Corporate strategy case Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Corporate strategy case - Essay Example This essay stresses that the company has not only achieved the goals in terms of revenues but also in terms of rapid expansion and differentiation. The company has always met the requirements of the customer and focuses on "WE" attitude rather than "I" attitude. The company considers the customers to be their most valuable asset and to satisfy their requirements of healthy and hygienic lifestyle is company's priority. The company has always exceeded the customer's expectation in shopping experience; this is to make the customer loyal. The company does not focus much on advertisement budget as according to them their customers are enough for publicity and advertisement. The company has also acquired smaller competitor like Wild Oats, which shows the company’s success and its determination to acquire smaller rivals to provide the company with opportunities to prosper in the market and to provide the market with different locations. In order overcome increasing challenges and com petition in the industry, the management of Whole Foods should work on further enhancing and modifying the overall corporate strategy. This paper makes a conclusion that Whole Foods is operating successfully in local and international markets. The company should work on further improving its corporate and management level strategies in order to maintain the competitive advantage over other competitors and improve the overall performance. This is important to capture more market share and increase the profitability of the organization.

Communication Challenges in Global Virtual Teams Essay Example for Free

Communication Challenges in Global Virtual Teams Essay Communication Challenges in Building Successful Global Virtual Teams Due to Diversity and Cultural Differences Abstract This paper introduces an approach to effectively communicate within a global virtual team by discussing the challenges faced by them, understanding cultural differences in communicating, diversity within a team, building trust in virtual communication, and communicating across different regions and time zones. This approach appears in many discussions surrounding the difficulties managers and team members have in communicating effectively in global virtual teams. Specifically, this paper evaluates how the diversity of a global virtual team makes it challenging to communicate when members are not present face to face and adhering to the different regions and time zones these members are located. It will also examine the challenges in understanding the different cultures amongst a team and how to effectively build trust by researching, acknowledging, and understanding these cultural differences and communicating them to the team in a virtual environment. Communicating Challenges in Building Successful Global Virtual Teams Due to Diversity and Cultural Differences In today’s economy, many organizations must expand their operations globally in order to remain competitive and to stay afloat. With this business model companies have to develop teams across all functions of the organization and in all regions of the globe in which the company operates. For these companies, many have set up global virtual teams to manage processes and implement any projects or company initiatives with other employees of the organization. However with these teams come many obstacles and challenges definitely in communicating across cultural differences, understanding the diversity of the team and communication management within the different regions and time zones. Various authors (Danielle, 2006; Kayworth, 2000; Lee-Kelley, 2008 to name a few) have noted that these groups consisting of dispersed members across the globe and accumulated from various cultural backgrounds have an impact on how effective global virtual teams can be. Kayworth determines that there are four main challenges that global virtual teams face; which are communication, culture, technology, and project management. This paper observes the difficulties that virtual teams face within their communication efforts, analyzing the diversity of team members and the obstacles of communicating across different regions and times zones. As well as it takes an extensive look at the cultural differences that consists of these virtual teams and the challenge of building trust amongst a dispersed group. And in order for a global virtual team to operate effectively, managers and the members must research the different cultural backgrounds of its members, understand the communication challenges they face, and utilize them accordingly in order to build trust amongst the team to fulfill their goals that they place ahead of them. Defining Global Virtual Teams There are many authors that have provided definitions of global virtual teams, Lee-Kelley (2008) mentions that Towsend along with Lipnack and Stamps define a virtual team as a group that is geographically dispersed and utilize telecommunication and information technology as forms to communicate and perform. Lee-Kelley also refers to Alge, Balosky, Christensen, and Davis’ definition that virtual teams are typically a group that are dispersed who use various sources of information technology to communicate. In the case of these definitions, there is a lack of emphasis on the concept of team, but further definitions tie in this concept and place more value on the aspect of team. Cascio’s and Shurygailo’s mentioning of multiple-relationships in global virtual teams, by referring to the number of manager’s