Translations of the American Anthem Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 1

Translations of the American Anthem - Essay Example The researcher states that in a world of muti-culturalism, where we declare ourselves to be living in a global village, the issue of translating a national anthem is not only politically sensitive, but problematic. This is so, simply because the act of translation is always seen as a transgression of the natural order of nationalism and belonging. Translating a national anthem not only takes us back to an epistomological search of our roots, but can break the politicized realms of an community of nationalists and the idea of a nation. When to come to discuss something as intellectually engaging as the translation of the American National Anthem, it is to be kept in mind that the issue would inherently move out from the general quarters of translationary activities and delve into the more serious issues of political intent and the inherent problems of multi culturalism. What the real problem happens in the act of translation is the intent of having the anthem in several National Langu ages or trying to have several versions of a National Anthem. In the translation of the anthem in 1919, the wuthot makes a conscious effort to go beyond the confines of narrower linguistic theories. His translation addresses the matter of text interpretation based not just on the words of the text but on the intent of the author, the relationship of the author to the intended audience, the culture and world view of the audience. Thus, his translation of the National Anthem of America is based on the wider context of the communication situation.

Evolution of Management Essay Example for Free

Evolution of Management Essay As long as there have been human endeavors, there have been people willing to take charge—people willing to plan, organize, staff, and control the work. One might say that nature abhors a vacuum and thus someone will always step forward to fill a leadership void. Probably the natural emergence of leadership grew out of our instinct for survival. In the hostile world of early humankind, food, shelter, and safety needs usually required cooperative efforts, and cooperative efforts required some form of leadership. Certainly leadership was vested in the heads of early families via the patriarchal system. The oldest member of the family was the most experienced and was presumed to be the wisest member of the family and thus was the natural leader. As families grew into tribes and tribes evolved into nations, more complex forms of leadership were required and did evolve. Division of labor and supervision practices is recorded on the earliest written record, the clay tablets of the Sumerians. In Sumerian society, as in many others since, the wisest and best leaders were thought to be the priests and other religious leaders. Likewise, the ancient Babylonian cities developed very strict codes, such as the code of Hammurabi. King Nebuchadnezzar used color codes to control production of the hanging gardens, and there were weekly and annual reports, norms for productivity, and rewards for piecework. The Egyptians organized their people and their slaves to build their cities and pyramids. Construction of one pyramid, around 5000 BC. , required the labor of 100,000 people working for approximately 20 years. Planning, organizing, and controlling were essential elements of that and other feats, many of them long term. The ancient Egyptian Pharaohs had long-term planners and advisors, as did their contemporaries in China. China perfected military organization based on line and staff principles and used these same principles in the early Chinese dynasties. Confucius wrote parables that offered practical suggestions for public administration. In the Old Testament, Moses led a group of Jewish slaves out of Egypt and then organized them into a nation. Exodus, Chapter 18, describes how Moses â€Å"chose able men out of all Israel and made them heads over the people, and differentiated between rulers of thousands, rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties and rulers of tens. A system of judges also evolved, with only the hard cases coming to Moses. The city-states of Greece were commonwealths, with councils, courts, administrative officials, and boards of generals. Socrates talked about management as a skill separate from technical knowledge and experience. Plato wrote about specialization and proposed notions of a healthy republic. The Roman Empire is thought by many to have been so successful because of the Romans’ great ability to organize the military and conquer new lands. Those sent to govern the far-flung parts of the empire were effective administrators and were able to maintain relationships with leaders from other provinces and across the empire as a whole. There are numerous other ancient leaders who were skillful organizers, at least as indicated by their accomplishments, such as Hannibal, who shepherded an army across the Alps, and the first emperor of China, who built the Great Wall. Many of the practices employed today in leading, managing, and administering modern organizations have their origins in antiquity. Many concepts of authority developed in a religious context. One example is the Roman Catholic Church with its efficient formal organization and management techniques. The chain of command or path of authority, including the concept of specialization, was a most important contribution to management theory. Machiavelli also wrote about authority, stressing that it comes from the consent of the masses. However, the ideas Machiavelli expressed in The Prince are more often viewed as mainly concerned with leadership and communication. Much management theory has military origins, probably because efficiency and effectiveness are essential for success in warfare. The concepts of unity of command, line of command, staff advisors, and division of work all can be traced back at least to Alexander the Great, or even earlier, to Lao Tzu. The Industrial Revolution created a need for new thinking and the refinement of old thinking. Time and motion studies intensified the division of work, as did centralized production and research and development. Modern management theory prevails afterwards. The preceding historical review indicates that thinking about management and leadership is in large part situational and that practices evolved to deal with new situations that arose. It also indicates that yesterday’s principles and theories are surprisingly contemporary and surprisingly sophisticated. Some overlap occurs, of course, and some gaps. Today’s theorists have attempted to fill in the gaps and adapt the theories to current situations. Yet, like in other areas of thought, not much is of recent origin in the field of management theory. The Evolution of Management Changes in management practices occur as managers, theorists, researchers, and consultants seek new ways to increase organizational efficiency and effectiveness. The driving force behind the evolution of management theory is the search for better ways to utilize organizational resources. Advances in management theory typically occur as managers and researchers find better ways to perform the principal management tasks: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling human and other organizational resources. In this paper, we will try to examine how management theory concerning appropriate management practices has evolved in modern times, and look at the central concerns that have guided its development. First, we look into the so-called classical management theories that emerged around the turn of the twentieth century. These include scientific management, which focuses on matching people and tasks to maximize efficiency; and administrative management, which focuses on identifying the principles that will lead to the creation of the most efficient system of organization and management. Next, we consider behavioral management theories, developed both before and after the Second World War, which focus on how managers should lead and control their workforces to increase performance. Then we discuss management science theory, which developed during the Second World War and which has become increasingly important as researchers have developed rigorous analytical and quantitative techniques to help managers measure and control organizational performance. Finally, we discuss business in the 1960s and 1970s and focus on the theories that were developed to help explain how the external environment affects the way organizations and managers operate. At the end of this paper, one will understand the ways in which management theory has evolved over time. One will also understand how economic, political, and cultural forces have affected the development of these theories and the ways in which managers and their organizations behave. Figure 1. 1 summarizes the chronology of the management theories that are discussed in this paper. Scientific Management Theory The evolution of modern management began in the closing decades of the nineteenth century, after the industrial revolution had swept through Europe, Canada, and the United States. In the new economic climate, managers of all types of organizations—political, educational, and economic—were increasingly trying to find better ways to satisfy customers’ needs. Many major economic, technical, and cultural changes were taking place at this time. The introduction of steam power and the development of sophisticated machinery and equipment changed the way in which goods were produced, particularly in the weaving and clothing industries. Small workshops run by skilled workers who produced hand-manufactured products (a system called crafts production) were being replaced by large factories in which sophisticated machines controlled by hundreds or even thousands of unskilled or semiskilled workers made products. Owners and managers of the new factories found themselves unprepared for the challenges accompanying the change from small-scale crafts production to large-scale mechanized manufacturing. Many of the managers and supervisors had only a technical orientation, and were unprepared for the social problems that occur when people work together in large groups (as in a factory or shop system). Managers began to search for new techniques to manage their organizations’ resources, and soon they began to focus on ways to increase the efficiency of the worker–task mix. Job specialization and division of labor The famous economist Adam Smith was one of the first to look at the effects of different manufacturing systems. 