Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness in Edwin Arlington Robinson’s...

Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem â€Å"Richard Cory† is a mysterious four stanza poem that tells about this wealthy gentleman who was admired throughout the town where he resided only to commit suicide at the end of the fourth stanza. Robinson shows the importance of Richard Cory through the eyes of the person speaking who is a worker of the town. Speaking to a general audience, the worker tells about the effect this man had on all of the townspeople. Richard Cory was a pleasant fellow to be around, but was also hard to talk to because of his wealth. But, the poem unveils that even though he was wealthy and people looked up to him, he was missing something that money couldn’t buy. In the poem â€Å"Richard Cory†, Robinson was trying to present to the reader that money can’t bring a person true happiness. Robinson makes the reader wonder why a wealthy person like Richard Cory would commit suicide. Cory always seemed to be happy as he walked the stre ets of the town. That is why it was such a mystery to a reader because he seemed genuinely pleased with life. He had money and every worker in the town looked up to him, it is even stated in the poem â€Å"In fine, we thought that he was everything.† (Robinson 473, line 11) A pleasant person to be around, Cory would come to the town to talk to people. It does not say if he had people living with him, or why he would come to the town; all it tells the reader is he would visit the town and communicate with the

Why Did Pran Buy Venture Into The Dairy Industry Essay

B. Why did PRAN wish to venture into the dairy industry? Among the agro industries in Bangladesh PRAN is one of the largest industry. Pran is also exporting its item in more than 80 countries. Beverages like fruit juice, cola, water and many other things are being produced by pran. Late in 2002, key decision makers of Bangladesh’s largest agro-processing company PRAN-RFL Group were forward with a new business idea. As Arong and Milk Vita were leading largest share of the milk in the market. So PRAN also wanted to emerge in the market with dairy business. While other companies expanded their businesses by entering into existing markets. The project is to introduce international best practices and knowledge in efficient dairy farming to poor, small scale dairy farmers in Bangladesh as well as establishing a milk collection system allowing collection and preservation of growing volumes of high quality raw milk. This will lead to increased well being of all people living in the villages covered by the 5 dairy hubs.RAN has the ambition to help increase Bangladesh’s milk production from the present 1.75 billion liters per year to exceed 3.5 billion litres by 2025. By 2025, PRAN expects milk powder imports to be fully replaced by locally produced and collected milk. Why did it decide to enter with UHT milk, which was a relatively new concept for the milk consumers in Bangladesh? Pran decided to sell the UHT milk because there were two market player Arong and Milk vita that hadShow MoreRelatedInternship Report on Milkvita14316 Words   |  58 Pagesto be ventilated by entrepreneurs. Moreover new investment the existing entrepreneurs are in a deep ocean of thoughts in deciding appropriate factors in their business. Neither the new entrepreneur fell safe in putting money for new businesses, nor did the existing business houses fall encouraged to expand their business in diversified ways just at the juncture of period to the new global market pattern. This is because of apprehended competition from the world marketers or entrepreneurs like multinationals

When a business makes a new pr... free essay sample

When a business makes a new product or service they need to think how they are going to distribute it and get it to the right customer. Many businesses now sell their products through retailer, this is called distribution channels. There are a number of factors to consider when deciding how to distribute their products. The availability of products is important because for instance if a customer wanted to buy a LG TV and they didnt have a LG store near them, they could simply look in stores like Currys PC World, Argos or Tesco because they always have most products in store. This allows LG to still sell their products despite not having it in their own store. Also it is cheaper for LG to sell their products at different retailers. When getting the product from the manufacturer to the customers, there are various ways the products can go through. The first method is going straight to the customer which is known as a direct channel, it can go to the retailer, which is usually owned by the manufacturer and then customers buy it from the retailer, this is known as a modern channel and the final method is going from a manufacturer to a wholesaler who will offer advice and then to a retail shop before it reaches a customer, this is method is known as a traditional channel. Some manufacturers decide to sell their products in bulk to a wholesaler, who will then distribute the products in smaller amounts to a retail store. This allows the product to reach a higher number of customers. Quite often wholesaler offer services such as labelling or packaging. As mentioned before, businesses have three options on how to distribute the products; straight to a customer, to the customer via retailers or to the customer via wholesalers and retailers. As for retail control of the supply chain there is own brands and eRetailing to be considered. Customer recognises the name of big brands like McDonalds or Tesco. That is because they have spent time thinking of the name and the design. Retailers offer their own brand products, such as Tesco value at a better price that the manufactures. ERetailing is about retails being able to promote and sell their products online. This has put retailers at an advantage because they are available 24/7 