The Mega Conglomerate, Disney, Walt Disney - 1130 Words

History The mega conglomerate, Disney, began in 1923 with two men and one cartoon, Alice In Wonderland. From 1988 to present day Disney Pictures has released some of the most successful films in Hollywood. Disney’s most iconic and memorable titles include, The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Beauty and The Beast. Disney has pushed the boundaries of the film industry since its beginning with the production of the first full length animation film, Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, as well as the release of their first live action film, Treasure Island. After the death of Roy and Walt Disney, the company only continued to grow. Robert Iger was named chief executive officer in 2005. Currently, Disney owns Walt Disney Animation†¦show more content†¦Opening at number 1, the weekend of March 13th 2015, the movie earned an opening weekend gross of $67,877,361 domestically. Including international gross the film made over $70 million opening weekend and made their $95 millio n budget in the second week. In total, Cinderella has made $438,036,467 worldwide. With a large part of the target audience being female children, the cast, including, Lily James and Richard Madden, was fairly unknown to them. The seven minute Frozen Fever short at the beginning of the film, based of the extremely popular animation Frozen, may have been a drawing factor for crowds to see Cinderella. Although Cinderella had one of the biggest debuts of the year, its numbers fell short of what was expected by Disney. The lower figures means the new film fell behind Disney’s last live-action remake, Maleficent. Monkey Kingdom The Disneynature film, is set in South Asia and follows the story of the macaques monkey, Maya. With a new son, Kip, and her longtime home, Castle Rock, being taken over, Maya has to relocate and work hard to get back her home and establish a good future for her son. The movie is narrated by Tina Fey. The director of the film, Mark Linfield, spent over 2 and a half years filming and following the animals for the movie. The movie was released on April 17th. The opening weekend numbers have yetShow MoreRelatedDisney Company : The World s Multi National Conglomerate1706 Words   |  7 PagesThe Walt Disney company is considered to be one of the world s multi-national conglomerate in terms of revenue. It was founded in 1923 by Walt and Roy Disney initially named the Disney Brothers Studio. The initial foundation of the company was based on cartoons and animation. The biggest status of success was the establishment of the most recognizable characters in the world Mickey Mouse. Fast forwa rd nearly a century later The Walt Disney company is an empire and leading name in family entertainmentRead MoreThe Walt Disney Company Understanding Monopolies2041 Words   |  9 PagesThe Walt Disney Company Understanding Monopolies Overview and History The Walt Disney Company is a major media and entertainment enterprise that is based in Burbank, California and operates in more than forty countries with a worldwide appeal. After going bankrupt with his first cartoon company Laugh-O-Gram in 1922 Walt Disney moved to Hollywood, California to start over (Campbell, Martin, Fabos 456). Walt and his brother Roy created the Disney Brothers Cartoon studio in 1923 and they signed a contractRead MoreCase Analysis on Walt Disney3122 Words   |  13 PagesThe history, development and growth of Walt Disney Company over time The Walt Disney Company has matured from the children’s cartoon dream-factory of brothers Roy and Walt Disney into the world’s second largest media conglomerate, behind Time-Warner (Hoover’s).In the year 2005, Robert Iger replaced Micheal Eisner as the CEO of Walt Disney. When Micheal Eisner was CEO: Micheal Eisner had a very centralized management style and expected his managers to develop a five-year and ten year plans forRead MoreEspn History Essay1818 Words   |  8 Pagesover half the countries in the world. Blossoming into a mini-media conglomeration in its own, ESPN has conquered of the so-called Sports Nation does not show any signs of slowing down anytime take over. In addition of being a subsidiary of Walt Disney Company, ESPNs colossal sweep of the United States and abroad can be attributed to its ambiguity to reach all markets in anyway possible, by development focusing on the sports fan, modernizing with the times, and the booming popularity of sportsRead MoreCase on the Disney Brand14200 Words   |  57 PagesKey Words: Brand Extension, Expansion into New Geographies. Brand Culture, Brand Symbols, Semiotics Analysis. Study of ‘Disney’: Strategies and factors that helped build the iconic brand. Group 7 Archana Menon 2008 09 A Chandan Pansari 2008 12 A Ranjani Mani 2008 43 A Sumita Das 2008 55 A INDEX Introduction ..........................................................................................................................4 Licensing ..............................................Read MoreSwot Analysis : The Star Wars Franchise2325 Words   |  10 Pagesto the cascading effect of each strength into different segments of the company and throughout the customer demographic. The Star Wars Franchise. The strongest asset Disney has in 2016, and likely over the next ten years, is the overwhelming benefits that will continue to be experienced as a result of the Star Wars films. Disney has seen exceptional profits in their entertainment division which represents the third largest division in the company. In 2015, The Force Awakens was released and quicklyRead MoreAnalysis : At The Time Of Considerable Change On The Global Media Environment 2366 Words   |  10 Pagescompany in the same industry value chain, for example, the acquisition of Pixar by Disney or Instagram by Facebook. Others grow through vertical integration strategy to enhance profits by focusing on the supply chain. For instance, Disney’s Lion King has earned over $1 billion due to the cross promotion and sell magazines, books, toys, and so on .In the worldwide, The Big Six conglomerations conclude; Comcast, Walt Disney, 21st Century Fox, Time Warner, CBS and Viacom. All of them are based in the USARead MoreMarketing Mistakes and Successes175322 Words   |  702 PagesTopics Topics Most Relevant Cases Marketing Research and Consumer Analysis Coca-Cola, Disney, McDonald’s, Google, Starbucks Product Starbucks, Nike, Coke/Pepsi, McDonald’s, Maytag, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Newell Rubbermaid, DaimlerChrysler, Kmart/Sears, Harley-Davidson, Boeing/Airbus, Merck, Boston Beer, Firestone/Ford, Southwest, MetLife, Borden, United Way, Vanguard, Continental, Euro Disney Distribution Nike, Coke/Pepsi, Newell Rubbermaid, Harley-Davidson, Vanguard, StarbucksRead MoreHuman Resources Management150900 Words   |  604 PagesAct. Organizational Restructuring Many organizations have restructured in the past few years in order to become more competitive. Also, mergers and acquisitions of firms in the same industries have been made to ensure global competitiveness. The â€Å"mega-mergers† in the banking, petroleum, and telecommunications industries have been very visible, but mergers and acquisitions of firms in many other industries have increased in recent years. As part of the organizational changes, many organizations haveRead MoreContemporary Issues in Management Accounting211377 Words   |  846 Pagesbeen associated with a wide variety of issues. Frequently, discussions of the topic have addressed more general concerns with organizational management and competitiveness in the context of contemporary preoccupations. In the 1960s, the growth of conglomerates went hand in hand with an extensive discussion of misunderstandings of the role of divisionalized performance measurement (e.g. Mauriel and Anthony 1966) and, especially, t he diYculties of measuring executive performance through proWt measures

Group Decision-Making, Leadership, Influence and Power...

