Foreign Market Entry and Diversification Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Foreign Market Entry and Diversification - Essay Example Participation in the hospitality industry is proposed as the appropriate diversification destination for the company as contained in this discussion. This report highlights the details of conducting a diversification plan for the business into a relatively related business line, owing to the growth status of the mainstream business. Justification As illustrated, shifting from the transport portfolio into the hospitality component as proposed for purposes of business congruence in terms of succession of operations demonstrates the logic behind the proposal. Considering the operations standing and status in the American market coupled with the present expansion ambitions across the borders, the hospitality industry appears to support growth as anticipated. The role of business complementarity for the two portfolios is for purposes of soaking up risk exposure and provides nurturing to the developing business in a direct version (Lawton & Weaver, 2009). Due to the demands of a new busine ss line of operations with respect to overseas presence as a long-term diversification concept, providing the nexus in synergies of related business in the complementarity concept augurs well with growth prospects. Similarities of the travel industry and hospitality business in terms of services needed for both private and business packages provide synergies in business operations. Exploiting the nature of opportunities availed by the hospitality industry to the travel component offered by the travel agency line of current operations present upward trajectories in growth projections (Borein, Rowe & Smith 2002). As an illustration, visitors into the City of New York require accommodation, meals, entertainment and leisure products that have traditionally originated from other hospitality businesses with which the company partners. Hospitality component entails venturing into property ownership across the world’s target cities in America, Europe, Middle East and Africa as well a s Asia Pacific to support the business model. Rolling out property ownership pushes the diversification component into a long-term consideration, apart from a few New York City pilot project considerations. Diversification of the hospitality and travel agency components will require a couple of years and extensive property market research across the world. The first foreign market for entry with the new model as deliberated is India, due to the vibrant economic and tourism growth coupled with relatively affordable property transactions. India as an emerging economy in the world today provides excellent attention to investors that provided a lucrative opportunity for business travel for the vast business territory. The centrality of India for Asian markets extending to the Pacific region will facilitate future diversification of the transport component into the sea and luxury travel component involving yacht and cruise ship famous as central regional business lines. Growth supported in the vibrant economy will facilitate entry into Middle East and Africa as other potentially beneficial opportunities (Lovelock && Wirtz, 2009). As expected in certain markets to provide an opportunity for a single functionality, entry with one component will also form part of the expansion and diversification strategy. As an illustrati

Binge Drinking Patients and Effects on Staff Literature review

Binge Drinking Patients and Effects on Staff - Literature review Example Although the A&E attendances caused because of alcohol consumption may occur any time throughout the day, yet most of them happen during weekends and at nights when the tendency of people to consume alcohol is maximal (Pirmohamed et al., 2000). The male attendances outnumber the female attendances by more than twice and most of these attendees are young adults lesser than 40 years of age, which suggests that a vast majority of binge drinkers are young adults (Pirmohamed et al., 2000). The tendency of being involved in the alcohol-related violence in men is twice as much as that in women. 50 per cent of the injuries are related to neck and head and almost 25 per cent of the victims are hospitalized (Wright and Kariya, 1997). Binge drinking is one of the main causes of physical violence and verbal abuse of the healthcare professionals serving in the A&E departments. The effects of patients with the effects of binge drinking appearing in the A&E departments on the staff have been measur ed in different countries and most of the research studies have invariably estimated high level of danger and risks for the staff. In Australia, 2.3 per cent of the overall burden of disease could be attributed to alcohol in the year 2003 that was equivalent to 61091 life years adjusted for disability (Harvard et al., 2011). The burden of harm caused by binge drinking in Australia has been found to be disproportionately high in the rural areas as compared to the urban areas. Departments that are usually affected the most are the inner city departments and the healthcare professionals assuming the maximal risk of assaults are nurses and male doctors. The healthcare providers in general and the staff at the emergency departments in particular have many concerns of safety while dealing with the binge drinkers. One of the nurses interviewed by Gunasekara et al. (2011) expressed these concerns in these words, â€Å"I

