Final Portfolio Project - Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Final Portfolio Project - - Term Paper Example However, Apple is currently facing plenty of HR problems. Change is inevitable for Apple in its HR management to maintain its supremacy in the corporate world, especially in the consumer electronics industry. This paper is written as a change management plan for Apple Inc. The problem, the recommended change, and the goals of the recommended change The major problem associated with Apple Inc. is its poor handling of HR management. Apple has the habit of asking the employees to work overtime most of the times. They disrespect the modern concepts such as work life balancing of the employees. â€Å"The work culture in Apple is demanding and the employees forced to work for 60-70 hours per week. In other words, in Apple there was always more work to do than the employees and hence Apple encourages workaholics† (Qumer, 2009, p.7). Apple has the habit of threatening its employees; they warn the employees that the company is interested in employability rather than employment security . Moreover, Apple Inc. prefers individual work over team work even though modern scientific business management principles strongly support team work for improving productivity and efficiency of the employees and the company. Apple is keeping tight secrecy while developing new products. Even Apple employees may not get much information about the company’s strategies to develop new products. In other words, Apple Inc. is not taking its employees in confidence. â€Å"Apple employees know something big is afoot when the carpenters appear in their office building. New walls are quickly erected. Doors are added and new security protocols put into place. Windows that once were transparent are now frosted. Other rooms have no windows at all. They are called lockdown rooms: No information goes in or out without a reason† (Lashinsky, 2012). Qumer (2009) mentioned that â€Å"Unfairness in promotions and overall treatment is a common complaint in Apple Company† (Qumer, 200 9, p.15).Thus the mutual trust between the employees and Apple Company are significantly damaged because of the poor HR strategies. Apple Inc. should implement drastic changes in its HR management. They should learn lessons from their past experiences. Nadler & Nadler (1997) pointed out that downsizing occurred in Apple Computers in the 80’s and 90’s because of the absence of real organizational change (p.11). In fact Apple Company was on the verge of destruction during this period because of the reluctance of the management in implementing changes. However, the management realised their mistakes and implemented drastic changes during the beginning of 2000 and tasted big success. The same situation is prevailing now. The loss of Steve has created a vacuum at the top of the company. Leadership problems are already visible in Apple Inc. under such circumstances; reluctance in implementing changes in HR management may bring more harm than good. Instead of threatening the employees with respect to employment security, Apple should show more readiness to hear the problems of the employees and settling it. They should give more respect to work-life balancing of the employees and avoid overtime works as much as possible. Discriminations while deciding promotions should be avoided as much as possible. Moreover, the company should take its employees in confidence. They should try to reduce the gap between the company and the employees. Instead of individual work, Apple should encourage teamwork more so that the stress levels of the employees

Why do people help Essay Example for Free

Why do people help Essay Helping behavior is an important topic in social psychology. It is important to understand why people help, when they help and reasons for helping others. According to Kassin, pro-social behavior is an action intended to benefit others. The author also describes several factors of why people help. Among them, one is kin selection which is preferential helping of genetic relatives, which results in the greater likelihood that genes held in common will survive ( 2010, page 392). Another one is altruistic which is motivated by the desire to improve another’s welfare ( ). The author also describes the bystander effect in which the presence of others inhibits helping in an emergency indicates why the five steps necessary for helping—noticing, interpreting, taking responsibility, deciding how to help, and providing help. People are most likely to help others in certain circumstances: when they are not in rush. People who are in a good mood are more likely to help. Good mood makes people interpret events in a sympathetic way and it gives them more positive thoughts about helping behaviors. Also people in a bad mood can often increase helpfulness because they feel guilty about something and they may be motivated to help others in order to improve their mood. According to the article, â€Å"People help save man trapped in burning car† the author mentions how the residents in southwest Houston were helping to save a man’s life after he crashed his car into a tree, causing it to catch fire. The vehicle apparently hit a speed bump at a high rate of speed, and the driver lost control. The vehicle slammed into a tree head-on, and the car caught fire with the driver trapped inside. It was shortly before midnight Sunday in Houston. People were helping to save the man’s life. In this article, people were noticing the event, and interpreting it