The film â€Å"12 Angry Men (1957)† present a diverse group of twelve American jurors brought together to decide the guilt or innocence of a teenaged defendant in a seemingly open-and-shut murder trial case. The film illustrates the advantages and disadvantages of group decision-making, group developmental stages, leadership personality and models, social influence tactics and outcomes, and the bases of social power. The following advantages of group decision-making were demonstrated in this approximately 90 min black-and-white 1957 film: First is diversity. A pool of varied cultural backgrounds, age groups etc, and different life experiences is a great strength of a group in decision-making. Second is enhanced memory of facts. The combine†¦show more content†¦As brainstorming and arguments in the storming stage intensified, more and clearer guiding rules were implicitly made or became obvious to members. The performing stage was when the group reached a conclusive unanimous decision of â€Å"not guilty† verdict, culminating in the adjourning phase where the group completed its task, disbanded and dispatched from the room to their various individual ways. In the film, Juror #8 stood out as exemplifying leadership characteristics. He demonstrated true leadership, able to make followers by influencing the minds, feelings and actions of others. Apparently, the entire over 90 min film is centered on this juror making followers of the rest 11 jurors and leading them to successfully complete the group’s task of reaching a fair and unanimous verdict. He started out by being the only odd man, choosing the difficult right over the easy wrong and declaring a non-guilty verdict. But through showing of personal integrity and appeal, respect, and empathy, rational persuasion, inspirational appeal, and a sense of duty, he was able to force the jury to deliberate and eventually convinced the others that the accused was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The first leadership model illustrated by the film â€Å"12 angry men† is shared leadership. TheShow MoreRelatedGroup Decision-Making, Leadership, Influence and Power: Illustrations from the Film ‚Äà º12 Angry Men‚Äà ¹1048 Words   |  5 PagesGroup Decision-Making, Leadership, Influence and Power: Illustrations from the Film â€Å"12 Angry Men† Stephen Pulla 804 859 874 BMGT 310 April 20, 2012 Victor Rosochalsky â€Å"The cognitive evaluation theory is contradictory to reinforcement and expectancy theories† There are three motivation theories that will help increase an individual’s motivation to perform better at certain tasks. The three theories of motivation are the Expectancy theoryRead MoreConformity - Social Psychology4828 Words   |  20 Pagesof influences lead to conformity? When are we likely to conform and why does it have a negative connotation in Western society? Compare and contrast the conformity experiments of Sherif and Asch. Describe their methodology and the results that they observed. What processes seem to be at work in each case? In your view, would we get the same results today? Conformity is defined by Aronson (1988) as ‘a change in a persons behaviour or opinions as a result of real or imagined pressure from a personRead MoreStephen P. Robbins Timothy A. Judge (2011) Organizational Behaviour 15th Edition New Jersey: Prentice Hall393164 Words   |  1573 PagesCourier/Kendalville Text Font: 10.5/12 ITC New Baskerville Std Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text. Copyright  © 2013, 2011, 2009, 2007, 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher prior to any prohibitedRead MoreManagement Course: Mba−10 General Management215330 Words   |  862 PagesMcGraw−Hill Primis ISBN: 0−390−58539−4 Text: Effective Behavior in Organizations, Seventh Edition Cohen Harvard Business Review Finance Articles The Power of Management Capital Feigenbaum−Feigenbaum International Management, Sixth Edition Hodgetts−Luthans−Doh Contemporary Management, Fourth Edition Jones−George Driving Shareholder Value Morin−Jarrell Leadership, Fifth Edition Hughes−Ginnett−Curphy The Art of M A: Merger/Acquisitions/Buyout Guide, Third Edition Reed−Lajoux and others . . . ThisRead MoreStrategic Marketing Management337596 Words   |  1351 Pagesthe publisher Permissions may be sought directly from Elsevier’s Science Technology Rights Department in Oxford, UK: phone: ( 44) 1865 843830, fax: ( 44) 1865 853333, e-mail: permissions@elsevier.co.uk. You may also complete your request on-line via the Elsevier homepage (www.elsevier.com), by selecting ‘Customer Support’ and then ‘Obtaining Permissions’ British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress CataloguingRead MoreDeveloping Management Skills404131 Words   |  1617 PagesGraphics Text Font: 10/12 Weidemann-Book Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with permission, in this textbook appear on appropriate page within text. Copyright  © 2011, 2007, 2005, 2002, 1998 Pearson Education, Inc., publishing as Prentice Hall, One Lake Street, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. This publication is protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher priorRead MoreOverview of Hrm93778 Words   |  376 Pages Human Resource Management (MGT501) VU and abilities imbedded in an organization s members. This knowledge base is the foundation of an organization core competencies (integrated knowledge sets within an organization that distinguish it from its competitors and deliver value to customers). HRM plays important role in creating organizations and helping them survive. Our world is an organizational world. We are surrounded by organizations and we participate in them as members, employeesRead MoreGp Essay Mainpoints24643 Words   |  99 PagesPage 1. Media a. New vs. Traditional b. New: narcissistic? c. Government Censorship d. Profit-driven Media e. Advertising f. Private life of public figures g. Celebrity as a role model h. Blame media for our problems i. Power + Responsibility of Media j. Media ethics k. New Media and Democracy 2. Science/Tech a. Science and Ethics b. Government and scientist role in science c. Rely too much on technology? d. Nuclear technology e. Genetic modificationRead MoreMarketing Management130471 Words   |  522 PagesDBA 1652 Marketing Management UNIT -- I Unit No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Unit Title Marketing management – an introduction Marketing environment Marketing with other functional areas of management Market segmentation Market targeting and positioning Product management Brand management Pricing Channel design and management Retailing and Wholesaling Integrated Marketing Communication Advertising management Sales promotion Personal selling PublicRead MoreHuman Resources Management150900 Words   |  604 Pagesfor manufacturing has HR responsibilities for 600 employees. In that role she contributes to workflow, production, scheduling, and other manufacturing decisions. It also means that she is more accessible to and has more credibility with manufacturing workers, most of whom are hourly workers. Making the transition in HR management required going from seven to three levels of management, greatly expanding the use of crossfunctional work teams, and significantly increasing training. To ease employee

