4.5 Person specification Once the job and organisational analyses and the job description have been completed (see Figure 1), the next stage is to write a specification of the kind of person needed to fill the job you have just described. It is important to be as precise as possible about the skills, knowledge, qualifications and at
1.1 Hofstede's five Cultural Dimensions A series of perspectives that we might use to achieve a different insight into business was introduced by Morgan (1986) in his book entitled Images of an Organization. One of these was the business as a culture, a type of micro-society where people work and ‘live’ together on a daily basis, with certain rules and understandings about what is acceptable and what is not. The idea of a business having a culture was developed from the work of Hofstede on national cultures (1980). His r
Activity 5: Ways of thinking Allow 60 minutes for this activity. This activity builds on, and reinforces, Activity 4, as it is also designed to illustrate how all of us unconsciously draw from our cultures in order to interpret situations. If we as individuals do this, then organisations will do the same – after all, or
2.2.1 Craft manufacturing Craft manufacturing describes the process by which skilled craftspeople produce goods in low volume, with a high degree of variety, to meet the requirements of their individual customers. Over the centuries, skills have been transmitted from masters to apprentices and journeymen, and controlled by guilds. Craftspeople usually worked at home or in small workshops. Such a system worked well for small-scale local production, with low levels of competition. Some industries, such as furniture manu
2.2 The historical development of operations management Operations in some form has been around as long as human endeavour itself but, in manufacturing at least, it has changed dramatically over time, and there are three major phases - craft manufacturing, mass production and the modern period. Let's look at each of these briefly in turn.
2.5 Fishbone diagram There are times when management problems seem too complicated and ‘messy’ to analyse. A technique, the fishbone diagram, can be used by both individuals and groups to help to clarify the causes of a difficult problem and capture its complexity. The diagram will help provide a comprehensive and balanced picture and show the relative importance and interrelationships between different parts of the problem. 1.6.2 Using the matrix The results of the evaluation reflect the scores that are awarded to each option and the weightings that are attached to the different criteria. A change in one or the other (or in both) will lead to a change in the results. Accordingly, when you construct a matrix of this kind be sure to think hard about the scores and weightings. A matrix like this can be used in many ways, for example, when interviewing applicants as part of a selection process. 1.5 Matrices A matrix is an arrangement of ‘cells’ in rows and columns. A spreadsheet is a simple example of a matrix. Each cell is described by its position in a column, normally denoted by an alphabetical letter, and in a row, normally denoted by a number. So ‘cell B6’ on your spreadsheet is the one which occupies column B and row 6. The size of a matrix is described by the number of rows and the number of columns (in that order). A ‘two-by-two’ matrix has two rows and two columns. A â 1.1.2 The origin The origin is the point on the graph where the x axis value (the output) and the y axis value (the total costs) are both zero. Learning outcomes By the end of this unit you should be able to: understand the value of graphics as visual thinking tools; give examples of relevant graphics used in the business context. 7 Conclusion This unit aimed to answer four key questions about social marketing: Why is a social marketing approach relevant and necessary in today's environment? How can an understanding of consumer/human behaviour help to develop appropriate actions and interventions? Who are the target markets for social marketing programmes? What is the role of marketing communications and branding in achieving behavioural ch 1 Unit overview Never before have social issues been more at the centre of public and private debate than at the present. From concerns about sustainability and the future of the planet to the introduction of smoking bans, from actions to combat ‘binge drinking’ and childhood obesity to programmes designed to prevent the spread of AIDS in developing countries, there is a growing recognition that social marketing has a role to play in achieving a wide range of social goals. In the UK, for example, the Nat References 3.4 Variability of income This applies to investments where the return is defined in generic terms but the actual amount of the return may fluctuate in an unpredictable manner. As we have seen, the most obvious example is the company share, but there are others, such as debt instruments (such as many bank deposits) where there is a contractual right to interest but the interest rate fluctuates according to some formula – or even simply at the whim of the bank! An important example of this type of security is the Flo Acknowledgements Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Licence Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following sources for permission to reproduce material in this unit: 1.7 Monitoring equity performance For those equities in issue their current market value and some indicators of their performance are provided in the daily press. Table 3 shows the closing levels and the volume of shares traded in respect of a selection of companies on the London, New York, Frankfurt and Tokyo Stock Exchanges on 7 June 2005. 2.2 Recent governance failures As we have discussed before, the creation of corporate regulation is often linked to perceived failures of corporations and their management to behave in the way society expect them to. Corporate governance is not an exception to this trend, and, as with accounting, different countries may well experience difficulties at different times. For example, the development of British codes of best practice, which began with the Cadbury Committee, can be related to governance scandals such as Polly P 7.5 Becoming an institutional entrepreneur While acting in ways that are seen to be legitimate is important for both individuals and organisations, social institutions are not immutable. Some people and organisations seem to have a talent for changing the rules of the game. Some writers have referred to this as being an institutional entrepreneur. At the organisational level examples might include organisations such as Microsoft or Sun Microsystems working actively to establish industry standards which favour them. At the 7.4 Avoiding decision traps While it is not possible to change our human natures, it is possible to immunise ourselves to some extent against common decision traps. Useful strategies include: Get in the habit of reframing problems. For example, if you are considering strategies for avoiding a loss of €10,000 try asking yourself if you would feel differently if you consider them as strategies for making a gain of €10,000. Think about the information you have 7.1 Introduction We have taken a brief excursion through three different perspectives on decision making (the rational-economic, the psychological and the social) and we have considered how we think about risk from these different perspectives. How can you use these ideas to improve your own and others' decision making? The first way is to use them to develop greater insight into the pressures and influences that may be affecting how you process information, think, and decide. By becoming more aware of these
