Employee relations Coursework Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Employee relations - Coursework Example Collective bargaining is a major source of organizational conflict and negotiation strategies have the power to accelerate or decelerate the business operations of an organization. The incidents of industrial democracy in United Kingdom has marked development in employer employee relationship and the management initiative of employee participation in decision making has successfully accelerated the scope for organizational development (Pattanayak, 2014). The paper will concentrate on the employee relations, the cause and effect of conflict as well as the role of negotiation in collective bargaining in order to evaluate the relevant strategies of human resource management and organizational behaviour and how the application of these strategies can help to establish stability in an organizational framework. Organizational conflict many be defined as the disagreement arising out of employees as a result of perceived differences in values, cultural norms, interests as well as substantial and intangible needs of the employees working together in an organizations. Excessive use of power and authority also leads to generate dissatisfaction among individuals which in turn tends to create conflict (Rahim, 2015). In order to evaluate the procedures an organization should adopt for the purpose of dealing such organizational conflict, it is important to identify the reasons behind it. Organizational structure and culture is the most significant source of conflicts. For instance, an organization using matrix structure obligates the employees for dual reporting that leads to create ambiguity regarding their routine responsibilities. Global companies that integrate geographically dispersed provinces across world frequently experience employee conflicts as a result of cultural differences among the employees coming from different race and religion. Scarcity and improper distribution

Estimating Environmental Impacts Of New Roads Environmental Sciences Essay

Estimating Environmental Impacts Of New Roads Environmental Sciences Essay Main Roads Western Australia Public Environment Report 2008 New Transportation projects nowadays is noticeably increasing across nations all around the world, especially the aspect of constructing new roadway and highway networks, due to the tremendously unstoppable increase in the population of people on earth, thus, the demand of life resources, the need of moving from one place to another (from location A to location B) is also increasing, in response to that governments of different countries are spending billions of dollars each year just to enhance and develop the transportation networks, focusing on the local roadway and highway networks, this movement of development was noticeable after the war world II. C:UsersEmadDocumentsUniversity ProjectsYear 4 ((2012 2013))Highway DesignAssignmentsAssignment 1ReferencesRoad and The environment.jpg According to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) 2008, the United Arab Emirates has paved roads of 4,080 km (including 253 km of expressways), while the United States of America has paved roads of 6,506,204 km, this shows the huge increasing demand on paved roads. Road projects can be taken as an indication of how urban the country is, the more developed the roadway network the better the economy, because it provides more access to different locations with little travel time, thus it provides more jobs, health services and education. But as they say everything has its own price, developing new roads can have some bad impacts on the environment and the ecosystem surrounding the roads. In this report, both the positive and the negative impacts of new roads and highway on the environment and ecosystem will be discussed, nevertheless the different types of physical environmental impacts. Impact of Roads on the Environment Fragile Nature by Joel Sartore Impact of new roads on the environment is becoming a more serious issue that governments should take care and be aware of, because of the increasing demand on constructing new roadways nowadays, what comes after constructing a new road most of the times is a permanent change with the environment surrounding the road and may develop with time and lead to a serious damage with the ecosystem that canà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢t be reversed, so reckless planning and constructing of new roads could have a huge impact on the surrounding environment and the ecosystem. On the other hand, well designed and operated new roads could have positive impacts on the environment and the ecosystem, yet sometimes it cost more money to avoid affecting the environment, so engineers and environmental scientists are still trying to develop some new alternatives by using the new modern technology techniques to avoid any interruption that the human kind is causing by dom inating the environmental resources without looking at the consequences of the actions. http://images.joelsartore.com/gallery/B/BEA014-00001.jpg Recently many environmental engineers and scientists are conducting Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) reports to monitor and observe any physical impact on the environment and the ecosystem that may be result because of constructing new roads, the process of the environmental impact assessment may take some time, depending on the size of the project and where ità ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s located. Types of Environmental Impacts Resulting from New Roads There a lot of environmental impacts of constructing new roads and highways that can be observed, they all can be categorised in three points: Direct Impacts this impact will take effect in the near future. Indirect Impacts this impact will take effect in the far future. Cumulative Impacts this impact will take effect in the far future after accumulation. *All these different impacts could have either a positive or a negative effect on the environment and the ecosystem. Direct Impacts: Direct impacts on the environment can directly occur during the process of the new road construction, for example the 1st step of constructing a new road between two cities separated by a green area or farm is removing the greens (trees, plants,,etc.) to place the roadà ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚ ¢s