Industrial Networks Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Industrial Networks - Essay Example After an in-depth perusal of this book it is possible to glean that it covers a wide array of subject matter with its multiple authorship and pertains to a discussion of the common model of the industrial networks philosophy with the role of its main protagonists in the form of business individuals and organisations who have to continuously interact with each other with in the corporate environment and this very interaction would then constitute a framework for understanding the continuum of this interaction and the relevant exchange processes.The question which is explored as a theme through out this book is whether the certainty arising from the growth of long term relationships means that the actors will get will reduce transaction risks in business relationships as well as the investment risks arising from informal distribution. The basic aim of the stren... The basic aim of the strengthening of these relationships, as can be understood from the pith and substance of this book is realise the prospects of the ability of exploiting business sources which are closely linked to each other in terms of Functional interdependence,power and knowledge structures and intemporal dependence.Functional interdependence with in the terminology of this text exists due to the heterogeneity of the consumer base which would then require an equally heterogeneous supply from resources, and the protagonists of the business world.Furthermore in the context of the power structure it may be stated that the power structure is the degree of control and resources in the hands of the various actors and may or may not always be equally distributed and this will have a major impact upon the over all overall structure and decisions taken with in the network.Thirdly we have the impact of the knowledge structure which is described by the authors as amounting to the depen dence upon the limited knowledge and resources available to the actors.Last there is intemporal dependence with this so called industrial network which pertains to a large number of investments in business networking,PR and the infrastructure and since this book talks about network change there is a chance that we are looking at something which aids a smoother transition and more grounded in past industrial practice. The industrial network theory Basically when we are looking at the industrial network theory it can be seen that there is indeed a trilogy of the interaction, relationship and network research with in the industrial interaction in Business to Business dealings and it can be said that while this book is almost two decades old to the context of modern business

U.S involvement in Colombia Drug War Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

U.S involvement in Colombia Drug War - Essay Example In that direction, the US authorities starting from 1980s focused on stopping the flow of drugs into the US from South America, particularly Columbia. Although, the US authorities initiated covert measures earlier, it was in the late 1990s, the US and the Columbian government officially formalized their anti-drug strategy under the term called Plan Columbia. So, the US’ involvement in Colombia under War on Drugs will be focused here, starting with the discussion of Columbia’s drug background and the early US strategy, followed by military and other actions taken by the US and Columbia as part of Plan Columbia, and finally the results of that plan. Drugs abuse is one of the serious social problems that has affected and is still affecting many societies of the world. Apart from social impacts, it is manifesting into political and even military issue, particularly when the activity of drug trafficking is focused. Drugs that are cultivated and processed in South American countries are mainly trafficked into the United States. Among those countries, Columbia is one of the prominent ones from where there is an increased flow of drugs, further accentuated by internal conflicts. That is, Colombia has long been considered to be one of the most active markets for illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, and others and that illegal drug trade has contributed to it becoming a hotspot for rebel wars, social unrest, and other political, social, and economic problems. â€Å"The Colombian drug trade is estimated at $10 billion and presently accounts for 43 percent of global coca supply (as well as smaller amounts of marijuana and heroin poppy) .