and there are a wider range of products online plus customers can see if items are in their local store and if not order it. Furthermore, the internet has given an opportunity to interact with the customers directly. Both of these factors are giving retailers a great advantage over manufacturers and wholesalers. Most retailers will need to think of extra provisions of the products in order to enhance their functions. Retailers like DFS or SCS will need to provide transport for the products to customers homes. If retailers use home delivery it put them at an advantage with their competitors. They would also have to think of the storage of the products, especially if they receive it in bulk; they need to have enough storage, having a warehouse or a stockroom. Having a stockroom is beneficial for both customer and the retailer because when customer wants something it is more likely to be in stock. After-sale service is important because retailers want to keep the relationship with the customer after the sale. Therefore it is crucial that the retail handles complaints or offer convenient delivery times. Moving on to the distribution process, retails must ensure that products are always available for the customers; to order to achieve that a retailer must have a well-functioning supply chain. The main purpose of the supply chain is to supply required goods to the customer. The chain starts at raw materials which go to a factory, and then it is kept in a warehouse, and then moved to a retailer and at the end it reaches the customer. To make sure the supply chain is efficient the stock availability must be improved and there has to be a wide choice of products. As retailers are expanding, goods must be moved within the UK as well as overseas. There are various types of transport used to distribute products; by rail; by road; by train; by air; by water; by container. Transporting via road and rail are most popular methods because it is efficient and cheaper. Moving products via rail is very efficient if it is planned well. The rail network is highly developed in the UK therefore it is very cheap to transport goods via trains. However, more time must be spent on planning the distribution to mainland Europe because the rail network is not as highly developed as it is in the UK is some parts of Europe. The most popular way of transportation is by road, in a van or a big truck there are a lot of options for companies to choose from. So practically saying the vehicle type is made to suit the type of product being transported. A very fast option to transport goods is by air, especially when transporting further away. However the cost is very high therefore businesses dont use this method much unless it is absolutely necessary. A totally opposite and a very slow but economical way is transporting by water. It is very slow and delays might be caused by weather condition or loading and unloading the goods. Last method that can be used to transport goods is by containers. They are very expensive to produce but have a high level of security therefore companies can rely on them. If the UK sources in the UK it is time efficient and cheaper. The further UKs retailer decided to source the more they will pay. However, making goods in China or Thailand is sometimes cheaper than making them in the UK because of the wages that employees get; so quite often big brands like Nike, Sony or Apple make their products in some western countries. Many large companies decide to have few suppliers so that they are never out of stock. The suppliers are categorised into four groups; manufactures; independent craftspeople; import sources; distributors. Picking up from the last paragraph, distributors or wholesalers as mentioned before, represent a company overseas. They purchase goods from different suppliers and then sell it in a retail store. Wholesaler should have financial strength to carry out stock levels; be in a market which they have distribution rights; be prepared for risk; be ready to buy in bulk to bring the transport cost down. The logistics process ensures that the products are available at the right quantity and at the right time. The management of the resources is responsible to keep stock levels balanced. There are various storage locations for products; warehouses which are able to store and receive large amount of products; distribution centres are similar to a warehouse but they can be bigger and they are part of the logistic process; stock rooms should be close to the retail stores because they are the first storing place for good and because they usually are fairly small, the space should be used to the maximum. The use of ICT has a major effect of the supply chain. It is essential that companies use ICT to develop supply chain relationships, decrease the response time, improve customer service or attain international standards. Distribution through eRetail straight to the customer must meet requirements; they need to be fast and efficient. In order to achieve that there are two methods to follow; store picking and having dedicated warehouses. Store picking happens at a lot of stores like Tesco now. It is basically employees doing customers shopping and picking the products from the shelf and after they are being delivered to the customer. The advantages of this method are short delivery distance and it is faster. There are some disadvantages as well and they include some products might be out of stock; the employee might get distracted by customers at the store or the capacity constraints. Dedicated warehouses are very important because big brands like Tesco or Asda need regular deliveries so they dont have products out of stock which might cause loss of customers. Last part of the distribution process is the grey market and non-conventional channels. The grey market follows the distribution channels that are unauthorised by the manufacturer. They products are not illegal but those companies have no relationship with the manufacturer.