7 He compared the relative performance of two different manufacturing methods. The first was similar to crafts-style production, in which each worker was responsible for all of the 18 tasks involved in producing a pin. The other had each worker performing only 1 or a few of the 18 tasks that go into making a completed pin. Smith found that factories in which workers specialized in only 1 or a few tasks had greater performance than factories in which each worker performed all 18 pin-making tasks. In fact, Smith found that 10 workers specializing in a particular task could, between them, make 48 000 pins a day, whereas those workers who performed all the tasks could make only a few thousand at most. Smith reasoned that this difference in performance was due to the fact that the workers who specialized became much more skilled at their specific tasks, and, as a group, were thus able to produce a product faster than the group of workers who each had to perform many tasks. Smith concluded that increasing the level of job specialization— the process by which a division of labour occurs as different workers specialize in different tasks over time—increases efficiency and leads to higher organizational performance. Based on Adam Smith’s observations, early management practitioners and theorists focused on how managers should organize and control the work process to maximize the advantages of job specialization and the division of labour. F. W. Taylor and Scientific Management Frederick W. Taylor (1856–1915) is best known for defining the techniques of scientific management, the systematic study of relationships between people and tasks for the purpose of redesigning the work process to increase efficiency. Taylor believed that if the amount of time and effort that each worker expended to produce a unit of output (a finished good or service) could be reduced by increasing specialization and the division of labour, then the production process would become more efficient. Taylor believed that the way to create the most efficient division of labour could best be determined by means of scientific management techniques, rather than intuitive or informal rule-of-thumb knowledge. This decision ultimately resulted in problems. For example, some managers using scientific management obtained increases in performance, but rather than sharing performance gains with workers through bonuses as Taylor had advocated, they simply increased the amount of work that each worker was expected to do. Many workers experiencing the reorganized work system found that as their performance increased, managers required them to do more work for the same pay. Workers also learned that increases in performance often meant fewer jobs and a greater threat of layoffs, because fewer workers were needed. In addition, the specialized, simplified jobs were often monotonous and repetitive, and many workers became dissatisfied with their jobs. Scientific management brought many workers more hardship than gain, and left them with a distrust of managers who did not seem to care about their wellbeing. These dissatisfied workers resisted attempts to use the new scientific management techniques and at times even withheld their job knowledge from managers to protect their jobs and pay. Unable to inspire workers to accept the new scientific management techniques for performing tasks, some organizations increased the mechanization of the work process. For example, one reason for Henry Ford’s introduction of moving conveyor belts in his factory was the realization that when a conveyor belt controls the pace of work (instead of workers setting their own pace), workers can be pushed to perform at higher levels—levels that they may have thought were beyond their reach. Charlie Chaplin captured this aspect of mass production in one of the opening scenes of his famous movie, Modern Times (1936). In the film, Chaplin caricatured a new factory employee fighting to work at the machine imposed pace but losing the battle to the machine. Henry Ford also used the principles of scientific management to identify the tasks that each worker should perform on the production line and thus to determine the most effective way to create a division of labour to suit the needs of a mechanized production system. From a performance perspective, the combination of the two management practices— (1) achieving the right mix of worker–task specialization and (2) linking people and tasks by the speed of the production line—makes sense. It produces the huge savings in cost and huge increases in output that occur in large, organized work settings. For example, in 1908, managers at the Franklin Motor Company redesigned the work process using scientific management principles, and the output of cars increased from 100 cars a month to 45 cars a day; workers’ wages increased by only 90 percent, however. From other perspectives, though, scientific management practices raise many concerns. The definition of the workers’ rights not by the workers themselves but by the owners or managers as a result of the introduction of the new management practices raises an ethical issue, which we examine in this â€Å"Ethics in Action. † Fordism in Practice From 1908 to 1914, through trial and error, Henry Ford’s talented team of production managers pioneered the development of the moving conveyor belt and thus changed manufacturing practices forever. Although the technical aspects of the move to mass production were a dramatic financial success for Ford and for the millions of Americans who could now afford cars, for the workers who actually produced the cars, many human and social problems resulted. With simplification of the work process, workers grew to hate the monotony of the moving conveyor belt. By 1914, Ford’s car plants were experiencing huge employee turnover—often reaching levels as high as 300 or 400 percent per year as workers left because they could not handle the work-induced stress. 15 Henry Ford recognized these problems and made an announcement: From that point on, to motivate his workforce, he would reduce the length of the workday from nine hours to eight hours, and the company would double the basic wage from US$2. 50 to US$5. 00 per day. This was a dramatic increase, similar to an announcement today of an overnight doubling of the minimum wage. Ford became an internationally famous figure, and the word â€Å"Fordism† was coined for his new approach. Ford’s apparent generosity was matched, however, by an intense effort to control the resources—both human and material—with which his empire was built. He employed hundreds of inspectors to check up on employees, both inside and outside his factories. In the factory, supervision was close and confining. Employees were not allowed to leave their places at the production line, and they were not permitted to talk to one another. Their job was to concentrate fully on the task at hand. Few employees could adapt to this system, and they developed ways of talking out of the sides of their mouths, like ventriloquists, and invented a form of speech that became known as the â€Å"Ford Lisp. † Ford’s obsession with control brought him into greater and greater conflict with managers, who were often fired when they disagreed with him. As a result, many talented people left Ford to join his growing rivals. Outside the workplace, Ford went so far as to establish what he called the â€Å"Sociological Department† to check up on how his employees lived and the ways in which they spent their time. Inspectors from this department visited the homes of employees and investigated their habits and problems. Employees who exhibited behaviours contrary to Ford’s standards (for instance, if they drank too much or were always in debt) were likely to be fired. Clearly, Ford’s effort to control his employees led him and his managers to behave in ways that today would be considered unacceptable and unethical, and in the long run would impair an organization’s ability to prosper. Despite the problems of worker turnover, absenteeism, and discontent at Ford Motor Company, managers of the other car companies watched Ford reap huge gains in efficiency from the application of the new management principles. They believed that their companies would have to imitate Ford if they were to survive. They followed Taylor and used many of his followers as consultants to teach them how to adopt the techniques of scientific management. In addition, Taylor elaborated his principles in several books, including Shop Management (1903) and The detail how to apply the principles of scientific management to reorganize the work system. Taylor’s work has had an enduring effect on the management of production systems. Managers in every organization, whether it produces goods or services, now carefully analyze the basic tasks that must be performed and try to devise the work systems that will allow their organizations to operate most efficiently. The Gilbreths Two prominent followers of Taylor were Frank Gilbreth (1868–1924) and Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972), who refined Taylor’s analysis of work movements and made many contributions to time-and-motion study. Their aims were to (1) break up into each of its component actions and analyze every individual action necessary to perform a particular task, (2) find better ways to perform each component action, and (3) reorganize each of the component actions so that the action as a whole could be performed more efficiently—at less cost of time and effort. The Gilbreths often filmed a worker performing a particular task and then separated the task actions, frame by frame, into their component movements. Their goal was to maximize the efficiency with which each individual task was performed so that gains across tasks would add up to enormous savings of time and effort. Their attempts to develop improved management principles were captured—at times quite humorously—in the movie Cheaper by the Dozen, which depicts how the Gilbreths (with their 12 children) tried to live their own lives according to these efficiency principles and apply them to daily actions such as shaving, cooking, and even raising a family. Eventually, the Gilbreths became increasingly interested in the study of fatigue. They studied how the physical characteristics of the workplace contribute to job stress that often leads to fatigue and thus poor performance. They isolated factors— such as lighting, heating, the colour of walls, and the design of tools and machines—that result in worker fatigue. Their pioneering studies paved the way for new advances in management theory. In workshops and factories, the work of the Gilbreths, Taylor, and many