Health Disparities Among the Poor Essay

On this time, everyone relies upon innovation when imparting, particularly on mobile phones. These gadgets are known everywhere throughout the world, and they are additionally utilized for diversion, and to be refreshed with the most recent news. Calling and Texting are the principle strategies that individuals use to speak with companions, family, and others when utilizing their mobile phones. Calling has been famous since mid-1900s, yet has been taken its notoriety by messaging since the start of the twentieth century. Components like the tone, and the way that the individuals associated with the discussion can hear each other’s voices make a call progressively close to home. Calling, ought to be utilized when the goal is to begin a full discussion, contention, or a business related conversation. However, in the event that the goal is to affirm something, tell a speedy message, or pose a short inquiry, messaging would be the best possible decision. Messaging is more generic than calling; there are no different elements required on the discussion than what you see on the screen, the content. There is no simple method to feel, or recognize the different person’s feelings in an instant message obviously. Messaging is an abused type of correspondence if the goal is to go through hours on the telephone, give significant news, or express a compelling feeling. Calling can possibly occur if the individual that decides has the different person’s telephone number, and if the collector of the call takes it. Then again, messaging thinks about to sending steady messages, there are numerous social medias where you can message or send a private message by means of web, or having the different person’s telephone number too. Despite the fact that the collector of the message doesn't see the content immediately, the person in question will in the long run observe it, and ideally react. Messaging can be a danger to your life. Around 6,000 passings and an a large portion of a million wounds are brought about by occupied drivers consistently. Calls are more secure while driving; there are Bluetooth gadgets that permit you to talk while both of the driver’s hands are on the wheel, and eyes are out and about. Most telephones additionally have a speaker alternative where the sound increments and drivers don't have to hold the telephone. Messaging and Calling are two compelling strategies for imparting when utilized at the perfect time, spot, and circumstance.

How Technology affects business Essay

1.0 Introduction Innovation is an improvement over what was accessible previously. Individuals and associations regularly look for innovation since it facilitates assignments and encourages creation. With the fitting innovation, complex assignments are streamlined. Man has utilized innovation to accomplish beforehand unrealistic undertakings: stroll on the moon; make unnaturally conceived children; treat perilous sicknesses; foresee climate; send data over the world in a moment or two, and so forth. Imprint Behrsin and Bill Twibill stress the significance of innovation in business when they compose that, Visionaries, for example, retail monster Wal-Mart and shipment pioneer FedEx have utilized innovation not exclusively to take care of calculated issues, however to hold onto new chances, openâ new channels to advertise and make new plans of action they have constrained their rivals to embrace. Wal-Mart looked to innovation to improve flexibly chain the executives and take a serious edge. FedEx looked to the open doors innovation offered to deal with the extentâ of its development without figuring out how to mechanize businessâ forms. At the time its SuperTracker application costâ an enormous $100 million to grow however the speculation hasâ took care of many occasions more than (4). The advancement of innovation regularly goes with the creation of apparatus which is utilized to achieve the necessary errand. For example, propels in data innovation and correspondence have achieved cell phones, which are a takeoff from the fixed lines in the past which are associated by wires. Charles F. MacCormack reviews that, As far as individuals sway, innovation has in a general sense changed the manner in which we work together. Fifteen years prior, interchanges with our field association involved faxes, best case scenario, and all the more frequently mail dispatches. A trade of data could truly take a long time to complete†¦ Now we use email, voice and video conferencing to impart in minutes (1). Lately, there have been propels in different parts of innovation. Nonetheless, it is critical to express that while innovation is regularly acclaimed for its numerous advantages, the marvel can likewise antagonistically influence organizations. This paper investigates this twofold sided nature of innovation as it influences organizations. 1.2 Thesis proclamation Innovation is essential to individuals over the world on account of the numerous advantages which it presents. From numerous points of view, innovation has been utilized to tackle issues confronting individuals in different social orders. This paper looks at the impact of innovation on organizations. In the event that clearly innovation carries a ton of good to the different organizations which individuals are associated with, what are the issues made by innovation? At the end of the day, this paper additionally investigates the manners by which innovation antagonistically influences organizations. 1.3 Benefits of innovation in business Speed In any case innovation is helpful to business since it accelerates the creation procedure. Speed is important in business since, when there are more items in a brief timeframe, benefit is amplified. In the printing of papers, fast machines are required to guarantee that large scale manufacturing of the papers is accomplished in the short space of time inside which the papers are required. This applies to every different business where items should be created or gathered available to be purchased. Apparatus is significant. In pastry kitchens too, innovation is basic since human work is kept away from due to its wastefulness and a great part of the work is computerized. For this situation, the computerization by machines additionally guarantees that cleanliness. The productivity of machines can't be overemphasized now. When contrasted with human work, machines offer a more significant level of proficiency. With the proper innovation in a pastry shop, machines can deliver a bigger numbe r of portions of bread than human exertion. Effectiveness Aside from the creation procedure, innovation additionally guarantees speed in another measurement. In administration conveyance, candy machines are significant on the grounds that they serve individuals from the open speedily and maintain a strategic distance from the development of lines. Take the common espresso candy machine. It would require some investment if individuals were served by a server. In any case, the espresso candy machine acknowledges money and offers the assistance at the dash of a catch. Candy machines are found in banks, under ground train stations, shopping centers, and so