Frictions between Parents and Children Essay

Family is an essential part of every person’s life and of our society. Family is a little world with its own values and priorities. Close families share dreams, ideas, hopes and even possessions, and it’s a good side of being a family. However, as usual, every good thing can have its drawbacks. Same with families: they can often have different types of problems. One of the most frequent and common problems is the misunderstanding between parents and children, due to the difference of generations. This problem is especially acute with teenagers, who want to have more freedom, to express their self-identity in a way they want to. â€Å"Honour your mother and father and you will live long and be well, if not, you will die† — says the Bible. Some families are happy, some are dead. It seems to me the reason is misunderstanding of each other in the family. One more thing, teenagers can take on most of the rights and responsibilities of adulthood. Before this occurs, however, they go through the period of adolescence and most of them experience conflicts at that time. They change rapidly both physically and emotionally and they search self-identity as they grow up and become more independent. Sometimes teenagers develop interests and values different from those of their parents. That sets a conflict between two generations, which leads to a gap in mutual understanding. Traditional disagreements are: the time to come home at night, doing work about the house and the friends to spend time with. I’d like to point out, that teens face a number of problems: drinking alcohol or using drugs. Moreover, some children run away from their homes. Most of them return after a few days or weeks, but some turn to crime and become juvenile delinquents. I’m convinced that sometimes parents do not care about their children. It is exactly at that age when young people need a piece of advice or help. Parents should help their children and find the right approach to them so as to make everything clear. Being able to view the problems more rationally, they should try to do their best to resolve them. We need to learn to talk our problems over in our family. If we are able to do it, everything will be all right.