others had a major effect on the practice of management. In comparison with the old crafts system, jobs in the new system were more repetitive, boring, and monotonous as a result of the application of scientific management principles, and workers became increasingly dissatisfied. Frequently, the management of work settings became a game between workers and managers: Managers tried to initiate work practices to increase performance, and workers tried to hide the true potential efficiency of the work setting in order to protect their own well-being. Administrative management theory Side by side with scientific managers studying the person–task mix to increase efficiency, other researchers were focusing on administrative management, the study of how to create an organizational structure that leads to high efficiency and effectiveness. Organizational structure is the system of task and authority relationships that control how employees use resources to achieve the organization’s goals. Two of the most influential views regarding the creation of efficient systems of organizational administration were developed in Europe. Max Weber, a German professor of sociology, developed one theory. Henri Fayol, the French manager who developed a model of management introduced earlier, developed the other. The Theory of Bureaucracy Max Weber (1864–1920) wrote at the turn of the twentieth century, when Germany was undergoing its industrial revolution. To help Germany manage its growing industrial enterprises at a time when it was striving to become a world power, Weber developed the principles of bureaucracy—a formal system of organization and administration designed to ensure efficiency and effectiveness. A bureaucratic system of administration is based on five principles (summarized in Figure 1. 2). †¢ Principle 1: In a bureaucracy, a manager’s formal authority derives from the position he or she holds in the organization. Authority is the power to hold people accountable for their actions and to make decisions concerning the use of organizational resources. Authority gives managers the right to direct and control their subordinates’ behaviour to achieve organizational goals. In a bureaucratic system of administration, obedience is owed to a manager, not because of any personal qualities that he or she might possess— such as personality, wealth, or social status—but because the manager occupies a position that is associated with a certain level of authority and responsibility. †¢ Principle 2: In a bureaucracy, people should occupy positions because of their performance, not because of their social standing or personal contacts. This principle was not always followed in Weber’s time and is often ignored today. Some organizations and industries are still affected by social networks in which personal contacts and relations, not job-related skills, influence hiring and promotional decisions. †¢ Principle 3: The extent of each position’s formal authority and task responsibilities, and its relationship to other positions in an organization, should be clearly specified. When the tasks and authority associated with various positions in the organization are clearly specified, managers and workers know what is expected of them and what to expect from each other. Moreover, an organization can hold all its employees strictly accountable for their actions when each person is completely familiar with his or her responsibilities. †¢ Principle 4: So that authority can be exercised effectively in an organization, positions should be arranged hierarchically, so employees know whom to report to and who reports to them. Managers must create an organizational hierarchy of authority that makes it clear who reports to whom and to whom managers and workers should go if conflicts or problems arise. This principle is especially important in the armed forces, CSIS, RCMP, and other organizations that deal with sensitive issues involving possible major repercussions. It is vital that managers at high levels of the hierarchy be able to hold subordinates accountable for their actions. †¢ Principle 5: Managers must create a well-defined system of rules, standard operating procedures, and norms so that they can effectively control behaviour within an organization. Rules are formal written instructions that specify actions to be taken under different circumstances to achieve specific goals (for example, if A happens, do B). Standard operating procedures (SOPs) are specific sets of written instructions about how to perform a certain aspect of a task. A rule might state that at the end of the workday employees are to leave their machines in good order, and a set of SOPs then specifies exactly how they should do so, itemizing which machine parts must be oiled or replaced. Norms are unwritten, informal codes of conduct that prescribe how people should act in particular situations. For example, an organizational norm in a restaurant might be that waiters should help each other if time permits. Rules, SOPs, and norms provide behavioural guidelines that improve the performance of a bureaucratic system because they specify the best ways to accomplish organizational tasks. Companies such as McDonald’s and Wal-Mart have developed extensive rules and procedures to specify the types of behaviours that are required of their employees, such as, â€Å"Always greet the customer with a smile. † Weber believed that organizations that implement all five principles will establish a bureaucratic system that will improve organizational performance. The specification of positions and the use of rules and SOPs to regulate how tasks are performed make it easier for managers to organize and control the work of subordinates. Similarly, fair and equitable selection and promotion systems improve managers’ feelings of security, reduce stress, and encourage organizational members to act ethically and further promote the interests of the organization. If bureaucracies are not managed well, however, many problems can result. Sometimes, managers allow rules and SOPs—â€Å"bureaucratic red tape†Ã¢â‚¬â€to become so cumbersome that decision making becomes slow and inefficient and organizations are unable to change. When managers rely too much on rules to solve problems and not enough on their own skills and judgment, their behaviour becomes inflexible. A key challenge for managers is to use bureaucratic principles to benefit, rather than harm, an organization. Fayol’s Principles of Management Working at the same time as Weber but independently of him, Henri Fayol (1841–1925), the CEO of Comambault Mining, identified 14 principles (summarized in Table 2. ) that he believed to be essential to increasing the efficiency of the management process. Some of the principles that Fayol outlined have faded from contemporary management practices, but most have endured. The principles that Fayol and Weber set forth still provide a clear and appropriate set of guidelines that managers can use to create a work setting that makes efficient and effective use of organizational resources. These principles remain the bedrock of modern management theory; recent researchers have refined or developed them to suit modern conditions. For example, Weber’s and Fayol’s concerns for equity and for establishing appropriate links between performance and reward are central themes in contemporary theories of motivation and leadership. Behavioural Management Theory The behavioural management theorists writing in the first half of the twentieth century all espoused a theme that focused on how managers should personally behave in order to motivate employees and encourage them to perform at high levels and be committed to the achievement of organizational goals. The â€Å"Management Insight† indicates how employees can become demoralized when managers do not treat their employees properly. Management Insight How to Discourage Employees Catherine Robertson, owner of Vancouver-based Robertson Telecom Inc. , made headlines in February 2001 for her management policies. Robertson is a government contractor whose company operates Enquiry BC, which gives British Columbians toll-free telephone information and referral services about all provincial government programs. Female telephone operators at Robertson Telecom must wear skirts or dresses even though they never come in contact with the public. Not even dress pants are allowed. As Gillian Savage, a former employee, notes, â€Å"This isn’t a suggested thing, it’s an order: No pants. † Brad Roy, another former employee, claims a female Indo-Canadian employee was sent home to change when she arrived at work wearing a Punjabi suit (a long shirt over pants). The no-pants rule is not the only concern of current and former employees. Roy also said, â€Å"I saw some people being reprimanded for going to the washroom. While Robertson denied Roy’s allegation regarding washrooms, she did confirm that company policy included the no-pants rule, that employees were not allowed to bring their purses or other personal items to their desks, and that they were not allowed to drink coffee or bottled water at their desks. The company does not provide garbage cans for the employees. A g roup of current and former employees recently expressed concern with the number of rules Robertson has in place, and claimed that the rules have led to high turnover and poor morale. A current employee claims that many workers do not care whether they give out the right government phone numbers. Robertson said that she knew of no employees who were discontent, and was shocked that the policies had caused distress among employees. She defended the dress code as appropriate business attire. Robertson may have to make some adjustments in her management style. The cabinet minister responsible for Enquiry BC, Catherine MacGregor, ordered an investigation of the contractor after being contacted by The Vancouver Sun about the allegations. She noted that the skirts-only rule for women is not appropriate, and that, â€Å"All of our contractors are expected to fully comply with the Employment Standards Act, Workers Compensation rules and human rights legislation. † Additionally, Mary-Woo Sims, head of the BC Human Rights Commission, said dress codes can’t be based on gender. Thus, an employer can’t tell men they must wear pants (as Robertson does), but tell women they can’t. â€Å"On the face of it, it would appear to be gender discriminatory,† Sims said. The Work of Mary Parker Follett If F. W. Taylor is considered to be the father of management thought, Mary Parker Follett (1868–1933) serves as its mother. 