A Research Study On Stem Cell Research - 1324 Words

Path to Hope A man has been battling Parkinson’s disease, which is a disease where it is harder to speak, parts of the body move uncontrollably and it is hard to balance and walk. It’s challenging for him to interact with his family and live his life like this. He knows that stem cells could help cure him from his misery, so he has been fighting and fighting for stem cell research to be fully funded in America. Stem cells are cells that have the skill to change into any type of cell in the human body (Lewis). These cells could be put anywhere ill in the body to make it healthy again. Imagine all of the people with chronicle diseases and cancer being able to have hope for being happy and healthy again. Also, these stem cells can fix†¦show more content†¦These can help many patients and not give them the stress of having somebody else’s organ being put in them. Getting therapy and all kinds of different surgeries for a single organ or injury is so painful. These patie nts would go through less pain if they got stem cells injected into their body every once in a while. Two ex-professional athletes, John Brodie and Gorde Howe, left the country and went to Mexico to receive stem cell injections after massive strokes they each had. Before the experimental treatment these two sport hero’s could barely walk, speak with others or take care of themselves and began to give up hope. Just hours after the treatment, both men could exercise, walk and communicate better, just after they were on the verge of death. Brodie’s doctor did not want him to go receive this treatment, but he believed it was his last chance at recovery and happiness. As for Howe, his family was hesitant about his decision to get these injections, but they figured he needed this opportunity (Schrotenboer). Stem cells serve the body as a repair kit and our nation needs to see the possibility of stem cells as the tool we all need (Monczunski; Rowley). While Obama signed for s tem cell research to be allowed under restrictions with some funding he explained this research is â€Å"To regenerate a served spinal cord and lift someone from a wheelchair. To spur insulin production and spare a child from a lifetime of

Tribute To Mom free essay sample

Throughout my whole life, there’s always been one person who’s always been able to influence my life, and help to mend the goals that I have wanted to do throughout my entire life. Literally everything that I’ve ever wanted to be, she’s supported. From the obvious thing most girls wanted to be, a princess, to crazy things such as a tiger trainer, she’s always supported me in what I wanted to do in my life time. She always said, as long as I’m doing what I love to do, and then I should pursue a future in the career I decided I wanted to be, which sometimes changed every other week as I was growing up. This amazing, supporting, loving, and encouraging woman, well, she was my mother. She was one of the strongest women I’ve ever known throughout my life so far, even though I’m pretty sure she’ll always be the strongest person in my life. We will write a custom essay sample on Tribute To Mom or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page In 2004, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and that made everything extremely difficult to deal with. At school, it was super hard to concentrate and I was always thinking of my future, but not what I was going to do with it, or how it would be. I was worried that I would lose the one person who had, and always would, support me with what I wanted to do in life. Fortunately, she was able to pull through what we thought was going to be the hardest part. After that my mother and I became closer than we had ever been before in our life. She hadn’t changed one bit from the supportive mom she was, even though she was battling for her own life, she was more worried with what I wanted to do in my life. My mom and I had a passion for baking, we would bake all day, every day if we could, as well as a few of my friends that would come over and help us with our baking. Mostly, the baking that involved more than just my mom and I was around Christmas time, when they knew they would get the goodies in a bag to go home. Around the time, a couple of my friends, my mom, and myself, came up with this crazy idea of opening a bakery with my mom as the head baker and I’d deal with all the management stuff, and of course my friends would help out wherever they felt comfortable with. Amazingly, I had finally decided what I wanted to do with my life. As the years went on, she taught me some of the little things that I would need to know to try and run a business and the things I would most likely want to study while I was in college and while I was in school the subjects that I should try to succeed in just a little bit more while I was in high school. She was always willing to help me with my schooling whenever I needed help, even though she was going through her treatment at the same time. Throughout the next couple of years, she continued to help me through school as much as she could, but sadly after three years of fighting her own battle, she wasn’t a ble to win and lost her life. After that, I thought I wouldn’t be able to do what I wanted in life because I didn’t have my rock and my major support there anymore to help me with the things I always went to in life. At that point, I just gave up on my goals in life. I just kind of figured I would do whatever came my way. School just didn’t seem to matter and neither did anything else. Within the last year, and it’s almost been five years since my mom has passed away, I’ve realizes that my mom would still want me to do what I wanted to do. She wouldn’t want to me just stop my life, and give up on the goals that I had, and the dreams I wanted to do with my life, just because she wasn’t here anymore. Once that reality had set in, I realized I needed to straighten up and start making her proud again. That is one on the major reasons that I want to pursue my career with a major in business administration. By furthering my education, I wil l be able to do what I always planned on doing, and that way, I’m still able to make her as proud as she can be.