Summary of Balanced Scorecard Essay Example for Free

Summary of Balanced Scorecard Essay Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton introduced the balanced scorecard, which supplemented traditional financial measures with criteria that measured performance from the perspectives of customers, internal business processes, and learning and growth. The scorecard enabled companies to track financial results while monitoring progress in building the capabilities they would need for growth. Traditional management systems rely on financial measures, which bear little relation to progress in achieving long-term strategic objectives. The scorecard introduces four new processes that help companies connect long-term objectives with short-term actions. The firsttranslating the visionhelps managers build a consensus around the companys strategy and express it in terms that can guide action at the local level. The secondcommunicating and linkinglets managers communicate their strategy up and down the organization and link it to unit and individual goals. The thirdbusiness planningenables companies to integrate their business and financial plans. The fourthfeedback and learninggives companies the capacity for strategic learning, which consists of gathering feedback, testing the hypotheses on which strategy was based, and making the necessary adjustments. Many companies adopted early balanced-scorecard concepts to improve their performance measurement systems. They achieved tangible but narrow results. Adopting those concepts provided clarification, consensus, and focus on the desired improvements in performance. More recently, we have seen companies expand their use of the balanced scorecard, employing it as the foundation of an integrated and iterative strategic management system. Companies are using the scorecard to: clarify and update strategy, communicate strategy throughout the company, align unit and individual goals with the strategy, link strategic objectives to long-term targets and annual budgets, identify and align strategic initiatives, and conduct periodic performance reviews to learn about and improve strategy. The balanced scorecard enables a company to align its management processes and focuses the entire organization on implementing long-term strategy. At National Insurance, the scorecard provided the CEO and his managers with a central framework around which they could redesign each piece of the companys management system. And because of the cause-and-effect linkages inherent in the scorecard framework, changes in one component of the system reinforced earlier changes made elsewhere. Therefore, every change made over the 30-month period added to the momentum that kept the organization moving forward in the agreed-upon direction. The balanced scorecard provides a framework for managing the implementation of strategy while also allowing the strategy itself to evolve in response to changes in the companys competitive, market environments. The Balanced Scorecard: what is the score? A rhetorical analysis of the Balanced Scorecard Hanne Nà ¸rreklit Accounting, Organizations and Society 28 (2003) 591–619 This article analyses the means by which the authors of the Balanced Scorecard have created that attention. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of the latest innovations in management. It is a tool of strategic control developed by Kaplan and Norton and described in their 1996 book The Balanced Scorecard. In the business world, the balanced scorecard has engendered great interest internationally. The question of whether this is due to its substance as an innovative and practical theory or simply to its promotional rhetoric is the focus of this paper. The balanced scorecard aims to solve the problem related to the historical nature of the financial measures of accounting systems. It does so by integrating financial and nonfinancial strategic measure variables in a cause-and effect relationship which assumes the following: measures of organizational learning and growth, measures of internal business processes, measures of the customer perspective, financial measures. The assumption tha t there is a cause and- effect relationship between the suggested areas of measurements is essential because the measurements in non-financial areas make the performance measurement system a feed-forward control system, which solves the problem of the historical nature of accounting data This paper investigates whether the book entitled The Balanced Scorecard has the features characteristic of sound argumentation, i.e. whether it uses an appropriate combination of ethos, logo s and pathos when