Classroom Grading Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Classroom Grading - Essay Example Teachers struggle to balance achievement, effort, talent, student background, and context, and seem hesitant to make their criteria explicit and public for fear of losing the ability to individualize their grading practices. However, in their struggles to be fair to individual students and to use grades for motivational purposes, teachers may not realize that they are not holding all students to the same standards. Blanke (1999) admits "The ethics of grading begins with a determination of the educator's goals" (136). According to Marzano (2000), grades are needed for: (a) administrative purposes to control students' performance; (b) for instructional planning, (c) feedback for students; (d) "guidance to students about future course work" (e) motivational purposes (45). Concerns about consistency of grading have received the most empirical attention in large scale programs rather than in classroom assessments. Marzano (2000) explains that: "there is no right way or wrong way to design grades, there are ways that fit best with a given set of assumptions or beliefs" (47). The grades should include academic achievements of the students and their efforts during the course. The grades should evaluate thinking and reasoning skills, work completion and participation (Marzano 35).

Ethics and Policies Found At British Airways Essay

Ethics and Policies Found At British Airways - Essay Example It is not only imperative that an organisation leads by example in ensuring their moral compass is well-tuned to avoid public scrutiny. One of those very types of organisations is in the most publicly scrutinized industries, the air travel business. Many principles are inducted into the air travel industry that are not just moral obligations but are actually form part of their legal obligation. By ensuring that a business follows ethical guidelines, they often employ a ethics officer to ensure that all aspects of the business code of conduct is continually adhered to as well as dealing with any issues that are relative to possible breaches of ethical conduct. Through employing this type of officer within the company, the public perception of the company itself placates a feeling of trust and if there is a situation or a problem, it will be dealt with extreme dedication to customer satisfaction and continued loyalty to that same company. There are other far reaching benefits of incorporating a business code of ethics inside the company guidelines handbook in that once a customer or client is aware of a public declaration of adhering to the standards set out by the ethics officer, but, also the company can therefore be held accountable for their actions. This allows the customer to not only know they have a method of reprisal, but, also they know that any company simply does not make public declarations without standing behind their own policies. Other benefits outlined by McNamara include: improving society maintain a moral course in turbulent times cultivating strong teamwork and productivity supports employee growth and meaning an insurance policy to help ensure policies are legal helps manage values associated with quality management strategic planning and diversity management promotion of strong public image legitimizes managerial actions and strengthens coherence and balance of the organizations' culture, and it is the right thing to do. Corporate Social Responsibility in Tourism As competition is fierce in the tourism and hospitality operations in the UK, it is even more important to ensure that ethical standards are followed and in order for an entity to be considered a highly ethical organisation, there are four principles that Pastin (1986) outlines as: 1. They are at ease interacting with diverse internal and external stakeholder groups. The ground rules of these firms make the good of these stakeholder groups part of the organisations' own good. 2. They are obsessed with fairness. Their ground rules emphasize that the other persons' interests count as much as their own. 3. Responsibility is individual rather than collective, with individuals assuming personal responsibility for actions of the organisation. These organisations' ground rules mandate that individuals are responsible to themselves. 4. They see their activities in terms of purpose. This purpose is a way of operating that members of the organisation highly value. And purpose ties the organisation to its environment. Through instilling these principles within the organisation whose main industry is air travel is