Organizational Change Plan free essay sample

Organizational Change When executives and students of management talk about organizational change, they mean many different things. Introducing a new enterprise resource planning system in order to coordinate and standardize internal processes is an organizational change. So is shutting down a factory, selling off a noncore business, or laying off employees. How about introducing a new business model to meet innovative competitors, adopting a new pay-for-performance system to motivate individual effort or a stock option plan to encourage a shared sense of ownership in the company? Entering global markets, integrating acquired companies, and outsourcing nonstrategic activities—these, too, are examples of organizational change. In order to understand and analyze the dynamics of change, and particularly the requirements of effective change implementation, it is important to sort out and distinguish the various approaches an organization can take. This chapter will explore multiple paths to change, paying special attention to behavioral change. In particular, this chapter will: Identify the role of strategic renewal in propelling change Focus on the behavioral aspect of organizational change Analyze the dynamics of motivating employees to alter their behaviors Differentiate the three faces of change Understand the source of both employee resistance to and support for change We will start by looking at an attempt by the president of a small but prestigious local bookstore to improve financial performance in the face of competition from national chains as well as from Internet giant Amazon. We will write a custom essay sample on Organizational Change Plan or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Massachusetts, is the site of the opening battle of the American Revolutionary War. Its rich literary history dates back to the nineteenth century when it was the home of the transcendental writers, notably, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Eight of Concord Bookshop’s employees, including the trio of top managers, have quit or given their notice. The staffers’ years of service add up to 73. The three managers, including [the] general manager . . . have worked at the store for a total of 34 years. Meanwhile, a group of outraged local authors . Has fired off a letter to the owners supporting the staff. The precipitating event was a surprise announcement last month by the owners—a group of three families represented by a board led by President Morgan â€Å"Kim† Smith of Concord—that a new general manager will be hired. No one was laid off, and no one’s salary was cut. Yet many of the staff were outraged at the de facto demotions, as well as by what they saw as the owners’ immovable stance. . . â€Å"We asked for a meeting with the whole board,† says [a departing staff member]. We presented our concerns, and they thanked us for our input and said, ‘We’re going to do it our way, and if you don’t like it, each of you will have to make up your mind as to how to proceed. ’ Something in me died, the fragile alchemy that made it such a great place to work had died. They had made their plans, we were expendable employees, and we could take it or leave it. †. . . â€Å"We’re heartbroken about it,† says David Donald, professor of history emeritus at Harvard University . . . â€Å"These are people we deal with all the time. It’s a wonderful store, beautifully arranged. They are knowledgeable and are glad to look things up. † Adds Joanne Arnaud, director of the Boston Literacy Fund and a Concord resident who also signed the letter: â€Å"What makes the Concord Bookshop different is the people and their institutional memory and their memory for a customer. I can say, ‘I’m looking for a book for someone who liked the last book by Nicholas Basbanes. Can you help me? ’ They are so warm and welcoming. † The clash appears to be rooted in finances. Smith declined to give numbers but portrayed the store’s financial situation as dire. â€Å"Things have never been worse,† he says. We are offering something important to the town of Concord, which is wonderful, but it isn’t profitable. † Smith praises the three managers but says, â€Å"The owners felt the three-way management was not working out. † The managers say finances aren’t so bad. They . . . issued a written comment: â€Å"In explaining to us the change in management structure, the owners told us they wanted to take the store in a different direction. We hold different opinions regarding the financial health of the store. We are very proud of what we have been able to accomplish these past five years. There’s no disagreement, though, that profit margins are tighter than ever, and that the past few years have been rough on independent bookstores, especially in the age of Barnes Noble, Borders, and Amazon. com. Smith believes some of the store’s programs should be reexamined, such as regular weeknight author appearances and signings, which require paying staff to keep the store open. â€Å"Increasingly, people are buying their books elsewhere and bringing them to signings,† Smith says. â€Å"We had 70 people at the Tracy Kidder signing, but we sold only 10 books. I discovered a guy coming in with five copies of the book that he bought [elsewhere]. We want to preserve the store, but we need to make the finances work. † There’s no dispute, either, on Concord’s national reputation in the trade. â€Å"It is one of the jewels of New England,† says . . . [the] executive director of the New England Booksellers Association. . . â€Å"They are the kind of store that’s on everyone’s A list. Publishers are interested in what Concord buys. They ask, ‘How is Concord doing with the book? ’ They are exemplars for reaching out to the community and in cultivating authors†. . . The conflict illustrates the special place a bookstore can have in a small community, especially one such as Concord, with its numerous authors and links to such literary giants as Emerson and Thoreau. The store is regarded as a community resource, not just a business. â€Å"This is Concord vs. Concord,† says Martha Holland, who is quitting after 18 years. â€Å"There were a hundred points where it could have been smoothed over. How it got so out of hand, I don’t understand. The owners have every right to run their business as they see fit. But if the staff goes, it’s just a bunch of bookshelves and carpets. Strategic Responsiveness Morgan Smith’s attempt to bring financial discipline to the Concord Bookshop seemed quite sensible in the face of new competitive realities. Owners, employees, customers, and suppliers all agreed on the desirability of maintaining the store’s viability. Yet Smith’s approach to change implementation—the actions taken by organizational leaders in order to support strategic renewal and achieve outstanding performance—led to resistance, conflict, and resentment. Recognizing the need for change is a vital first step. Successful implementation, however, is required to translate that recognition into an effective strategic response. We live in a period of rapid and dramatic change: significant alterations in customer expectations and demands, new technologies, competitors with innovative business models, shifts in workforce demographics and values, new societal demands and constraints. Organizations need to respond to external dynamics in order to create and maintain outstanding performance. Theory into Practice Strategic responsiveness to a dynamic external environment demands organizational change. In response to those dynamics, organizational leaders often decide to engage in a process of strategic renewal. Strategic renewal refers to an alteration of an organization’s strategy with the intent of regaining sustainable competitive advantage. 