appealing to its readers; if it does not, it will be further examined which features characterize the text, which will then allow us to draw conclusions as to the genre of the text and, in turn, to tell how the BSC is promoted. All the author’s analysis shows that rhetoric is a key management tool. Management constantly requires new rhetoric. The only problem is that, if the rhetoric is combined with theory that is full of mistakes, the sources of errors are numerous. In that case, the managers cannot use the theories to analyses the problems of their companies and they will not have an instrument which actually allows them to control and direct the company. Instead, more argumentative and empirically valid theories should be combined with entertaining rhetoric. Researchers who are preoccupied with developing more cogent and realistic models possibly forget or are outright against the popularized communication of research results, which means that many managers do not ever become acquainted with the theories. Our conclusion, therefore, is that both researchers and managers have to become better at selling theories and models in a way that is persuasive yet convincing. Further research is therefore th at more rhetorical analyses should be carried out, not only of management guru texts but also of academic texts in the area, like management and accounting. The purpose is to allow identification of good as well as problematic rhetoric as part of a learning process which may offer directions for the development of theories. The balanced scorecard: the effects of feedback on performance evaluation Gerui (Grace) Kang, Amy Fredin Management Research Review, Vol. 35 No. 7, 2012, pp. 637-662 The use of a balanced scorecard (BSC) for performance evaluation is meant to help evaluators make more complete decisions, as they have a variety of financial and non-financial measures to assess. The problem is that users have difficulty taking all of the measures into consideration. The tendency to place more weight on common measures (measures that are the same across divisions) while either ignoring or placing very little weight on unique measures (measures are unique to a particular division) has become known as a â€Å"common measures bias†. The purpose of this paper is to extend a line of research that works to understand how this common measures bias might be mitigated. This study examines whether the presence of task property feedback, a form of cognitive feedback, prior to a performance evaluation task, can help evaluators overcome the tendency to rely primarily on common measures. This study used an experimental design where subjects were asked to evaluate the performance of two managers under either feedback or non-feedback conditions. In the feedback condition, subjects were provided with their supervisor’s suggestions about performance evaluation in the use of BSCs. In practice, more straight forward and simple feedback information is likely easier for companies to implement and easier for evaluators to follow. Feedback information that is too complex or that requires too much effort may frustrate evaluators, at which point they may abandon the effort. The authors’ findings also indicate that direct and clear guidance from the top manager of a business may be seen as pressure by lower-level managers. It is important for top manag ers to create such a performance evaluation environment so that all BSC measures are considered. The paper finds that when evaluators judge the performance of managers through the use of a BSC, they tend to weight common measures more heavily than they do unique measures. Where this study contributes to the literature is in the use of task property feedback, a form of cognitive feedback, to overcome this bias. Since the use of unique measures is a key attribute of BSCs as they help users capture the nuances of a specific division’s or firm’s strategy, it is crucial that performance evaluators pay careful attention to them. The findings also indicate that direct and clear guidance from the top manager of a business may be seen as pressure by lower-level managers, thereby suggesting that they (the lower-level managers) use all BSC measures in their evaluations. It is important for top managers to create such a performance evaluation environment so that all BSC measures are considered. This study is the first to examine the influence of task property feedback on perfo rmance evaluation in the context of a BSC. Going forward, it will be important to evaluate how this type of feedback, along with other forms of feedback, may influence performance evaluations over a longer time frame.