An Overview Of Indian Bank Base Rates Finance Essay

An Overview Of Indian Bank Base Rates Finance Essay Abstract The paper deals about the issues arising out of implementing base rate for Indian banks. With effect from July 1st, 2010, all banks are supposed to lend at base rate or minimum level of interest rate to customers. The net impact of this for retail customer will not be much as cost of funds for banks are not going to change much and cost of funds determine base rate. Big corporates will be biggest losers as they had advantage of getting loans at sub-base rates. Biggest gainers will be small and medium firms who were getting raw deal earlier from banks. Banks may lose market share in short term but there is going to be greater transparency and trickling down of policies made by RBI across banks due to base-rate system. Game theory has been applied to explain the base rate transition scenario in the paper. Keywords- Base Rate, Private Bank, BPLR, Game Theory, Net Income Margin(NIM) Biographical Notes- Debasis Kumar Dash is a post Graduate from IIT Madras in field in Micro-electronics and VLSI. He is currently doing his MBA from IIM Kozhikode with Majors in finance. His major areas of interest are financial derivatives, Valuation models, risk management and banking sector. He has undertaken several finance projects in field of risk management, corporate finance and financial services. He worked as an intern in KPMG Global Services where he developed a model for Customer acquisition strategy for a financial services firm Introduction The base rate will be the new reference rate for determining lending rates for banks, and will be implemented three months later than earlier planned. It was implemented from July 1 across banks in India. What is the base rate- If you borrow money to buy a Mercedes car or computer or plush bungalow in Mumbai suburbs, you need to pay interest rate that you have to pay to the lender. The base rate is the minimum rate that a bank will offer money at. It is like a floor below which RBI will not allow banks to lend to you. Previously, banks used to give the loans based on a complex system called benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR). Each bank has its own BPLR calculation system which made it difficult for borrowers to compare rates across banks. Why Base Rate Was Introduced- Banks in India charge their largest corporate borrowers less than published prime rates, which they cannot do on new loans from July 1st,2010. The RBI had expressed concern over banks offering short-term loans well below their prime rates to companies and mortgage borrowers. Similar pattern had given rise to Sub-prime crisis in 2008 which had led to financial downturn. Due to competition, banks have been offering loans to first class borrowers with high credit rating at rates much below the BPLR in a non-transparent manner. Banks were charging higher rates from small borrowers in the retail, small business and agriculture segments. This resulted in cross- subsidization.RBI has been concerned about the lack of transparency in BPLR setting. There have been cases when SMEs faced discrimination due to credit policies of Private Banks. Trend has been whenever RBI raises policy rates and reserve ratios, banks are quick to increase their loan rates. But, when RBI reduces policy rates and reserve ratios, banks respond very slowly. This leads to downward stickiness in rates. It adversely impacts the monetary transmission mechanism in the banking system. One important aspect also is BPLR was set on historical market rates. It was backward looking rather than forward looking. It was not able to capture the present market condition and interest rates. Cost of Deposits prevalent in current market scenario was neglected in fixing the rate. Standardization of rates was another issue for RBI .The 3 major players in Banking Industry in India are- Public Banks, Private Banks and Foreign Banks. The Public banks were lending in range of 11-12 %, private players were lending at 14-17% whereas foreign banks used to lend in the range of 14-16%. Now major corporates were still prefering private banks due to better customer service, credit policies and sub-prime lending for big projects. One huge reason with the introduction of BRS as explained by experts is that it will help the Reserve Bank of India to transfer the changes in policy rates (Repo and Reverse Repo under LAF) in a better manner to banks. Under the BPLR, monetary policy transmission is weak due to lack of transparency. This has been detailed out elaborately by Deepak Mohanty Committees Report. Now, with the BRS, RBI expects that banks will respond immediately to RBIs policy rates Base Rate Implementation and Impacts- After the implementation of the new loan pricing system, existing borrowers would continue to pay at existing rates, while the base rate would apply to new customers. The actual lending rate charged to borrowers would be the base rate+ borrower-specific charges including operating costs, according to draft guidelines on the RBI website. The base rate will be more transparent in so far as it will be a function of the banks costs on its capital (or cost of deposits), operating costs, statutory requirements (CRR, SLR etc), credit-risk of the borrower, and the allowable profit margin. The graphs below give trends across the various players in banking sector with respect to cost associated with deposits. Fig-1- Variation of Cost of Deposits Fig 2- Variation of Cost of Funds The trend clearly shows that Cost of deposits is highest for old private banks. Thus by logic, the base rate should be highest for these banks. Similarly, the base rate can be expected to be low for foreign and public banks. The biggest impact is that the new Base Rates from private banks may be lower than the existing Benchmark Prime Lending Rates (BPLR). Due to heavy competition in the industry, some aggressive public banks, whose cost of deposits/funds is lower compared to industry levels, may peg their Base Rates very low. However the RBI Governor as well as several Banks heads are of the opinion