Analysis of AT & T Organization Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Analysis of AT & T Organization - Essay Example This organization is originally a company of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of telephone services, and has their headquarters in Boston. The organization is a previous monopoly business that serves the population in the telecommunications and information technology sector (Keidel, 2005). It involves itself in the development and sale of telecommunication services in the country and across the entire globe (Verzuh, 2007). The organization has recently been experiencing problems in the loss of customers to their competitor, Verizon Corporation. This is because their competitor’s did introduce a similar product to their iphone. They are also able to offer better pacts than the organization (Green, 2006). For example, Verizon Corporation offers no limitations on data transfers and still charges a set price. The organization is currently unable to provide their customers with the satisfaction they require from the network capabilities on offer. This results in the company maki ng big losses in terms of customers leaving the organization for their competitors. The organization has not been able to keep their customers to the business (Valikangas, 2010). I would like to suggest that the company develops a project to explore into these issues. They should form teams comprising of experts and some technical staff to address this issue across their various branches. The organization will expect to improve their products and increase the number of customers to their business (Valikangas, 2010). Analysis of the Current Situation This organization offers telephone communication services across twenty-two states in America. The company also offers internet facilities, data transfers and phone services. Financial analysts in the company suggest that the organization is likely to make profits in the next few years. The organization is also currently enjoying great revenues from their wireless trade (Estabrooks, 2005). The organizations debt currently stands at $1.4 billion, which is below EBITDA standards by 1.6 periods. Their pensions are hard to approximate and it finds difficulties in their cash flows since they have many debt to repay and dividends to pay to the shareholders. The dividends they pay out amount to more than ten billion dollars (Temin and Galambos, 2007). The organization intends to acquire another company by the name of T-Mobile USA. These activities are likely to affect the organizations capital composition though the financial analysts believe that the company’s performance will remain constant. The company has to cut the costs they incur to ensure that their performances remains relevant to the current market conditions (Hodges, 2002). The disadvantage that the organization currently encounters on limitations in their network will get their solutions after the organization acquires the additional firm. The management of AT&T expects that the additional organization will come with the networking resources they requi re. The organization’s provision of wireless services is far beyond their competitors abilities. The organizations leadership focuses their cash on the repayment of their debts (Ellis, 2009). This move did come into play over the past few years with the aim of reducing their debts. This act enables the company to cut their costs to the current value of 65 billion dollars. Their investment formation remains the most traditional in their industry. This gives the company the advantage of quickly adjusting to changes in the economic conditions the country experiences (Temin and Galambos, 2007). The organization’s main competitor in the provision of Iphones, Verizon, has a customer base of more than ninety four million people and makes over a

Book Report on No More Mondays by Dan Miller Essay

Book Report on No More Mondays by Dan Miller - Essay Example In the work of Dan Miller entitled No More Mondays, he discussed the ways and means to be able to improve the performance at work by changing the attitude toward the performance of the job. No more Mondays can then be translated as the dismissal of the attitude of a worker to dread Mondays. By the development of the positive mind-set towards work, a person can look forward to a new week of work instead of having a feeling of resentment towards it. For that matter, the Monday feeling can be eliminated. Miller proposed positive attitude towards work to be able to discard the negative feelings toward work. But prior to the said notion, the need to evaluate the work being performed by the person is of primary importance. This can be attributed to the fact that being dedicated in a certain job requires passion toward it. This can only be achieved if the person really loves the job that he/she has. This is where the importance of choosing a career and being in the career that one is passionate about comes in. Based on the book, it is more important to prioritize the job a person wants than choose the job on the basis of the salary. This can lead to a possible disappointment because of the high level of instability in the economic aspect of work and business. In addition, if the said attitude is undertaken there is great possibility that the person can feel the need to perform a particular work while considering the paycheck. This can be translated as being a slave to the salary and the money that can be received. Another important notion is the feeling of being stupid in the repetitive task that a person performs. This can only be translated as the feeling of being required and pushed through certain tasks without the feeling of innovativeness and creativeness. The said feelings can only be initiated if the worker can continuously improve himself/herself in the performance of the job. Also, such attitudes can

