaching him ethics in classroom. So this is a better way to take out the bad eggs in the first place. The selection committee should see that the student is willing to work for the betterment of the society and this should reflect on his profile as part of his credentials. Also the candidate’s reference checks should be made and the information given on his profile should be verified in order to make a correct character assessment. However, even if the corrective system is in place it doesn’t ensure hundred percent that ethical lapses won’t happen. As long as there is bigger personal stake involved, unethical practices will take place. One would always question what is in it for them to act ethical, when the bigger gain and recognition goes to someone who cut corners and got away with it. The importance of teaching ethics cannot be ignored as it makes us question every action’s ethical validity. However, the responsibility of business schools is not just to preach ethics in the classroom but to infuse ethics at all levels and balancing the values taught with values practiced. The prevalent belief of innocent until proven guilty gives a chance to students to play around with the system and to get away with questionable behavior. Cheating for that matter is a tolerable action until you are caught. The competition is so tough that students tend to use all means whether fair or unfair to get good grades. For them, ethical are all those actions for which they don’t end up punished. The business schools like any other professional institution should have a â€Å"Hippocratic professional code of conduct† and anybody found to be going against it should be made to pay by dismissal from the profession altogether. In Pakistan where corruption has become a norm an element of change is needed and business schools can play their role in this regard. Top notch business schools should have the power to scrap the degree of those graduates who get involved in unethical behavior such as our ex-prime minister who was an IBA graduate and was alleged of being involved in money laundering. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 5 The curriculum in the business schools should not teach ethics as an isolated course, focusing on philosophy, which end up making the young minds more confused. Rather, ethics should be directed to instruct students to make ethically sound decisions based on rational thought measuring the implications in the real world. Students should be aware of the examples of those who did not comply with ethics and ended up losing everything including their reputation so that they know the dire consequences and think twice before engaging in questionable behavior. The strategy class for example should teach the students not just to build a strategic direction of the company in order to maximize short term profits but also to make choices which go hand in hand with company’s values that can guide their overall culture on the basis of which sustainable growth of an enterprise is achieved. The curriculum in business schools should be such that it encourages out of the box thinking instead of limiting and confining the thought to achieving profits that are investor and company centric. Courses should enable looking at the bigger picture, looking at not short term gains but long term implications on economic, human and environmental development. The purpose of business studies should not be just to prepare students to excel in the prevalent business world but also to find faults in it and try to evolve the system for the better. Business students should be able to criticize business model’s viability, they should be able to challenge the basic assumptions and redesign and re-engineer theories, which in the first place are responsible for the current economic crisis faced by today’s world. The business school curriculum should encompass courses that ignite student’s creativity and encourage him to innovate and come up with viable solutions which benefit the society. Projects with focus on solving global problems such as energy crises or greener planet should be encouraged, as they infuse a spirit of global leadership which is meant to bring a positive change. For a developing country like Pakistan such a focus is imperative as we have been a victim of the capitalist mind set in which the wealthy have become wealthier and the poor have become poorer. We are a debt ridden country and sustainable development is answer to all our problems. So, the top notch business schools are responsible to give back leaders who are focused on creating wealth not just for themselves but create an opportunity of living a better life for millions. To sum it all, the burden of responsibility of ethical lapses of business leaders lie on business schools as the system somewhat creates an unharnessed greed for personal success. This needs to be controlled through redesigning the curriculum and the existing environment, which teaches them to be responsible and creates ethically sound leaders instead of shrewd businessmen. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 6 MBA: In Spirit The MBA is meant to be a holistic degree one which infuses analytical ability, provides a sound based of practical knowledge on basis of which decisions can be made. The two year MBA program is challenging and rigorous which does not only infuses a spirit of competition in the student but teaches him to collaborate and work in teams to get greater success. The program is meant to groom a student’s leadership qualities and gives him courage and knowledge to pursue his ambitions. The MBA is not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is a degree designed to give you the ability to develop your career to its fullest potential, at an accelerated pace. What will you get out of an MBA? Aside from a powerful life experience, the MBA degree should supply three main value propositions: Skills, Networks, and Brand. Skills These include the â€Å"hard skills† of economics, finance, marketing, operations, management, and accounting, as well as the â€Å"soft skills† of