that base rate is not going to vary much for retail customers from BPLR. The following graphs show the base rate, BPLR and differences between the rates for the 3 major players. Fig-3- Variation of Rates across Private Banks Fig-4- Variation of Rates across Public Banks Fig-5- Variation of Rates across Foreign Banks Effects on Banks The major categories of Banks mentioned above are expected to be expected in different ways. The graphs shown above indicate that the difference between BPLR and Base rate is maximum for Private banks. Clearly they are at a loss compared to Public and foreign Banks. The problem for private banks is their high cost of Funds and Deposits. So ideally their base rates should be higher compared to Public banks. But if they would have set base rates higher, it would have resulted in loss of customers. So the Net Interest Margin(NIM) for private banks will be affected in short term. The biggest gainers definitely are foreign banks who have the least difference between BPLR and Base rate. Customer attrition should be at a minimum for these banks as change is not significant. Public Banks normally have lower cost of funds and thus can afford low base rates. There is not much change in NIM expected for them due to changing rates. Private Banks can cut competition by offering premium service levels. They can attract corporates by offering value added services and concessions. The other strategy can be to give priority to clients who are financing for projects for national importance and concessions to pay in smaller installments for longer duration. Effects of Base-Rate Loans for Customers- Let us see three major players in customer segment- Retail, Corporate and SME . The critical thing is interest rates are not going to change much for retail customer. The method of calculating interest rates will be clearer to a retail customer but not much effect on EMI for a retail customer. There will not be much impact on banks interest spreads. Banks will have flexibility in controlling loan-pricing elements, like credit risks premium and product specific operating costs. As per various analysis done by experts, Cost of borrowing for Retail customer may decrease in short term but not significantly. Large private corporates will be biggest losers in this process. They were able to get away with sub-prime lending rates in the past due to higher negotiating skills. But with BRS, the corporate might have to go for Bond markets in short term. The other alternatives before them are ECB which have lower borrowing costs. Use of Commercial paper has shown significant growth in the first quarter of this year. It clearly indicates banks losing high networth customers to cheaper sources of finance. Long term impact will be that higher rating companies will have more negotiating power. Let us say Bank A offered loans at 6% previously to Corporates. Now base rate becomes 7.5%. So they now cant be given short term loans below say 8% for a period of 2 years. Previous loans which were given before base rate stays. Now say in money market, CP( Commercial Paper) is being offered at rates of 6.5%. So big corporates will move towards debt market. It will result in loss of market share and credit loans for banks. It will also lead to intense competition. SMEs will be biggest beneficiaries of this project. SMEs will be better compensated than before. They were getting short-changed because of better deals for big corporates. Now they will be willing to go to banks for getting loans. As SMEs form substantial market, so market share of banks will increase. Game Theory Applied to Base Rate Implementation- Below are Payoff Matrix applied to 3 categories of Bank and 3 categories of Customer. 1. Customer Retail Corporate SME BPLR 10,8 10,10 10,5 Public Bank Base 10,9 8,5 8,10 The retail customer is having higher payoff but it is not significant. SMEs are largest beneficiary. Corporates are leaving public bank, thus payoff of banks decreasing whereas larger base rate means lesser payoff for corporate. 2. Customer Retail Corporate SME BPLR 10,8 10,10 10,5 Private Bank Base 8,9 5,5 5,10 The retail customer is having higher payoff but it is not huge. Significantly, there is lower payoff for Private banks due to high cost of funds and rising competition from debt market. SMEs are largest beneficiary. Corporates are looking for alternatives to higher base rate , thus payoff of corporate decreases. 3. Customer Retail Corporate SME BPLR 10,8 10,10 10,5 Foreign Bank Base 10,10 7,7 10,5 The retail customer and SME are not affected.SME are not big market-share holders of foreign banks and hence do not affect payoff. Corporates are leaving foreign bank, thus payoff of banks decreasing whereas larger base rate means lesser payoff for corporate who are staying with public banks. The decrease however is not as significant as of private banks due to reasons explained earlier in the paper. Main advantages of Base rate syatem- Greater control for RBI in transferring effects of Repo rates to banks More transparency for customers in knowing about base rate as it is based on cost of funds. Stoppage of sub-prime loans to bigger corporate. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) may get better rates. The SMEs and small borrowers are subsidizing the corporate loans. Deregulation of interest rates as banks will stop lending at lower rates to loans below Rs 2 lakhs. RBI has given freedom to banks to charge commercial rates for loans below Rs 2 lakh at rates linked to base rate. With this, RBI wants to increase the credit flow to small borrowers. Increase in liquidity of banks. As loans are not doled out on sub-prime rates, more money is left with banks. Conclusion Banks have to adjust to new system as quickly as possible. Cost of funds will play huge role in determination of base rates. Banks also need to look into new avenues for service quality in order to retain old customers. Old private banks face stiff competition from foreign and public banks. The need of hour for bank is product innovation and better customer service to differentiate itself from the rest of banks.