Leading & Managing People †Expatriate Essay

Multinational firms throughout the world are increasingly concerned about hiring, developing and retaining managers with international experience and global perspectives† quoted by Briscoe and Schuler in 2004. This report will be focusing on variety of issues relating to Human Resource implications which faced by the expatriate working in MNC located in Malaysia as well as Malaysian working in overseas. The extraction will be from the most recent newspaper, journal and articles relating to the following topics in human resource management. 1) Expatriate Failure and the Selection policy 2) Training and development for cross-cultural 3) Performance appraisal for expatriate The expatriation was subjugated by professionals sent by their employers to foreign subsidiaries or headquarters. 3. 0 KEY ISSUES AND ANALYSIS 3. 1 Expatriate Failure and the Selection policy Expatriate facade many new challenges both in the workplace and the community. For instance, culture shock differences in work-related norms, isolation, homesick, housing, schooling, language, customs, cost of living and coping with his/her spouse’s problems of adapting to new environment. According to Stone(2008), research indicates that a manager’s inability to adapt or their partner’s inability to adapt is the major cause of expatriate failure. Harvey(1983) cited the consequence include premature return from a foreign posting and high resignation rates, with expatriates leaving their company at about twice the rate of domestic managements. Tung (1987) expounded the three main reasons contributing to the failure of expatriates in US MNC is as follows:- * the inability of the manager’s spouse to adjust to a different physical or cultural environment; * the manager’s inability to adapt to a different physical or cultural environment; * other family-related problems. One study by International Orientation Resources, an HRM consulting firm, found that 60 percent of expatriate failures occur due to these three reasons too(Solomon,1994). Besides the above mentioned reasons, include inappropriate selection practices, inadequate preparation and training as well as the stresses associated with expatriation which identified by New Zealand research (Enderwick and Hodgson, 1993). Another critical reason is the cross-cultural communications can be a struggle for the international manager. Gestures, facial expressions, behaviour and words can have different meanings and connotations. China, Korea and Japanese have high-context cultures where considerable importance is given to non-verbal and situational cues. In contrast, Australia, Canada, the US and Britain have low-context cultures where what is said is what it meant(Stone,2008). In contrast, some Malaysians who work aboard feel that the grass is greener on the other side. In Appendix A, this article highlighted the reasons why some Malaysian prefer to remain overseas. Due to higher paid, to widen their horizons, the prestige of working in a foreign company and the quality of life is unbeatable. The expatriate is unable to adapt in the foreign environment due to lack of cultural skills. According to HRM consulting firm, this is because the expatriate selection process at many organisations is essentially flawed (Solomon, 2000). Expatriates failed because these three focal reasons which mentioned by Tung that have not been part of the selection process. The underlying message was that the family is the basic unit of expatriation, not the individual. The MNC needs to look into this matter seriously in order to reduce expatriate failure. 3. 2 Training and development for cross-cultural Many companies including MNC have been ignored on providing training for employees whether local or global organisations. MNC recruits expatriate based on technical competence and past job performance as the key selection criteria and assumed the expatriate is able to adapt in the country where he was posted. MNC should not take them for granted. They should be pre-prepared by providing orientation, training on the cultural, language and living skill in the host country. Shown in Appendix D, expatriate reports interviewed an expatriate working in Nanchang, China on how significant was the culture shock he experienced when he moved abroad? He replied that quite significant and hard to adapt to the Chinese food and people spitting on the streets. Certainly, at the initial stage every expatriate will face cultural shock difference which may lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding and misinterpretation. Then directly he will be unproductive, inefficiency and faces expatriate failure. The MNC has to recruit a new manager to replace him which will be time consuming and have to repeat the process of selection and hiring. The MNC requires the expatriate to train the local employees in the host-country by transferring his knowledge and skills to them so that they are able to be independent and step into the positions/responsibilities within the shortest possible time. The article in Appendix B highlighted Malaysia government will review the education system to produce talent needed for an advanced nation and also perks to lure home highly skilled Malaysians (brain drain) and retain global talent to develop a quality workforce. Even our government recognise the essential of education/training to develop our highly skilled employees that are not only vital to the companies but also making the nation into globally competitive and transforming it as the high-income economy for instance Singapore, HK and Shanghai. 3. Performance appraisal for expatriate Stone (2008) cited that performance appraisal is a matter of serious concern for many expatriates. This is because performance appraisal is often handled badly. Companies fail to take into account the added complexities that come with international appraisals. Key issues involving performance expectations, performance measures and who will be responsible for the conduct of the appraisals are left vague or undecided. Worse, some head office managers ignore the international appraisal and do not incorporate it into the career development process. The end result is that expatriates perceive the appraisal process as unfair and as a source of never-ending frustration. Groeschi (2003) quotes that a number of comparative international and cross-cultural management research projects have concluded that HRM is influenced by culture. He also highlighted the same HRM policy is likely to be attributed quite different meanings by different cultural groups for instance performance appraisal. An organisation’s performance appraisal systems are an important element of its control systems, which is a central component of organisation architecture (see Figure 1 as below). In many international companies, the thorny issue is how best to evaluate the performance of expatriate managers (Hill, 2009). During the appraisal evaluation for the expatriate, there are two groups who evaluate the performance of expatriate managers. They are host-nation manager and home-office managers whom are subject to bias. The host-nation managers may be biased by their own cultural frame of reference and expectations. On the other hand, home-country mangers’ appraisals may be biased by distance and by their own lack of experience working abroad. Home-office managers often not aware of what is going on in a foreign operation and they tend to rely on hard data in evaluating an expatriate’s performance, such as the productivity, revenues, profitability or market share which reflect factors outside the expatriate’s control. Due to such biases, many expatriate managers believe that headquarters management evaluates them unfairly and does not fully appreciate the value of their skills and experience. It also one of the reasons many of them believe a foreign posting does not benefit their careers (Hill, 2009). 4. 0 RECOMMENDATION 4. 1 Expatriate Failure and the Selection policy Managing a MNC provides a diversity of challenges which the crucial one will be how the parent-company will recruit potential expatriate to manage their off-shore operations affiliates/subsidiaries. Selection of the expatriate must be right at the first time although time and resources consuming in reviewing and evaluating all the potential candidates follow by filtering them. The expatriate should not be selected based on technical competence and past job performance as the key selection criteria. Expatriate failure in many cases is the result of a lack of personal adjustment rather than a lack of technical skills. Harvey (1997) cited furthermore, research shows that in many companies expatriate selection is often haphazard and irrational. Organisations need to understand that in choosing expatriates, they should take into account differences in the business, social and cultural environment in the specific country and the impact on the potential expatriate, spouse and dependants (Stone, 2008). Stone’s (1991) study found that both local managers and expatriate managers perceive the essential selection criteria as the expatriate’s ability to adapt and the adaptability of the partner and family. 4. Training and management development for cross-cultural According to Hill (2009), superior performance requires not only strategy must also be supported by the right organisation architecture. Strategy is implemented through organisation. In Figure 1, people are the linchpin of a firm’s organisation architecture. For a firm to outperform its rivals in the global marketplace, it must have the right people in the right postings. Those people must be trained appropriately so they have the skill sets required to perform their jobs effectively and so they behave in a manner that is congruent with the desired culture of the firm. The following trainings are recommended for MNCs’ expatriates:- * Cross-Culture Training prior to departure The purpose of this training allows individuals to more rapidly adjust to the new culture before departing to host-country, and therefore, to be more effective in their new roles (Black and Mendenhall, 1990). It has been widely recognised for more than 20 years that the partners and children of expatriates play an important role in contributing to the success of expatriate assignments (Fukuda and Chu, 1994; Rahim, 1983) Cultural, Language and Practical(Living Skill) trainings * These trainings are helping to control and reduce expatriate failures. There is no question that comprehensive cultural training can have many benefits for MNCs. For starters, it can help orient and develop expatriates to better communicate, understand, and work effectively with people from different cultural, religious, and ethnic backgrounds. Comprehending and valuing cultural differences can al so help expatriates in the effective management of multi-cultural teams. Understanding global markets, customers, suppliers, and competitors is another indirect benefit. Pragmatically, cultural training can have a positive impact on combating very expensive expatriate failure (Luthans, 2002). Their spouse adaption problem, it is important that the spouse and the whole family to be included in this training * Language training usually conducted in host-country’s language. When the expatriate willing to communicate in the host-country language(even not fluent), can help build rapport with local employees and improve the manager’s effectiveness. * Benefit of practical training in helping the expatriate manager and family ease themselves into daily life in the host country. The expatriate community group can be a great source of support and information sharing in helping the expatriate’s family adapt to a foreign culture. 4. 3 Performance appraisal for expatriate To overcome the expatriate’s frustration and problems, the HR manager needs to ensure that the following key issues are clarified before the expatriate begins an overseas assignment:- * What are the organisation’s performance expectations? * What criteria and standards will be used to measure performance? * Who will conduct the evaluation – a local manager, a head office manager or both? * What will be the frequency of the appraisals? What consideration will be given to local environmental influence? (for example, volatility of foreign exchange rate fluctuations, availability of skilled labour, political instability, corruption and so on) * Is the appraisal positively incorporated into the career development process? * Are head office managers cognisant of the local business environment? * Are there any cultural influences that may distort the measurement of the expatriate’s performance? In order to overcome the biases of the two groups who evaluate the expatriate managers’ performance, it is recommended to implement 360-degree feedback.