forth. Likewise, it is imperative to take note of that Automated Teller Machines (ATM) are a significant innovation that is valuable in the financial business. These ATM have facilitated the focused on set on banks by its abounding clients. With the utilization of ATM, bank clients can appreciate bother free self help. They possibly need the consideration of bank staff when they have an issue with the machine or if blunders are produced by the machine. The innovation of the ATM has empowered banks adapt to the remaining burden and guarantee that they can accomplish more in a brief timeframe. Along these lines B. Ives and S. L. Jarvenpaa note that innovation serves to grow business in light of the fact that with the suitable innovation they can take more requests and adapt to more clients. Rivalry As organizations endeavor to beat their opponents and rivals, the innovation utilized by these organizations is frequently a measuring stick for deciding pioneers in the business. Take the product business for example. Around the globe, Microsoft is an innovator in the business since it has the innovation that has made it remain there. Innovation is additionally significant in the wellbeing business. Because of specialization, a few emergency clinics and research focuses are prestigious for the determination and treatment of some particular sicknesses. They are pioneers in the business since they have the innovation to do as such. J. Bakos and M. E. Treacy demand that innovation is helpful to organizations as they manufacture their serious procedure. Industry pioneers and mystery In business, the innovation which empowers one organization remain in the number one spot or more different contenders is frequently an all around left well enough alone. This organization will never impart that innovation to others since it will free its situation as an innovator in the business. In medication, the licenses for the production of specific medications are claimed by certain pharmaceutical organizations and they are not will to give it out. Sound innovation gives organizations an edge over rivals in the business. Across outskirts Advances in data innovation have guaranteed that organizations are not, at this point restricted to specific nations however are allowed to be heard over the world. In the light of this, organizations can stretch out their limits to different nations of the world. Moreover, banks also have exploited data innovation by setting up a system of their branches the world over. This encourages moves inside the bank and furthermore with different banks on the planet. Data innovation additionally encourages electronic trade, where individuals can shop on the web and have the merchandise sent to them in the post. This is a nondescript exchange. In an investigation, Steve MacFeely and Caitriona Obrien find that the profitability of firms that have email and a site is higher than the individuals who don't. The remote trade showcase just as the securities exchange additionally profits by data innovation. Today merchants in different pieces of the world can exchange it stock and bonds from their P Cs in whatever piece of the world since they are associated with the Internet. 1.4 Dysfunctions of innovation on business Excess Innovation represents various dangers to organizations. As a powerful idea, innovation is continually changing and improving. In different parts of human undertaking, there is consistently a drive to discover new techniques. At the point when this new innovation is formed and placed into utilization, it renders the past innovation repetitive and this has broad ramifications on business undertakings which utilize the obsolete innovation. In any case, these organizations face the test of finding the present innovation. This includes a great deal of cost. Besides, the organizations utilizing old fashioned innovation will free clients in light of the fact that the more up to date innovation will be increasingly proficient. Over the long haul the benefit of the business will wane. The photography business is a case of this marvel. With the presentation of computerized photography which guarantee moment printing of photos, old techniques for photography have gotten exceptionally disliked. Additional expense Innovation puts additional expense on organizations. With the presentation of innovation, organizations which need to stay informed concerning it have to go through cash to prepare staff on the utilization of the new innovation. Innovation regularly requires extraordinary preparing. The other option is to utilize experts who are versed in the procedures of the new innovation. Utilizing these sorts of experts additionally puts a strain on the assets of the business. Organizations that need to remain above water need to stay aware of the patterns in the business and this is one of such-however it has extreme cost suggestions. Joblessness Innovation frequently causes extreme change and cause joblessness. With suitable machines occasioned by innovation, numerous representatives are laid off work. This was a component of the modern upheaval. Be that as it may, a similar circumstance applies here with the presentation of new innovation. The whole thought of innovation is to improve creation utilizing machines that limit cost however at long last augment benefit. Additionally, there is the thought of oddity joined to innovation. Along these lines the wastefulness related with human work is disposed of. Administration conveyance Now and again innovation can't convey the advantages which are normal. Directors in different associations may have exclusive requirement of innovation. Notwithstanding, it can't delive much of the time. Imprint Behrsin and Bill Twibill compose that, It is justifiable that organizations have come to doubt innovation. There are practically steady reports specifying theâ number of innovation - related undertakings that have fizzled toâ meet desires. Ongoing exploration from KPMG sugges

Forever Does Not Exist

Forever Does Not Exist Everything is ephemeral: on a long enough timeline, everything ends. Your relationships will end. Your happiness will end. Your depression will end. Your life will end. Nothing lasts foreverâ€"not even those diamonds in the advertisement. Yet we live our lives like the best things will continue into perpetuityâ€"like the good stuff will stick around and the bad stuff will go away once we obtain everything we want. But, good or bad, life is limited: everything is eventual, endings are  inevitable. Feel warm and fuzzy yet? You should. The most important reason to live in the moment is nothing lasts forever: Enjoy the moment while it’s in front of you; be present. Accept life for what it isâ€"a finite span of time with infinite possibilities. Treat friends with the utmost respect. Treat your lover to your full attention. Treat today like it mattersâ€"because it does. Now is the only time to live in the moment. Don’t wait until a special occasion to show the people in your life you love themâ€"if we wait until their birthdays, Christmas, or next week, the moment may never comeâ€"say the words and show it in your actions every day. Read this essay and 150 others in our new book, Essential.