1 Exhibit 1-1 provides examples of organizations whose leaders made a purposeful decision to renew their strategies. Some attempts have been more effective than others. Strategic renewal at IBM and Walgreens proved successful, while efforts to transform Enron’s strategy collapsed in failure. At different points in the text, we will explore and analyze the efforts of these companies to implement new strategies effectively. Exhibit 1-1 Strategic Responsiveness in Sample Companies. Company Altered Strategy Enron Move from energy production to energy trading GE Move from commodity business to high value-added products and services IBM Move from product to service/consulting company Marks and Spencer Move from a department store appealing to traditional, conservative adult British shoppers to a store appealing to young, trendy shoppers Renault Move from French-based to internationally focused automobile company Walgreens Move from store-based chain in order to capture growing Internet business Facebook Move from restricted, college campus-only social network to become a â€Å"universal utility† open to everyone Strategic renewal requires organizational change (see Exhibit 1-2). Strategic renewal demands â€Å"wide-scale invention, reinvention, and redesign of business processes and organizational structures. † 2 IBM pulled off strategic renewal as it moved from a product to a service/consulting company. Harley-Davidson managed a different but equally significant strategic renewal by redefining its relationship with its customers. Exhibit 1-2 Strategic Renewal and Organizational Change. Theory into Practice To implement a renewed strategy, organizational leaders need to engage in a change process. For strategic renewal to be effective, organizations need to do more than announce a new strategy. Leaders need to align internal processes, structures, and systems with the demands of that new strategy. New organizational capabilities—talents and skills possessed by employees—need to be built. Underlying all those shifts is the requirement to engage in discontinuous change: large-scale, long-term reorientation of most or all of the central aspects of organizational life. The goal is to create lasting alterations in patterns of employee behavior in order to support strategic renewal. Strategic Renewal through a New Business Model Apple Computer seemed well positioned to achieve a breakthrough into the corporate/business market. With the extraordinary popularity of its iPod and iPhone offerings, young customers were flocking to Apple products as never before. But successful penetration into the business market would require more than loyal customers and brand familiarity. Apple’s business mode would need to change. The company’s long-standing highly secretive culture (Steve Jobs enjoyed launching new products with high security prior to his grand announcements) would need to change. In the corporate world, customers expect to be treated as long-term partners, actually having a say in the development of new products. 3 In order to extend its popularity among young, tech-savvy consumers into the corporate marketplace, Apple would need  to alter its business model. Business model innovation has become an increasingly common avenue for corporate growth. At its most basic level, a business model is the organization’s approach to generating revenue and making a profit. More specifically, business models involve the configuration of and the nature of the linkage between operations. 4 Start-up companies often gain a competitive advantage over long-standing market leaders by offering novel business models. Consider the following examples: Starbucks offered high-priced coffee specialty drinks in a relaxed environment. Amazon sold books online. Southwest Airlines provided an air service that competed with bus service and driving. Dell built computers to customer specifications. Zara placed low-cost high-fashion items on shelves with incredible speed. YouTube revolutionized the creation and distribution of video. Facebook integrated web-based interconnectivity with traditional school-based yearbooks. All of those companies had the advantage of building the innovative business model from scratch, â€Å"greenfield† as it is often called. They could harmonize their internal processes and employee competencies and behaviors with the requirements of their model. They did not face the challenge of nurturing a new business model within an existing, long-standing approach to generating revenue. Theory into Practice It is possible to gain competitive advantage through the creation of a new business model, but changing your existing business model will create special change challenges. Altering an existing business model, especially one that has been successful in the past, has proved much more challenging than a greenfield effort. Some organizations have been successful: Under Louis Gerstner, IBM transformed its business model for generating profits from the sales of hardware to generating profits from services and software. Lufthansa’s Jergen Weber moved the company from a centralized collection of functional stovepipes to a number of free-standing service offerings, including cargo handling, on-plane catering, and service maintenance. Carlos Ghosn changed the failing business model of Nissan by simultaneously centralizing product design and globalizing the company’s supply chain. Not all attempts to alter a company’s business model lead to success, of course. Michael Armstrong’s effort to move ATT from a long-distance phone company to a full-service provider of a wide array of offerings—cable, long-distance, local, wireless, etc. —proved disastrous. 6 Most notoriously of all, Jeffrey Skilling’s alteration of Enron’s business model—from energy provider to energy futures trader—disintegrated over the company’s inability to build sustainable profitability (and its leaders’ willingness to hide that fact from the public, investors, and employees). Corporate leaders believe that business model innovation will be the major source of growth over the next decade. 8 To achieve that desired growth, however, they will need to become effective change leaders. Because business model innovation alters the nature of linkages among employees, it disrupts existing patterns of behavior while demanding new competencies and skills. The failure of a company to engage in organizational change undermines a company’s capacity to innovate in their business model. 9 All business model innovation—that is, moving from the status quo to a new model—requires organizational change. Theory into Practice Adaptation of a new business model within a corporation will require organizational change. Behavioral Change Effective strategic renewal requires behavioral change that directly targets patterns of employee actions and interactions in order to meet the company’s strategy and to achieve and sustain outstanding performance. Theory into Practice If change interventions are to achieve significant and sustainable impact on performance, they must focus on altering patterns of employee behavior. Effective implementation depends on an alteration in patterns of employee behavior. Behavior refers to the actions employees take to enact their roles and responsibilities within the organization. Behaviors involve what employees do and how they do it, how much effort they bring to their roles, and how persistent they are in achieving desired outcomes. Behavior also involves the enactment of relationships: how employees interact with others (peers, subordinates, superiors, customers, suppliers, the host community, and so forth). It is this enactment of roles, responsibilities, and relationships that constitutes employee behavior in organizations. The collective enactment of those roles, responsibilities, and relationships—that is, the patterns of employee behavior within organizations—constitutes the target of behavioral change efforts. Behavioral change seeks more than a short-term alteration. New behaviors that are adopted for a short period of time and then dropped as employees return to old approaches will undermine strategic renewal. In order to support strategic renewal and outstanding performance, new behaviors need to be sustainable and adaptive to shifts in the external environment. The reason sustainability of new behaviors matters can be stated simply: the ways in which employees behave significantly impact the organization’s performance. Beyond products and market position, beyond plants and technology, employee behaviors affect the bottom-line performance of the organization. 