gravel and asphalt (pavement), in general direct impacts are easier for the environmental assessment, because they are more predictable than the other two types (the indirect and the cumulative impacts), thus the impacts can be easily controlled to prevent any serious damage on the environment in case of the negative impacts. Direct Positive Impacts: Although that the direct impacts may have a lot of negative impacts, they have some positive impacts, for example, rechanneling a river or a water stream might improve the water retention of a village near by the road. Some developed countries are trying to merge the green and urban together, for example constructing new roads with rain retention or drainage systems by including some plants. C:UsersEmadDesktopLawrence Village Road Project 026.jpg Lawrence Village Road Project (Image by Iron Age) Direct Negative Impacts: There are a lot of direct negative impacts that may damage the environment, for example some major roads need to be constructed between major cities, so sometimes the process of construction requires removing or redirecting some obstacles like the flow of a river or water stream which will lead to a huge impact on the ecosystem, the removal of farms and private properties. Air pollution could have the greatest impact on the environment (CO2 vehicles emissions) and noise pollution which all have negative effect on the ecosystem surrounding the road. Indirect Impacts: Indirect impacts can be also known as chain impacts, from the name we can tell that chain impacts require time to develop which will be hard to observe and measure during the construction of the new road. Indirect Positive Impacts: some new modern roads that are being constructed have some facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists, thus this might help to reduce the impact of air pollution by reducing the number of vehicle users (CO2 emissions), likewise some new roads has a special lane for buses which will encourage people to use the bus more often and this might also decrease the air pollution. Indirect Negative Impacts: When it comes to negative indirect impacts, the 1st thing comes is deforestation and the decline in forest animals and bird species, in 1994 Rich et al. drew attention with his report that the reduction and extinction of some bird species is primary because of new roads (noise and light). In 1982 Burke Sherburne examined the population of wildlife of mammals and birds during and after construction of new roads, they found there is a little movement of both mammals and birds densities to different places. Cumulative Impacts: These types of environmental impacts could be called as silent impacts, because the results of these impacts will need time to accumulate. Cumulative Negative Impacts: Global warming could be one of the cumulative impacts, many scientists are referring to the incremental percentages of CO2 for the last 5 decades, where they come from the emissions of factories, nevertheless, the vehicles emissions, thus, constructing new roads means more vehicles and more CO2 emissions. Environmental Impact Assessment is the Solution Environmental Impact Assessment also known as EIA, it should take place whenever there is a project that wanted to be constructed, the purpose of this environmental assessment is to check and consider every predictable impact (positive or negative) that may occur or affect the environment, it can be performed by taking study corridors, for example for green field roads a corridor of 10 à ¢Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ã‚ ¬ 100 km should be considered along the road that is being constructed, in order to assess and predict any changes that may occur surrounding that new road. Conclusion As what we have seen in this report there are a lot of impacts may occur because of constructing new roads, some are positive impacts and some are negative impacts, some will occur in the long-term and some will occur in the short-term, so in order to control and to predict them environmental impact assessments (EIA) need to be done before constructing any new roads for a better environmentally friendly future.

The Importance of Mrs. Joe in Great Expectations :: Great Expectations Essays

The Importance of Mrs. Joe in Great Expectations    The importance of Mrs. Joe in Great Expectations has two major parts: the significance of the character, and the symbolism of the character. The significance of Mrs. Joe is to complete the figure of Joe.   The symbolism of Mrs. Joe is the physical manifestation of Joe's fears, in combination with his desire for a commanding father figure. Mrs. Joe's reign of terror is obviously necessary for Joe's existence. In the beginning of Great Expectations, Joe requires identification as a major character. Without the weakness that Mrs. Joe instills in Joe trough her reign of terror, Joe is never able to develop his own character. Joe is identified as a compassionate, sensitive character; the most direct way to display this feature is to have the character appear vulnerable. Mrs. Joe serves as the tyrant for which Joe is made helpless. Joe, unless he is a scared character, does not recognize the friend he has in Pip. Without Joe as a major role in Pip's life, Pip also seems very incomplete.   Mrs. Joe also serves as the comical interlude for an otherwise somber story. When she had exhausted a torrent of such inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, got out the dustpan -- which was always a very bad sign -- put on her coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned us out of house and home, (author’s last name and page #) Truly, a frightening creature is that which may destroy a household, by cleaning when anger besets her. The comedy also has a serious side, though, as we remember our mothers exerting their great frustrations upon the household tasks of cleanliness.   So Mrs. Joe serves well as a mother to Pip. Besides the age difference and the motherly duties of housekeeping for Pip and Joe, the attitude of a scornful mother is also apparent. This, of course, draws Joe even closer to Pip, by relation. Mrs. Joe serves as a link to make it possible for Joe to appear the father of Pip. In addition, Joe, although terrified of Mrs. Joe, is a very honorable man and would never consider divorcing her. Joe chooses to preserve the sacred marriage rather than seek his comfort.