The Origins Of The First Amendment - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 2 Words: 586 Downloads: 9 Date added: 2019/04/24 Category Law Essay Level High school Tags: First Amendment Essay Did you like this example? At the constitutional convention that took place in Philadelphia in 1787 James Madison and many other delegates met with the intention of rethinking the Articles of the confederation. The first well-known amendment of the constitution, the first amendment Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.. United States citizens have the right to practice whatever religion we want to follow. It is the establishment clause and free exercise clause that enables separation of church and state preventing a government-funded Church of the United States from being created and exploited. The government cannot require a specific religion for all its citizens. The government of the united states cannot subject its citizens to rules or laws that forbid them from speaki ng our minds. The press can print and distribute news without fear of being punished, even if that news is not good regarding the country or the government. During the 18th century, American political activists such as Thomas Paine were subject to persecution for publishing unpopular opinions. The freedom of press clause makes it clear that the First Amendment is meant to protect not only freedom to speak but also freedom to publish and distribute speech. U.S. citizens have the right to gather toward common goals and interests without interference from the government or the authorities. U.S. Citizens can petition the government to suggest changes and voice concerns. In 1789, James Madison nicknamed the father of the Constitution originally wrote out nineteen amendments. Ultimately they became the ten amendments that make up the Bill of Rights. Madison believed our individual rights were protected by the constitution but later recognized the importance of the amendments and the bi ll of rights politically. Madison was unquestionably the one who wrote the First Amendment in this regard. Although, this does not mean he was the one who came up with the concept. Madison stood by the Constitution, believing that the Bill of Rights was somewhat unnecessary. He did not believe that the federal government would ever become powerful enough that it would need the bill of rights. There are many factors that complicate his status as the author. Thomas Jefferson really was the person who convinced Madison to change his mind and proposed the Bill of Rights. Jefferson was inspired by the work of European philosophers such as Cesare Beccaria and also John Locke who believed we all had a right to freedom, liberty and we are equal and independent. The freedoms that are described in the First Amendment, religious free exercise, separation of church and state, and the freedoms of speech, assembly, press, and petition did seem to concern Jefferson. The ideas in the First Amend ment were motivated in part by similar free speech protections written into other various state constitutions. If there is anything remarkable about James Madisons role in the creation of the amendment it was that he was able to stand up and demand these protections be permanently written into the U.S. Constitution Madison did write the First Amendment. Madison had a reputation as a nationalist and some called him a political genius for his contributions to the constitutions and its amendments. Because many states were calling for more constitutional protection, this model for a constitutional amendment protecting free expression and freedom of principals was not really all that original. Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Origins Of The First Amendment" essay for you Create order

Interesting and Useful Facts about Iron

Iron is one of the elements you encounter in its pure form. It is essential for nutrition and used in a variety of household objects. Here are some quick facts about iron. Iron Facts Iron is an element that has been known in its pure form for at least 5,000 years. The name iron comes from the Anglo-Saxon word iron and Scandinavian iarn for the metal.The element symbol for iron is Fe, which comes from the Latin word for iron, ferrum.Iron is one of the most plentiful elements. It comprises about 5.6 percent of the Earths crust and almost all of its core.The single largest use of iron is to make steel, an alloy of iron, and a smaller amount of carbon. According to archaeological records from Anatolia—also called Asia Minor, a peninsula that today makes up the Asian part of Turkey—man has been producing steel for at least 4,000 years.Iron is a transition metal.Iron is not always magnetic. The a allotrope (or form) of iron is ferromagnetic, yet if it is transformed to the b allotrope, the magnetism disappears even though the crystal lattice is unchanged.Animals and plants require iron. Plants use iron in chlorophyll, the pigment used in photosynthesis. H umans use iron in hemoglobin molecules in blood to allow for the transport of oxygen to tissues throughout the body.Although iron is an essential mineral, much of it is extremely toxic. Free iron in the blood reacts with peroxides to form free radicals that damage DNA, protein, lipids and other cellular components, leading to illness and sometimes death. Twenty milligrams of iron per kilogram of body weight is toxic, while 60 milligrams per kilogram is lethal.Iron primarily forms compounds with 2 and 3 oxidation states.Iron is formed via fusion in stars that have sufficient mass. The sun and many other stars contain significant amounts of iron.