involved, number of team members, and number of locations. Many researchers in this field do not reference a specified distance in which team members must be apart to classify as virtual team, but as Lee-Kelley stated it is a psychological reality versus sociological that team members conceptually define themselves in a virtual team. In sum, there are many definitions that agree on the structure, form and characteristics of a virtual team and the members it consist of, but there is a lack of consensus amongst them. This lack of consensus on the definition of a global virtual team has also brought up the discussions of the challenges in communication that these virtual teams face, thus prompting this research. Time Zones and Work Schedules One of the initial challenges of global virtual teams is the complicated work schedules of its team members in their respective regions. Settle-Murphy (2006) notes when working in a synchronous mode (Instant Message, telephone, video conference), some remote team members are forced to work at awkward times. This alone is one the most consistent challenges that managers and teams have to overcome. When is the optimal time for virtual teams that span across various time zones to meet? A manager and its team have to take in consideration the different work weeks as well as the time difference. Consistently in many western civilizations, the standard work week is predominately Monday through Friday, utilizing Saturday and Sunday as business days off in order to tend to personal matters and observance of the religious day that is most affluent in that region and culture. Where in many eastern civilizations the work week is Sunday through Thursday, and they utilize Friday and Saturday as their days off. This difference is not only restricted to western/eastern civilization, but ultimately applies to the different cultures that make up the team, the different religions, and time of year. Being cognitive of this challenge and addressing it in an applicable manner is crucial to the effectiveness of a global virtual team. It is an evident obstacle in scheduling team meetings via information technology applications (i. e. teleconferencing, video-conferencing, etc). This is one challenge that can easily be addressed by the manager’s and team’s awareness of these work week schedule differences along with the cultural and religious difference of its team members. Another issue that global virtual teams encounter is conducting meetings across the various time zones of its members. There is no exact corporate standard or guidelines on how and when meetings should be conducted in order to accommodate all members of the virtual team. Settle-Murphy states that in order to reduce this challenge as an obstacle to building trust and team success, a team should agree when same time meetings are necessary, and consider rotating the times to share the burden of working during normal sleep time. The managers and team members should also consider which work can be done asynchronously (e. g. via email or a shared workplace) to allow all team members to work at the most convenient times. This approach can be highly effective because it is apparent that the manager and other team members have taken into consideration each other’s differences of location, culture, and business practices, and simultaneously addressing the challenge of building trust. By researching, understanding, and being respectful of the team members and their time, the cohesiveness of the group is established quickly and strengthened, which is also a challenge to overcome in global virtual teams. Communication and Behavioral Differences In the article â€Å"Working Together Apart,† Zakaria, Almelinckx, and Wilemon (2004) state that, â€Å"managers have often under-valued the profound influence of culture on knowledge conceptualization and transfer. Suggesting that knowledge sharing is often facilitated by communication that involves the exchange of meaning and that the process of communicating is dynamic, multifaceted and complex† (p. 17). Zakaria et al. , also suggest that cultural conditioning has a major affect on the evaluation of experience as well as how information and knowledge in global virtual teams is conveyed and learned. In short, cultural influences play a major role in communication and behavioral differences. This concept is another major challenge that global virtual teams face when striving to reach their end goal. Conveying a clear message is only one challenge, the difficult part is conveying that message so that it reaches each individual affectively according to their unique cultural and behavioral background and how to convey organizational messages across global virtual teams has consensually been done through technology. Global virtual teams that use information and communication technologies and exclude social or physical presence and rely on depersonalized forms of communications between its team members (Zakaria et al. ,2007). One can argue that this hinders the creation of a knowledge-sharing culture, yet over time, the exclusion of social and physical presence can possibly strengthen working relationships that normally would not form in a more traditional work setting. Utilizing technology as the form of communication takes out a lot of subtle communication aspects that are experienced when working within a team in a more traditional framework. An example of this is the use of non-verbal communication or cues. The absence of non-verbal communication may cause difficulties for those global virtual team members’ cultures that rely on body language, gestures