Online Shopping Research

The research question â€Å"Does the online shopping affect to purchase decision of shoppers who retain visiting and buying clothes from the store or the market in London area? † 3. 1 evaluate techniques for use with quantitative data in the research proposal The quantitative data is sample and objective. The figure is showing in statistic such as the count of frequencies, rate of percentages or another statistic way of actual absence of behaviour.There are a number of approaches to collect quantitative data such as surveys, questionnaires (close-ended questions), clinical test. The quantitative data mostly is used with large sample. It is no need for the participant to put their name on the questionnaires which is help to gain more data than qualitative data collection method that required the personal detail (will be explain more in 3. 2) . The data analysis will be display in the bar chart, pie chart, graph or histogram.The researcher can be clearly to understand and compar e result in general. From the research question which is about the behaviour of shopper to make a purchase decision on buying cloth. The quantitative collection that would be the most appropriate to implement in this research should be the close-ended questionnaires because the survey and questionnaires can be complete namelessly, thus it allows to get a lots of data from great number of sample from the sample field either or the internet.The close-ended questionnaires are easy to analyse and compare because it can be done in term of rate of percentages or histogram. However, some of the participant might give the dishonestly responses cause of the biased result. This data collection method provide researcher to cover a wide range of the research question but only in the general view it cannot provide in-depth opinion of participant. The cost to process this data collection is inexpensive unless using conducting the survey via the telephone.It may take moderate of time required depe nds on the system that the researcher will conduct for example mail and telephone would be take more time that give the questionnaire papers in sample area. 3. 2 evaluate techniques for use with qualitative data in the research proposal The qualitative data is about â€Å"Why† which is help the researcher to find out more depth information and being clear perspective in the research question. The qualitative collection methods such as the surveys, open-ended questionnaires, interview, focus group etc.Most of this method requires a long period of time and money to support the conducting. According to the research question which is related on the shopper’s behaviour. Therefore the interview would be the ideal method to collect the data because it offer full stories and depth information which is given the flexibility to research for exploring topic in detail and varied perspective. Moreover the interview method gives a chance for interviewer to explain the question that interviewees not understand clearly and get the right information from interviewees.However in reality, The conducting of the interview data collection method is difficult to produce because It is required the highly skilled interviewer and honest who can control the scope of the answers related to the subject, unbias and create the comfortable atmosphere to interviewees, It is also need to prepare the closed area for the interview in term of protecting the interruption for environment. Moreover It is numberless of people to participate the interview because it need to ask the personal detail in case of following or re-collecting the data which is uncommonly to encourages people getting involve.Apart from the difficult of conducting, the interview is time consuming and expensive for this research. Although, it is hard to conduct the interview but there are another way to gain detailed information from participant by using the open-ended questionnaires. It is inexpensive method and t he researcher can conduct it together with the closed-ended questionnaires. From this way it increasing an opportunity to get more in-depth information and research can be provide the critical analysis.It might be difficult to interpret wording or phrases that participant be using and it is often that people not given the answer in the questionnaires which cause of the missing data. As stated by the research question, The possible sample area that can be collect the data would be chosen mainly in Camden lock market and online social website as facebook or alternatively student in the college. The methods that would be using in this research would be closed-ended and open-ended questionnaires in term of to cover the wide objective of topic and get some detail from the questionnaire.This both methods can be gathering data to each other. The researcher can be able to produce the questionnaire in one page and unneeded name, Thus participants would pleasant to do it. As the reason as pre sent before, The mixed questionnaires would be suitable to apply for the crowded market as Camden lock market that mostly of the people busy at shopping because it required less time for participants to complete and it is in expensive to conduct for research even though, it require moderate time. ReferencesRichard Gay,Alan Charlesworth, and Rita Esen, (2007) , â€Å" Online marketing – a customer-led approach† Oxford university press, Great clarendon street ,Oxford Sarah Quinton and Teresa Smallbone (2006) , â€Å"Postgraduate research in business – a critical guide† SAGE publications LTd. Saunders,Lewis and Thornhill (2007), â€Å"Research methods for business students (fourth editon)†, Pearson education limited. â€Å"Overview of Qualitative Methods and AnalyticTechnique† http://www. nsf. gov/pubs/1997/nsf97153/chap_3. htm â€Å" Evaluation method† http://socrates. berkeley. edu/~pbd/pdfs/Evaluation_Methods. pdf

Group decision making essay Essay