Run Forrest Free Essays

This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-ND This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NDRun Forrest, Run! Movie critical analysis paper. James Bilesimo | Developmental Psychology | 3/19/18A Psychological Analysis of Forrest Gump. The movie Forrest Gump tells a story of a simple man and his journey through life. We will write a custom essay sample on Run Forrest or any similar topic only for you Order Now Forrest Gump’s story takes place during a time of historical significance in our country, The United States of America. His story began in the 1950’s, and ran through the 1970’s. This was a period in our country where morality, and equality had come to be questioned for the first time since our country broke away from its European roots, and won its independence on July 04, 1776. The American culture and its society would be changed forever over this twenty-year course. Forrest Gump is very simple-minded man who lives his life by a set of values forever instilled in him by his mother. Early in the movie when Forrest was just a young boy, he was found to be physically handicapped forcing Forrest to wear braces (also known as foot abduction braces) on his legs. Forrest Gump also had an IQ of just seventy-five, he would now have to endure a life time of critical judgements from peers and adults alike. Forrest Gump had a very loving, and caring mother who helped him develop a deep, strong sense of â€Å"self† with her wisdom, and straight forwardness. Because of his mother’s strong guidance during his early stages of life, he is able to overcome his physical handicap, and achieve his highest quality of life by doing what many people only dream of; Forrest Gump became a famous runner, football player, business owner, and war time hero. The story that this movie tells us, is a great example of how a child’s mind develops through a series of stages, and through these stages they can construct their understanding of the world we live in by interacting with it. Jean Paiget developed four stages of cognitive development, which begin at birth, and span well into adulthood. Heading 2 You might like the photo on the cover page as much as we do, but if it’s not ideal for your report, it’s easy to replace it with your own.Just delete the placeholder picture. Then, on the Insert tab, click Picture to select one from your files. How to cite Run Forrest, Papers

Sport Organization and Governance Fc Barcelona

Question: Describe about the Demonstrate an understanding of the organisation of sport, its variety across nations and sports, and evolution over time? Answer: The Beginning, 1899 According to BalagueÃÅ' , (1950), Mes que en club means More than a Club. FC Barcelona the world renowned football club from the heart of Spain was initially founded by the Gamper in the year of 1899 with the help of young foreigners residing in Barcelona. This initiative was later was also found to be the door to popularity of every other British sports and the football across the Europe. These initiatives clearly developed an enormous intellectual property and identity of the club and its deep allegiance towards the Barcelona and Catalonia. With the time since the origin of the club, people from Barcelona started becoming interested in playing football and every other British sport. The Joan Gamper the founder of the club has been the inspiration for the club to achieve its first 25 years the Silver Jubilee. The club today stands tall due to the level of commitment and dedication that the Gamper showed in the preliminary years of the club. And with time his role went far beyond as the player, the director of the club and then the president. Augmentation of FC Barcelona, 1908 The club sooner started to grow with the time, however in the month of November, 1908 the club started to struggle with its existence and 38 members decided to leave the club. Gamper however decided not to bail on the club and kept it afloat, since then he took the presidential position of the club and started to lead it. Burns (1999) stated that, this historical step helped the Gamper to consolidate and retain the clubs image within the panorama of football and within the different parts of the city Barcelona and Spain. Due to the efforts of the club and Gamper, people from Barcelona at first started to play at their own whenever they get time and later the game developed its popularity within the other parts of the country. However, there are different set of actions and acquisitions that also helped the FC Barcelona to gain the position; acquiring various football grounds, a steady growth of its members, restructuring of clubs law and other regulatory reforms played a vital role. At the same time on the other hand, the club started to develop as one of the best known clubs from all around the world, which eventually made the football a professional sport in the region of Spain. During the time the FC Barca developed solid foundations in terms of a football club, which eventually took the club beyond the dream that those young foreigners and Gamper saw in the year of 1899. By the time the football has become one of the most played outdoor British games that were gaining popularity within the Europe. Era of 1919-1930 As the club started to gaining popularity all over the Barcelona then country Spain and then all over the world, the players were the main role players that took the club to the position it is today. Among one of the finest goalkeepers the Ricardo Zamora, who was also nick named as the el Divi means (The divine one) said to be one of the best acquisition that the club made so far. Some of the finest players at that time were Hedebuted and Samitier; these players took the club to another level of success. Acquiring these players were said to be the turning point in the clubs history. Ricardo Zamora was not with the team for very long he played for the club for only three seasons but with the level of his dedication and performance, he left a mark on the teams history. It is due to players like Ricardo Zamora, Samitier and Hedebuted football evolved as the main stream professional game within the Europe, supported by Eaude (2008). The Era of 1930-1939 The FC Barcelona Club was fully committed to every social, cultural and political reform that was initiated by the Catalan Republican Government. The cub released a newsletter that clearly delivered that the club is not only concentrated upon the sports but also is committed towards cultural and political activities. The newsletter was released in the year of 1932, which gradually made the clubs aim, objectives and position clear to every person that are interested over the club. At the time of civil war the club did face a lot of threats stating that the club FC Barcelona will be taken away from the actual authority. The club immediately acted upon the threat developing a committee decision, which eventually saved the club. The committee was firm with the decision that not to break away the pattern of leadership it previously held. During the early 1930s the club had to face a lot of political and general trouble, which eventually affected the brand image of the club. During this period the club had to face several devastating events; the first being the death of the founder of the club, the civil war, the assassination of the president and establishment of the second Spanish republic. This eventually led to other devastating and uncertain events, such as the club started to lose its members and some players started to bail on their contracts. 1957, Inauguration of Camp Nou The camp Nou construction started in the year of 1954 and was finished three years later. The grounds or the fields were inaugurated under the presidency of Miro-Sans in the year of 1957. The inauguration ceremony was a huge success; various celebratory events took place, which had a main event of a match against selected players from Warsaw. This was the first time ever the Barca enjoyed a victory of 4-2, and the start player who scored the goal was Eulogio Martinez, who scored the first ever goal. The Stadium initially was made for a capacity of 93, 053 spectators, the entire cost of the stadium was 288,088,143 pesetas. According to Gaarskjr (2010) today, the Camp Nou is the largest stadium that the Europe ever had with a capacity of 98,772 spectators. With its solid stepping stone the FC Barcelona today is one of the most popular and best known football club in all over the world. 