Power of organizations Essay

Lee Iacocca was born Lido A. Iacocca, on October 25, 1924 to Nicola and Antoinette, who were both Italian immigrants. His parents were hardworking people and his father Nicola believed that America was a land of opportunities. As long as people were willing to work hard, it America, it was possible to achieve anything. Lee followed his father’s work ethic and when he just a boy of ten years, he would take his wagon to the grocery store and wait outside. He volunteered to take the groceries of the shoppers to their respective houses for a tip. When he turned 16, he worked 16 hours a day in a fruit market. Lee confesses that the depression of the 1930s resulted in a transformation to his personality and he became a materialist. He graduated from college with the goal of earning $10,000 a year till he was 25 and then, he planned to work towards becoming a millionaire (Iacocca, 1984). The depression also made Lee a less intolerant person towards waste in any form: food, clothing or business and a conservative person in his investments. He always knew that disaster can strike any time. During his school days, Lee also faced racial discrimination due to the fact that he was Italian. Moreover, he was pained by the fact that his two Jewish friends were treated worse than he was. When Lee was in Chrysler, he named Gerald Greenwald as the Vice President of Chrysler. He would be the first Jew to enter the top ranks of any of the top three automakers (Iacocca, 1984). After his graduation at Lehigh, he got a job with Ford. But he could not pursue that job at that point in time, because he won the Wallace Memorial Fellowship at Princeton. He Graduated from Princeton and started working for Ford in 1946. Lee married Mary McCleary in 1956 (Iacocca, 1984). Lee considered his family life very important and reserved weekends to spend time with family. Lee’s success in business was not only due to his hard work and education, but also due to his ability to adapt to any situation (Swinfin, 2006). He was also a decisive man and had the ability to take innovative decisions. In 1956, when his district was the last in sales, he introduced a new program called â€Å"56 for 56†. This program made it possible to purchase a new 1956 Ford for 20 % down and $56. 00 a month for 3 years. The program was a huge success and more than 75,000,000 cars were sold and his district secured the first place in sales. Lee also undertook the challenge of the Fairlane Committee, which was responsible for producing a new type of car. Lee analyzed the research data on demographics and buying capacity of Americans and concluded that the car must be small, but needed to hold 4 passengers. There would be a 2500 LB limit, and the cost could not exceed $2,500. 00 with equipment. The end product was the 1964 Mustang (Iacocca, 1984). Iacocca Lee was a good leader who used good marketing research data, surrounded himself with good people, and was open to new ideas. Lee became President of Ford on December 10, 1970. He initiated a program called â€Å"Shuck the Losers†. This program gave managers 3 years to make their departments profitable or sell them off (Iacocca, 1984). This shows that Lee was also highly competitive in approach and stern when he had to be. Though there were many successful projects while he was at Ford, by the end of 1975, Lee started having personal conflicts with Henry Ford II. Lee was fired in July of 1978 and thereafter he joined Chrysler on November 2, 1978. Lee found that Chrysler had a problem in its communication style and team work. He reduced his salary to $1 per year and bargained with the union for cuts in salary and benefits. First, Iacocca announced plant closures, job layoffs, and his plans for the company. His next move was cutting several large models, which were heavily unprofitable, and put the subcompact Dodge Omni and Plymouth Horizon into production. The Omni and Horizon became instant hits, selling over 300,000 units each their debut year (Iacocca, 1988). By 1983 Lee turned around the fortunes of Chrysler and repaid all government loans. Lee made a public statement, â€Å"We at Chrysler borrow money the old fashioned way. We pay it back. † At Chrysler, Iacocca not only overcame a $3. 3 billion deficit but capped it with another $3. 3 billion profit between 1982 and 1984. That represents a net gain of $6. 6 billion, or an average increase in earnings of $6 million per day over the previous period (Harmon and Jacobs, 2006). The administrative style of Lee Iacocca is based on tapping the hidden power of organizations. He peeled â€Å"the encrusting layers of dead habits, vested interests, outmoded strategies and inertia and removed the lid on an enormous reservoir of productive energies. He did it by firing 33 of the company’s 35 vice-presidents and allowing long-suppressed ideas, energies, and talents to rise to the surface† (Harmon and Jacobs, 2006). Thus Lee was responsible for discovering the potential of organizational power. This discovery not only brought into use hidden potentials but also created new possibilities. The administrative style of Lee Iacocca enabled organizational power to maximize the productive and efficient utilization of ideas, resources, energies, and opportunities. He combined the organization power with his personal talents at communication, decision-making, motivating, time management, flexible approach in leading, and innovation to achieve great success as a leader. Lee Iococca, after his successful career at The Ford Motor Company and Chrysler, said, â€Å"I seized the opportunity, but I was no ninety-day wonder. It took me almost forty years of hard work. † This then, was the main reason behind his success.