28 Much of her writing about management and about the way managers should behave toward workers was a response to her concern that Taylor was ignoring the human side of the organization. She pointed out that management often overlooks the multitude of ways in which employees can contribute to the organization when managers allow them to participate and exercise initiative in their everyday work lives. Taylor, for example, relied on time-and-motion experts to analyze workers’ jobs for them. Follett, in contrast, argued that because workers know the most about their jobs, they should be involved in job analysis and managers should allow them to participate in the work development process. Follett proposed that, â€Å"Authority should go with knowledge whether it is up the line or down. † In other words, if workers have the relevant knowledge, then workers, rather than managers, should be in control of the work process itself, and managers should behave as coaches and facilitators—not as monitors and supervisors. In making this statement, Follett anticipated the current interest in self-managed teams and empowerment. She also recognized the importance of having managers in different departments communicate directly with each other to speed decision making. She advocated what she called â€Å"cross-functioning†: members of different departments working together in cross-departmental teams to accomplish projects—an approach that is increasingly utilized today. Fayol also mentioned expertise and knowledge as important sources of managers’ authority, but Follett went further. She proposed that knowledge and expertise, and not managers’ formal authority deriving from their position in the hierarchy, should decide who would lead at any particular moment. She believed, as do many management theorists today, that power is fluid and should flow to the person who can best help the organization achieve its goals. Follett took a horizontal view of power and authority, in contrast to Fayol, who saw the formal line of authority and vertical chain of command as being most essential to effective management. Follett’s behavioural approach to management was very radical for its time. The Hawthorne Studies and Human Relations Probably because of its radical nature, Follett’s work was unappreciated by managers and researchers until quite recently. Instead, researchers continued to follow in the footsteps of Taylor and the Gilbreths. One focus was on how efficiency might be increased through improving various characteristics of the work setting, such as job specialization or the kinds of tools workers used. One series of studies was conducted from 1924 to 1932 at the Hawthorne Works of the Western Electric Company. This research, now known as the Hawthorne studies, began as an attempt to investigate how characteristics of the work setting—specifically the level of lighting or illumination—affect worker fatigue and performance. The researchers conducted an experiment in which they systematically measured worker productivity at various levels of illumination. The experiment produced some unexpected results. The researchers found that regardless of whether they raised or lowered the level of illumination, productivity increased. In fact, productivity began to fall only when the level of illumination dropped to the level of moonlight, a level at which presumably workers could no longer see well enough to do their work efficiently. The researchers found these results puzzling and invited a noted Harvard psychologist, Elton Mayo, to help them. Subsequently, it was found that many other factors also influence worker behaviour, and it was not clear what was actually influencing the Hawthorne workers’ behaviour. However, this particular effect— which became known as the Hawthorne effect—seemed to suggest that workers’ attitudes toward their managers affect the level of workers’ performance. In particular, the significant finding was that a manager’s behaviour or leadership approach can affect performance. This finding led many researchers to turn their attention to managerial behaviour and leadership. If supervisors could be trained to behave in ways that would elicit cooperative behaviour from their subordinates, then productivity could be increased. From this view emerged the human relations movement, which advocates that supervisors be behaviourally trained to manage subordinates in ways that elicit their cooperation and increase their productivity. The importance of behavioural or human relations training became even clearer to its supporters after another series of experiments—the bank wiring room experiments. In a study of workers making telephone switching equipment, researchers Elton Mayo and F. J. Roethlisberger discovered that the workers, as a group, had deliberately adopted a norm of output restriction to protect their jobs. Workers who violated this informal production norm were subjected to sanctions by other group members. Those who violated group performance norms and performed above the norm were called â€Å"ratebusters†; those who performed below the norm were called â€Å"chiselers. † The experimenters concluded that both types of workers threatened the group as a whole. Ratebusters threatened group members because they revealed to managers how fast the work could be done. Chiselers were looked down on because they were not doing their share of the work. Work-group members disciplined both ratebusters and chiselers in order to create a pace of work that the workers (not the managers) thought was fair. Thus, a work group’s influence over output can be as great as the supervisors’ influence. Since the work group can influence the behavior of its members, some management theorists argue that supervisors should be trained to behave in ways that gain the goodwill and cooperation of workers so that supervisors, not workers, control the level of work-group performance. One of the main implications of the Hawthorne studies was that the behavior of managers and workers in the work setting is as important in explaining the level of performance as the technical aspects of the task. Managers must understand the workings of the informal organization, the system of behavioural rules and norms that emerge in a group, when they try to manage or change behaviour in organizations. Many studies have found that, as time passes, groups often develop elaborate procedures and norms that bond members together, allowing unified action either to cooperate with management in order to raise performance or to restrict output and thwart the attainment of organizational goals. The Hawthorne studies demonstrated the importance of understanding how the feelings, thoughts, and behaviour of work-group members and managers affect performance. It was becoming increasingly clear to researchers that understanding behaviour in organizations is a complex process that is critical to increasing performance. Indeed, the increasing interest in the area of management known as organizational behaviour, the study of the factors that have an impact on how individuals and groups respond to and act in organizations, dates from these early studies. Theory X and Theory Y Several studies after the Second World War revealed how assumptions about workers’ attitudes and behaviour affect managers’ behaviour. Perhaps the most influential approach was developed by Douglas McGregor. He proposed that two different sets of assumptions about work attitudes and behaviours dominate the way managers think and affect how they behave in organizations. McGregor named these two contrasting sets of assumptions Theory X and Theory Y (see Figure 1. 3). THEORY X According to the assumptions of Theory X, the average worker is lazy, dislikes work, and will try to do as little as possible. Moreover, workers have little ambition and wish to avoid responsibility. Thus, the manager’s task is to counteract workers’ natural tendencies to avoid work. To keep workers’ performance at a high level, the manager must supervise them closely and control their behaviour by means of â€Å"the carrot and stick†Ã¢â‚¬â€rewards and punishments. Managers who accept the assumptions of Theory X design and shape the work setting to maximize their control over workers’ behaviours and minimize workers’ control over the pace of work. These managers believe that workers must be made to do what is necessary for the success of the organization, and they focus on developing rules, SOPs, and a well-defined system of rewards and punishments to control behaviour. They see little point in giving workers autonomy to solve their own problems because they think that the workforce neither expects nor desires cooperation. Theory X managers see their role as to closely monitor workers to ensure that they contribute to the production process and do not threaten product quality. Henry Ford, who closely supervised and managed his workforce, fits McGregor’s description of a manager who holds Theory X assumptions. THEORY Y In contrast, Theory Y assumes that workers are not inherently lazy, do not naturally dislike work, and, if given the opportunity, will do what is good for the organization. According to Theory Y, the characteristics of the work setting determine whether workers consider work to be a source of satisfaction or punishment; and managers do not need to control workers’ behaviour closely in order to make them perform at a high level, because workers will exercise selfcontrol when they are committed to organizational goals. The implication of Theory Y, according to McGregor, is that â€Å"the limits of collaboration in the organizational setting are not limits of human nature but of management’s ingenuity in discovering how to realize the potential represented by its human resources. It is the manager’s task to create a work setting that encourages commitment to organizational goals and provides opportunities for workers to be imaginative and to exercise initiative and self-direction. When managers design the organizational setting to reflect the assumptions about attitudes and behaviour suggested by Theory Y, the characteristics of the o rganization are quite different from those of an organizational setting based on Theory X. Managers who believe that workers are motivated to help the organization reach its goals can decentralize authority and give more control over the job to workers, both as individuals and in groups. In this setting, individuals and groups are still accountable for their activities, but the manager’s role is not to control employees but to provide support and advice, to make sure employees have the resources they need to perform their jobs, and to evaluate them on their ability to help the organization meet its goals. Henri Fayol’s approach to administration