leadership, teamwork, ethics, and communication that are so critical for effective management. MBA students acquire these skills inside and outside the classroom. Since MBA programs attract people from very diverse industries and cultures, a program should be able to leverage these differences and translate them into learning opportunities. Networks An MBA degree program offers access to a network of MBA students, alumni, faculty, and business and community leaders. This network can be very useful when beginning a job search, developing a career path, building business relationships in your current career, or pursuing expertise outside your current field. For example, entrepreneurs need access to capital, business partners, vendors, and clients. Artsrelated businesses need access to funding and strategic management in order to position themselves to be relevant in the marketplace. Global businesses need access to local business cultures as they expand their enterprises to new territories. Brand The MBA degree is a recognized brand that signifies management and leadership training. The particular school and type of MBA program you attend also have brand associations that can help open doors based on the school's reputation. The strength of a school's brand is based on the program's history, its ability to provide students with technical skills and opportunities for personal growth, and the reach of its alumni and industry network. A powerful brand can give you the flexibility to make changes throughout your career. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 7 Concluding Note I believe that MBA should not have specializations in it. It should be a holistic degree in every sense covering courses critical in making organizational strategies. There should be emphasis on leadership and ethical practices. The intent of MBA should be to give the student confidence and help him in career growth. Critical Analysis of Human Resource Management It’s a cliche for organizations in today’s modern high performance corporate world to say that â€Å"people are our greatest assets†. But today the importance of it is all the more accepted. Human capital is a competitive advantage that competitors cannot imitate. So, human resource management and the practices associated with it have become accepted by managers in all forms of organizations as one of the most important strategic levers to ensure continuing success. The Origins Traditionally known as â€Å"personnel management†, was largely an outcome of increased government regulations regarding employment conditions, discrimination, employments rights, health and safety concerns etc. In many organizations today, this older notion of personnel administration still holds sway with its emphasis on rules and regulation. The modern concept of â€Å"human resource management† finds its roots in the 19th and 20th century by the end of the industrial revolution in United States. The notion of employee welfare came into light when managers started to face issues with work force control mainly due to influx of immigrants in the workforce. During this time methods of workforce control were devised and F. W. Taylor came up with the concept of scientific management. Later Henry Ford implemented this concept in his automotive factory. He also came up with the first ever employee welfare department which ensured that no part of employee’s life effected his/her productivity in the workplace. However the methods were more personnel control oriented. By the 1960s, the notion of personnel management had become well-established with a number of clear areas of responsibility attached to it including: †¢ Selection and recruitment †¢ Training and development †¢ Pay and conditions †¢ Industrial relations Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 8 Employee welfare †¢ Occupational health and safety. In the 1980s, the concept of human resource management began to gain ground. At the root of the new thinking about the management of people in organizations was the perception of the increasing competitiveness of the global economy. The success of large Japanese corporations in export markets for traditional western products such as cars and electronic goods in the 1970s and 80s took many western corporations by surprise. Studies of Japanese corporations emphasized the importance of effective people management in the competitive strategies of these organizations. The studies showed that Japanese employers performed far better than their western competitors in terms of labor productivity and in process innovation. The key to this success lay in the human resource management practices adopted by Japanese corporations such as Toyota and Matsushita. These practices became evident in western countries as Japanese corporations established manufacturing plants throughout Europe and North America. The human resource management practices which had been so successful in Japan were transplanted with great success to these overseas transplants. The practices included: †¢ Strict and rigorous selection and recruitment †¢ High level of training, especially induction training and on the job training †¢ Team working †¢ Multi-skilling †¢ Better management-worker communications †¢ Use of quality circles and an emphasis on right first time quality †¢ Encouragement of employee suggestions and innovation †¢ Single status symbols such as common canteens and corporate uniforms. The integration of these human resource management practices was to create an organizational culture that allowed workers to identify their own success with that of the corporation. Thus, organizational or corporate culture became an important element in understanding the competitive success of firms and was a major theme of management thinking in the early 1980s. These new human resource management practices and the emphasis on the creation and maintenance of corporate culture stood in sharp contrast to the regulatory view of personnel management that had emerged in the mid-20th century. In fact, many of the new practices were not seen as the exclusive province of the human resource manager but were viewed as the responsibility of line managers in organizations. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 The Criticism Although the roots of human resource management might be relatively clear historically, the term itself and the meaning of human resource management has been the subject of fierce debate amongst practitioners, academics and commentators since its emergence in the early 1990s. Some have simply substituted the term human resource management for perso nnel management and claimed that everything has remained the same. In some cases, this can be seen in the migration of job titles that took place in the last decade as the title of human resource manager has replaced that of personnel manager. Others have argued that human resource management represents a fundamentally new way of managing people at work that goes well beyond the old functional notion of personnel management and emphasizes the creation of a culture in the workplace that harnesses the commitment of individuals to the organization. Yet others, exasperated with the endless definitional debate that seems to surround human resource management, have argued that it is simply an illusion, a â€Å"hologram† behind which we may see many techniques and practices in operation but which is essentially determined by the observer. However, the notion of employee commitment is one which appears to be integral to many of the models and theories of human resource management that have appeared. This notion of harnessing the commitment of employees in organizations was first articulated strongly by Walton (1985) who described how modern organizations were moving their management styles from one based on control, to one based on commitment. Human resource management clearly encompasses the older regulatory hangovers, but goes much further in embracing the management of change, job design, socialization and appraisal as the key levers to achieve organizational success. Modern Human Resource Management The aims of human resource management today are not just integration with the business strategy of the organization, employee commitment, flexibility and quality, but takes commitment as a major integral element. â€Å"Human resource management is a distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a highly committed and capable workforce using an array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques†. The main assumptions underlying the modern concept of human resource management shows how much the concept has progressed from the ld notion of personnel management. Firstly, human resource management is clearly not simply the province of the human resource manager. Line managers play a critical role in human resource management and, in fact, could be argued to be the main Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 10 organizational exponents of people management. Second ly, human resource management is firmly embedded in business strategy. Unlike the personnel manager, the HR manager is part of the top level strategic team in the organization and human resource management plays a key role in the achievement of business success. Thirdly, the shaping of organizational culture is one of the major levers by which effective human resource management can achieve its objectives of a committed workforce. Thus, human resource management is concerned not only with the formal processes of the management of people but also with all the ways in which the organizational culture is established, re-enforced and transmitted. Challenges faced by HR as a Profession The sense that HR is somehow ‘failing to deliver’ is a central theme in the writings of a number of influential American writers. Jeffrey Pfeiffer (1997), for example, writing about the future of Human Resource Management, suggests that it would be wrong to conclude that the growing interest in HR and Human Resource Management necessarily means that the future of the HR function (in its departmental form) is bright: â€Å"My advice is to resist the temptation to believe that HR managers and staff in organizations have a rosy future or a future at all, because there are some profound problems facing human resources as a function within organizations, as contrasted with the study of human resources as a topic area that makes its viability and continued survival problematical. What has emerged so far in this critical perspective on HR is that many of the activities that HR professionals engage in appear not to be valued by managers and employees. This is because there is either no evidence that the activities actually achieve things that matter or because it is very difficult to prove that what HR does actually r esults in improvements in behavior and performance. If the latter is the reason, then the task of HR is to look carefully at the way in which it measures and evaluates effectiveness; if the problem is more to do with what HR does and how it carries out these activities, then the challenge it faces is more fundamental. The HR function is generally criticized to be an accomplice in trends such as downsizing and contingent work arrangements that are often blamed to undo much of the progress made in managing employee relationships in the past several decades. Also HR professionals are accused of showing lack of leadership in demonstrating the business impact of managing people effectively. Writers such as David Ulrich have suggested redefining HR role not by what it does but by what it delivers: results that enrich the organization’s value to customers, investors and employees. The four key roles that HR professionals need to play to deliver the contributions are as follows: ? A partner in strategy execution: This doesn’t mean that HR should take responsibility for HR and business strategy, which is rightly the domain of the chief executive, but that the head Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 11 of the HR department should be an equal partner with other senior managers and should ‘have a seat at the top table’. An administrative