as an emergency. It also shows that this is not a diffusion of responsibility because people were taking the responsibility for proving help. They were taking the decision for providing help, and provided help. They started putting water on the blaze to keep it under control until firefighters arrived. The smoke was so intense that they had to take a brick and bust the window. The Houston Fire Department was able to put out the fire and cut away the vehicle’s door to get the driver out (Khou, April 15 2013). Khou believes the people in the community helped save the driver. The  situation can influence helping. When two explosions occurred along the stretch of the Boston Marathon on Boston street in Boston on April 15th, three people were killed and more than 170 people were injured. People and communities came together to respond and help the best they could. According to the article â€Å"6 Examples of Awesome People Helping Boston Marathon Victims† the author wrote about the heroic people who were helping Boston Marathon victims. Carlos Arredondo is one of them. Carlos was there and he jumped over a fence and ran towards the people lying on the ground and where he found spectator Jeff Bauman with his shirt on fire and the lower parts of his legs gone. Arredondo beat the flames out with his hands, tied a t-shirt around the stump of one of Bauman’s legs, and kept him company until emergency responders arrived (Olivia, April 17, 2013). Joe Andruzzi carried an injured woman to safety. Joe also had carried a man covered in blood to the medical tent. 15 National Guard Members who were assembled at the medical tent near the finish line. They had water, extra uniforms, and first-aid with them on their backpacks. Alyssa Carter raised more than $220,000 on the crowd funding website to help pay her cousins’ medical bills. Boston Restaurants have been donating food and letting people use their establishments as places to regroup (Olivia, April 17, 2013). All above the examples clearly shows that the norm of social responsibility is powerful situational factors that lead individuals to help others. The norm of social responsibility dictates that people should help those who are in need of assistance. This norm creates a sense of duty and obligation to which people respond by giving more help to those in greater need of it. The helpers who were helping after the two explosions noticed the event first and subsequently interpreted it as an emergency. As a result, they took the responsibility and provided help the best possible way they could. Jason said there are countless stories of selfless people who risk their lives to save others after the Boston Marathon explosion. Jason mentions how much people are willing to help. This clearly shows of altruism. Helping the victims could possibly harm the own life of the helper and not helping keeps away from harm. So it was altruistic because the cost outweighed the reward. It is important to understand pro-social behavior and how helping behavior can be increased. Understanding why people help may help to understand how helping behavior can be increased. Elaborate using examples  of where pro-social research can be applied in the real world and what information acquired through research can do to further the understanding of helping behavior?

Mentally Ill People :: essays research papers fc

Mentally Ill People People who are mentally ill and have committed a crime should not be court ordered to take medications. One reason why they shouldn’t is because of the side effects this medicine may cause. The second reason is because they might end up becoming addicted to this medicine. And the third reason is because taking the medication do not solve the reason why this person committed the crime it just sedates the person but the illness is still there. Nowadays over a 100 million people are taking a tranquilizer. One of the most common tranquilizers that are being used is Valium. Valium is the most profitable drug in history and it is used to treat anxiety. People taking Valium are about five and nine times more likely to get involved in accidents at work. Some of the side effects Valium cause are apathy, low blood pressure, lack of coordination, impaired intellectual functioning, loss of weight and it has also been related to violent outbursts. Valium is the most abused drug in the United States. Also the Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that people taking Valium are more often involved in drug related deaths and emergencies than heroin, marijuana or alcohol put together. Long-term use may cause atrophy of the brain. Also of 19.000 live births in the US found that birth defects were five times higher in babies whose mothers have been taking this medicine. After fifteen minutes of taking Valium people feel calm, relieved and secure but between doses they become fidgety. Taking Valium or court order someone to take Valium is not helping the individual who instead of talking out his/her problems and expressing his/her feelings these are just being repressed or ignored. After a while these individuals become addicted and end up with more troubles than the ones they had before taking anything. Mental illness was once considered to be a personal failing but now scientists know that is just a chemical imbalance. It is also known that stress and other factors may contribute to a person’s mental illness. Also it is proved that when people with mentally illness are more willing to cooperate if they are not forced into getting treatment.