10 Theory into Practice Organizational change seeks to create long-term, sustainable alterations in employee behaviors. Just how does that happen? How is it that patterns of employee behavior impact a company’s bottom-line performance? The key to understanding the relationship of behaviors to performance can be found in the idea of motivation. Motivation, in this case, refers to the degree to which employees are committed to the achievement of outstanding performance both for themselves and for their company. Employee motivation pays off in bottom-line performance. High motivation creates in employees the capability and willingness to work together to solve problems. Quality improves, customer responsiveness increases, and adaptation occurs. Chapter 4 will examine in detail efforts to redesign organizations to capture the benefits of enhanced employee involvement and commitment. For now, we can suggest that behaviors count. The competitive advantage delivered by behavioral change can be long term and sustainable. The manner in which work is organized, information is shared, decisions are made, coordination occurs, and problems are solved are all performance differentiators. 11 Furthermore, that performance edge is sustainable for decades, leading to significant and often staggering competitive advantage. 12 Theory into Practice The way employees behave impacts the bottom-line performance of the company. Sources of Behavior Effective change implementation needs to start with an appreciation of the source of an individual’s behavior. What is it that leads an individual to behave in a certain way? Individual psychology is important, of course: who the individual is, what values he or she brings to the workplace, even how that individual thinks and learns. But individual psychology can be difficult to assess and slow to change. A leader seeking leverage over employee behavior can start by focusing not on individual psychology but on the organizational context in which employees work. Theory into Practice Behavior comes from both the individual and the organizational context in which the individual works. Organizational context—the setting and circumstances in which employees work—exerts a powerful impact on behavior. Companies as diverse as Google, Nordstrom, MySpace, and Southwest Airlines endeavor to promote an organizational context that shapes individual behavior. They call upon organizational culture and values, the behaviors of leaders, as well as rules and procedures to define a context that shapes how employees enact their roles, responsibilities, and relationships. To appreciate the power of organizational context to shape behaviors, we can examine a specific example of an employee mistake. Sheryl Sandberg, an advertising manager at Google, made a mistake that cost the company millions of dollars. â€Å"Bad decision,† she admitted, â€Å"moved too quickly, no controls in place, wasted some money. † 13 Sandberg quickly informed Google cofounder Larry Page. Employees make mistakes, even occasionally big ones such as Sandberg’s. Leaders have an important opportunity to shape organizational context by the manner in which they respond to those errors. Quick and harsh repercussions—firing, for example, or demotion—will have one kind of impact on the organizational context in which employees work. That response may be justified and reasonable, but it may also work to stifle future risk-taking behaviors. Or perhaps employees will be less willing to admit mistakes, slowing down an organization’s response time. The boss may also respond in a less harsh and punishing manner. Listen to the reaction of Google cofounder Larry Page, to Sandberg’s admission: I’m so glad you made this mistake, because I want to run a company where we are moving too quickly and doing too much, not being too cautious and doing too little. If we don’t have any of these mistakes, we’re not taking enough risk. The point is not  that Page’s response is the only â€Å"correct† or reasonable response to the admission of a mistake. Leaders have to determine what type of organizational context they seek to create. That context will need to be aligned with the company’s strategy and purpose. Page and Google cofounder Sergey Brin believe that mistakes can provide fuel for improvements, even innovation. â€Å"We’re willing to tolerate ambiguity and chaos,† says senior vice president Shona Brown, â€Å"because that’s where the room is for innovation. † Google’s leaders want a context that tolerates risk in order to generate innovation. Employee Participation and Resistance to Change Not all employees greet change with equal enthusiasm. It is useful, therefore, to examine the sources of employee resistance to change and the ways in which managers can overcome resistance. Resistance refers to action, overt or covert, exerted on behalf of maintaining the status quo. 14 Why Employees Resist Change You’re either for this change or you’re against it. That refrain may be familiar; it is not, however, accurate. Employee response to change runs across a broad spectrum, ranging from â€Å"commitment† at one end to â€Å"aggressive resistance† on the other (see Exhibit 1-3). Individuals may view change as a threat, fearing it will adversely affect them in some significant way. Individuals may understand that change brings both benefits and costs, but feel that the costs far outweigh the benefits. Individuals may view change as potentially positive, but may still resist because they believe that the organization’s management is mishandling the change process. Individuals may believe in the change effort, but still believe that the change is not likely to succeed. Managers can see employee resistance in negative terms: It is a â€Å"bad thing† that represents an irrational response to a dynamic competitive environment. In this way, employee resistance can be dismissed as invalid or disobedient. 17 Resistance to change, in this view, is a force to be overcome. There is another way of thinking about resistance to change, however; one that may actually improve the effectiveness of implementation. Theory into Practice Employee resistance is not just a negative force to be overcome; it also presents an opportunity to learn. How Managers Can Inadvertently Fuel Resistance During Implementation It is tempting to believe that a certain type of individual is likely to resist change. Perhaps you’ve heard, or even thought, ideas such as: Older workers are more likely to resist change than are younger workers. Middle managers are more likely to resist change than lower-level workers or upper-level executives. Men are more likely to resist change than women. And so on. Don’t take these explanations at face value. Study after study of employee resistance to change in organizations refutes these and other individualistic contentions. Individual differences may account for some variance in employee acceptance of or resistance to change. But the overwhelming determinant of employee reaction to change comes from how the process is managed and the degree to which employees are allowed to participate in the process. 