1961-1969 the Social Dimension The club however is one of the biggest clubs all around the globe but is far away from sporting success. During the era of 1960s the FC Barcelona did saw numerous increases in the number of members for itself. However, increase in the members of the club did not see any improvement in sporting success of the club, at the same period Catalonia received an enormous number of migrants and it was the FC Barcelona that was the key to access the society of the Catalans. Construction of the enormous Camp Nou was the main reason of financial severity, which eventually restricted the club to acquire big players. According to Ranachan (2008) Failure to acquire big players also led to club to a period of uncertainty of sporting success, which reflected in the later part of the clubs success rate. 1969-1978 By the time the club successfully achieved the position where they gained the tagline of More than a Club. In the year of 1969, the Agusti Montal was selected as the president of the club, he further emphasized upon involving members of the club. Agusti believed in gathering opinions and point of views from its members; as he believed that members also must play an active role in the clubs success. According to Agusti Montal, it is essential for the members to contribute in the clubs operations and actions and he promised that their values and opinions would reflect through the results of the clubs success. It was the Agusti Montal, who was again elected as the president in the year of 1973, and developed the slogan that Barca is more than a club. At the time of his presidency, Agusti defended the concept of centralization as it was practiced by the Spanish Football Federation and by the National Sports Delegation. Agusti also defended the process of Catalanism restoration, as he never wanted it to affect the development of the Football within the particular part of the Europe. It was due to the efforts of the Agusti, the FC Barcelona club began to start gaining its reputation back, the symbols and the name of the organisation that was affected and began to sound more Spanish post civil war. As an impact of the civil war corruption was at its peak, when foreign players started to falsify their birth certificate and nationality in order to enlist with the Spanish football. The Barca wanted to sign contract with the Johan Cruyff, which post this period seem to come in a shape of reality and with the contract of Johan Cryuff the Barca began to regain it lost popularity in the field of football. 1978-1988, More Members and more Stars With the strong determinationto become worlds best football club, the Barca successfully achieved the fame and name by now. With best players enlisted with the club the FC Barca successfully gained European Cup for the first time in the year of 1979. This helped the FC Barcelona to gain the top position in the list of best football clubs in the world. It was the time that the club won the European club under the presidency of Josep Luis Nunez. During the period of 1980s the club had to go through various ups and downs due to the results of the match, performances of the star players along with some other factors, which never had a relation to the football performance of the club (SabarteÃÅ' s, 1987). This in particular decade witnessed arrival of some fine players for generations, who became legends, like Maradona, Quini, Schuster, Julio Alberto, Alexanco, Urruti, Marcos and various other. The club also witness some great quality team managers in this era in particular such as the Helenio Herrera, Lattek, Venebles, Menotti and others. The period also has been marked as it witnessed the first ever multi-million contracts that appeared. The right to television also popularized the fame of the organisation over the time period, which eventually affected and elevated the financial affairs of the FC Barcelona. The Club started to grow bigger and saw an extension of the Camp Nou, which again increased the numbers of members of the football club. Critically analyse the governance issues and their implications for the management of the sport The FC Barcelona football club is one of the most reputed and famous football club which operates all over the world and is famous due to the different types of highly valued players are in the team making the team powerful and have a high reputation and goodwill among the other clubs in the world. For the efficient management of the club it is very important that the management should take unbiased decisions regarding the sport and for the players who are the part of this famous club. In accordance with Villatoro (2013).Good governance is a part of motivating the players and the employees who are in the management to do their work efficiently and they should work under the strict rules and regulations lay down by the management of the club. Recently it has been observed from the report that the FIFA disciplinary committee has sanctioned the FC Barcelona for breaching which is associated with the international transfer issues and the registration of the players who are under the age of 18 in the club. According to Gaarskjr (2010) there has been investigation done by the FIFA transfer Matching System over the previous year that the FC Barcelona has seen violated the provisions for the international transfer of the players and the registration of the non-Spanish minors in the clubs and also other regulations associated with the registration and the participation of the different players in national competitions. The investigations report says that there have been many players who have been registered and participated in the competitions with the club between the period 2009 and 2013. It has also been seen that there has been problem arise in the protection of the minors in relation with the international transfer. According to the article 19 0f the Regulations on the Status and the Transfer of the Players the international transfer of the players are only allowed if any player has the age over 18.This article also reveals that international transfer of the minor players are only all owed when it has been granted permission from the subcommittee of the players Status committee. In this respect the Disciplinary committee told that the protection of the minors in relation with the international transfers is an important issue of governance which is concerned with the stakeholders of the football club. The committee also highlighted that FIFA should take the right of the protection of the minors and the protection of the minors are an important governance issue which needs to tackled so a legal agreement has been made between the FIFA,UEFA and the European Commission 2001. The disciplinary committee of FC Barcelona with the help of the FIFA should give full protection to the minors. According to the article 19 it has been found that ten minor players have been made the agreement and the FIFA has decided to sanction a heavy ban of CHF 450,000 for the two complete transfer periods. According to SabarteÃÅ' s (1987) the other issue of governance could be the struggle made by the players of FC Barcelona to get democracy. In the year 1978 Nunez became the president of Spain and Nunez was not from the Catalan family which could be the driving force for getting entered into the football club. Nunez has a difference in the management styles and from the beginning it has been told that it would depoliticize the club. This depoliticization of the club have a positive relation with the de-catalanization as a result this made the club prevented to grow financially when there are fears of separation is knocking at the door. During the leadership of Nunez the membership model of FC Barcelona has also changed which has reduced the rights of becoming the member of this football club which deteriorates the democracy within the club stature. There has been lack of financial support from the political bodies as a result the club is very poor financially and there has been la ck of control over the internal environment of the club. There has been debt of huge amount and chaos created within the committee of the FC Barcelona and due to the lack of strong regulatory framework there