and facial expressions for vital communication. For example, in high-context cultures, people value these subtle and indirect communications. Visual communication like a nod, smile, posture, voice and eye contact provide important indications and meanings to establish understanding of what is trying to be communicated. The usage of verbal and non-verbal communication is important when working together in a team. Global virtual teams usually lack the ability to rely on these communication manners because of their reliability on technology in order to communicate and therefore it is difficult to build cohesiveness and trust within the team. Zakaria et al. , states that: â€Å"Technology is simply a tool that needs human operations, no matter how sophisticated the technology can be, the implementation of technology has the potential to fail if insufficient considerations are given from the user perspectives† (p. 19). This brings up the topic of what is appropriate and what is not when communicating to and within global virtual teams. In the majority of information and communicated technology-mediated environments where team members are dispersed geographically and are culturally diverse, the usual form of communication is electronically, and the preferred language of use is English. Studies have shown that native and non-native English speakers exhibit culture-based differences in meanings of terminology, structure and format. A key example of this is the usage of terms and slang. When members use terms and slang words, the intended meaning can be obscured due to cultural differences and can hinder knowledge management and effectiveness. Another area for potential conflict in information communication is the actual language itself. For those teams that use English, individuals need to be aware of the English language variation in intra-team electronic communication. This particularly pertains to the tone, style, formality, salutations and closings and that they need to be aware that there are substantial sociolinguistic and grammatical variations within the global English-speaking community and will have a significant impact on intra-team communications. In order to successfully facilitate the cross-cultural collaboration and communication, the team members must be aware of these subtle differences and acknowledge them when relaying organizational messages. Since the use of electronic communication technology has the capacity to reduce or overcome certain cultural challenges within a global virtual team, these forms of technologies can facilitate intra-team interaction. It also introduces a shared-framework, a virtual work setting that can build intra-team respect, trust, reciprocity and positive individual and group relationships. Therefore, understanding the communication and behavioral differences when communicating electronically to the team members can put the team in the position to work through the challenges that lie within a global virtual team. The Importance of Developing Trust For global virtual teams, building trust is one of the essential factors in developing a successful team. Since global virtual teams consist of many cultures that make up the entity as well as a geographically dispersed entity, there is a high risk of potential misunderstandings and mistrust. So the question that many virtual teams face is how to develop trust. Many researchers contend that in order to develop trust, a group must facilitate face to face interactions in order to build trust. These face to face interactions allow people to relate to each other or â€Å"click† as many of the new generation say. However, this may not have enough grounds to develop strong trust within a team if the members do not understand each other and/or the nature of the team itself. As Roberts observed, â€Å"the development of trust, whether on a local or international basis, requires more than face to face contact or its technological and spatially indifferent substitute video-conferencing ellipses, trust depends on the sharing of a set of socially embedded values, cultural institutions and expectations† (Roberts, 2000, p. 6). In order for global virtual teams to be effective, there must be intra-group trust as well as trust between management and team members and vice versa. Jarvenpaa, S. L. , and Leidner, D. E. 1999) infer that virtual teams have no time to gradually develop trust and therefore require a high degree of â€Å"swift trust† to be demonstrated by enthusiastic and proactive team members’ behaviors. So how do cross-cultural members form swift trust? Jarvenpaa and Leidner suggest that the virtual team members would import the expectations of trust from other settings that they are familiar with. It is also important to note tha t if an individual team member’s cultural stereotypes are flawed, biased or incomplete, this technique may be problematic. Once communication is developed between members, trust could be maintained by actions that are highly dynamic, proactive and enthusiastic. Such active communication must be premised on accurate cultural knowledge to be effective. Therefore swift trust is made possible because when cross-cultural teams work in a virtual environment, they bring their knowledge, competence and expertise not only to meet the goals that are set but also about the other team members’ and their cultures in order to ensure the success of the team. Not only is this necessary for the members of the team but it also necessary for the leaders of the team to establish this swift trust. As noted from Zakaria and Leidner, there are two behavioral categories