Free College Essays - Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale the Wuss in Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter :: Scarlet Letter essays

The Scarlet Letter: Dimmesdale the Wuss "But (Hester) is not the protagonist; the chief actor, and the tragedy of The Scarlet Letter is not her tragedy, but Dimmesdales. He it was whom the sorrows of death encompassed_. His public confession is one of the noblest climaxes of tragic literature." This statement by Randall Stewart does not contain the same ideas that I believe were contained within The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne. I, on the contrary to Stewart's statement, think Dimmesdale is a coward and a hypocrite. Worse, he is a self-confessed coward and hypocrite. He knows what he has to do to still the voice of his conscience and make his peace with God. Throughout the entire story his confession remains an obstacle . While Hester is a relatively constant character, Dimmesdale is incredibly dynamic. From his fall with Hester, he moves, in steps, toward his public hint, at the end of the novel, of sinning. He wants to unburden himself by revealing his sin to his congregation, but somehow can never quite manage this. He is a typical example of a "wuss", using today’s terminology. To some extent, Dimmesdale's story is one of a single man tempted into the depths of the hormonal world. This world, however, is a place where the society treats sexuality with ill grace. But Dimmesdale’s problem is enormously complicated by the fact of Hester's marriage (for him no technicality), and by his own image of himself as a cleric devoted to higher things. Unlike other young men, Dimmesdale cannot accept his loss of innocence and go on from there. He must struggle futilely to get back to where he was. Torn between the desire to confess and atone for his sin and the cowardice that holds him back, Dimmesdale goes slightly mad. He takes up some morbid forms of penance, fasts and scourgings, but he can neither whip nor starve the sin from his soul. In his agony, he staggers to the pulpit to confess, but his words come out as generalized and meaningless declarations of guilt. The reverend seems to want to reveal himself, but Chillingworth's influence and his own shame are stronger than his weak conscience. Dimmesdale cannot surrender an identity which brings him the love and admiration of his parishioners. He is far too intent on his earthly image to willingly reveal his sin.

Changes in Business Environment

Anyone who is familiar with the major organizations in their area probably has observed firsthand how dramatically the business environment has changed in recent years. These changes have had a significant impact on organizational efforts to be successful. In practically every instance organizations have tried to more clearly identify and then focus on factors that impact their success. One factor that seems to be receiving more attention than any other are the people who work for organizations. What organizations are realizing is that their likelihood of sustained success is most dependent on learning to get the maximum out of their employees. Such a realization has had a significant impact on the practice of human resources management (HRM). What's more, business forecasters predict that the role of employees, managers, and HRM personnel are likely to see more changes in the decades ahead. Thus, individuals entering the business environment today (and tomorrow) require both an understanding of the importance of human resources and effective HRM to organizational success. As we move further into the twenty-first century, it's becoming absolutely clear that the effective management of an organization's human resources is a major source of competitive advantage and may even be the single most important determinant of an organization's performance over the long term. Organizations have started to realize that their success is dependent on their ability to attract, develop, and retain talented employees. Robert Reich emphasizes this point when he suggests that in the future, the organization's ability to attract, develop, and retain a talented workforce will be a critical factor in developing a high-performance organization. The long-term, sustained success of an organization in today's changing and challenging business environment involves top management's commitment to designing and implementing HRM programs geared to developing both high-performing employees and organizations. This means that top management anticipates the future need for employees and develops specific plans to obtain, develop, and retain the type of employees who meet the needs of a high-performing organization. Only by anticipating and working toward the development and retention of the right type of employees can any organization expect to be successful in a global, dynamic, and continuously changing competitive environment. An important element of organizational success is an HRM strategy where every manager is an HRM manager. For example, every manager must be expected to set goals for the development and satisfaction of employees. Second, every employee is viewed as a valuable resource, just like buildings and equipment. The organization's success is dependent upon high-performing employees, and without such employees there is no competitive advantage for the organization. Finally, through effective HRM programs the organization's goals are successfully integrated with individual employee needs. It is the thesis of this paper that HRM will continue