Introduction. Managers in today’s business environment are faced with numerous often-unplanned events that require decision-making. In the past it was more common for a manager to decide the course of action individually or within formal groups. Important decisions in the business circle are now deemed too risky or important to be made entirely by one person. A manager must seek the right advice from several different sources. Today it is often common for many managers to seek involvement from lower level employees in the decision making process whenever it can be done. However it is not always possible just to ask a colleague what they should do. Most decisions will require a process of a greater degree of subordinate participation; these decisions can be made through a variety of different ways such as committees, task groups, departmental participation and so forth. It is said that making decisions in a group allows for every angle to be looked at and every possible idea to be created with every decision from a group offering the best solution this method of decision making. However like many techniques it has its positives and negatives.It can be time consuming and may not offer an answer to the problem that satisfies everyone. This essay hopes to discuss both the advantages and disadvantages of group decision-making using several theories and some real life case studies. We will see how participation in decision-making affects companies decisions; we will look at several helpful models i.e. vroom-jago model and all referencing it to real life situations and quotes from famous persons in the field Circumstances Of Group decision. Managers as part of their job are faced with many decisions in which they have to undertake, it is up to the managers themselves to decide in what kind of way they want to make the decision and solve the problem. However groups can offer an essential feature in decision making for an organisation. As Coghlan points out: â€Å"Membership of teams and groups shape perception and participation in organisational change.. Groups and teams play a key role in the process of planned organisational change. The change process typically involves teams in the organisational’s hierarchy responding to the change agenda and adapting to it in terms of its tasks and processes† (Coghlan) Coghlan statement clearly leads us to believe that groups are critical in making important direction changing decisions for the company. Evidence supports this statement and we will look at this a little later as we discuss the advantage and disadvantages. First we will look at how managers come about making the decision to use group participation. A manager may decide to use group decisions in several circumstances and the contingency model by Vroom and Yetton as well as the Vroom and Jago decision model can prove useful in helping management decide when to encourage group participation. In he contingency model by Vroom and Yetton there are five key management styles as described by Vroom that a manager can undertake to make decisions. This is shown in appendix 1. We can see from this that the amount of participation that a manager involves in a decision varies greatly. It would not be logical for managers to always  involve group decision-making on smaller problems such as whether to refund a customer (if it was something worth 10) this would be a waste of time and resources for the company and could easy be dealt with on the stop with a programmed decision by the staff. Group decisions as described by Coghlan can be very useful for important or company changing problems or opportunities. It would not be wise to let one person decide whether to invest 4 billions pounds to merge with another company. This is a case when it would be wise for the company to go for the style as vroom described as decision style â€Å"GII† i.e. where you share a problem with your subordinates as a group and implement any solution that has the entire support of the group. The Vroom and Jago decision model goes onto produce a decision tree for choosing a appropriate decision-making method.This decision tree allows the manger to move along the branches by answering the questions at each point. This leads to one of the five decision making styles as described in the Vroom Yetton model. However it has to be said that this model as well as models in general are neither right nor wrong they must be seen as guidelines or as a reference. However the Vroom-Yetton, Jago model must be seen as a useful tool in the aid of decision-making although it is not perfect. Looking at appendix 2 we can see that the model looks a little complex however once you reach the starting point QR we can see that the model is simply a set of high, low yes, no answers that guide you to an eventual decision style. This model has been criticized as being not perfect. However it is not possible for me to say these critics are not right or wrong only this model is neither. However support is growing for this model as more examples of its uses come to light. Advantages, Disadvantages To Group Participation. In today’s empowered work places managers involve all workers in decision making as a rule rather than choice. However companies must understand that  participative decision-making does has its disadvantages as well as it obvious advantages. It is seen that in business two heads are better than one. This can be true in some circumstances as it offers an advantage in terms of offering a boarder perspective to establish the problem and sort out its causes and effects. It also enables the company to have more ability and facts at its disposal therefore allowing for greater scope to sort out any potentially tricky problem. Group discussion leads to the evaluation and correction of possible decisions, plus group discussion also helps to back up and support a decision that an individual may not wish to take on his or her own due to the risk involved. And finally group discussion allows for more satisfaction from the workers, as they feel involved with the project and decision that their work place is taking. Group decisions however can tend to be time consuming, everyone must be consulted on the problem and then they must all find the time to jointly diagnose the problem and decide a solution. Groups may also have the problem of not using the best solution for the problem, although the group discussion allows for more ideas some members may not agree on the best solution and therefore a comprise solution will have to be used to gain group wide acceptance. A boarder instant of this would be the risky shift phenomenon, this suggests that instead