expert: This is about getting the basics right and adopting a much more instrumental approach to the use of procedures. The emphasis needs to be on the efficiency of the HR department — reducing its cost base and speeding up its cycle times, without compromising on quality or effectiveness ? An employee champion: This is about HR recognizing that work intensification and an increased sense of insecurity are becoming the new reality for many people and that this is associated with weakened levels of employee commitment. This, in turn, affects the preparedness of employees to contribute more than their contracted level of effort and performance. The role of HR here is to ensure that employees remain engaged and committed, or become re-engaged, either directly through the activities of HR or by HR working with line managers to ensure that they can create a positive psychological and emotional working environment. ? A change agent: According to Ulrich (1997), this role involves HR in building the organization’s capacity to embrace and to capitalize on change. Given that change is the norm for most organizations, the ability to implement and manage the change process is seen as critical to the organization’s ability to function during the change process and to reap the benefits from the changes that have been made. Reducing resistance to change is seen as a key HR contribution. Gaps between HR Academics & Practice There's an incontestable gap between what's happening in scholarly research and what's happening in the world of practitioner. However, there's consensus among academics and research-savvy HR professionals, that HR managers who follow evidence-based principles are best positioned to optimize the success of their organizations. Still, most HR professionals have little time, interest or tolerance for reading researches. Practitioners focus on solving problems and getting tasks done in time- and pressure-packed settings. Academics explore, contemplate and pursue research that can take three years or more before culminating in a journal article. HR practitioners don’t care about the theory behind the practices. They don't care why processes, tests, or other instruments or procedures work, just that they do. If wearing plaid instead of polka dots on Tuesday’s increases retention, they'll do it. According to a business school professor, â€Å"People want to Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 12 see cost-benefit analyses before they implement. It's not enough to know structured interviews will give you better-quality people. Practitioners want to see how it affects the bottom line. † Research and academic findings may not always have concrete outcomes. For practitioners ambiguity doesn’t help. They want concrete solutions supported with business outcomes something translated into profits, often missing in HR research. Academics tend to be interested in different subjects than practitioners. For practitioners, those subjects may be too theoretical or too esoteric, or may not be a need-to-know priority. But for academics, whose careers rise or fall on their success at achieving tenure and promotion, the topics are influenced by what the academic reward structure requires. Fault lies with HR curriculums. HR curriculums should develop the competency in all HR professionals to know what is and is not a scientifically based finding or conclusion. We need to audit our curriculums to make sure students are being taught to appreciate the importance of evidence-based management and the role of research in advancing HR. That requires basic understanding of math and statistics. Most undergraduate business and industrial psychology curriculums feature at least one course in statistics, and some observers say that should suffice. In recent years, faculty members have been reluctant to add more quantitative requirements to HR curriculums for fear of losing students. According to my observations most people choose HR because they are math-phobic. Also there is little emphasis on doing research and supporting it quantitatively. In most MBA programs graduate students are not being asked to do research or even read it. When I asked an MBA student his point of view about research, he said; â€Å"MBA students don't like reading research, so instead students are just discussing cases and practicing being a leader. The HR curriculum should be designed in a way that forces students to engage in consulting. Thus, forcing them to connect the taught courses with field knowledge and enabling them to do hands on research and get comfortable with statistics. This will force them to do analysis and make interpretations. Academics who moonlight as consultants are more likely to relate to the realities of the workplace. Encour age faculty and practitioners to develop and partner in research. Establish conferences or thinktank sessions that bring them together. Encourage exchanges. Cross attendance does occur, but not in enough numbers to create a shared comfort zone. Businesspeople should also cooperate with researchers to enhance body of knowledge and include practical aspects rather than unworkable theories. Another way to increase practical knowledge base is to support sponsored research. Corporations should invest in academics doing research that practitioners need. Experts agree that applied research should meet three criteria. It should be: ? ? ? Rigorous–conducted scientifically so the results can be validated and replicated. Relevant–directed at learning more about, furthering or solving some HR-related problem. Readable–accessible to practitioners who stand to benefit. Bushra Fatima, NUST Business School, 2010 13 Conclusion As a profession HR needs to defend its value by aligning itself with organization’s strategy and focus on achieving business strategy instead of just working as a support function. The HR academia suffers in terms of creating practical value because of its lack of collaboration with HR practitioners. The two can benefit each other and enhance body of knowledge which is far better applicable in real work environments.