to be an important element in achieving organizational success in the years to come. What makes one organization successful whereas another fails to make use of the same opportunities? For our purposes, the key to continued survival and organizational success lies not in the rational, quantitative approaches, but increasingly in a commitment to things like people, employee involvement, and commitment. Success for the organizations of today and tomorrow is being increasingly seen as dependent on effective HRM. Effective HRM positively affects performance in organizations, both large and small. Human resources management is the term increasingly used to refer to the philosophy, policies, procedures, and practices related to the management of an organization's employees. While a great deal of research has been devoted to identifying the sources of workplace stress and its links to adverse health and organizational outcomes, little has been done to focus on interventions to improve working environments. In reviewing the practice overall of stress prevention and intervention at the workplace, three conclusions may be drawn. First, although there is a considerable amount of activity in the field of stress management, â€Å"it is disproportionally concentrated on reducing the effects of stress, rather than reducing the presence of stressors at work. † (Kahn & Byosiere, 1992) To put it differently, stress management activities focus on secondary and tertiary prevention, rather than primary prevention. Whereas the latter involves interventions aimed at eliminating, reducing or altering stressors in the working situation, the former two are aimed at the effects of stress, with secondary prevention concerning the helping of employees (who are already showing signs of stress) from getting sick (for example, by increasing their coping capacity); and tertiary prevention concerning treatment activities for employees with serious stress-related health problems (for example, stress counseling/employee assistance programmers, the rehabilitation after long-term absenteeism). Second, most activities are primarily aimed at the individual rather than at the workplace or the organization, in other words, a worker-oriented approach, for instance, by improving employees' skills to manage, resist or reduce stress, as opposed to a job or organization-oriented approach, for instance, by job redesign or in some way changing the corporate culture or management style. Moreover, as Kahn and Byosiere (1992) conclude in their literature review: ‘Even the programs that aim at stress inhibition tend to address subjective rather than objective aspects of the stress sequence; almost none consider the organizational antecedents (policy and structure) that intensify or reduce the presence of objective stressors' (p. 633). A third peculiarity in the practice of stress prevention concerns the lack of a systematic risk assessment (‘stress audit', identifying risk factors and risk groups) as well as of serious research into the effects of all these activities (Kahn and Byosiere, 1992). In the words of Kahn and Byosiere (1992): ‘The programs in stress management that are sold to companies show a suspicious pattern of variance; they differ more by practitioner than by company. When practitioners in any field offer sovereign remedies regardless of the presenting symptoms, patients should be wary' (p. 23). Against the background of (1) clear evidence of the relationship between psychosocial work characteristics and health , (2) national and international legislation that put the emphasis on risk assessment and combating risks by changing the stressful situation, and (3) the basic idea of prevention, that is, eliminating the stress producing situation (prevention at the source), the current practice of stress prevention and intervention seems disappointing. Given the current status of stress prevention, a question that deserves attention is why it is that companies express a preference for ‘post hoc' individual-directed interventions, as opposed to primary or job/organizational interventions. At least four factors seem to contribute to this rather one-sided ‘individual'-oriented approach : 1 Senior managers are often inclined to blame personality and lifestyle factors of employees who are absent from work or report health complaints, rather than the job or organizational factors, for which they are responsible. Senior management also often point to the potential role of stressful life events (family problems such as a divorce or the loss of a beloved), or responsibilities and obligations in the family life (raising children for example). Of course, on the micro-level (i. e. on the level of the individual employee) stressors at work are often accompanied by stressors in one's family situation, but because of the mutual influence and spill-over between both domains, the causes and consequences can hardly be disentangled. Furthermore, holding individual characteristics responsible for differences in experienced stress, one cannot explain why some occupations show significantly more stress complaints and higher sickness absence rates than others. A risk attached to this view is that the employee is regarded as being ‘guilty' of his or her own health problems, that is ‘blaming the victim', with the potential threat in the workplace being overlooked. 