of groups taking fewer risks and making safer decisions the reverse is often the case. There is a tendency for groups to make more risky decisions than an individual may take. Another point is that people inclined to make risks are more influential within the group than say the more conservative members, therefore good ideas could be lost. Group think is another problem that must be considered within a group. Group  think tells us that pressures on individual members to conform and reach consensus mean that minority or unpopular ideas maybe suppressed. Members who oppose the group are stereotyped as being weak, stupid, and argumentative. As People may not wish to question any ideas of the group, bad ideas may filter through. One other big problem to group think as see we see in the example of Napster is that it can lead to a inherent morality of the group which in turn can lead to members to be convinced of the logical correctness of what it is doing and to ignore ethical or moral consequences of decisions ( more harsher examples of groupthink would be Pearl harbour, Vietnam, Mullins99) The final problem is people do not feel the same sense of responsibility for group decisions or their outcomes. â€Å"A decision which is everyone’s is the responsibility of no one†(Mullins,98) An example of disadvantages of group decision-making and group think can be seen by www.napster.com. Even when it was clear that their practice of providing free mp3’s of the latest musical material was wrong they decided as a group in the face of the courts to continue their practice. This was because their group norms supported them doing so and that they were the most sought after website on the Internet. However group members of Napster had to compromise all their values so as to keep dissent and as there was no clear reasonability everyone agreed to this illegal practice. If some members would have voiced their concerns and beliefs earlier in the process and put an end to the practice before the courts took over they could have save themselves much time and money. However lets go back to advantages of group decision-making and look at the techniques used to promote it and stimulate creativity. Management have realized that encouraging employee participation in solving problems can be extremely advantageous toward the company. Frontline workers are constantly in touch with the needs, wants and concerns of the companies customers, it allows them fuller insight into how to possibly solve problems  that concern the company’s consumer base. When I first worked at Matalan they operated a system by where you could post any ideas you had on how to improve the operation of the store and its service to the customers. If you idea was put into practice you would receive a financial reward. This system received many replies and allowed for many improvements to be implemented around many Matalan stores. There are many different ways in which can pursue employee participation. The most common and well-known participation tool would be brainstorming. Brainstorming is a decision-making technique in which group members present spontaneous ideas and suggestions for solving the problem concerned. It allows any ideas regardless of how impractical they may seem. This in turn hopefully promotes freer and more creative thinking. Brain storming works on involving everyone, and encouraging communication, listening, and information sharing in the hope that it maximises ideas/possible solutions to problems and also minimises the risk of overlooking any points of the problem under question. An advancement of the brainstorming technique is the Delphi technique this is based on anonymous inputs from individual members of the group and then management assess the responses until a consensus is reached. This can be time consuming but overcomes the limitations of brainstorming and the systems of group think. Now Lets take for example many common marketing departments; it is now commonplace for them to have basketball hoops, televisions, computers games, and other stimuli within the room. Management hope this will promote a relaxed environment within the group in the hope that it will allow for more creative thinking and brainstorming within the marketing group Other techniques used for group decision making include signing a devils advocate. The devils advocate challenges the assumptions and assertions made by the group to prevent any premature consensus. (Daft,00) This it hopes  forces the team who created the idea to solve the problem to examine and explain any risks that maybe associated with it. Another similar approach would be multiple advocacy. Multiple advocacy, involves several advocates and allows for the presentation of several different points of view on the idea in question. It allows minority and unpopular opinions, decisions are therefore based on solid augment and the understanding of all the pro’s and con’s. Conclusion. As we can see there are circumstances where group decisions are more necessary than others and it is up to the managers to decide which situations would be best to involve group decision. Although the decision of when to involve group decisions is entirely up to the manager there are models available such as vroom to help give guidance should they need it. Group participation offers a variety of different advantages for solving problems and tasks. It allows for the group as a whole to participate toward solving the task and allows for more creative thinking than would be given by an individual. Groups cover all angles of a problem and enable any ideas to be looked at in detail before being implemented. However like all good things it has its disadvantages. Group participation includes such problems as groupthink and risky-shift phenomenon. These tell us that support can be given to ideas just to enable group harmony or because individuals don’t wont to gain a reputation. It also includes the point that people inclined to take risks are more influential within the group. Whatever the disadvantages and advantages of group participation and performance, groups will always form part of the pattern of work organisation. It is merely a matter of judgement for the manager as to when, and how best, to use groups in the execution of work.