Thomas Treadwell Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Thomas Treadwell - Essay Example There was a great transformation in American thinking intellectually, socially and politically. Treadwell was a patriot who joined the others in fighting the American loyalists and British to replace the royal government based in Massachusetts. In 1787, the year in which the constitutional convention took place, Thomas Treadwell was a judge of the court of the court of probate. He had been in this position from the beginning of 1778. This convention took place in Philadelphia to address the problems that had been experienced from the time of revolution in governing the United States of America (USC). Many had disputes about the election and composition of the Senate. The bone of contention was the definition of proportional representation. This was the question of inclusion of slaves or other property. There also questions on presidential elections, whether judges should be chosen by executive or by the law, whether to allow abolition of slave trade, and how long the presidential term would be. Many had also argued that presidential power ought to be divided between three persons and that executive power must not be left to one person. Thomas Treadwell was most interested in the constitutional convention of 1787 because at the time he was a judge which was one of the major issues that this convention was to address. The convention would address whether they would be chosen by the state laws or by the president and whoever else that was part of the executive. Treadwell being a specialist in laws would be affected by this convention across the board even as he moved into different posts. Between 1786- 1789 he gave his service in the New York State senate (USC). He viewed the constitutional convention as a platform through which Americans would come up with new laws to govern there nation’s operations. Treadwell was actively part of the delegation which first agreed on the principles of the convention. This

Alternatives for the decision regarding the high lead found in the whistles Essay Example for Free

Alternatives for the decision regarding the high lead found in the whistles Essay The situation of determining how to handle the recently discovered high lead content in the large whistles order is a difficult one that will in some way affect the company. Three alternatives have been made to allow options for this decision. Alternative 1: Say nothing; allow the whistles shipment to go without notifying the customer. Alternative 2: Replace the customer’s order by providing whistles that meet the appropriate company standards. Alternative 3: Contact the customer and explain the situation, offer them a discount for on the whistles that are lower than the company standard. Decision Process The process for choosing the three alternatives began by identifying the decision to be made. The decision at hand is what to do with the information discovered about the order of whistles going to a school in South America. This is a big decision that will affect the company in each alternative. The next step of the process is listing options possible for the situation, and then studying those options by listing advantages and disadvantages of each. Then the decision was made by choosing the best overall solution for the decision. And lastly the decision was evaluated to determine if the results were what was expected. The three options for this decision are listed above; say nothing to the customer, replace the order, or try to make a deal for the customer. Each option is motivated by a result that will benefit the company financially, ethically, or a mixture of both. The idea behind the alternative 1 decision was to save money upfront and not bother with order changes and other inconveniences for the company. In studying this option the advantage of this would be to save money and time for the company. The disadvantage would be a possibly unhappy customer, an unethical move which could make employees see the company as being unfair; giving a poor product that could be hazardous to children. The legal ramifications of this alternative would be risky if the a child became ill from the use of the whistles and the company was blamed, sued, etc. The idea behind the alternative 2 decision was to replace the customers order with whistles that are not potentially hazardous and meets the company standards. The advantage of this option is not putting the company in an unethical situation of trying to pass products that are under par for high quality. This will help set a standard of ethics in the company that could motivate employees to do good work. The disadvantage of this option is that it will cost the company $100,000. The financial loss could take a long time to recover from, the positive influence on employees won’t immediately compensate for the loss. There would not be a legal issue with this option. The idea behind the alternative 3 decision was to try and contact the customer and explain the situation and let them decide if they would like the whistles replaced or to take the hazardous whistles at a discount. The advantage of this alternative is that the customer could decide to keep the original whistles which would still save the company a considerable amount of money cutting the losses to a much smaller amount. Also it would show that the company had the customer’s best