Total Quality and Human Resource Management Essay Example

Total Quality and Human Resource Management Essay J. N. Bradley Central Washington University ABSTRACT Total Quality Management (TQM) has been defined as a system designed to satisfy customers requirements, a philosophy that stresses a team approach to achieving quality and continuous improvement and a total change in organizational culture. Unfortunately, most Human Resource Management (HRM) systems/activities generate, or at least allow for, inconsistencies in the quality of outcomes. Consequently, an important question that should be considered is whether using a systems engineering approach would be beneficial in the integration of the two activities? INTRODUCTION Total Quality Management (TQM) has been defined as a system designed to satisfy customers requirements (Sashkin Kiser, 1991), a philosophy that stresses a team approach to achieving quality and continuous improvement (Lawler, 1994b), and a total change in organizational culture (Ross, 1993). If management accepts these definitions and attempts to implement TQM within an organization, the success of the program relies heavily on the strategic application of human resources in the organizations quality transformation process while attending to its own transformation of quality. (Hart Schlesinger, 1991). Unfortunately, most Human Resource Management (HRM) systems/activities generate, or at least allow for, inconsistencies in the quality of outcomes. Consider the following selection of personnel is typically based on individual job requirements and not organizational values (Barrett, 1995; Blackburn Rosen, 1993); job analysis is a static (or consistent) process that takes place within a dynamic environment (Cardy Dobbins, 1992; Hamstead, 1995); performance appraisals usually compare individuals to one another instead of the system; and the typical pay system rewards individual performances not organizational goals (Dobbins, Cardy, Carson, 1991). We will write a custom essay sample on Total Quality and Human Resource Management specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on Total Quality and Human Resource Management specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on Total Quality and Human Resource Management specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Furthermore, Deming (1986) claims that performance appraisals (P/As) are one of managements deadliest sins and that their use should be totally eliminated. Given the above perspectives, important questions that should be analyzed and answered are whether TQM and HRM can combine in a synergistic manner that results in a positive contribution to organizational improvement and achievement of objectives? And, whether using a Systems engineering approach would be beneficial in the integration of the two activities? Problems with HRM Processes Selection Cascio (1991) states that the typical objective in traditional personnel selection processes is that of capitalizing on individual differences in order to select those persons who possess the greatest number of key attributes judged necessary for job success. Dobbins, Cardy, Carson (1991) further state that the objective of the traditional selection process is the differentiation of applicants on one or more dimensions such as knowledge, skill, ability, or motivation. However, they state that a problem arises, from a system perspective, when employees are selected based on individualistic or differentiated characteristics, but are evaluated on system-related criteria and measures. Thus, HRM departments may be reinforcing counterproductive processes when they select (or recommend for selection) personnel based on individualized job analyses and then attempt to evaluate them under a TQM or system-wide performance structure or criteria. According to Blackburn and Rosen (1993), some past winners of the Baldrige quality award are still engaging in traditional selection practices. These companies admit to hiring the best candidates for a position based on individual job specifications, and that they hope these individuals can be socialized into the TQM environment at some later point in their tenure. However Blackburn and Rosen feel that, because of the changing culture within organizations towards continuous quality, the selection process must allow for the candidate to show skills in customer satisfaction, self-direction, self-development and team-development. Accordingly, the selection process must enable management to assess (or predict) the aptitudes and abilities that will allow an employee to adapt to an environment of constantly changing customer requirements, and to look for a successful assimilation within the existing organizational culture. According to Bowen, Ledford, and Nathan (1991), the use of selection based on organizational fit Rill increase due to a new selection model that is emerging. This model is based on considering the whole person in relation to the specific organization culture. The benefits of employing this process are greater job satisfaction, organizational commitment, team spirit, better job performance, reduced absenteeism, and greater support for the organization as a system and culture. The issue of organization-person fit does raise some interesting questions. For instance, what types of people fit within what types of organizational culture, and is there any truly measurable benefit to the organization or employee? Research conducted by OReilly, Chaiman, and Caldwell (1991) attempted to answer these questions. Although they acknowledge that quantifying cultural attributes is extremely difficult, they did find that individuals with high achievement needs prefer more aggressive, outcome oriented culture. Individuals with high needs for autonomy show distinct preferences for innovative cultures and negativity towards organizational support and teamwork. Additionally, while they were not able to generate specific measurement criteria, they were able to identify that when a strong organization/person fit is achieved, there was a significant improvement in commitment, job satisfaction, and retention. Job Analysis According to prominent authors in the HR field (Cascio, 1991; Schneider Schmidt, 1992: Heneman Heneman, 1994, and Mathis Jackson, 1994) job analysis is the process of studying jobs in order to gather and analyze information about the content of a job, the human requirement, and the conditions within which the job is