Web site design Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Web site design - Essay Example Customers engage personally with the company through making their orders online. As such, they can specify the exact requirements of their order, i.e. the color, flavor, taste and type of the Pizzas they want through the online platform, just as simply as making an order at a brick and mortar restaurant. This web site enabled PizzaHut to transform significantly from operating as a Quick Serve Restaurant (QSR) to an elevated online retailer providing convenience and efficiency to its customers. Once the customers make an order through the PizzaHut.com website, the company takes upon the duty of delivering their orders at their preferred premises within the stipulated times (Butler, 2012). Several elements of website design exist that a company should incorporate in order to make its website a success. As such, PizzaHut.com also had to engage these in developing its site. These include the website context, the website content, the website customization, the website communications, the website commerce, website communities on site, and the website connection designs elements. PizzaHut.com incorporates all these elements in a great deal. For instance, the website context provides its customers with the ability to make online purchases and order without necessarily having to go to the restaurants. The website content is rich enough to enable the customers make an informed purchase, i.e. includes offers of the day, special deals and promotional campaigns hosted by the company. Website customization enables clients to customize their orders according to their tastes and preferences, such as express checkout and movie night offers. In addition, website communications come with ease of using the site, i.e. its color, style and appearance, thereby enabling shoppers to do easy shopping. Website commerce supports the business wing of the company enabling shoppers to make purchases through various applications such as on Facebook, on twitter, on iPhones and

The Recent Global Financial Crisis Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