interest in mind. The disadvantage of this option is that it could reflect negatively on the company still because we can’t really determine how the customer will feel about the whistles that are potentially hazardous. They customer might think that the company is trying to cut corners and save themselves money. This would be bad for future business. Legally the customer would probably not try and sue the company, but there is still the potential issue of the company being reported as manufactur ing products with too high of a lead content. This would kill the company’s reputation and the customer relationships of other clients. Recommendation Alternative 2 is the recommended decision; replacing the customer’s order by providing whistles that meet the appropriate company standards. This decision was made by both ethical and financial decisions. Ethically this alternative is the most appropriate. The customer contacted the company to provide a product to be used in the South American schools. It would be unethical to provide the customer with a product that is below the company and country standards even though they are not violating the South American standard. The customer chose this company over a foreign company to give a quality and safe product. This recommendation will positively affect the company because they will possibly become more favorable in the eyes of the customer, with the possibility of more business in the future from them and their business relations. This option was chosen not only for company recognition, but also to save children from a potentially hazardous experience. This option will be a great cost to the company, but the positive experience from both the customer and employees. By creating a culture of â€Å"wanting to do what is right† will help future sales and the company will gradually earn the loss in funds back over time. Customer relationships Considering the outcome on the customer relationship is an important part of the decision making process. We have to ask ourselves how will the customer feel about our decision, how will it influence them and how will it influence the company? By choosing alternative 2, to replace the whistles, the company will look favorably to the customer, being the school buying the whistles. Though the company will merely be providing the product that was originally agreed upon for the initial sale, the customer will realize that the company is sacrificing to replace the whistles and they will go away with a positive relationship with the company. This experience is sure to foster future business from the customer because of the positive experience they experienced. They will also be more likely to recommend the company to their peers and the company could gain substantial business from the experience. The children who would be ultimately affected by the quality of the whistles will feel good about receiving a quality, non-hazardous product, and the parents of the children will be grateful knowing that the company behaved ethically. This could also create future business for the company by providing the children and parents with a positive experience from the company. The company employees will see the standard of ethics portrayed by the company and it will reflect in their work. By giving an example of a high ethical standard it is likely that employees will take greater pride in their work which will affect the company in a positive way. The company’s decision will affect multiple stages of people, their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors will help the company in the long run to regain the loss taken from replacing the whistles. The financial gains will be gradual yet immeasurable in the long run of creating a company with a superior ethical standard. Social Responsibility In a corporation, social responsibility is behaving ethically as individual workers and together as a company to be sensitive toward social, cultural, economic and environmental issues. This means that the company doesn’t always do what’s best for its self but rather do what is best for their environment, customers, employees, culture, etc. Social responsibility is a big part of the decision making process because decisions made by the company not only affect the company alone, it affects employees, the economy, the customers, and the environment. These decisions and methods are important when considering long-term business operations. The decision making process for the situation had many factors involved. The most noticeable factor was the cost of replacing the lower quality whistles with a product that is up to the company’s standard and isn’t potentially hazardous. There was multiple ways of looking the problem; ignoring it, saving the company money and hoping there was not issues with the product, or there was the option to replace the product with something the company could be proud of, a product that had no hazards for use by children, and doing what was appropriate ethically for the situation. Social responsibility played a major part in the decision to use alternative 2 and replace the order with whistles that didn’t have high amounts of lead. The choice to do what is best for the customer, environment, and the kids of the schools outweighed the option to save the company time and money.