A Home Depot Analysis

Final Exam Questions 1a. The way that Nardelli laid out his plan for change was one of the reasons I think it was so successful. He came in and addressed the problems that were easy to point out and also the ones that weren’t apparent to other employees. Nardelli needed to rebuild an organization that could easily compete with other big names, and this was relatively easy because the people at Home Depot knew the importance of taking advantage of its growing size. Nardelli did this by implementing a three strategy plan that involved enhancing the core, extending the business, and expanding the market.Nardelli’s first step in the process was enhancing the core. This involved improving the profitability of current and future stores, as well as in existing markets. From the article Heart of Change, I think that Kotter’s first step, increase urgency, relates the most to Nardelli’s first step. Kotter describes his first step like this; â€Å"A sense of urgency , sometimes developed by very creative means, gets people off the couch, out of the bunker, and ready to move† (Cohen and Kotter 690) essay writer life hacks. I think that this is what Nardelli was trying to make happen in his first step for change.He needed the people of the company to see what the issues were, and make a point to say that if we stay where are now, we will fall behind in a few years. This sense of urgency and improvement was the right step to getting Home Depot employees to care and start to make the best change for the company. The first step leads right into Nardelli’s second step which was, extend the business. Nardelli’s purpose with this step was to get employees to come up with ways to better serve the customers. This was to not only enhance customer service, but to become a standout figure among competitors.This was probably one of the most important steps and I think that Nardelli implemented it very well. I related this step to Kotterâ €™s fifth step of empowering action. I chose this because Kotter outlines this step as â€Å"Key obstacles that stop people from acting on the vision are removed† (Cohen and Kotter 697). The obstacle that Nardelli needed to remove was the similarities between his company and competitors. He did this by offering related home improvement services such as tool rental and home installation of products. This set them apart and allowed them to overcome that â€Å"obstacle† and continue to move forward.I think that this was the most important step because it represents the major ‘bump in the road’ that Home Depot needed to overcome in order to continue to keep growing. The final step in Nardelli’s plan was expanding the market. This was one of the easiest steps to correlate to Kotter because I think that it made the most sense, without specifically saying that same thing. Kotter’s seventh step of don’t let up is described as this; â€Å" a change effort will have direction and momentum†¦ build on this momentum and make a vision a reality†. (Cohen and Kotter 700).The whole point of Nardelli’s third step is to take what they have learned and implemented in the company thus far and expand geographically, even serve new kinds of customers. This was his way of carrying the momentum of success out as far as it could go, and making sure that Home Depot didn’t let their success slip through their fingers. This a very good move on Nardelli’s part, and attracting new customers such as commercial contractors and even women, made a huge impact on the overall morale, and success of the store. The only thing that I would have suggested Kotter adds to his plan, was the implementation of metrics.The Home Depot article talks about how in the beginning there was some harsh resistance to the change, â€Å"Resistance to the changes was fierce, particularly from managers: Much of the top executive team l eft during Nardelli’s first year† (Charan 64). Nardelli did use metrics, and they did make a difference. However, I think that if he had made them a part of his plan and used them earlier in the process they would have made an impression on the executives that did end up leaving. If Nardelli had used metrics I think that they would have correlated with Kotter’s fourth step, communicate for buy-in.This is described as â€Å"simple heartfelt messages sent through many unclogged channels† (Cohen and Kotter 697). Those metrics were the heartfelt messages that needed to be expressed to get people motivated even sooner. With my suggestion Nardelli’s plan should have looked like the following: Enhance the Core, Express Metrics, Extend the Business and Expand the market. Overall, I think that Nardelli did an excellent job, and that taking my advice, would have only yielded better results. 1b. When Nardelli first arrived at Home Depot, the culture was one th at was very close-knit and family oriented.I chose this term to describe the culture because the former CEO and chairman were often thought of as father figures by other employees; â€Å"Many employees simply couldn’t picture this company without these father figures† (Charan 63). When reading the article about Home Depot, there was one specific sentence that stood out to me because it described the pre-Nardelli culture very well, â€Å"It was marked by and entrepreneurial high-spiritedness, a willingness to take risks; a passionate commitment to customers, colleagues, the company, and to the community; and an aversion to anything that felt bureaucratic or hierarchical† (Charan 62-63).Looking specifically at this description of the culture, I can find characteristics that relate directly to low-context cultures, as well as to O’Reily, Chatman and Caldwell’s Cultural Characteristics. I came to the conclusion that the culture at Home Depot was a low- context culture specifically because high-context cultures are based largely on hierarchy. According to our class notes on culture low-context cultures are described as â€Å"cultures that focus on that which is explicit. People are specific and clear in their communication† (Culture Notes 1).This description fits the culture of Home Depot, not only because it strays away from hierarchy, but also because it was very much based on entrepreneurship; which requires specific and clear communication. I believe that the entrepreneurial high-spiritedness that is described above contributes to the feeling of a