The Recent Global Financial Crisis - Essay Example The current study focuses on a discussion and analysis of the recent global financial crisis and the consequent credit crunch in an international financial perspective, including the events leading up to the crisis, the economic and financial consequences, as well as the government responses and lessons to be learnt. Events Leading to the Incidence of the Global Financial Crisis: The global crisis was initiated in the mortgage lending market in the US, the problem arising with the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation deciding not to pay for mortgages that involved high risks. Secondly, the bankruptcy filed by New Century Financial Corporation that remained a primary lender of mortgages for customers who were riskier in nature. With the occurrence of these incidents, the house prices started dripping down and foreclosures started increasing. With the increases in the risk factors and the fall in asset prices, the financial institutions feared the payments of interests and apprehensi on of severe losses prevailed. Although Federal Reserve had taken some initiatives in this context to assist the financial firms, however, the fall in prices of the assets could not be held back. Gradually the crisis affected the banking industry in the nation reflected by the bankrupt conditions of Lehman Brothers as well as purchase of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America in the midst of government not prepared to bail out all banks. The financial markets gradually became highly unstable with severe fall in stock markets (Marshall, 2009, pp.7-8). Some of the primary events leading to the global crisis can be outlined as follows: August 9, 2007- The intimation of liquidity crisis followed by addition of capital by Fed and European Central Bank. March 2008- Bear Stearns was rescued by the Fed. September 8, 2008- Fannie and Freddie were nationalized by the treasury. September 15, 2008- Bankruptcy filed by Lehman Brothers (assets of $600 billion being the largest in the history of the US). September 16, 2008- Fed made bridge loans to the largest insurance company in the world, A.I.G. October 3, 2008- Bailout policy passed out by the government; Treasury was given the authority to spend $700 billion. With all these above mentioned events gradually occurring, the stock prices fell rapidly accompanied by fall in real housing prices by about 30 percent from 2006 to 2008 (Historical Context, n.d.). Economic and Financial Consequences of the Global Recession: The severity of the global recession has had its impacts on the prices of assets, the productions as well as the employment. These effects were not only restricted to the US but spread across the world with differences in the levels of their impacts. The most significant of these has been the impact on the debts and creditworthiness of companies and that the crisis led companies to encounter difficulty in performing exports and earn gains following their settled plans (Reinhart, 2009). Three particular consequenc es could be realized from the global recession. These included: (i) the rising debt, the household debt in particular; (ii) the possibility of a comeback to an insecurity with respect to international

Paradoxical Thinking Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 1

Paradoxical Thinking - Research Paper Example In this case, scientists are the best examples of people who practice paradox thinking in their daily life. Paradoxical thinking is based on suspicion and the internal feeling that the outcome of a certain thing, idea or experiment will turn out to be exactly as expected. Although the method might be the opposite of the normal or natural way of doing, the outcome should turn out to be the same or better than when the normal procedure is used. Paradoxical thinking is believed to produce extraordinary outcomes. An example of a brilliant demonstration of paradoxical thinking is by a famous scientist known as Faraday back in the 1830s. He discovered that when a current is moving through a wire, it bares the effect of deflection a magnetized needle thus can be applicable to a compass needle. He used this idea to create an electric motor which is currently used in electric transformers. The current world market has a lot of competition. Ideas are being generated every day and the technology keeps on advancing with the change in time. New products appear in the market everyday with manufacturers trying to outdo each other by modernism their products to meet the needs of the consumer. This has called for the alert of every company in order not to be left aside with the emerging trends of technology. Paradoxical thinking plays a key role in ensuring that the goods produced by various companies merge the current technology and are suitable to the consumers. Most companies have maintained their high performances in the world market because of using paradoxical thinking as a tool to outdo their competitors. The concept of this form of thinking is simply to do things the opposite of the intended way. This helps the company be unique and unpredictable. The Coca-Cola Company is one of the companies which have a team of staff who have mastered the art of paradoxical thinking. The

Health and Health Care Policy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Health and Health Care Policy - Essay Example s preventive care and specialized medical services to patients admitted in hospitals and also for those patients who are being transferred by ambulances. NHS also covers dental and mental care along with rehabilitation. Measures have been adopted to alleviate costs to prevent undue pressure on certain section of the society. Cost of conveyance to and from medical centers for low income people are covered by the government. The first step that a patient can take is to consult a General Physician (GP) who can then prescribe for secondary care services. General Physicians get paid by salary, capitation and service fees under primary care trusts. Hospitals which are organised by NHS trusts are controlled by the Department of Health (â€Å"The UK Health Care System†, 1). In UK there are several bodies set up for the purpose of monitoring and assessing the quality of health care services provided by the public and private providers. This is done by the process of regular assessment of key areas of health care and if necessary recommendations are made for the best practices. A new framework has been introduced in 2004 to assess the health care service provided by the GPs. They are awarded with points based on how well they organize their practices and how the patients evaluate their surgical experiences. Other things that are considered are extra services provided by the GPs like â€Å"child health and maternity† and how chronic diseases like asthma and diabetes are treated. (â€Å"The UK Health Care System†, 2) The major function of National Health Service has always been to find means to improve efficiency of health care service. The UK government has set up Gershon Efficiency Program to improve efficiency of health care service. The activities of the program include â€Å"front-line productivity, centralizing procurement to obtain more cost-effective deals, reductions in the costs of both NHS provider and central administration and increasing the efficiency of social care