The Impact Of Globalization Business Essay

The Impact Of Globalization Business Essay Globalization: An Insight In recent years, swiftly escalating global competition, a sharp focus on quality, and an ever increasing zest and quest for higher productivity, led to new circumstances for a large number of organizations which are operating on a Global platform. Globalization (economic or otherwise) has lead to a total makeover of every phase of business. The scope of these effects ranges from manufacturing, to product development, vendor support, integration, upto logistics and even best manufacturing practices. Thus, globalization is a mixed bag of opportunities and challenges. Today, doing business at the global platforms is no longer a luxury. It is a necessity if businesses want to survive in the long run. About the Organization The organization chosen for this response is coded as VR Shoes Inc., a leading name worldwide in sports gear shoes. To protect the identity of the organisation, I have assigned it this name. I shall use the case at hand to demonstrate how, in a real life organisation, globalization affected the operations, code of conduct, strategy, trade union behavior, organizations outlook and response to corporate social responsibility (CSR) and other aspects of business. The approximate time span, for which I have discussed the case, is from mid 1980s to the end of 1990s. The Dangers of Globalization: Leveraging the advantages of global out-sourcing opportunities so as to produce optimally-costing sports gear and shoes, alongwith sound investments into newer designs and marketing campaigns, VR Shoes drove to severe criticism for outsourcing products to nations where low wages, bad labor conditions, human rights violations were rampant. These were challenges, which VR Shoes had not envisaged as part of their Go Global campaign. (Locke, R.,2002). Initially, VR Shoes top and middle level managers refused to accept responsibility on account of the multitude of labor and environmental concerns raised globally by adversaries, human rights groups, and environmentalists. By early 1992, VR Shoes devised a Code of Conduct, which mandated that the suppliers observed basic labor and environmental norms as per the law of the resident country where plants and facilities were located. New and existing suppliers, both, were warranted to adhere to this code. This is directly attributable to the ef fects of global business mandates, which VR Shoes had to fall in line with. The Impact of Globalization: The impact of globalization in businesses has been discussed under the following nine heads: Globalization Challenges to Product Design Globalization Newer Training Regimes for Staff Globalization Increased Monitoring of Suppliers Supply Chains Relationships with Global Not for Profit Organizations Globalization Globalization Trade Unionism Globalization Meeting of Consumer Expectations Multi-National and Multi-Cultural Managements in Globalised Businesses Economies of Scale Globalization Globalization Challenges to Product Design In the 1990s, design was also thrown up by globalization as it took a quick seize of the Asia-Europe-America axis. Asian corporations from Japan and Taiwan acknowledged very early on the importance of design for their intensive marketing efforts. Consequently, VR Shoes Inc. opened contact offices in Asia Europe, which functioned as probes in their respective markets. Globalization Newer Training Regimes for Staff As part of the changes mandated by globalization efforts, VR Shoes created newer functional departments like those for catering to the specific needs of training for the employees. This was a grey area in the sense that VR Shoes had never considered a need for the training of its employees. Globalization efforts made the organisation to think on such lines. Some of the newer departments were finally clubbed under Corporate Responsibility and Compliance Department. As of now, VR Shoes has 100 employees specifically dedicated to ensure the compliance of labor and environmental norms. These are located in all countries where VR Shoes products are being manufactured. However, but for the impact of globalization, business in VR Shoes would not have evolved to cater to such an important aspect. Globalization Increased Monitoring of Suppliers Supply Chains Another effect which globalization of production activities resulted in for VR Shoes is its heightened monitoring of its suppliers who are located around the globe. This is necessitated by stiff global competition from rival players in this field. With suppliers located around the globe, and competition not allowing for any lapse in quality, whatsoever, organizations are fast realizing the need to keep quality tabs. Inspection is carried out by VR Shoes own production staffs who are deputed for this purpose from any facility in the world map.VR Shoes own labor specialists and third party consultants like PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC) are also engaged in such activities. This level of serious and committed concern for quality is the offshoot of global competition and newer business ethics and norms. Relationships with Global Not for Profit Organizations Globalization Over and above developing internal skills, capacity, and expertise in standards and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), working on its vendors suppliers, VR Shoes has been active in supporting many different global Non-for-Profit organizations, which are directed at improving standards for employees in various under developed developing nations. For instance, VR Shoes is involved in the United Nations Global Compact, a program that seeks to promote CSR amongst international business organizations (Locke, R., 2002). Such relationships would never have been possible in localized business environments, which we had witnessed for centuries prior to the present day Globalization wave. Globalization Trade Unionism Trade unions are broadening their agenda items so as to include emerging issues like as engaging with international business giants organizations. This has made competition the absolute regulatory principle at the world business platforms. (Bieler, A, 2008). At VR Shoes also, in the ever on-going search for lower labor costs competitive business strategies, production has increasingly been restructured and organized on a trans-national platform across borders. Consequent to this, there is an increasing pressure to de-regulate labor markets. (Cohen, E., 2006) Globalization Meeting of Consumer Expectations Usually, consumers across the globe are better informed, have higher incomes and hence have more exacting requirements. This phenomenon compels business houses to strive and meet better product and service standards. This also happened with VR Shoes who had to continuously improvise and excel to meet the ever increasing quality and service needs of its customers. Multi-National and Multi-Cultural Managements in Globalised Businesses Another challenge faced by businesses and their managers is a multi-national business environment. A multi-cultural employment policy is needed to tackle employees from various countries, ethnicities, languages, religion culture. Their responses to reward, recognitions, motivational mechanisms etc. are very varied. In the case of VR Shoes Inc., the Japanese managers were disappointed with their Thai subordinates who didnt respond well to Japanese methods of building up corporate loyalty and motivation. But, as soon as they converted production targets into a game, the Thais excelled over Japanese peers! Economies of scale Globalization One of the advantages of globalization has been the fact that selling into a global market allows room for huge economies of scale. VR Shoes did successfully leverage this to beat rivals who were not truly global in operations. Challenges posed by Globalization to Data Management Information Exchange Many recent advances in mankinds ability to store, manage, process share information in digital forms has lead to a total reshaping of economies and social infrastructures of many countries around the world. (Information Technology and Globalization, 2006). Information is the emerging currency of global businesses. Moreover, its security is a worrisome challenge to global operations. Globalization is flattening the world. The threat to information while being stored or exchanged is getting real by the day. Already, China is testing U.S., U.K, and other national cyber-defenses. Economic systems may be distributed globally, operating in a variety of environments. (Olzak, T., 2008). There are specific threats to critical business secrets and databases. In the global business scenario, rival organizations seek to pry on their competitors and peers. Data security and management is thus fast turning into a business threat. However, Information technologies are the backbone of globalizatio n. Meeting the Challenges posed by Globalization to Data Management Information Exchange IT giants in global businesses are warranted by law that they must maintain and demonstrate compliance with a host of security standards, and guidelines. In the United States, the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) is the backbone. This act requires each federal agency to develop, document, and implement cost-effective programs to achieve information security on their systems (Olson, C., 2007). Some of the main postulates of the act are as under: Implement Repeatable Processes Based on Best Practices Provide a Comprehensive and Consistent View of the IT Ecosystem Implement Effective Change Management Automate Processes Facilitate Compliance Testing Globalization: Its benefits to the end user of VR Shoes In the particular case we discussed above, for VR Shoes Inc., the organisaton gained on many fronts and so did the society at large, as we discussed above. Nevertheless, I strongly feel that the winner at the end of the day is the End-User of the products being produced by VR Shoes Inc. Not only does the user get world-class products at local and highly competitive prices, but is also assured of good quality and is sure that the company follows safe manufacturing processes and does not use harmful chemicals. The competition ensures that users of the products of VR Shoes Inc. get fabulous after sales service from the leader in sports gear and shoes. In the stray event of a bad product reaching the customer, the global image of the manufacturer compels it to offer hassle free replacement of refund, whichever the customer demands. Not all this would have been possible in a regulated and closed business environment. It is a fruit of globalization, which is finally served to the customer. REFERENCES Bieler, A. Impact of Globalization on Labor and Trade Unions. http://openesf.net/projects/labour-and-globalization/ Cohen, E. (2006). Effects of Globalization on firms. Paris: Siemens Business Service Information Technology and Globalization. (2006). www.globalenvision.org/library Locke, R. (2002). Note on corporate citizenship in a global economy. Cambridge, MA: Industrial Performance Center, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Olson, C. (2007). Meeting the Challenge of IT Security Compliance in the Federal Government: BMC Software. Olzak, T. (2008). The Information Security Risk of Globalization. http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/adventuresinsecurity/the-information-security-risk-of-globalization-24341