that form cross-cultural trust. First, credibility where one individual believes that the other individual has the capabilities, competence, expertise and resources to make a successful exchange that meets expectations. Note that when working in cross-cultural teams, the work expectation of a person in culture A is different from the expectations of a person in culture B. This can be challenging in implementing swift trust in global virtual teams, but it can be overcome if the expectations are set by the managers or leaders and are clearly communicated to all team members. The second factor that Zakaria and Leidner discuss is benevolence, the beliefs about the emotional aspects of the referent’s behavior like positive intention to exchange. These beliefs include a referent’s good will so that they would participate in the better good of the team rather than jeopardize the exchange outcome. This may result in some challenges to the team because swift trust does not focus a lot on interpersonal relationships. Rather it places more emphasis on the initial broad social structures. Therefore in order for swift trust to be implemented successfully, team members must maintain a high level of actions, regardless of their cultural preferences and differences. But team members should also appreciate, understand and respect the cultural differences that make up the team in order to truly succeed in a global virtual team. Conclusion Through research of many articles and publishing’s regarding the topic of communication in global virtual, building trust has been the one subject that has been consistently addressed. Mockaitis, A. I. , Rose, E. L. nd Zetting, P. (2009) suggest that the development of trust in the context of multicultural global virtual teams is related to aspects of culture, conflict, task interdependence and communication. A team whose members are more collective in nature rather than distant tend to report more positive results of developing trust within the group, this impli es that culture matters. It is important for all team members to understand and respect the cultures of the other individuals. Although team members’ personal cultural values have consistent predictive power it is suggested that it displays very little value in developing trust within the group. Initially since communication amongst the team is done virtually and not face to face, it is important to establish trust among the group. But as the team develops the factors for cultural differences and diversity tend to become less important to the success of the group. The findings of Mockaitis et al. , show that cultural diversity does not appear to serve as a barrier to trust, even as differences become apparent through communication, but it can play a crucial role in developing that trust. Therefore along with cultural differences, communication is extremely important for the development of trust within a global virtual team.

Comparing Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night and After a Time Essays

Comparing Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night and After a Time Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" and Catherine Davis' "After a Time" demand comparison: Davis' poem was written in deliberate response to Thomas'. Davis assumes the reader's familiarity with "Do Not Go Gentle," which she uses to articulate her contrasting ideas. "After a Time," although it is a literary work in its own right, might even be thought of as serious parody--perhaps the greatest compliment one writer can pay another. "Do Not Go Gentle in That Good Night" was written by a young man of thirty-eight who addresses it to his old and ailing father. It is interesting to note that the author himself had very little of his own self-destructive life left as he was composing this piece. Perhaps that is why he seems to have more insight into the subject of death than most people of his age. He advocates raging and fighting against it, not giving in and accepting it. "After a Time" was written by a woman of about the same age and is addressed to no one in particular. Davis has a different philosophy about death. She "answers" Thomas's poem and presents her differing views using the same poetic form--a villanelle. Evidently, she felt it necessary to present a contrasting point of view eight years after Thomas's death. While "Do Not Go Gentle" protests and rages against death, Davis's poem suggests a quiet resignation and acquiescence. She seems to feel that raging against death is useless and profitless. She argues that we will eventually become tame, anyway, after the raging is done. At the risk of sounding sexist, I think it interesting that the man rages and the woman submits, as if the traditi... ...much sensory suggestiveness. She gives us "things lot,' a "reassuring ruse," and "all losses are the same." Her most powerful image--"And we go striped at last the way we came"==makes its point with none of the excitement of Thomas's rage. And yet, I prefer the quiet intelligence of Davis to the high energy of Thomas. "And we go stripped at last the way we came" can give strange comfort and solace to those of us who always envied those in high places. Death is a great leveler. People are not all created equal at birth, not by a long shot. But we will bloody well all be equal when we make our final exit. Kings, pope, and heads of state will go just as "stripped" as the rest of us. They won't get to take anything with them. All wealth, power, and trappings will b left behind. We will all finally and ultimately be equal. So why rage? It won't do us any good.