2 The second reason may be found in the nature of psychology itself, with its emphasis on subjective and individual phenomena. Many psychology-oriented stress researchers are primarily interested in stress as a subjective and individual phenomenon. To some extent, this may be a legacy of the strong tradition in psychology to focus on individual differences (i. e. differential psychology), and on individual counseling and therapy (i. e. clinical psychology). In this context, a warning seems appropriate against ‘psychologism', that is, the explanation of (a sequence of) societal events from an individual-psychic point of view. Because of this orientation, the potential impact of more ‘objective' or ‘collective' risk factors in the work situation (e. . poor management, work-overload and bullying), may go unnoticed and untreated. In stress research, there is a gap between what ‘theory' preaches (that is, properly designed longitudinal studies, involving a randomized control group, collecting both subjective and objective measures that are analyzed properly with statistical techniques), and what is possible in practice. One of the main reasons for this gap is the difficulty of conducting methodological ‘sound' interventions and evaluation studies in an ever-changing organizational environment. In the 1990s, not only the context of work is rapidly changing, but also ‘work' itself. Work organizations are in a constant state of change, due, in part, to new production concepts (for example, team based work, lean production methods, telework), ‘the flexible workforce' concept, the 24-hour economy, the increased utilization of information technology, and the changing structure of the work force (for example, more women working). These changes clearly affect the work behavior of employees, work group processes, as well as the organizational structure and culture. As a consequence, it is practically impossible to find two companies with comparable stress problems at the beginning of any intervention programme, of which the control company agrees not to undertake any action for a period of three or four years (the period a researcher might like to choose for an intervention project). A related problem is that it is often not in a company's interest to facilitate ‘sound scientific research' in the context of an ongoing business, involving interlopers from outside (i. e. researchers) and detailed data collection on the scene of sometimes confidential information. Senior managers can regard research of this kind as a nuisance to the primary organizational processes and objectives. 4 A fourth factor may be found in the discipline segregation within stress research, with a tendency of researching to neglect the collection of more objective data on the impact of stress and its prevention. Work and organizational psychologists concentrate primarily on ‘soft' outcome variables (e. g. motivation, satisfaction, effect and health complaints), and are well-known for their questionnaire-oriented approach. Traditionally, it has been observed that stress researchers are reluctant to co-operate with economists. For instance in order to study the potential ‘hard' outcome measures (that would include productivity, sickness absence rates and accident rates), as well as the financial effects of interventions. To put it differently, a history of gaining empirical insight in costs and benefits is merely lacking in stress research. Research in the field should in the future include some of the following: first, stress researchers should not only address ‘soft' outcome variables (for example, motivation and satisfaction), but extend their focus to also include ‘hard' outcome variables (for example, productivity and sickness absenteeism). Whereas work and organizational psychologists have often stated that an adequate stress prevention programme may positively affect productivity and sickness absenteeism, until now they have not laid down a sufficiently strong empirical foundation for this position. For too long, stress prevention advocates have based their arguments on a moral or humanistic appeal to the good employer (that is, on ‘industrial charity'), or on legal regulations (for example, working conditions legislation). It is beyond doubt that these are important and strong arguments. Still, it may well be that they are not enough, since these arguments are not those that primarily affect senior management, who are more ‘bottom line' driven. Second, in order to increase the impact of stress prevention in the workplace, more emphasis should be placed on such factors as the quality of product and services, organizational flexibility, continuity, absenteeism, productivity, labor market facets and improved competitivity; and for there to be a multi-disciplinary approach rather than the traditional mono-disciplinary one (for example, co-operation with economists and ergonomists). And finally, the demonstration of examples of good preventive practice is considered as a sine qua non for developing effective stress prevention procedures and for the involvement of both social partners in this field (i. e. employers and employees). Stress has always been a topic of concern for business and industry. Health educators, in response to this concern, have offered a variety of stress management or stress reduction programs. However, McGehee points out that her discussion is not about what stress is or how stress can be managed or the latest research in stress management. The literature on these topics is profuse and easy to locate. Rather, she is concerned with the nature of stress management programs inside companies that have decided to make stress management a part of their employee development. Her discussion includes the reason behind a management program, the