18 Managers can inadvertently create resistance by the manner in which they pursue change. Here’s a checklist of employee resistance and possible sources of that resistance: Employees resist because they remain satisfied with the status quo. Perhaps management has not included employees in the diagnosis and learning process. Employees resist because they view change as a threat. Perhaps management has not offered employees the opportunity to acquire the new skills that will be required in the renewed organization. Employees resist because they see the cost of change outweighing the benefits. Perhaps management has not articulated the goals of the change adequately to allow a true assessment of the costs and benefits. Employees resist because they believe that management is mishandling the process. Perhaps employees have not been given a voice in the process itself. Employees resist because they believe that the change effort is not likely to succeed. Perhaps management needs to articulate why this change process is more likely to be effective than past efforts. By looking at the aforementioned reasons for employee resistance, we can see how many can be understood in part as a natural and expected outcome of implementation. Theory into Practice Participation in the change process is the best way to build support and overcome resistance to change; but remember—it’s no guarantee. In treating employee resistance as a negative force to be overcome, managers shut down the possibility that they can learn from resistance. When employee voice has been excluded from the change process, there is likely to be valuable data missing from the diagnostic and action planning phases of the effort. Employees may ask whether management really understands what customers expect from their products or services or what barriers the organization has erected to outstanding performance. Even when employees question whether management has selected an appropriate strategic response, it is useful, perhaps even indispensable, for managers to learn about employee hesitations and concerns. Instead of treating resistance as a force to be overcome,  managers may decide to treat resistance as an opportunity to learn from employees and improve the change process. Theory into Practice Employee resistance can offer leaders the opportunity to learn—what are the sources of resistance? Not all resistance to change offers an equal opportunity to learn, of course. Some resistance will have to be addressed and overcome. We will explore specific techniques and approaches management can consider to avoid creating resistance. For now, let us understand employee resistance as a form of expression that is not always a bad thing and that needs to be considered and understood by change leaders. Theory into Practice There comes a point in the change process where employee resistance will need to be addressed and overcome. Employee Participation Builds Support for Change Just as there are ways in which a change implementation process may inadvertently fuel resistance to change, there are also techniques for purposefully building support for change. Participation in the process of defining problems and designing solutions will help build commitment to the new directions that result from that process. By diagnosing problems, understanding their importance, and being part of the process of formulating solutions, people develop a psychological sense of â€Å"ownership† over the outcome. That ownership now creates in employees the heightened motivation to implement change in order to achieve desired goals. 20 Change imposed from â€Å"above†Ã¢â‚¬â€top executives telling employees that they must alter their behaviors in order to implement a new strategy or perform better under the old strategy—is likely to engender resistance. The employees resisting change at the Concord Bookshop complained that the board had dismissed employee suggestions to respond to the crisis by saying, â€Å"We’re going to do it our way. † Their felt loss of voice in the strategic response of the bookstore to new competitive realities contributed to high levels of resistance. People don’t resist change, the saying goes, they resist being changed. The difficult challenge for managers, then, becomes how and when to engage employees in the process of diagnosis, problem solving, and planning for change. General Motors (GM) can offer some historical perspective on both approaches; change that is imposed from above, and change in which employees participate in designing the solution. Theory into Practice Imposing change from above can lead to employee resistance. In the 1970s, soaring fuel prices and gas shortages made the U. S. consumer much more aware of the fuel in efficiencies of domestic automobiles. At the same time, Japanese car manufacturers such as Toyota, Honda, and Nissan captured significant market share by offering small, reliable, and fuel-efficient alternatives. GM, with its fleet of gas-guzzlers built for an era of expanding interstate highways and cheap gas, was especially vulnerable. When Roger Smith became chairman of GM in 1980, the company was hemorrhaging money and market share. Layoffs, factory closures, and the shedding of non-auto-related businesses followed. Smith had more in mind than trimming costs, however. To lead strategic renewal, he called on a massive multibillion-dollar investment in state-of-the-art robotics and assembly technology. Out of that effort came the Chevrolet Vega, a small, fuel-efficient model produced at the company’s newly retooled Lordstown, Ohio, plant. The Vega represented GM’s intent to face down the rising tide of imports. State-of-the-art robotics and automation would help GM keep the costs of producing the Vega low. Employees at the Lordstown plant, however, resisted the changes that had been imposed on them from above. In particular, they objected to the depersonalization and sped-up pace of new robotic technology. Resistance went far beyond complaining. Some employees engaged in sabotage, open rebellion, and a wildcat (unauthorized) strike. Six years after its appearance, GM discontinued the model that had once held such high hopes for meeting Japanese competition. 21 Theory into Practice A participative process can help build support for change efforts. Compare that resistance to a different initiative just a few years later at GM’s Cadillac plant in Livonia. Cadillac and Vega were worlds apart in terms of intended market niche. Nevertheless, GM executives hoped Livonia would help address some of the same pressures for strategic renewal: the need to produce a world-class car that would help the company regain slumping market share. As they had done at Lordstown, executives sought improved quality and increased efficiency at Livonia. Now, however, the company approached change quite differently. Management worked closely with labor through the United Auto Workers union. Instead of imposing new technology and work processes on the plant, management and the union involved hourly workers in a planning committee that would redesign the way the plant operated. Theory into Practice In a unionized environment, creating employee participation involves inviting the union itself into the decision-making process. The joint worker-management planning committee created employee teams organized around a product line or function and given responsibility beyond production, including responsibility for quality control and material handling. Other design changes proposed by the planning committee—the removal of multilevel job classifications in order to improve flexibility and efficiency in the deployment of workers, extensive front-end training for all employees to gain teamwork and problem-solving skills—turned the plant into what some in the company called â€Å"a Lordstown that worked. Twenty-five years later, Livonia continued to operate as a high-quality producer of Cadillac’s highly regarded Northstar engine. Imposed change encourages resistance. Individuals can feel manipulated, coerced, or even ignored. When people participate in designing change, on the other hand, they are more likely to feel they are making an informed choice about altering their behaviors. Individuals can develop commitment to the choice as well as feeling responsibility for implementing that choice. When people participate in the design of change (in the diagnosis, action planning, and implementation stages), they will be more motivated to alter their behaviors. And, to emphasize a point made earlier, employee motivation matters. New behaviors will not be sustainable if they have been prompted by manipulation or coercion. Effective change does not seek to fool employees into setting aside their better judgment. Rather, it seeks to encourage employees to find continually new and improved ways of applying their better judgment. How can internal processes be improved? What are customers telling employees about our products and services? How might