Photosynthesis And Its Effect On Our Lives - 887 Words

Without the process known as Photosynthesis, life wouldn’t be the way it was. Earth is an open system requiring the input energy to drive life processes. In photosynthesis, light energy is transformed into chemical energy. The chemical energy used in photosynthesis is synthesized into organic compounds by glucose and carbon dioxide. In the same process, water is used and oxygen is released into the atmosphere. The oxygen released from photosynthesis is what we use to breathe and is needed for our daily lives. We’re dependent on the successfulness of plants conducting photosynthesis but plants are also dependent on us. Plants are dependent on us because of respiration. Respiration is the opposite of photosynthesis where oxygen is being consumed and carbon dioxide is being release. Homo sapiens have a huge impact on photosynthesis and plants. Because humans are continuing to develop, it’s harder to compensate for everyone’s needs. More land is needed to give shelter to the billions of people on Earth. With the increasing population, humans are on top of the food chain. Plants are suffering from this by deforestation. Deforestation is the result of the continuous involving of humans. People need places to live and businesses need somewhere to produce their goods. Areas that were once formally abundant in plants and trees are decreasing because they’re being cut down due to human needs. In reality, humans have plants in their disposition. The results of human activities areShow MoreRelatedPhotosynthesis And Its Effect On Our Lives1741 Words   |  7 PagesScience, photosynthesis is defined as â€Å"the use of sunlight to manufacture carbohydrates† (Freeman, 2011). 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The energy source for photosynthesis comes from sunlight, which allowsRead MoreThe Effect Of Photosynthesis On Plants And The Cycle Of Photo synthesis899 Words   |  4 Pagespollution, and the ramifications and effects it has on plants and the cycle of photosynthesis. Pollution not only directly effect plants and the cycle of photosynthesis, but pollution can also indirectly harm other elements that contribute to the life of a plant and the cycles it performs. Photosynthesis is the cycle in which light energy converts carbon dioxide and water into glucose and oxygen by ways of a chemical reaction (Robinson 2015). Photosynthesis’, overall a fairly simple process, hasRead MoreCarbon Dioxide And The Problems1170 Words   |  5 Pagesand how damaging the effect can be, not on just the unhealthy aspect on humans, but the entire planet itself. This essay will explain the background of carbon dioxide and the problems it causes. 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It is also defined as the basic process of life whereby plants absorb energy from sunlightRead MoreThe Carbon Cycle1497 Words   |  6 Pagesworld’s natural resources and organic matter, which is why the carbon cycle is one of the most important cycles on earth. Through-out the cycle, carbon can become several different forms such as sugar, oil, diamond and marble. Processes such as photosynthesis, combustion and the compression of the earth play key roles in changing, containing and releasing carbon. All the chemical reactions and processes and forms carbon creates are part of the carbon cycle, which is one of the most important cycleRead MoreMarine Ecosystems: Coral Reefs1349 Words   |  6 Pagesrequired for the process of photosynthesis. Coral reefs are amongst the most complex and bio-diverse ecosystems, spanning approximately 284,300 km2 (Spalding Ravilious et al., 2001) providing a home for 25% of all marine life. 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I have been going to this park for quite some time and in the summer, water levels decrease drastically. Evaporation is one of the four phases in the hydrologic cycle (water cycle). According to our Geosystems Eighth Edition book, Christopherson say, â€Å"Water travels endlessly through the hydrosphere, atmosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. [...] Currents of water, vapor, ice and energy are flowing about us continuously in an elaborate, open, globalRead MoreNon-Native Invasive Plants857 Words   |  4 Pagesphotoautotroph can be broken up into three parts. Photo means light, auto means self, and troph means nourishment. By putting these words together, you can infer that a photoautotroph is an organism that makes light into nourishment. This is the process of photosynthesis, which literally means that the organism uses sunlight energy, carbon dioxide, and water to create organic materials which are used for cellular function (Wikipedia). Plants are an example of this kind of organism. A current scientific topic