Looking At Romantic Period Poetry

Looking At Romantic Period Poetry In the Romantic Period in England there was a shift taking place in literature. Poets of the time period believed that a personal relationship with God or the Universe was more important than a larger collective religious or political one. The introduction of the Romantic Period in the Norton Anthology of British Literature states, And the pervasiveness of nature poetry in the period can be attributed to a determination to idealize the natural scene as a site where the individual could find freedom from social laws (Greenblatt, 1377). The poets of that day also believed that one could receive that personal relationship through the natural world. Literature focused on the individual great or small and was much more personal than it had been in the past. In accordance with the importance of the individual, Romantic poets expressed an importance and love of nature in their poetry. The poets William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley use their interpretations of nature, although differe nt, to express the romantic idea of individualism. These poets used nature to express their feelings toward the individual and the importance they placed on a personal relationship with ones inner self as well as God. William Wordsworth loved nature and lived in remote natural regions of England for much of his life. He had a relationship with the natural world that he lived in and around and this is evident in his writing. His poetry describes how he learns more about himself, and his relationship with God through learning and becoming more acquainted with nature. This principle is portrayed in this passage of Wordsworths Tintern Abbey. He says, For I have learned/ To look on nature, not as in the hour/ Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes/ The still, sad music of humanity,/ Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power/ To chasten and subdue. And I have felt/ A presence that disturbs me with joy/ Of elevated thoughts a sense sublime/ Of something far more deeply interfused/ Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns/ And the round ocean and the living air,/ And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:/ A motion and a spirit, that impels/ All thinking things, all objects of all thought, / And rolls through all things (Wordsworth, 88-102). This passage describes how Wordsworth has learned to feel the power of God or the Universe through nature. He has an individual spiritual experience when he looks at the natural world that he could not experience with masses of people in a church or in everyday society. He then goes on to say that nature is a very important to him and is in a way a part of who he is. Wordsworth, when speaking about himself in this passage, says that he is well pleased to recognize/ In nature and the language of the sense/ The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,/ The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul/ Of all my moral being(Wordsworth, 107- 111). To Wordsworth, nature was so important to him because he felt as if it was a part of him. He felt it was his compass and guide in his life. His view of nature is that he has grown and expanded because of what he experienced from it. This individual relationship he had with nature affected him so much it guided his actions in politics, religion, and other facets of life. He uses nature to symbolize himself and his soul. Individualism is shown in Wordsworths depiction of the natural world because in essence he becomes nature in his writing. In similitude with Wordworths poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley uses the natural world in his writing to express individualism but in a slightly different way. In Mont Blanc, Shelley uses the daunting description of the mountain and the land around it to suggest that imagination has a lot to do with what ones individual experience is from nature. He almost suggests that the mind is natures creator. In this passage from Mont Blanc, Shelley says, The everlasting universe of things/ Flows through the mind and rolls its rapid waves,/ Now dark-now glittering-now reflecting gloom/ Now lending splendour, where from secret springs/ The source of human thought its tribute brings/ Of waters,with a sound but half its own./ Such as a feeble brook will oft assume/ In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,/ Where waterfalls around it leap forever,/ Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river/ Over its rocks ceaselessly burst and raves (Shelley ,1-11). This excerpt shows Shelleys view of nature and the mind. He talks about how the universe flows through the mind and then he gives menacing descriptive imagery of woods, waterfalls, and the mountains. The imagery suggests that the mind or imagination was the creator of these daunting natural scenes. This shows Shelleys opinion of nature in regards to the human imagination and the individual. A further example is evident in another excerpt from Mont Blanc, The secret strength of things/ Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome/ Of heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!/ And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,/ If to the human minds imaginings/ Silence and solitude were vacancy (Shelley, 139-145). This passage reinforces the contrast of Shelleys view of the human mind in regards to nature rather than the Wordsworthian view. Shelley firmly shows in his texts and particularly in Mont Blanc his belief in the natural world being born from the imagination of the individual ther efore giving power to the person who created it. Along with typifying the imagination as a creator of nature, individualism is discussed throughout his writing. Mont Blanc also displays the romantic notion of individualism through the discussion of the mind and human thought. The poem suggests that nature comes from the mind which creates a very personal and individual nature for everyone. In the mere suggestion of imagination and the human mind being the creator of nature, there lies individualism. The way Shelley portrays the individual in nature holds true to the Romantic notions of the time. Individualism is a very romantic principle that was becoming increasingly important in this time period. This power given to the individual mind to think, believe, and understand ones self was embodied through the natural world in the works of William Wordsworth and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Wordsworth suggested that the individual mind gains power and understanding from and because of the influence of nature. Shelley believed that the individuals mind and imagination gives nature the power that it has over the individual. Although the method they used to establish individualism through nature was different, both of their works embodied that principle and epitomized the Romantic view of Individualism.