we eliminate waste and improve quality? To support behaviors that can sustain outstanding performance, effective change efforts avoid manipulation and coercion, aiming instead to enhance employee willingness and ability to contribute their own judgment. Theory into Practice Behavioral change seeks to motivate employees to change their behaviors; not to force, coerce, or trick them into changing. Because motivation is internal to each employee, the change leader’s challenge is complex. The task involves shaping the organizational context in such a way as to encourage and support an internal desire on a large number of employees to alter their behaviors in ways consistent with the shifting demands of the new strategy. How that is done will be the subject of the remainder of this book. When change leaders are successful, the organizational context unleashes â€Å"people’s innate curiosity and desire to experiment,† says Peter Senge, which creates a powerful â€Å"engine for improvement. Motivation works to build initiative and a desire on the part of the employees themselves to innovate and alter behaviors in order to achieve outstanding performance. The Three Faces of Change Not all change efforts take aim directly at behaviors. Let’s return to GM. In February 2006, with the U. S. automobile industry in a state of drastic decline, America’s leading auto manufacturer made some tough decisions: cutting dividends, reducing white-collar benefits, and slashing executive pay. On top of 30,000 job cuts announced the previous year, company losses totalling $10.6 billion, and share prices hitting their lowest point since the middle of the Great Depression of the 1930s, GM’s CEO (chief executive officer) Rick Wagoner declined to predict when the company would return to profitability, saying only it would be â€Å"as soon as possible. † 24 In 2008, after announcing a huge loss, the company dove even deeper into turnaround, offering a â€Å"special attrition program†Ã¢â‚¬â€an offer to buy-out contracts in order to encourage retirement—for all 74,000 of its domestic hourly workers. 25 Theory into Practice Not all change is behavioral. GM’s approach to change can be characterized as turnaround. Rather than focusing on new behaviors, turnaround looks at a company’s assets and seeks to manage them in a new way in order to stabilize cash flow, shore up the balance sheet, and maximize shareholder wealth. GM’s turnaround may have been unusual in its scope. The activities of the turnaround effort—reducing capacity, shutting down facilities, reducing levels of pay, health insurance, and pension benefits—are typical. Is turnaround by itself enough? â€Å"Cutting costs is not a business plan,† observed Gary Chaison. Turnaround does not by itself create sustained outstanding performance. The impact of layoff announcements on the psychological state of employees—on their sense of security and belief in the future—accounts for part of the difficulty of translating downsizing into sustained outstanding performance. Employees who become insecure because of workforce reductions are less productive and less committed to the organization.

Joe Louis Biography essays

Joe Louis Biography essays I guess we should probably start out in Lafayette, Alabama on May 13, 1914 where I was born to the son of an Alabama sharecropper, great grandson of a slave, and the great great grandson of a white slave owner. When I was nine years old my family and I moved to Detroit in 1924. Detroit was where I first became interested in boxing. Having grown up in the old south, I had acquired the instinct and anger of a true fighter. I took on a strong liking to the sport and decided I was going to try boxing out. I trained non stop for the next ten years without any glamour or fame. I had a vision and I wasnt about to let it slip away. I won the Golden Gloves as a light heavyweight which would spark my professional career as a boxer. Within the first year of turning professional I won all twelve of my first bouts. As soon as I reached the pros I new it would be a steep climb up the heavyweight ladder. After I won more and more bouts my reputation as a boxer was growing, until finally I got my big chance. On June of 1935, I fought Primo Carnera, the former heavyweight champion, before a Yankee Stadium crowd of 62,00. I knocked him out in the fourth round. I have to say I was quite nervous going into the fight. After the fight was over I read a quote from Ernest Hemingway describing the fight as the most disgusting public spectacle outside of a public hanging that he had ever seen. I felt invincible the whole boxing world was on my side cheering me on. It almost seemed I couldnt be stopped. This feeling of greatness only lasted so long, until my meeting with Max Schmeling on June 19,1936. Max was the underdog but to the surprise of all including me he gave me a defeat that would continue to sting long after my cuts and bruises had healed. I was counted out in the 12th round of the fight and suffered the most painful defeat of my career. One year later I was back in the ring again t o face the wo...

Car Buying Assignment Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Car Buying Assignment - Research Paper Example Present Value Annuity of 5% for 10 years =12.578(use a financial table for PVA, Tapiero, 2010) = ($180 12.578 (PVA 5%, 10 years) = $2,264.04 SOLUTION 4 Amount saved=$ 3,800 Time =5 years Rate=7% Present value annuity of 7% for 5 years=2.624(use a financial table for PVA, Tapiero, 2010) = ($3800 x 2.624(PVA 7%, 5yrs) =$9,971.2 SOLUTION 5 Cash cost=$60 Credit cost = ($60+ ($34for 24) =$876-$695= $181 Home Buying Assignment Grading Rubric Table Comparing Data for the Two Homes Particulars For each home in terms of: 1942 San Ysidro Drive Beverly hills’, CA 18737 Gledhill Street Northridge, CA Price $1,195,000 $579,000 Age 57 years 59 years No. of bedrooms 3 3 No. of bathrooms 2 2 Square footage 2310 1670 Lot size 0.29 0.21 Price per square foot $517 $347 Comparison of the Particulars of the Two Homes The essence of using the two zip codes is to try and locate the appropriate region for buying a particular home so that it can be convenient in terms of reaching to your work station (Lucier, 2005). This can also determine the accessibility of resources and services conveniently for places such as schools, hospitals, church. Therefore, the two zip codes are logically used so as to enable the person interested in buying a home be able to determine the right location of the home with regards to accessibility of various services. In addition, an individual should also consider the shipping factor especially if most times they will be receiving goods through shipment, then a convenient and a strategic location would be a better choice. Considering the total prices for the two homes it is realized that the Beverley hills home is more expensive as compared to that in Northridge both in California. The above table shows that the home in 1942 San Ysidro Drive Street in Beverly is costs $1,195,000 while that along 18737 Gledhill Street costs $579,000. This also proves that those who stay in this area are financially capable (Lucier, 2005). This information would enable t he home buyer to know how to prepare and plan within the limits of his or her budget. After receiving prior information the buyer will plan and ensure that his objectives are precisely met. An individual can therefore make a good decision by comparing the prices of the two homes and knowing which among the two will be within his financial ability before any transactions are made. The price per square foot for the first home in Beverly is about 517 dollars while that along the Gledhill Street in Northridge is about 347 dollars. This comparison illustrates that land as a property is highly valued in Beverly than in Northridge especially for constructed buildings. In this, the price per square foot shows the value of the house especially by using a square foot that is equated to a given price which helps in determining how much money can be paid, alternatively, if an individual wishes to buy the whole home (Lucier, 2005). T