format of stress management programs, the selection of a stress management program, work issues and stress management, and the management of the stress response. Although stress has been a constant concern, a serious and growing problem in industry today is burnout. Klarreich relates his health education program on burnout, which was extremely well received in his organization. He describes the nature of burnout, the myths associated with this phenomenon, and the societal and familial influences that contribute to this problem. He delineates a number of steps to â€Å"put out the fire. † These include self-appraisal, alteration of expectations, communication to establish social support, and determination of a behavioral option. He indicates that the healthy employee of the future will be a â€Å"hardy employee. † Achieving excellence in the workplace has become the passion of most North American corporations. Pulvermacher presents a unique health education program, which he delivers as a workshop, to many corporate employees. He states that pursuing excellence requires the application of several fundamental skills. He reviews effective goal setting strategies, methods for avoiding the trap of perfectionism, techniques for managing self-defeating attitudes and beliefs, harnessing stress advantageously, increasing one's self-discipline, managing conflict constructively, and communicating effectively. A variety of reasons for implementing stress management programs are ascribed to by the companies currently doing so. The major reasons include reducing health costs, improving productivity, and boosting employee morale. In many cases, stress management is part of a wellness program. Stress-related disorders, including certain headaches, stomach disorders, chronic muscular pain, cardiac and respiratory conditions, and psychosomatic complaints have been linked to a large percentage of doctor's office visits and hospital tests and admissions. One goal of stress management programs is to provide alternate ways to respond to stress, to prevent potential disorders, and ultimately to reduce health costs. Stress level has been found to be linked to worker productivity. At moderate amounts of stress, performance is at its highest. Stress in moderate amounts, such as from reasonable deadlines, a focus on quality, rational performance rating systems, a system of accountability, often motivates performance. When stress rises to higher levels and a number of stressors are affecting the individual, performance deteriorates. At times of high stress, an individual is not as effective in solving problems, and on-the-job performance is negatively affected. The goal of stress management programs in this case is to provide ways in which employees can cope better with increasing stress and continue to perform well on the job. Stress management programs are usually popular with employees. Attendance at talks and workshops shows that the topic is a popular one. Many companies decide to implement these programs as morale boosters because they â€Å"can't hurt anything. † Stress management has become an integral part of most preventive medicine programs. These programs attempt to include education and training in a variety of ways so that the employees can safeguard their health.

Air Bnb Stakeholder Analysis Essay

Stakeholder description Airbnb is a peer-to-peer platform that provides accommodation for lodgers, and the possibility for people with unused living space to rent it out. The website offers anything from budget rooms, to luxury villas, which makes it a serious alternative to the hospitality industry. Prior to a business conference held in San Francisco, the two founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia decided to offer additional accommodation for the participants. Moreover, they offered them homemade breakfast, and a unique chance for them to do networking. Quickly, this became a success, and they even decided to accommodate three guests, in their own flat in SF. The two founders teamed up with the Harvard graduate Nathan Blecharczyk, and now they had ambitions. They mainly focussed on high-profile events, where there was a shortage of beds for the participants. They spotted the potential of their idea, and took advantage of the internet. A platform was created, that connected individuals that offered accommodation, as well as people that were looking for it. On the 11th of August, 2008 the website airbedandbreakfast.com (now airbnb.com) was launched. Other people realized the potential as well, and the three owners raised considerable amounts of money, to keep expanding and developing the business, in the US as well as abroad. Today, more than 9 million guests, in 34,000 cities, spanning across 192 countries have used the service. Airbnb has released some interesting growth figures, proving that 2012 was the year that Airbnb stopped being something people were talking about and started to be something (a lot of) people used. The company announced that 4 million total guests have now used Airbnb to book a night’s stay on the peer-to-peer lodging marketplace. A whopping 3 million of those guests used the service in 2012 alone. The company launched all the way back in 2007, so that should give you a clear picture of just how much growth Airbnb has seen in the past year. Airbnb has proven that its San Francisco user base is a financially powerful market for the company, but we shouldn’t forget that  Airbnb is a truly global marketplace, as people from over 150 different countries traveled on the service in 2012.