more closely reflects the assumptions of Theory Y, rather than Theory X. Management Science Theory This theory focuses on the use of rigorous quantitative techniques to help managers make maximum use of organizational resources to produce goods and services. In essence, management science theory is a contemporary extension of scientific management, which, as developed by Taylor, also took a quantitative approach to measuring the worker–task mix in order to raise efficiency. There are many branches of management science; each of them deals with a specific set of concerns: Quantitative management utilizes mathematical techniques—such as linear and nonlinear programming, modelling, simulation, queuing theory, and chaos theory—to help managers decide, for example, how much inventory to hold at different times of the year, where to locate a new factory, and how best to invest an organization’s financial capital. Resources in the organizational environment include the raw materials and skilled people that an organization requires to produce goods and services, as well as the support of groups including customers who buy these goods and services and provide the organization with financial resources. One way of determining the relative success of an organization is to consider how effective its managers are at obtaining scarce and valuable resources. The importance of studying the environment became clear after the development of open-systems theory and contingency theory during the 1960s. The Open-Systems View One of the most influential views of how an organization is affected by its external environment was developed by Daniel Katz, Robert Kahn, and James Thompson in the 1960s. 38 These theorists viewed the organization as an open system— a system that takes in resources from its external environment and converts or transforms them into goods and services that are then sent back to that environment, where they are bought by customers (see Figure 1. 4). At the input stage, an organization acquires resources such as raw materials, money, and skilled workers to produce goods and services. Once the organization has gathered the necessary resources, conversion begins. At the conversion stage, the organization’s workforce, using appropriate tools, techniques, and machinery, transforms the inputs into outputs of finished goods and services such as cars, hamburgers, or flights to Hawaii. At the output stage, the organization releases finished goods and services to its external environment, where customers purchase and use them to satisfy their needs. The money the organization obtains from the sales of its outputs allows the organization to acquire more resources so that the cycle can begin again. The system just described is said to be â€Å"open† because the organization draws from and interacts with the external environment in order to survive; in other words, the organization is open to its environment. A closed system, in contrast, is a self-contained system that is not affected by changes that occur in its external environment. Organizations that operate as closed ystems, that ignore the external environment and that fail to acquire inputs, are likely to experience entropy, the tendency of a system to lose its ability to control itself and thus to dissolve and disintegrate. Management theorists can model the activities of most organizations by using the open-systems view. Manufacturing companies like Ford and General Electric, for example, buy inputs such as component parts, skilled and semiskilled labour, and robots and computer-controlled manufacturing equipment; then, at the conversion stage, they use their manufacturing skills to assemble inputs into outputs of cars and computers. As we discuss in later chapters, competition between organizations for resources is one of several major challenges to managing the organizational environment. Researchers using the open-systems view are also interested in how the various parts of a system work together to promote efficiency and effectiveness. Systems theorists like to argue that â€Å"the parts are more than the sum of the whole†; they mean that an organization performs at a higher level when its departments work together rather than separately. Synergy, the performance gains that result when individuals and departments coordinate their actions, is possible only in an organized system. The recent interest in using teams comprising people from different departments reflects systems theorists’ interest in designing organizational systems to create synergy and thus increase efficiency and effectiveness.

Sociology and Why young people commit crime

Sociology and Why young people commit crime Sociology, along with certain other multidisciplinary focuses, provides a number of reasons for why young people commit crimes. Chief amongst these is a lack of employment, the breakdown of the family, urban decay, social disenchantment, social alienation, drug abuse, and a host of others. For example, it had been proposed that integration be viewed through patterns of role relationships  [1]  however on the other hand it had been argued that new legal powers essentially comprise an extension of punitiveness underpinned by stigmatising and pathologies constructions of working class families.  [2]  In both cases, separated by a number of years, a number of factors are to blame the state, parents, and so on but little if any answers are proposed. Sociology in its broadest forms offers a prescriptive view of the world and this can leave it lacking when tasked with answering questions that arise out of its interests but which its interests cannot qualify. As a 2006 study on you th crime in nova Scotia put it, youth crime is multifaceted. On the one hand, most youth commit crime, and most typically grow out of crime as they age. Longitudinal studies further suggest there are several risk factors that place certain youth at increased risk of offending. At the same time, there are youth with many risk factors who never participate in offending behaviour while there are youth with few risk factors who have established criminal careers.  [3]  It is here that sociology comes unstuck, unable to handle the sheer multi affectedness of youth crime with an academic outlook that seeks to place youth into easily identifiable boxes. It is here That criminology, psychology, psychiatry, and social policy step in to try and make sense of this multiplicity and advise on policies which can both decrease the number of youths committing crimes, whilst encouraging those already in such a position to leave it behind. According to most commentators, growing out of crime is on the increase. Furthermore, a lot of youth crime is to a certain extent, to be expected, quite aside for reasons of social delinquency. The establishment of the new youth justices system was a reaction to this fact. As sociologists noted that certain levels of delinquency were normal, a new policy entered in the UK that sought to treat all crimes as punishable by a formal criminal justice sanction. The effects of this have been to label a young offender as an offender from an early age. On youths, this has a number of effects. The first is to further entrench criminality into the culprit, whilst the other aims to encourage the youth of the pointlessness of crime , providing punishments that equal the crime, but that also aim to dissuade against further criminal acts. Questions also arise about how to differentiate between males and females. Goldson and Muncie  [4]  note that women tend to grow out of crime earlier than boys. Whilst a sociological approach to this seeks to question why this may be, the criminological approach must make do with knowing that after the age of 18, youth offending begins to fall, particularly self-reported offending. As youths mature, they tend to swap certain crimes for others. Thus shoplifting and burglary decrease whilst fraud and workplace theft increase as they enter the labour market. These are questions best answered by the statistician than the sociologist. Theories that rely on concepts of individual pathology are redundant in the light of sociological developments in criminology. In recent years, there has been a wholesale turning away from concepts of individual pathology in sociology, necessitated by advancements in criminology which place a greater social burden on the reasons for crime. Haines draws a contrast between individualised explanations of criminal behaviour and approaches which seek to place crime in its situational and social context.  [5]  However, the positivist view that Darwinian notions of physiognomy may in some way be responsible for defining characteristics of a criminal are by now very outdated. More modern theories of criminality, derived in part from sociological studies, but also from the dismantling of the Darwinian myth of universal positivism, have led researchers to take the view that criminals are made, rather than born. That means that they are socialized in a society that views criminal behaviour as entirely rational and in keeping with the social and cultural norms of that milieu. Whilst exceptions still abound, particul arly in the case of the clinically, ill, this view informs much policy thinking and policies aimed at reducing youth crime. There are of course exceptions to this, but they remain very much the exception. Individual pathology is so closely linked with the notion of pathology that it is too universal, cutting across all classes, as to be specific enough to the rigours of criminological profiling. Criminology in its current incarnation looks at why crime exists in society and in order to do that, it needs to look at the ills of society. Taking their cues from Marx and Engels, the modern idea of criminology seeks to give answers that look at social questions as much as pathological ones. Accordingly, the individual pathology model is a control oriented ideology which serves to locate the causes of problems in specific individuals and which supplies the relevant knowledge and understanding to develop the appropriate technologies and social policies for controlling deviant members. Crimi nological theorizing thereby becomes a means of providingà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦a means of legitimating current policies which become justified as forms of treatment rather than punishment.  [6]  In this argument, the archaic individual pathology view becomes not only outdated, but also unfairly punitive, prescribing a series of judgments upon a larger, unclassifiable group. It strips the moral imperative from those enlisted to uphold it, and takes an awkwardly narrow view of society as a whole.