Milk Adulteration

Executive Summary on National Survey on Milk Adulteration The National Survey on Milk Adulteration 2011 (snap shot survey) was conducted by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India to ascertain the quality of milk and identify different type of adulteration in the liquid milk throughout the country.The survey was carried out by the Regional Offices of the FSSAI located at Chennai (Southern Region), Mumbai (Western Region), Delhi (Northern Region), Guwahati, (North Eastern Region) and Kolkata (Eastern Region) with the following objectives: 1. To identify the common adulterants in milk in rural and urban areas of different states. 2. To find out the non conforming samples in loose and packed milk.The samples were collected randomly and analysed from 33 states namely Andhra Pradesh (75), Arunachal Pradesh (25), Assam (109), Bihar (75), Chhattisgarh (19), Chandigarh (25), Delhi (71), Dadra & Nagar Haveli (12), Daman & Diu (25), Goa (24), Gujarat (100), Haryana (109), Himachal Pra desh (27), Jammu & Kashmir (18), Jharkhand (25), Karnataka (51), Kerala (50), Madhya Pradesh (61), Maharashtra (126), Manipur (25), Meghalaya (26), Mizoram (25), Nagaland (22), Orissa (50), Puducherry (25), Punjab (109), Rajasthan (103), Sikkim (18), Tamil Nadu (74), Tripura (25), Uttarakhand (26), Uttar Pradesh (136), West Bengal (100) totalling to a sample size of 1791. The samples were sent to the govt. aboratories namely, Department of Food and Drug testing, Government of Puducherry, Central Food Laboratory, Pune, Food Reasearch and Standardisation Laboratory, Ghaziabad, State Public Health Laboratory, Guwahati and Central Food Laboratory, Kolkata for analysis. The following parameters were analysed such as Fat (%), SNF (%), Neutralizers, Acidity, Hydrogen Peroxide, Sugar, Starch, Glucose, Urea, Salt, Detergent, Skimmed milk powder, and Vegetable fat to ascertain the presence of adulterant. The total conforming samples to the FSSA standards were 565 (31. 5%). The total non-confo rming samples were found to be 1226 (68. 4%). The non-conformity of samples in rural areas were 381(31%) out of which 64 (16. 7%) were packet samples and 317 (83. 2%) were loose samples respectively and in urban area the total non confirming samples were 845 (68. 9%) out of which 282 (33. %) were packed and 563 (66. 6%) were loose samples. The deviations were found highest on account of Fat and SNF content in 574 samples (46. 8%) of the total non–conformity, which includes 147 samples with detergent and two samples with neutralizers respectively. Detergent was also found in 103 samples (8. 4%). Perhaps the reason may be dilution of milk with water. The second highest parameter of non conformity was the Skim Milk Powder (SMP) in 548 samples (44. 69%) which includes presence of glucose in 477 samples. Glucose would have been added to milk probably to enhance SNF. The presence of Skim Milk Powder indicates the reconstitution of milk powder.The non-conforming sample in the descen ding order of percentage with respect to the total sample collected in different states were as follows: Bihar (100%), Chhattisgarh (100%), Daman and Diu (100%), Jharkhand (100%), Orissa (100%), West Bengal (100%), Mizoram (! 00%), Manipur (96%), Meghalaya (96%), Tripura (92%), Gujarat (89%), Sikkim (89%), Uttrakhand (88%), Uttar Pradesh (88%), Nagaland (86%), Jammu & Kashmir (83%), Punjab (81%), Rajasthan (76%) Delhi (70%), Haryana (70%), Arunachal Pradesh (68%), Maharashtra (65%), Himachal Pradesh (59%), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (58%), Assam (55%), Chandigarh (48%), Madhya Pradesh (48%), Kerala (28%), Karnataka (22%), Tamil Nadu (12%), and Andhra Pradesh (6. 7%).All the samples in Goa and Puducherry conformed to the standards. Conclusion (1) The study indicates that addition of water to milk is most common adulterant. Addition of water not only reduces the nutritional value of milk but contaminated water may also pose health risk to the consumers. (2) It also shows that powdered mil k is reconstituted to meet the demand of milk supply. All state /UT enforcement authorities may specifically check whether the declaration of new FSSAI rules is being complied to. (3) The study also indicated the presence of detergent in some cases. Consumption of milk with detergent may cause health hazards and indicates lack of hygiene and sanitation in the milk handling.