family oriented and close knit company. Relating the culture to the cultural characteristics of O’Reily, Chatman and Caldwell was relatively easy as well. Specifically there were three characteristics that stood out to me: innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, and people orientation.I chose these because of the way the culture is described. Innovation and risk taking is described as the degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks. Not only was it said outright that this was a characteristic of the company, but I feel as though the close-knit environment promoted this kind of thinking; making everyone feel comfortable and open to sharing their ideas. Attention to detail was not as direct as the previous example, but I related this to the description of entrepreneurial high-spiritedness.Attention to detail is described as the degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis and attention to detail. This definition drew me to lean towards entrepreneurship because I thought that all of the qualities listed are qualities that would be necessary to be a successful entrepreneur. Again, these are all characteristics that thrive in a close-knit family style culture. Finally, I chose people orientation. This is described as the degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organization.This definition not only relates to the passionate commitment to customers, colleagues, the company, and to the community part of the description, but it also relates to the definition of low context culture. I know that specifically people orientation talks about people within the company, but I think that part of the reason Home Depot was so successful was that it reached outside of the company to impact people’s lives. Lastly, a major part of the low-context culture definition is that people are specific and clear in their communication, and I believe that people orientation would not be successful if this were not a major factor.The pre-Nardelli culture was very easy to define, and point out specific aspects that made it easy to describe and compare. When talking about the post-Nardelli culture, the only thing that really stood out to me was a difference in the feel of the culture. By this I mean specifically it went from a c lose-knit, family style culture, to a big corporation style that is highly focused on building the organization to take advantage of its outrageous growth. Instead of focusing specifically on the people in and outside of the community, this post culture was a focus on merchandising and collaboration between regional and store operators.Everything was on a larger scale, and even little thinks such as shelf organization and signage were standardized and enhanced, so they were able to stay on the playing field with competitors such as Wal-Mart. While I think that this doesn’t change the fact that it is a low-context culture, because there is still a focus on people and communication and an avoidance of hierarchy, I do think that it changes some of the relatable characteristics of O’Reily, Chatman, and Caldwell’s cultural characteristics.I do not think that they lost innovation and risk taking, attention to detail and people orientation, but simply that the focus wa s significantly diminished. Instead a focus on team orientation and aggressiveness was emphasized. Team orientation is defined in our notes as the degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals. While the pre culture wasn’t so individually focused that it was everyman for himself, it’s that the post culture needed teams to make sure that all of the new projects like, merchandizing and reevaluation of the store environment, were successful.Finally for the post culture, there was a definite lean toward aggressiveness, which is defined in our notes as the degree to which people are aggressive and competitive rather than easygoing. I do not think that in the pre culture that they were quite on the level of stability from our culture notes, but that Nardelli promoted an environment that allowed people to be assertive and aggressive towards achieving more growth. For the most part I thought that pre- and post-Nardelli cultures were very si milar, minus the shift in focus from family business, to large corporation.

Mother and Mom

Though I admit the title of this essay is a bit generic and you have the right to assume â€Å"oh the author must be a mother’s boy† or â€Å"another essay for the mother’s day propaganda†. In this case my reminisce of my mother in the actual body of the text is not filled with only meager sentimentality or a message that we should all love our mothers, it is based on two convictions that are based off of thousands of years of painful human evolution.My first conviction is that the discovery of new knowledge can only come from the re-discovery of pre-existing knowledge- thus anything that you knew or already knew about the importance of our mothers that happens to be in the text will become new to you. My second conviction is that we take for granted what helps us, hurts us, and originates us. And since I brought up the word sentimentality I will bring my third conviction!We can’t always look at life from a purely philosophical basis, though the phi losophical basis is important for thinking, we must not forget those precious moments and experiences we share with our mothers when we were kids (that is if you had a loving mother- which unfortunately my mother didn’t). Thinking too much in a purely rigid philosophical-scientific basis causes us to be antisocial. From my experiences thinking too much in a purely sentimental way only makes us miss the past and scorn the future. Where on earth is that which makes me credible to state these convictions?Where can these convictions, be even discovered? They originate from most privileged people’s domain, only made possible by man’s discovery of fire- it is a place that comes alive when used and to the living acts as a double polarizable monism, its shape being a spiral- the kitchen. Every morning I would wake up completely focused and hell-bent on my tasks. I would ravage my somewhat clean but slightly disorganized room for clothes to wear. I would in haste make my simple but sometimes incomplete breakfast as I think of G-d, homework deadlines, and delude myself with my dreams and aspirations.As I am