Trade Commission :: essays research papers

The Federal Trade Commission, in submitting a Request For Public Comment Concerning Guides For The Dog And Cat Food Industry, is asking the American Public to assess guidelines for monitoring the pet food industry that have been in place since 1969. Since the basic thrust of the original guidelines was to control misrepresentation in the industry, it is hard to imagine that the public would disagree with the original intent of the guidelines. It would also be prudent to assess whether a review of such sound guidelines would be either necessary or worth the cost of carrying out the assessment. On the other hand, it has been thirty years since the original guidelines were implemented, giving the public and the industry time to see if the guidelines have done their job in a cost-effective manner and whether or not they need to be retooled for an industry that has gone through considerable technological and economic changes. Therefore, it would seem reasonable to conduct a survey that wo uld target key areas, such as any overlapping of the guidelines with federal, state, and local laws, the integrity of industry self-regulation in a new era of economic and technological advances, and whether or not the guidelines have imposed undue cost to both the industry and the public. Few would argue with the points of the original guidelines, whether it is monitoring misleading claims in advertising, or monitoring the quality of the products themselves. Despite economic and technological advances that have taken place in the industry since 1969, the guidelines still hold up as sound. There are also federal, state, and local laws that attempt to insure the same integrity in the pet food industry. The pet food industry also closely monitors itself. Given all these factors, it would seem best to question the necessity of such a survey, or, at least, to limit its scope and cost. What could be unseen motives for initiating such a reassessment? The American pet food industry would certainly want to keep pressure on the government to regulate foreign competition, insisting that competitors meet the same stringent standards set for American manufacturers. The FTC would also stand to gain from the number of its workers that would be paid for conducting the reassessment and the power and prestige that such guidelines tend to give the FTC It might be useful to assess how much cost the original guidelines have imposed on the industry and the consumer in increased prices for pet foods and if the guidelines have added anything to federal, state, and local laws that already monitor the industry.

Organisations culture Essay

1.Executive summary In this paper I look at how organisations develop ‘culture’ and how this culture can be created, manipulated and changed my management. I also look at what other factors can change and affect a companies’ culture. The paper will take the following format. A definition of culture and the problems associated with its definition. I then look at how organisationl culture develops, with an explanation of the levels of cultural analysis, a look at the various different types of culture, and the role of the leader/manager in creating the organisations culture. How culture can be changed and the skills and actions needed by management to successfully implement a cultural change. I then finish with a conclusion. 2.Defining organisational culture What is organisational culture? This it has been found, is not an easy question to answer. The concept of culture has its roots in anthropology, the study of human affairs. In this context, culture has been used to designate two different things. A tribe or a social group is studied as a ‘culture’ that produces and may have cultural artefacts. The second use of the term refers to aspects within a given culture, such as customs, rituals, knowledge and so on. (Sackman, S, 1991). In the context of organisational culture it is largely the second approach that is studied. Although people may not be aware consciously of culture, it still has a persuasive influence over their behaviour and actions. (Mullins, L, 2002). This statement explains that although we may not have the knowledge that we belong to a certain cultural group it will still have an impact on our behaviour and in an organisational sense, our working lives. The culture concept began to affect organisational thinking in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Although is it evident in ideas from a number of earlier writers, for example Bernard (1938) and Jacques (1952). If we look at a number of different of organisations it is clear to see that ‘things are done differently’. This idea applies to all organisations, even in similar companies that are operating in the same industry. Tesco provides  much the same service as Sainsburys, but on close inspection we would be able to see the differences in which the two companies operate. It is more difficult however to describe how things are ‘done differently’, or why the company ‘feels’ different. A major problem with the concept of culture is the degree to which individuals, organisations or entire communities display characteristics which are consistent within it. (Martin, J, 2001). Do all British people display characteristics that are consistent with British culture? It is clear that although there are many similarities in the behaviour of people within a defined culture, that individual differences provide some variety. The same must also be assumed in the context of organisational culture. Another problem with finding a definition for organisational culture is the sheer number of definitions that already exist. Kroeber and Kluckhorn list more than 250 definitions of culture, that include components such as ideas, concepts, ideologies values, attitudes, goals, norms, learned behaviours, symbols, rites, rituals, customs, myths, habits or artefacts such as tools and other material representations. (Sackman, S, 1991). This inevitably leads to confusion amongst researchers as to a universal definition of organisational culture. The term ‘the way we do things around here’ (Deal and Kennedy, 1988) is often accepted as an operational definition of organisational culture. However this offers little in terms of the content of culture. Kilman et al. (1985) suggests ‘culture is the reflects the ideologies, shared philosophies, values beliefs, assumptions, attitudes, expectations, and norms of an organisation’ 3.Levels of culture Now we have looked at a definition of organisational culture we should look deeper into what develops and makes up an organisations culture. According to Schein (1985), organisational culture is made up of three levels. Visible organisational structures and processes (Hard to decipher) Strategies, goals, philosophies (Espoused justification) Unconscious, taken for granted beliefs, habits of perception, thought thought and feeling (Ultimate source of values and action) The Levels of Organizational Culture, Schein, E (1985) Artefacts These form the surface level of culture. They include all the things that a person sees, hears and has contact with. In an organisation it would be the architecture of the environment such as the management hierarchy, its technology, its creations and products and its style in terms of manners of address both up and down the hierarchy, dress codes and formal procedures. Schein identifies the most important point of this level being that artefacts are easy to identify but hard to decipher. Two organisations may well have the same system in operation but they can mean different things in terms of the culture of the organisation. Schein puts his point into an example by saying both the Egyptians and Mayas built large pyramids, but they were tombs in one culture and temples in the other. This point is contradicted by Gagliardi (1990) who says ‘ones own response to physical artefacts such as buildings and other office layouts can lead to the identification of major images and root metaphors that reflect the deepest levels of culture’. This is supported by my own experience. I have worked in a supermarket, an  organisation with a tall management hierarchy. Many of the artefacts of the organisation gave the impression of a very formal culture. A strict uniformed dress code was in place, with management wearing different colours from subordinates, and formal forms of address being used. The company was also largely bureaucratic with countless forms to be filled out a large numbers of standard procedures in place. One person however may look at a very informal organisation and class it as inefficient and unproductive, while another may class it as innovative and free from unnecessary bureaucracy, this depends on the individuals previous preconceptions about the artefacts that are present. Values Values are usually one persons beliefs about a given situation. If a manager believes that at a certain time of the year his/her company should run at a lower capacity due to demand etc. This is attributed to his personal values. Only once these values are acted on, successfully implemented and accepted by the organisation do they become transformed into underlying assumptions. From a marketing perspective, some of these values may remain conscious and may be explicitly stated in a company’s mission statement as the â€Å"dominant values of the organisation† (Deal and Kennedy, 1982). Only values that are concrete that can be physically and socially validated, they are confirmed by the group’s experiences, go through his transformation process. Underlying assumptions If a solution to a problem works frequently then it is often accepted as a rule for solving the given problem. The power of culture comes forth because these assumptions are shared within the group and are therefore mutually reinforced. These assumptions can often cause problems when someone new, with a different set of underlying assumptions from a previous culture, joins the organisation. As humans we like stability. Any decision which challenges or questions an underlying assumption, such as changing a costing method, or a method of production, will likely lead to anxiety and defensiveness within the organisation. A skill required by managers wishing to change aspects of an organisations culture is to recognise this connection, to get to the deeper levels of culture, and to deal with the anxiety that results when these assumptions are changed. The three stages are linked constantly together. ‘Basic assumptions are treated as the essence- what culture really is; and values and behaviours are treated as observed manifestations of the culture essence.’ (Mullins, 2002). We are able to see now how culture is developed in term of ‘values’ being acted upon and accepted by the organisation, these values being transformed into ‘underlying assumptions’ and the artefacts of the organisation being formed by the interpretation of these underlying assumptions. 4.Types of organisational culture Handy (1993) identifies four types of organisational culture. Power culture Power cultures revolve around a focal person or small group, this person or group has absolute power throughout the entire organisation. It is often found in small entrepreneurial companies, and relies largely on trust and communication. It is normally non-bureaucratic with few formal procedures. The success of the organisation depends largely on the skill of the focal person or group. Role culture Role cultures are often largely bureaucratic, it is often described as a small number of senior managers resting on the strong pillars of the various functions of the organisation. Each person has a specified role within a function of the organisation which in turn has a specified role within  organisation as a whole. These roles are expected to be adhered to and it is rare for an individual or function to deviate into different areas of the business. Predictability and stability are two main themes within this type of culture. This type of culture often develops in large companies with large numbers of staff and a tall management hierarchy. Companies with this type of culture tend to have steady objectives and operate in largely predictive markets. Again this relates back my own experience as this type of culture is largely prevalent in supermarket chains. Task culture Task cultures recognise the objectives and goals of the organisation as being paramount. Handy describes this as a ‘net’ or ‘matrix’ culture. Power is often shared by a team of experts who are highly manoeuvrable to suit the needs of the organisation. It largely found in team or project based organisations such as consultancy firms or engineers. Person Culture Person cultures are largely individual orientated. Any structure is solely suited to aid the individuals within the organisation. There is no specific power structure with individuals having complete power over their own operations. Examples of this would be barristers chambers, architects, business consultants, individuals that have come together to share resources such as office space and admin support. Some people are more suited to different types of cultures than others. Where one person will be happy working in an organisation with a task culture, he/she may feel constricted and undervalued in a role culture environment. Another person may be the opposite and may feel secure within a largely role orientated company. An important skill for managers is being able firstly to identify the type of culture his/her organisation is operating in and then to hire the correct people for that culture, this helps in reducing any anxiety caused by  changes to underlying assumptions previously discussed. There are many other models of the types of organisational culture available to the researcher. Writings by Deal and Kennedy on the generic cultures, Ouchi’s type Z companies, and several more. The focus of this paper however is on the development and change of culture and this will be explored in the following sections. 5. Factors affecting the development of culture The role of the founder ‘Organisations do not form accidentally or spontaneously. They are â€Å"created† because one or more individuals perceive that the coordinated and concerted action of a number of people can accomplish something that an individual cannot’ (Frost,p et al. 1991) At the beginning of an organisations life the founder often has complete control over the organisation. He/she will make most of not all of the important decisions over all areas of the organisations operations. ‘Because they had the original idea, founders will typically have their own notion, based on their own cultural history and personality of how to get the idea fulfilled. (Schein, 1985). Since the founder started the group it is natural to assume that he/she also impose their thoughts, values and assumptions on the group. As new members enter the group the founders assumption will be changed and modified to suit the new organisation, but will always have the biggest impact on what becomes the organisational culture. This has large implications for the future of the organisation. If the company was founded by an informal, easy going type of person then this is the type of organisational culture that is likely to develop. Similarly if the organisation is founded by a formal, autocratic person, the company will likely develop this kind of organisational culture. This will continue to form the organisations culture and have a large influence on the actions of the company even if new leaders are brought in to the organisation. The assumptions of the founder will already be deep routed and form the basis of  the culture. Size Size affects an organisation because of the formality that is often required in larger companies. A large company with many levels of management and a large number of functions or even businesses cannot realistically operate on an informal level. This has implications for the culture of the organisation. Technology If the company uses highly technological systems and procedures in its operations ie pharmaceuticals, the cultural emphasis will be on the technical skills of its employees. A company in the service sector may have a cultural slant towards customer service. Goals and objectives What the organisation wants to achieve will also affect culture. An organisation that wishes to become a market leader may inherit cultural values that reflect that attitude, i.e. company image focused, or have a heavy marketing orientation. Environment There are many environmental factors that can affect an organisations culture, stakeholders, competitors, government etc. etc. How a company chooses to interact with each of these environmental forces will determine how the organisations culture develops. People The preferred style of work amongst both senior management and employees has a large effect on the organisations culture. If senior management attempt to implement a culture that is unacceptable to employees a reaction will  follow, industrial action, low motivation, poor productivity etc. Likewise if employees attempt to force management into following their own culture then a negative reaction will also result. i.e. relocation or the replacement of workers. (Section taken from Martin, J, Organizational Behaviour, 2001) Senior management need to realise the factors that affect an organisations culture and attempt to you analyse the likely impact major business decisions may have. Failure to do may have negative consequences for the culture and hence the success of the company. 6.Cultural change, the role of management â€Å"There is some considerable debate as to whether changing something as deep-seated as corporate culture is possible’ Writers with this view usually focus on the deeper levels of culture, the underlying assumptions. Turner (1986) supports this view by suggesting that it would not be possible to manipulate it accurately because it becomes such an integral part of the organisations fabric. Because these are taken for granted assumptions about organisational life, members cannot envision any other way of operating. Those advocating corporate culture usually focus on the surface elements of culture, the artefacts. These are more easily changed than the deeper routed assumptions. Some writers have argued that unless the deeper assumptions are changed that the company will revert back to old ways of operating. Despite these arguments there is wide consensus that cultural change should only be attempted as a last resort and after other avenues have been sought. (Cummings, Worley, 1993) A primary task of management is to control the activity of employees to best serve defined organizational interests. They can achieve this control using formalized rules (bureaucratic mechanisms), economic rewards and sanctions or values and norms about how the work is to be done (â€Å"clan† or cultural  mechanisms) (Wilkins and Ouchi, 1983; cited by Sinclair, A, 1993). This statement reflects the common view that organisational culture needs to be aligned with organisational strategy if the company is to be successful. Many companies have now realised the importance of developing strategies harmonious with the organisations culture. Sometimes however culture needs to be changed, if circumstances require an organisation to follow a particular strategic route or a significant change affects the organisation i.e. market forces, government action, rapid growth etc. then the culture will have to be adjusted to suit the strategy and external environment. Managers require many skills in order to successfully change an organisations culture. It is a lengthy process that is full of danger. Staff need to be reassured and convinced that the new culture will work, otherwise defence mechanisms and the problems discussed earlier may begin show. The following guidelines to changing culture have been cited in (Cummings, T, Worley, C, Organization development and change, 1993) 1.Clear strategic vision- the firm needs to have a clear view of its operational strategy if culture is to be changed. Managers need to know where the company is now and where it is planning on going. 