has been rise in the costs and the financial losses as a result there has been a rapid change in the membership model of ownership in FC Barcelona. There has been the issue of taxes and the legal structure of the football team and the debts have been owed to the public bodies which is a serious issue of the governance for this team. The other issue of the governance could be the lacking of the corporate social responsibility as the way FC Barcelona is now revitalized a s a global brand all over the world the football club is getting financially strong and becoming so much commercialized and professional as they are getting lost with the social and the cultural roots. The New board of directors of FC Barcelona is trying to implement a parallel strategy in order to develop the activities in the corporate social responsibility so that the club can retain its cultural and social presence. With the invention of the new board the social responsibilities have been increasing and developing time to time as a result there is a more involvement of the society with the club taking place. The Foundation club has been promoting the social activities by making the charity events and the fundraising events by which they entered a partnership with the UNESCO signing a deal of five years in the year 2006 for promoting the foot b all as a social and the cultural sport supporting the community in building the values and culture. There has also been the sponsorship deal formed between FC Barcelona and UNICEF which is great example of promoting the corporate social responsibility issue which have been talked about the FC Barcelona team. Over the years FC Barcelona is going through a very lean patch of financial loss and huge debts have been incurred in the club and the committee and the board of directors could not found any solution in making for this great loss taking place. After that there has been sponsorship of the shirt taking place between FC Barcelona and UNICEF the shirt has the huge value of sponsorships. However the football club banned the selling of the FC Barcelona shirt which is a strong socio political statement which is against the cultural and the social values of community which is associated with the club. The governance issues which has been summarized has different type of implications which includes the economic implications as due to the change in the structure of the government the FC Barcelona team has been lacked due to the financial support from the political bodies as a result there has been high financial loss and debt which could be harmful for the growth of the organization but due to the changes in the political structure of the government the club FC Barcelona has emerged into a global brand and it has got the recognition all over the world. The issue on the legal aspects of the business makes them declining their performance in the sport which has a negative impact on the governance of the FC Barcelona team. The unhealthy corporate social responsibility making the team lose its competitive advantage over the other football clubs in the entire Europe so they are also getting financially backward as due to the implementation of the corporate social responsibilities they ha ve been getting the huge money from the different events and sponsorships could be another one which could be helpful for the team to get financially strong and this gives an opportunity for the board of directors to pay attention on the rebuilding and the growth of the FC Barcelona team during the different periods of time. Critically discuss past and contemporary research on sport organisation and governance and the implications of this research for the management of sport. There has been a popular justification of the governance structure of the team FC Barcelona is that in order to become one of the famous clubs across the Europe the club needs to attract the major investments sop that it can compete with the other football clubs in the world. FC Barcelona is not at all a profit making club which has been owned by the 150,000 members. It has been critically discussed that how the different governance structure of the team hamper the ability to compete win the financial market and on the basis of the sporting performance. In accordance with Eaude (2008) as a symbol of the catalian nationality FC Barcelona was ruled by the president Nunez and this has been led to the development of an organization which has been campaigned for member democracy. At that the club was not so much commercialized and fighting with the rival club Real Madrid in terms of commercialization and the financial turnover takes place. After that the new p[resident has been elected an d the governance structure has a change. In accordance with HernaÃÅ'â‚ ¬ndez and Hurtado (2007) since then after the year 2008 FC Barcelona has made a drastic change in the position and in the brand image of the team. The team has rebuilt and it has become financially strong as supported by the Spanish government done with the positive results. After that the sporting performance has been enhanced and FC Barcelona has won the La Liga titles in the year 2005 and in the year 2006 and won the Champions League in 2006. There have been changes in the model of the member democracy and improvements taking place in the structure of the governant and there has been the development of a campaign taking place which includes the BIG Challenge which increases the membership of the club so that the club becomes financially strong. It has been discussed that there have been huge investment done in the marketing of the club so that it should become commercially strong which has generated increa sed revenues from the promotion of the club as a result the financial performance has become better which has been increased from 123.4 million to 308.8 million which indicates that there has been the mutual ownership structure. The promotion of the corporate social responsibility activities have increased the funds making the clubs financially strong enough for the growth of the club financially and this has been the commercial strategy of the football club in order to generate more revenues which helps in enhancing the sporting performance of the players and the proper environment has been created inside the football team. It has been also suggested that with the focus on the relevant sponsorship of the shirts of FC Barcelona also reenergized the brand image of the team and there has been partnership with the different global brands and the political agencies which helps the team in the socio political context of the business and there has been influences from the political agencies to help the club financially as a result it has become politically as well as financially strong. The strategy of developing the campaigns for increasing the volumes of merchandise from the club is a unique strategy for commerc ialization of the club. It has also been suggested that the success of Laporta has facilitated the tremendous success of the club and this has been due to the aggressive marketing which enhances the sports excellence and the cultural sophistication of the team which actually helps in managing the governance of the club. References Burns, J. (1999).BarcÃÅ' §a. London: Bloomsbury. Ching, F., Jarzombek, M. and Prakash, V. (2011).A global history of architecture. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley. Eaude, M. (2008).Catalonia. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Epstein, I. and Epstein, I. (1968).The Responsa of Rabbi Solomon ben Adreth of Barcelona, 1235-1310, as a source of the history of Spain. New York: Ktav Pub. House. Fraser, R. (1979).Blood of Spain. New York: Pantheon Books. Gaarskjr, J. (2010).BarcÃÅ' ¦a. Kbh.: Gyldendal. HernaÃÅ'â‚ ¬ndez, F. and Hurtado, V. (2007).The History of Catalonia. Barcelona: Rafael Dalmau. Hughes, R. (1992).Barcelona. New York: Knopf. Illugi JoÃÅ'ˆkulsson., and Illugi JoÃÅ'ˆkulsson., (n.d.).FC Barcelona. McDonogh, G. (1986).Good families of Barcelona. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. PijoaÃÅ' n, J. and Roys, R. (1933).History of art. Barcelona: Salvat Editores. Ranachan, E. (2008).Cheering for BarcÃÅ' §a. SabarteÃÅ' s, J. (1987).FC Barcelona zwischen Sport und Politik. Berlin: ed. tranvia. Villatoro, V. (2013).More than a team. Barcelona: Barcelona Digital Editions.