eating on the squeaky clean glass kitchen table, sitting on a chair covered in plastic, in the periphery of my eye I would see my mom or I would hear the sound of her flippers distinctly pattering on the granite tile in the kitchen. Sometimes I am quite nervous when I am around her, especially if I forget to clean some forgettable part of the kitchen. When the kitchen is dirty, or a section of the kitchen is dirty, in the morning, she can be either calm about it and tell us to clean what we missed, but sometimes she can explode on me and my younger sister.She would yell at us as if we have done some sort of criminal act. By habit my younger sister and I would make sure that the kitchen is clean before we go to bed to prevent our mom from being angry at us. But when my mom comes in the kitchen- as I feel the anticipation of her approval of the kit chen- and she accepts our work in the kitchen- the exact opposite of her authoritarian spirit comes out and it can be the most beautiful thing I can ever experience.This is how I live every day in my home- studying and cleaning the kitchen. The moment after I finish this essay†¦. Just guess it- I will be cleaning the kitchen. If I clean the kitchen every day how is it that I can forget to clean some forgettable part of the kitchen a rank more than occasionally? Is this the nature of man? He forgets and gets punished by Mother Nature herself. I forget to clean some part of the kitchen and I get punished by my mother.To be yelled at by my mother is humbling- it arrests my large as life ego, and renders my philosophy and view of life as meaningless. No philosophy can save me, all it does is make me live in my own world- not to the tasks and betterment of other people. This is the law of the re-education of cleaning the kitchen. Just as religious people re-educate themselves of the laws of the bible every Saturday or Sunday- the law of the re-education of cleaning the kitchen holds true- but instead of once a week it is every day.As Mother Nature has been punishing to mankind (if you read the news you know what I mean) it has been equally loving and forgiving, to enable us to experience life and allow us to even violate it’s laws- intentionally or not- only to realize what we have done, and to come back tearfully to our true pure selves. After being rattled by my mom, yelling at me to clean the kitchen, it is hard to remember that she had a loving side to her- if she had a loving side at all. After cleaning that pesky, forgettable part of the  kitchen- forgiveness, love, and kindness came.Thus is the love that encounters and embraces everything. My mommy can give the kindest, most real, greeting I have ever known. Even though she gives us kind greetings and positive connotations almost regularly it still has a powerful impact on my spirit every time she gives positive reinforcement. When I was a baby my mom would call me â€Å"Love† so she could cope with not getting angry with me as a baby and toddler- even as a teenager she still gives me the nicknameâ€Å"Love.† I was the only child she had that screamed at sonically high frequencies, regressed back to potty training when my younger sister was born, wanted to be tended to every waking minute, and escaped the house via garage(when I was three years old) to be found in a construction site with a red hat on top of my head. As a result my mom lost her health along with her temper, but she always made it her mission to be as kind to me, my older and younger sister, and allow us to pursue any path we want to take in life without interceding.I would compare my mom’s pattern of communication and mine to a spiral. I can tell that my mom tries to give us as much positive feedback as possible and to reduce or eliminate all negative feedback. She would theatrically lecture us on the use of positive feedback. As a pattern in the morning or as she is taking me to school she would be extremely kind by calling me by my nickname and telling me how happy she is to see me in college- in return I would tell her how happy I am to be in college and other endless miscellaneous subject matter that I can’t remember well enough to put on paper.Then when evening approaches some anxiety trickles in like a leaky faucet. My mom, though not going Mrs. Commando on us, would remind us to make sure to clean the kitchen, but she would make sure we listen very well, when we are doing homework or trying to make ourselves busy (I find that interruption terribly annoying). However, for my mom to tell us to clean the kitchen like a disciplinarian is absolutely necessary- because truthfully we wouldn’t have done the task if she didn’t remind us to do it- leading us back to the law of the re-education of cleaning the kitchen.I would even find this patt ern when I communicate to my mom, dad, younger, and older sister. When I communicate to my dad for example I am very sociable with him. We would have a positive exchange by showing or talking about our findings on music, movies, and other goofy things. But when I get busy with homework I have to tell him in haste, â€Å"Sorry, I have to get to work†. Only recently did I find out that my father felt it to be slightly negative and antisocial.This made me discover that we can only be slightly one way, or extremely different, turn into our opposite, and never find a true, absolute, and perfect balance in communication and other things in life in general. This statement seems even more apparent when I am around my family members 24/7. Nobody is perfect. We see what is opposite to ourselves and what enables our existence all the time. Kids at a young age imitate their parents- we are all a product of our environment. Then we look in the mirror to see what the environment has made o ut of us- beautiful, different, and unique individuals.To find the perfect balance is to erase ourselves from existence- we would not be seen in the mirror- only the background environment. I always thought the struggle was to become permanently perfect forever- make your plan and you will achieve your goals. It is actually to constantly rebuild yourself after failure throughout life- this is what my mom showed me-like a spiral. This helped me find internal peace. Why can’t the kitchen stay clean? We use kitchen. Kitchen gets dirty. We clean kitchen again. We use kitchen. Kitchen gets dirty. We clean kitchen again†¦