2.Top-management commitment- cultural change must be managed from the top of the organisation. Senior managers need to be committed to the new culture. They must have the staying to see the changes through. 3.Symbolic leadership- executives must communicate the new culture through their own actions. Their behaviour needs to symbolise the behaviours and actions that are being sought in the entire organisation. In an example given in the text, the CEO of Dana Corporation Rene McPherson threw the companies multi-volume policy manuals into a waste paper basket during a meeting and replaced them with a one page set of principles. 4.Supporting organisational change- the culture change must also be supported by changes in the organisational structure and operations, ‘the artefacts’ as have already been discussed. They can get people aware of the behaviours required in the new culture for the organisation to be successful. 5.Selection and socialization of newcomers and termination of deviants. One of the most important methods in changing an organisations culture is hiring the right people. This is particularly prominent in management positions where the manager has influence over the behaviour of subordinates. 6.Ethical and legal sensibility- sometimes when culture change happens some employees feel they are being hard done by, maybe due to a change in roles, due a promise made during the transition that has been fulfilled. This may lead to legal battles and or resignations from the company. These steps demonstrate some of the ways that managers can influence and successfully change an organisations culture. There is of course no universal solution to changing or influencing culture, all companies are different and individual approaches are more than likely necessary for cultural change to be successful. An example of cultural change is given in (Martin, J, Organizational Behaviour, 2001). In this case study of a motor car dealership in the UK, the newly appointed managing director wanted to change the company culture. The existing culture was largely autocratic with instructions coming down the hierarchy and staff carrying out these instructions. She wanted to change the culture so that the company has a more had team based approach with decision making at team level and initiative being used at all levels of the organisation. To do this she had to use drastic tactics such as showing staff a video of disappointed customers and even accepting a loss in revenue while the changes were being made. Along with this approach she introduced many changed such as more staff training, revision of pay schemes, continuous improvement groups, multi-functional teams etc. After three years the culture change was deemed complete and she could turn her hand to the future of the company. This case study highlights the often drastic measures and level of commitment that is required by managers to introduce a culture change to an organisation. 7.Conclusion It is relatively clear that organisational culture exists and that it plays a huge part in an organisations actions and the behaviour of its employees. Very few writers now argue with this point. I have discussed how culture develops in an organisation and the different levels and types of culture that emerge. Referring back to the second part of the original question, we have seen how managers can influence and attempt to change an organisations culture and the various problems that are encountered in this process. Although there are debates as to whether an organisations culture can or cannot be changed it would seem that there is a mid-point between the two arguments. There are examples of successful culture changes and I have given one in the text. It is clear that if properly organised and implemented a cultural change can be achieved. However we cannot assume that the culture has been changed all together. If the underlying assumptions are as strong as Schein and other writers claim then these will always affect the company culture in some shape or form. If the new culture is not carefully controlled could reappear. To conclude I would say, although cultural can be changed to suit the environment and organisational strategy, that managers should be cautious take into account the underlying principles that govern the organisational culture. 8.References Martin, J, (2001), Organizational Behaviour, 2nd edn, Thomson Learning Mullins, L, (2002), Management and Organisational Behaviour, 2nd edn, Financial Times, Prentice Hall Schein, E, (1992), Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2nd edn, Jossey-Bass Inc. Cummings, T and Worley, C, (1993), Organization Development and Change, 5th edn , West Publishing Company Sackman, S, (1991), Cultural knowledge in Organizations Exploring the Collective Mind, Sage Publications Frost, P et al. (1991), Reframing Organizational Culture, Sage Publications Sinclair, A, (1993), Approaches to organisational culture and ethics, Journal of Business Ethics, Dordrecht: Jan 1993. Vol. 12, Iss. 1; pg. 63, 11 pgs Wilson, A (2001), Understanding organisational culture and the implications for corporatemarketing, European Journal of Marketing, Bradford, Vol. 35, Iss. 3/4; pg. 353

Turning an Idea Into a Novel

Turning an Idea Into a Novel The Lightbulb Moment: Turning an Idea Into a Novel M.T. Ellis is a Brisbane-based crime thriller author. She has just published her debut novel, Azrael,  which was inspired by a nightmare she had in 2014. In this article, M.T. talks about the so-called â€Å"lightbulb† moment - the moment an author strikes plot-gold. Writers, she explains, can have many lightbulb moments. They don’t each turn into full-fledged novels, but that doesn’t mean they belong in the recycle bin. M.T. is currently writing the second novel in her Detective Allira Rose series. Turning a nightmare into a novelPutting my ducks in a row Being an aspiring author is hard when you’re still searching for the right idea. That being said, when they all start coming to you, things can get challenging again. To keep myself organized and to make sure that I can fill in plot holes and gaps, I add a comment bubble at the start of each scene I write, with a sentence or two describing the scene and the character’s point-of-view. That way I can scroll through all the comments I’ve left for myself and get an overview of what scenes need to go where. Writing is hard when you’re looking for the right idea. When you find it, it's still challenging. Getting out of my own way After writing about 20,000 words, I was forced to abandon my manuscript for about eighteen months because I became busy with my day job. During this time, I occasionally wrote notes but it wasn't until that project finished that I was able to write the rest of the manuscript, which took about six months.During those six months, there were times when I couldn’t even look at the manuscript because I had developed such a fear of failure and a loss of confidence in the story. Conflictingly, I had also developed a fear of the book actually doing well and the potential of the ensuing attention. It was a strange struggle, which I eventually got over with the encouragement (and nagging!) of my family and friends.Turning to professionals After I wrote the first draft of Azrael, I took the first 20 pages and the synopsis to the 20 Pages in 20 Minutes session at the Brisbane Writers Festival where I was able to sit down with award-winning author Midge Raymond, and discuss the manuscript. Midge pointed out that my novel’s antagonist was too overbearing and unlikable. So for my first big rewrite, I incorporated parts of the antagonist's past into the story so that readers would be able to understand why he came to be a â€Å"villain.†Once my next draft of Azrael was ready for an edit, I turned to Reedsy and hired Allister Thompson for a structural edit and a copy edit. Allister was great; he pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript and went through the text with a fine-toothed comb, offering suggestions on how to make the story more psychologically sound and more enticing to the reader.Tom Vowler was the final editor I used to complete my manuscript. I found him via Reedsy as well and he d id a thorough proofread of the manuscript. Tom taught me a lot: I was able to address the spelling and grammar mistakes I was constantly making while learning how to keep my writing consistent throughout the novel.My advice to fellow authorsWhat to do with all of those â€Å"dead-end† ideas? In short, keep them. Write them down and save them - all of them. While writing Azrael, when I thought of ideas that didn't quite fit, I’d put them in a folder called â€Å"Book 2.† Now that I have started writing the second book of my thriller series, some of the work will already be done because I’ve acquired a wealth of inspiration from unused scenes in the first novel. Don't see unused ideas as a waste of time - they may serve a purpose down the road. So don't see unused ideas as a waste of time because even if you feel like they don’t go anywhere in the moment, they may serve a purpose further down the road.Azrael is available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle!  For more information, visit M.T's website!Please  share your thoughts, experiences, or any questions for M.T, in the comments below!