The Tudors

THE TUDORS: The birth of the nation state. The new monarchy Henry VII is less known than Henry VIII or Elizabeth I but he was more important in establishing the new monarchy. Henry VII firmly believed that war and glory were bad business, and that business was good for the state. Henry had more power and more money than earlier kings. His aim was to make the crown financially independent. When he died in 1509 he left a huge amount of money. The only thing on which he was happy to spend money was the building of ships. Henry VIII was quite unlike his father. He was cruel, wasteful with money, and interested in pleasing himself. The reformationHenry VIII was always looking for new sources of money. He disliked the power of Church in England because, since it was an international organization, he could not completely control it. In 1531 Henry persuaded the bishops to make him head of the Church in England, and this became law after Parliament passed the Act of Supremacy in 1534. The bre ak with Rome was purely political. He wanted to control the Church and keep its wealth in his own. He used the Parliament to make the break legal. Through several Acts of Parliament between 1532 and 1536, England became politically a Protestant country, even though the popular religion was Catholic.After the acceptance of the Reformation Henry closed monasteries and other religious houses. Monks and nuns were thrown out. The dissolution of the monasteries was probably the greatest act of official destruction in the history of Britain. Elizabeth I Elizabeth I became queen when Mary died in 1558. She wanted to find peaceful answers to the problems of English Reformation. She wanted to bring together again parts of English society which were in religious disagreement. And she wanted to make England prosperous. She considered trade the most important foreign policy matter, and also encouraged merchant expansion.She recognized Spain as her main trade, rival and enemy. Mary, the â€Å"Qu een of Scots†, was the heir to the English throne, she was a strong Catholic. When she returned to Scotland, soon made enemies, because she got tired of her husband and she agreed to murder him and married the murdered so she was unpopular among people and finally she escaped to England. Elizabeth kept Mary as a prisoner for almost 20 years. In 1587 she finally agreed to Mary’s execution. England and her neighbours During the Tudor period, from 1485 until 1603, English foreign policy changed several times. Mary queen of Scot and the Scottish reformationMary was troubled by bad luck and wrong decisions. She was Catholic, she returned to Scotland as both queen and widow. During her time in France, Scotland had become officially and popularly Protestant. The Scots were careful not to give the monarch authority over the new Protestant Scottish â€Å"kirk†, as the church in Scotland was called. This was possible because the new Reformation took place while the queen, Mary, was not in Scotland. The Kirk taught the importance of personal belief and the study of the Bible, this led to the idea that education was important for everyone in Scotland.Protestantism had spread quickly through the Scottish universities. The new Kirk disliked Mary and her French Catholicism. Then Mary was married again, to Lord Darnley, later she got tired of him, consequently she agreed to murder her husband and married the murderer, Bothwel. Scottish society was shocked. In addition to her Catholicism and her French culture, she had shown very poor judgment. She destroyed her chance of inheriting the English throne. She found herself at war with her opponents, and was captured and imprisoned. She escaped to England, where she was held by Elizabeth and after nineteen years she was executed.Refer to society during Tudor times. †¢ Tudor parliaments. The Tudor monarchs did not like governing through Parliament. Henry VII had used Parliament only for law making. Until th e end of the Tudor period Parliament was supposed to do three things: agree to the taxes needed; make the laws which the Crown suggested; and advise the crown, only when asked to do so. †¢ Rich and poor in town and country. During this period the population increased, England had social and economic problems than ever before. The price of food and other goods rose. But a greater problem was the increase in population.Living conditions got worse. Many landowners made money from sheep farming; they could sell the wool to the cloth industry. Many people became unemployed. In 1601 Parliament passed the First Poor Law. This made local people responsible for the poor in their own area. The lives of the rich and poor were different. The rich ate good quality bread while the poor ate rough bread. The rich showed off their wealth in silk clothing, while the poor wore simple clothes of leather or wool. †¢ Domestic life. Women in England had a greater freedom than anywhere else in Eu rope.However, there was a dark side of married life. Most women bore between eight and fifteen children. Marriage was often an economic arrangement, there weren’t deep emotional ties. Both rich and poor lived in small family groups. People worked hard and died young. Poor children started work at the age of six or seven. Unmarried women suffered badly during this period, after the dissolution of the monasteries they became beggars on the roads of England. They had little choice in life. †¢ Language and culture. At the beginning of the Tudor period English was spoken in different ways.Since the mid-fourteenth century, London English had become accepted as Standard English. Educated people began to speak â€Å"correct† English, and uneducated people continued to speak the local dialect. Literacy increased greatly during the mid-sixteenth century. England felt the effects of the Renaissance, it also influence religion, encouraging the Protestant Reformation. In music England enjoyed its most fruitful period ever. Literature was England’s greatest art form; William Shakespeare filled the theatres with their exciting new plays.