performed. Furthermore, by breaking the job down into task and sub-task components the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to successfully perform the tasks can be identified. Job analysis also links to performance appraisal and compensation by defining the performance standards and outcomes measured in the evaluation process (Cascio, 1991). However, as stated by Dobbins et al. (1991), the primary focus of traditional job analyses is on an individual employee level and, therefore, individuals are viewed as isolated units within the organization, each with individually defined responsibilities. By extending this perspective, one can see that selection and evaluation of employees is based on individual criteria. This, then, would tend to pit one employee against another in an attempt to highlight individual performance during the competition for raises and promotions. It is this process that Deming argues is counterproductive to a team and system approach to quality output. Deming suggests that job descriptions should establish limits on performance variations instead of detailing specific tasks and duties. If an organization is dissatisfied with the level of an employees performance, management should then change the system to allow for increased performance. Waldman (1994) suggests that organizations consider organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) as flexible job content for evaluation. In this context, OCBs are pro-social role behavior that enhance the group and organizational processes. Blackburn and Rosen (1993) continue this recommendation by citing how some Baldrige Award winning organizations have elements of job descriptions which include innovation, creativity problem solving, customer service competencies, and cross-functional work teams striving for quality, not quantity. Finally, Cardy and Dobbins (1992) suggest that a job analysis should focus on a persons ability to match (or fit within) the organizations overall need for flexibility, change, innovation, and job cross-functionalism. Key questions concerning generic and flexible job descriptions need to be addressed. For instance, what types of industries, organizations, and jobs lend themselves to generic job descriptions? Would descriptions for routine, lower-level, line and staff positions need to very broad? And finally, can generic job descriptions work in a unionized environment? Although no specific answers currently exist, there have been some encouraging signs recently. For example, Blackburn and Rosen (1993) report that union- management teams work together at Cadillac Motor Division, a Baldrige Award winning company, to determine efficient areas of cross-training for their employees. Performance Appraisal The traditional process of reviewing individual performance differences is conducted via the performance appraisal, with the usual assumption that a large percentage of variance in actual performance is due to person variables instead of system variables (Dobbins, Cardy, Carson, 1991). This approach assumes that employees differ in contributions to the organization and that these differences are due to the individuality of employees (Dobbins et al. , 1991). Most of Demings (1986) arguments against performance appraisals are directed at the assessment of performance variance based on individual criteria/ characteristics and not on those of the system. According to Deming (1986), approximately 90% of an individuals performance variation is due to system defects, not employee variables. System defects would include such items as defective machinery, management planning, lack of adequate resources, inconsistent working conditions, and faulty or inconsistent measuring criteria (Bannister Balkin, 1990). Since these factors fluctuate randomly over time, Deming (1986) stated that measuring an individuals performance at any moment in time is akin to a lottery based on random events. Deming further states that raters are typically incapable or unwilling to distinguish between person-caused versus system-caused performance variances. Waldman (1994) states that current research in quality theory does attempt to show how system variables such as leadership, processes, job design, person/system fit, and situational constraints can affect an individuals performance rating. Dobbins, Cardy, PlatzVienos (1990) found that organizational variables moderate the relationship between appraisal characteristics and satisfaction. Additionally, Judge and Ferris (1993) found that subjective social factors such as the demographic similarity and the relationship between the supervisor and subordinate effect the performance rating. These studies appear to lend support for Demings assertions that, not only are system factors involved in the performance appraisal process, but raters are either incapable or unwilling to acknowledge the influence of system factors, opting instead to manage by their feelings instead of by the facts (Blackburn Rosen, 1991). Due to the lack of recognition of system factors, Bowen and Lawler (1992) state that performance appraisal represents the most significant area of conflict between current traditional HRM practices and the recommended practices of TQM proponents. The conflicts between the two areas arise when HR practitioners attempt to merge TQM elements with traditional performance appraisal practices. For although quality measures can be a part of performance appraisal factors, the assignment of system defects as individual areas of correction violate TQM principles. Dobbins et al. (1991) point to Demings assertion that this false assignment of variance responsibility causes damage by encouraging managers to focus on correcting individual behavior instead of isolating and correcting problems within the system. Dobbins et al. (1991) maintain that both the feedback and goal setting elements of typical performance appraisals focus on the worker as the source of performance variance. Although they note that higher degrees of feedback specificity and goal difficulty can produce higher demonstrated performance, the degree of measured performance increase relative to an individual would be nominal when compared to the possible increase in system performance, given an equal amount of management attention and energy. Lawler (1994a) agrees with Demings assertions regarding the flaws of traditional performance appraisal, but is reluctant to discard them altogether. Instead he suggests that current practices can be