Promotion Strategy and Customers Behaviour Taobao

Introduction Business organisations must understand the behaviour of their consumers to sustain them as the most crucial tools for their success. Attempts to sustain customers involve putting in place appropriate marketing strategies that require a research on the reasons behind motivation of consumers to buy certain products and services.Advertising We will write a custom dissertation sample on Promotion Strategy and Customers’ Behaviour: Taobao specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Developing such capacity is pivotal in ensuring that marketing promotions are developed to target the right audience, which is capable of responding positively to a marketing campaign. The purchasing behaviour of consumers is often segregated in terms of various demographic factors such as age, gender, socio-economic status, and religion among others. This implies that marketing strategies are developed consistently with the characteristics of the t arget audience so that resources including time and money are not channelled to marketing efforts for non-existing markets or a target audience, which is not likely to respond positively. This dissertation paper proposes a research to establish the relationship between promotional strategies and customers’ behaviour within Taobao marketplace. Customers’ behaviour in the context of this dissertation is used to refer to the â€Å"study of individuals, groups, or organisations and the processes they use to select, secure, and dispose of products, services, experiences, or ideas to satisfy needs and the impacts that these processes have on consumers and society† (Blackwell Engel 2006, p.11). To study this aspect within the context of Taobao marketplace, the dissertation appreciates that studying customers’ behaviour is an immense challenge even in the well-defined markets. In fact, according to Armstrong (2001), even experts in the field of consumer behaviou r find it incredibly difficult to study the aspect (p.252). However, this challenge is addressed in the dissertation by attempting to study consumer behaviours among the Taobao marketplace in the context of how consumers respond to specific marketing strategies that are engineered for a specific target audience. Any research must meet specific aims and objectives (Creaswell 2008). For this purpose, the structure of the dissertation paper begins with the discussion of the aims and objectives of the proposed research followed by research questions in the first section. The second section discusses various findings as documented in the past literature on customers’ behaviour and marketing strategies.Advertising Looking for dissertation on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This helps to set a solid foundation to base the analysis of the results of the proposed research in the efforts to determine whether Taobao marketplace differs from other researched market segments. While conducting primary research, it is difficult to study a whole population because of funding constraints together with the difficulties experienced in the analysis of large amounts of data within minimal time constraints. Consequently, in the last section of the dissertation paper, efforts are made to discuss the sampling technique that is deployed to define a sample that is representative of Taobao marketplace and the methodology of data collection and analysis. Discussion of the sample is particularly important to help in the elimination of sampling biasness, which may impede the capacity of the selected sample to be representative of the characteristics of the consumer behaviours of the entire population of Taobao marketplace. Aims and Objectives Taobao marketplace operates in an online environment through interception of B2C (business-to-consumer) and C2C (consumer-to-consumer) strategies. This implies that t he two main functions of business (buying and selling) are conducted via technological intervention of the internet. Therefore, it is anticipated that the target population for Taobao marketplace is characterised by different buying behaviours in comparison with the physical marketplace that embraces the face-to-face interaction strategy with organisational selling agents and consumers. Based on this theoretical hypothesis, the proposed research in this dissertation paper is aimed at reviewing the literature in the field of online consumer behaviour in the effort to set a parameter for comparing and contrasting the findings of the main primary research. In this endeavour, secondary data, as documented in books, journals, magazines, and reliable web resources is pivotal. The objective is to identify the possible effective promotional strategies that would help to yield the success of an organisation that conducts business in an online environment such as Taobao marketplace. Realisati on of this objective is crucial in helping to attain the overall objective of the research: to explore the relationship between online promotional strategy and consumer behaviour.Advertising We will write a custom dissertation sample on Promotion Strategy and Customers’ Behaviour: Taobao specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Another central objective is to develop a model for explaining online consumer behaviour in the context of the Chinese market. This aim is realised through examining the impact of online consumer behaviour in the context of China and its impacts on Taobao marketplace online promotion strategy. Research Questions Two main research questions will be considered in the main research. These are: How do Taobao customers respond to different promotional strategies? Are there ways for ensuring that customers develop similar attitudes together with motivation to purchase in an online environment that is realised th rough B2C and C2C technologies? Overview of Taobao Taobao depends on e-commerce to execute its business functions. E-commerce refers to a commercial activity that is executed electronically. It is enhanced by the internet, which boosts the connectivity between sellers and consumers across the globe (Xiaoni Prybutok 2004). After the industrial revolution of early 20th century, the dawn of e-commerce comprised one the mega episodes that have made economic history of people to revolution. The internet and e-commerce have broken down the geographical demarcations so that businesses require only a single physical location from where all customer procurement and chain supply tasks are executed for the business to operate effectively. Worldwide electronic commerce market is developing at an alarming rate. Lorenzo (2010) estimates this growth as worth â‚ ¬400 billion. Taobao is the largest network of retail and business units. The networks are committed in building a global preferred n etwork of retail and business area. Alibaba