Ghosts in a Massachusetts Village :: Ghosts Spirits Hauntings Essays

Ghosts in a Massachusetts Village Sabine Heartwood passed through Moose River Junction years ago with her mother, an itinerant fortuneteller. Raised on the road as Ruby crisscrossed the country in her battered VW minibus, Sabine longed to settle down and was inexplicably drawn to this rural hamlet, where everyone knows everyone. Now that one of the town’s favorite sons has returned for his grandmother Beatrice’s funeral, at least there’s something to talk about. Danforth Smith is an up-and-coming assistant film director in New York, romantically linked with a bitchy, beautiful, ambitious actress. Shy Sabine is instantly attracted to him but she knows she can’t compete with the likes of Karen. And handsome Dan would never want to give up such a glamorous life to stay in Moose River Junction and care for his aging, mentally retarded uncle Nagy, per his mother Beatrice’s wish. Even though Beatrice, imperious and theatrical to a fault, insisted in her will that Nagy never be instit utionalized and instead be permitted to take tickets and sweep up at the Palace Theatre (her dead husband’s pet project and final legacy). Sabine intuitively senses Dan’s dark secret, but not its exact details. Yet Dan, given to solitary brooding, reveals all to the reader in interior monologues: he holds himself responsible for the accidental fire that killed his feuding parents when he was only six. He and Nagy were playing with a lighter, and his grandmother Beatrice always told Dan that the fire was his fault, not Nagy’s. Hmm†¦so that’s why Sabine seems to smell smoke in his presence but she doesn’t understand why. Gee, where does this strange knack for reading minds come from? The supposedly psychic young woman can’t figure it out, but mother Ruby is waiting in the wings with a grim secret of her own: Sabine is the child of an alcoholic gypsy, who raped Ruby when she was only fifteen. Ghosts in a Massachusetts Village :: Ghosts Spirits Hauntings Essays Ghosts in a Massachusetts Village Sabine Heartwood passed through Moose River Junction years ago with her mother, an itinerant fortuneteller. Raised on the road as Ruby crisscrossed the country in her battered VW minibus, Sabine longed to settle down and was inexplicably drawn to this rural hamlet, where everyone knows everyone. Now that one of the town’s favorite sons has returned for his grandmother Beatrice’s funeral, at least there’s something to talk about. Danforth Smith is an up-and-coming assistant film director in New York, romantically linked with a bitchy, beautiful, ambitious actress. Shy Sabine is instantly attracted to him but she knows she can’t compete with the likes of Karen. And handsome Dan would never want to give up such a glamorous life to stay in Moose River Junction and care for his aging, mentally retarded uncle Nagy, per his mother Beatrice’s wish. Even though Beatrice, imperious and theatrical to a fault, insisted in her will that Nagy never be instit utionalized and instead be permitted to take tickets and sweep up at the Palace Theatre (her dead husband’s pet project and final legacy). Sabine intuitively senses Dan’s dark secret, but not its exact details. Yet Dan, given to solitary brooding, reveals all to the reader in interior monologues: he holds himself responsible for the accidental fire that killed his feuding parents when he was only six. He and Nagy were playing with a lighter, and his grandmother Beatrice always told Dan that the fire was his fault, not Nagy’s. Hmm†¦so that’s why Sabine seems to smell smoke in his presence but she doesn’t understand why. Gee, where does this strange knack for reading minds come from? The supposedly psychic young woman can’t figure it out, but mother Ruby is waiting in the wings with a grim secret of her own: Sabine is the child of an alcoholic gypsy, who raped Ruby when she was only fifteen.

Genetic Engineering Essay -- Argumentative Persuasive Essays

Genetic Engineering Most people take for granted the food that they consume each and every day will be safe and nutritious. When they wake up in the morning they do not have to think about getting enough food to survive the day. In order for the agriculture industry, that produces food and clothing for everyone, to keep up with our growing population it needs to utilize new technology. Agriculture has to find ways to produce more crops while many fertile acres of land are lost to development. Many people who like to eat the food produced would like to do away with genetic engineering; this would lead to lack of food and increased starvation around the world. Genetic engineering is the artificial moving of genes from one species to another. Genes are special chemicals that work as sets of blueprints to determine an organism's traits. Moving genes from one organism to another moves those traits. This gene transfer allows traits that would never naturally occur in a certain species to be inserted into the DNA of that species. Scientists can take a gene for blue coat color from a sea urchin and transplant it into a brown horse to get a blue horse. In nature the only way you could get a blue horse is if a line of horses already contain the gene for blue coat color. Genetic engineering is a radically new technology for changing the traits of organisms by substituting genetic material that has been altered outside of cells. This process allows scientists to rearrange and change genetic material before transfer and may one day lead to the transplanting of genes not found in nature but made in a laboratory. Through this altering of genes crops ca n be produced that are safer for the consumer. Transplanted genes develop crops th... ... impossible to confidently predict the effects of genetic manipulations because of the complexity and interconnectedness of living systems. (Fagan 1) We do have to be careful so herbicide resistance genes do not get transferred to weeds; or "super weeds" might be created which cannot be killed with traditional methods. We also have to make sure that only the genes that we want will be inserted so we do not insert bad traits with the bad (Sage 2). As you can see from these arguments from both sides, if we are going to be able to continue to feed the world we have to be able to keep producing more food on less land. The best way to do this is through genetically engineered crops. Works Cited http://www.biotechknowledge.com/showlib.php3?378#Pred (Monsanto) http://www.sage-intl.org/issues.html (Sage) http://www.maharishi.co.uk/fagan.htm (Fagan)