Manor Definition, Significance in the Medieval Period

The medieval manor, also known as vill from the Roman villa, was an agricultural estate. During the Middle Ages, at least four-fifths of the population of England had no direct connection with towns. Most people did not live on single farms as remains the case today, but instead, they were associated with a manor—a social and economic powerhouse of the Middle Ages.   A manor was usually comprised of tracts of agricultural land, a village whose inhabitants worked that land, and a manor house where the lord who owned or controlled the estate lived. Manors might also have had woods, orchards, gardens, and lakes or ponds where fish could be found. On the manor lands, usually near the village, one could often find a mill, bakery, and blacksmith. Manors were largely self-sufficient. Size and Composition Manors varied greatly in size and composition, and some were not even contiguous plots of land. They generally ranged in size from 750 acres to 1,500 acres. There might be more than one village associated with a large manor; on the other hand, a manor could be small enough that only part of a villages inhabitants worked the estate. Peasants worked the lords demesne (the property farmed outright by the lord) for a specified number of days a week, usually two or three. On most manors there was also land designated to support the parish church; this was known as the glebe. The Manor House Originally, the manor house was an informal collection of wood or stone buildings including a chapel, kitchen, farm buildings and, of course, the hall. The hall served as the meeting place for village business and it was where the manorial court was held. As the centuries passed, manor houses became more strongly defended and took on some of the features of castles, including fortified walls, towers, and even moats. Manors were sometimes given to knights as a way to support them as they served their king. They could also be owned outright by a nobleman or belong to the church. In the overwhelmingly agricultural economy of the Middle Ages, manors were the backbone of European life. A Typical Manor, Borley, 1307 Historical documents of the period give us a fairly clear account of medieval manors. The most detailed is that of the extent, which described the tenants, their holdings, rents, and services, which was compiled on testimony by a sworn jury of inhabitants. The extent was completed whenever a manor changed hands.   A typical account of the holdings is that of the manor of Borley, which was held in the early 14th century by a freeman named Lewin and described by American historian E.P. Cheney in 1893. Cheney reports that in 1307, Borley manor changed hands, and documents enumerated the holdings of the 811 3/4 acre estate.  That acreage included: Arable lands: 702 1/4 acresMeadow: 29 1/4 acresEnclosed pasture: 32 acresWoods: 15 acres  Manor house land: 4 acresTofts (homesteads) of 2 acres each: 33 acres   The possessors of the manor lands were described as demesne (or that which was farmed outright by Lewin) including a total of 361 1/4 acres; seven freeholders held a total of 148 acres; seven molmen held 33 1/2 acres, and 27 villeins or customary tenants held 254 acres. Freeholders, molmen, and villeins were Medieval classes of tenant farmers, in descending order of prosperity, but without clear-cut boundaries that changed over time.  All of them paid rents to the lord in the form of a percentage of their crops or labor on the demesne. The total annual value of the estate to the lord of the manor of Borley in 1307 was listed as 44 pounds, 8 shillings, and 5 3/4 pence. That amount was about twice what Lewin would have needed to be knighted, and in 1893 dollars was about U.S. $2,750 a year, which in late 2019 equaled about $78,600.   Sources Cheyney, E. P. The Medià ¦val Manor. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Sage Publications, 1893, Newbury Park, Calif.Dodwell, B. The Free Tenantry of the Hundred Rolls. The Economic History Review, Vol. 14, No. 22, 1944, Wiley, Hoboken, N.J.Klingelhà ¶fer, Eric. Manor, Vill, and Hundred: The Development of Rural Institutions in Early Medieval Hampshire. Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1992, Montreal.Overton, Eric. A Guide to the Medieval Manor. Local History Publications, 1991, London.