modified to: 1) separate job performance appraisal from skill development and tie compensation to skill based pay, 2) eliminate merit, incentive, or pay-for-performance plans, and focus performance appraisals on performance only and 3) create fully or semi-autonomous teams responsible for selection, skill development, discipline and pay administration with supervisory oversight. Compensation and Reward Systems Organizations typically design and implement compensation and reward programs as a means of focusing employee attention on specific behaviors that the Organization considers necessary to achieve its desired outcome or objective (Henderson, 1994). Accordingly, employees then receive compensation based on their individual Performance in comparison to some Preestablished objective. As previously discussed the assessment of individual performance to objectives is usually flawed. In response to this problem, Deming (1986) states that work standards, management by objectives, and numerical goals should be eliminated. Since most individualized objective/incentive programs are based on expectance and/or reward theory, the assumption is that motivation to achieve the objectives increases when rewards and incentives are associated or linked with their achievement (Henderson, 1994). However, if the objective is the reduction of errors and the increase of quality, the consideration of system variance factors becomes an essential consideration in order to correctly reward individual performance. For according to Deming (1986), no amount of employee motivation, hard work, or objective setting can change the variance of system performance. Given this reality, rewards are then distributed through a generally random process in which employees who just happened to function near a system component that function positively received a positive reward. Group gain-sharing is an attempt to create a compensation and reward system which can overcome some of the problems cited above and encourage teamwork (Osterman, 1994). In gain-sharing, group incentives encourage employees to be concerned about the groups performance and to search for means of reducing cost while improving productivity. For many organizations, gain-sharing can be coupled with a profit-sharing plan to create a sense of unity throughout the entire organization (Lawler, 1987). Pay-for-knowledge is also an attempt to recognize the limitations of pay-for-performance programs that review performance strictly within traditional job descriptions (Osterman, 1994). The pay-for-knowledge approach tends to encourage employees to gain a broader range of knowledge, skills, and abilities by the utilization of formal/informal training and cross-training. By so doing, the employees typically gain a better undemanding of the overall organizational objectives. However, Bowen and Lawler (1992) warn that any compensation or reward system must encourage both team and group work in addition to quality improvements. SYSTEMS ENGINEERING APPROACH TO HRM Most HR professionals have no prior education or experience in systems analysis or engineering. Consequently, the concept of using a systems engineering approach in the implementation of TQM within HRM processes is, based on an information survey of over fifty HR professionals, generally considered to be foreign. In a traditional systems design or analysis process, the recognition of three key areas is essential: a set of elements; a set of interactions; and a set of boundary conditions. In an HRM/TQM setting, the elements that would need to be recognized would be those activities, functions or people that were involved with both TQM and HRM programs. The interactions can be of any type and should not be considered as being restricted to a physical interaction (e. g. sharing information telephonically/electronically, project or department meeting minutes shared by mail). The boundary conditions are the interactions between the elements and all other objects (internal or external to the organization) that produce some effect on the elements (singly or in combination). The boundary conditions can also be divided into subsets in order to recognize a specific influence or contribution (e. g. input/output, environmental conditions, etc. ) (Aslaksen Belcher, 1994). The utilization of a systems engineering process drives the overt recognition and consideration of these three areas (Reilly, 1993). The ultimate benefit of this process would be where HRM and TQM professionals are better equipped to address differing demands on their combined systems, policies, and processes and where efforts to improve the integration of TQM and HRM lead to greater efficiency, productivity, and employee satisfaction (Sage, 1992). The most significant drawback to utilizing a systems engineering approach to process improvement and management is the additional education and training necessary to equip participants and decision makers with sufficient knowledge, skill, and ability to utilize and manage a systems engineering process. However, the downstream benefits of utilizing a systems approach should certainly outweigh the initial training costs. CONCLUSION The information reviewed for this paper strongly suggests that a broader approach be used when attempting to integrate TQM into HRM processes. And in order to achieve any reasonable degree of success. a systems perspective should be utilized. HR Managers are usually well aware of the importance of accurate job analysis. employee selection, performance assessment, and compensation management. However, the relationship of these processes to achieving TQM objectives quickly becomes discordant when individualized job analyzes and evaluations are integrated with TQM measures and processes. The strength of current HRM process lies in their potential for modification and adaptation within a TQM framework. With the adoption and utilization of a systems perspective, performance criteria can be developed that will accurately reflect both individual and system performance variances. Then, the distribution of financial (or non- financial) rewards will be more reflective of actual individual employee performance and less representative of a company lottery system. Additional research is needed in order to determine the if HRM/TQM program can demonstrate real benefits (e. g. reduction in activity cost, system or implementation errors, /or time; and improved cooperation understanding) by the use of a systems engineering approach.