Worldwide Food Shortage

These new factors are related to economic systems, political issues, alternative energies and fuels or global warming and climate change. As we can read in an article by Lester Brown published in Scientific American Magazine, â€Å"one of the toughest things for people to do Is to anticipate sudden change. † (2009) This quote helps us understanding the crawls In countries affected by flooding or droughts. Other natural disasters hard to predict and having a substantial Impact on basic food production are earthquakes and tsunamis. These phenomenon's have the power to paralyze any agricultural activity among others.When these natural disasters affect countries with a poor economy, the situation is even worse as they do not have enough resources to recover and things are likely to become critical to the point where the population is affected by malnutrition and dies of hunger. Africa has been long known as the continent with the worst problems concerning food shortages In most of their countries, mainly due because of the hot temperatures causing severe uncontrollable droughts and water shortages. The situation in these countries has not only immediate implications on population, but also makes it very official for economies to develop.Unfortunately, because of the lack of food many diseases would easily spread and be difficult to overcome, since the countries are poor. To Illustrate the state of some African countries we will be citing a shocking affirmation published In an article by Marc Gunter, senior writer for Fortune Magazine: â€Å"The average American pet will consume more resources than the average African and have better medical care as well. † (2008) The same poor economical environment in countries of Central and South America had facilitated over the years, food shortages following either droughts or flooding.In 2001 for instance, a severe drought has compromised the crops across Central America. Countries like Honduras, Guatemala and E l Salvador have been seriously affected. (Taylor, 2002) These countries are predominately rural and produce grains and coffee for export. This is the other aspect of local food shortages: it can extend to affect other importing countries as well, forcing the increase in prices for some essential foods. As we could see so far in this analysis, droughts are not the only factors having the power to severely affect food production, but their opposite, flooding has the same vegetating erect. Entries all around ten world , In Europe, Salsa, Australia, ten Americas, they all have experienced food shortages due to flooding. A healthy production depends thus on balanced weather conditions. This might be however difficult to achieve, thinking that for centuries nature has been unpredictable, and it's getting worse due to global warming. An article published in Fortune Magazine presents the Pentagon's weather nightmare, global warming, as a surging problem, and predicts that a cooling in the N orthern Hemisphere will trigger longer and rasher winters in most European countries as well as in the United States.The same conditions will also cause according to the same source, severe droughts which will turn â€Å"farmland to dust bowls and forests to ashes. † (Strip,2004) Food shortages could arise from animal diseases, like the mad-cow disease, which caused a global meat shortage in 1996, and affected mainly the Great Britain, where people have died from consuming the meat coming from infected animals. Same situation has happened with chicken and pork later in the decade. A major issue nowadays is the price of oil.In a global economy heavily relying on amerce, import and export, the price of oil could have a significant impact on the cost of production. Some countries are seriously affected and decide to drop the production for essential foods, since its cost could become higher than the selling price. While some countries, usually developing countries, are strugglin g to survive on a low food supply, dealing with starvation and diseases, others might as well have an overage in production of basic food. We can analyze these countries' food overage from a humanitarian and ethical perspective, depending on what their decision is regarding the surplus.How many countries decide to distribute their overage to unprivileged nations, and how many simply dispose of the extra production? Great Britain for instance, estimates that more than 30% of their food is thrown away and thus UK might be the worst in the world for waste. The cost of the wasted food is estimated to be between 8 and 16 billion pounds a year. (Vidal, 2005) This is Just an example of how food is wasted in some countries or Just individually in certain households. In the context of long time food crisis around the world, this waste is highly unethical and shows low commitment to the global welfare.