Group founded it in 2003. Taobao operates two main e-commerce platforms. These are business across C2C (consumer-to-consumer) and B2C (businesses-to-consumer). During the first quarter of 2008, more than 6200 people joined Taobao. A large number of them covers mostly online shopping population (Taobao Marketplace 2013). During the first quarter of 2008, Taobao’s transactions were in excess of 18.8 billion with an annual turnover in excess of 433 million by 2007. According to a 2007 third-party authority research, Taobao occupies more than 70% of China’s online shopping market share (Taobao Marketplace 2013). For C2C market, Taobao occupies more than 80% in terms of market share. To date, Taobao has emerged a first choice for conducting online business transactions of a majority of internet users and online entrepreneurs together with business society. In October 2005, Taobao announced to create 1 million jobs within a time sp an of five years.Advertising Looking for dissertation on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More This was one of the promotional techniques deployed by Taobao to prove that, apart from helping consumers to gain the utility of products and services that are sold through retail and business networks, it also has a responsibility of meeting the needs of the communities, which it serves in terms of provision of employment. The main question is whether such a promotional technique translates to increased sales for an organisation conducting business in an online environment. Literature Review Preference of an organisation’s products and services in comparison to another organisation’s merchandise implies that there is a psychological driving force, which influences the behaviour of consumers. Organisations influence consumers to purchase their products and services through promotion strategies (Maktoba, Ian Sonny 2011: Paco 2008). This suggests there is a relationship between consumer behaviour and promotional or marketing strategies. According to Solomon (2004), cust omers’ behaviour is shaped by interactions of a customer with certain environmental and marketing stimuli. Marketing stimuli comprise price, promotion, place, and product. In an online marketing environment, place is not an important marketing stimulus since a business organisation requires only one physical location to execute all business functions. Environmental stimuli consist of aspects that shape the buying patterns of consumers such as demographic, cultural, technological, and economic components (Kardes et al. 2011). For buyers to make a purchase, decision processes are important. These processes include â€Å"problem recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase decision, and post purchase behaviour† (Solomon 2004, p.67). Decision processes are shaped by myriads of buyer traits among them being attitudes, perceptions, lifestyle, motivations, products knowledge, and personality. While studying consumer behaviour, Foxall (2005) and Kardes et al. (2011) insist that it is crucial for an organisation to develop an adequate knowledge base on factors that influence products choice, dealer selection, and amount of purchase, brand choice decisions, and purchase timing of customers. This model suggests that consumers make certain buying decisions through prior possession of information on a given problem, which is solved by a given product or service on offer. The work of Solomon claims, â€Å"In reality, many decisions are not made in the awareness of a determined problem by the consumer† (2004, p.81). Even though this may be true, it is crucial to note that a product or a service must satisfy a given need that prompts a customer to seek a service or a product in the marketplace. The internet has provided an effective and easy way of accessing information concerning products and services. Hence, it is one the most effective promotional tools, which can help to create various stimuli, which might motivate consumers to pu rchase various goods and services. Foxall (2005) argues that, apart from considering the utility of products or a service, consumers also shape their buying behaviours depending on the easiness through which they have information about products and services (p.45). Khosla (2010) further develops this argument by claiming that a consumer executes both internal and external searches to gain the full information on products that would satisfy his or her needs in the most profound manner. Sources of external information comprise public advertisements, commercial advertisements, and personal information based on products and services experience (Khosla 2010). Currently, people prefer gaining information without hassles. This makes search engines instrumental in effecting the promotion of an organisation seeking to sell to an emerging breed of consumers. Unfortunately, such consumers require to be convinced that the products they buy will satisfy their needs. Recognition of this essential need has prompted many online marketing organisations to deploy social media as a platform for enhancing a two-way communication between consumers and sellers. The need to keep the consumer informed coupled with the provision of the means through which they can post their concerns or areas where they need clarifications to be made has led to the emergence of new technological methods of conducting businesses such as the B2C and C2C criteria (Kalakota Whinston 2008). While this technologies can run on a standard personal computer, the increasing number of people with mobile devices, which support platforms for financial transactions has made it possible for the two technologies to adopt mobile devices. Thus, technology is an essential factor that shapes the buying behaviour of consumers in the 21st century market place. Taobao has recognised this factor and developed technological selling platforms that are guided by the development of B2C and C2C. The question the organisation nee ds to address is how effective the online business model is in enhancing competitive advantage of Taobao in terms of shaping consumers’ behaviour so that they can respond positively to its promotional strategies. Many organisations have recognised the benefits that may result from full exploitation of the new wave of the mobile internet. This wave is making organisations benefit immensely in hiking their value-added services together with enhancing their competitive advantage. From the contexts of the customers that are targeted by these organisations including Taobao, mobile applications provide easy means of facilitating customers to access their information. This information is available right in their pockets and stored within the applications that run from their smart phones. With regard to Zhang and Adipat (2005), â€Å"mobile applications are everywhere in categories of games, social networking, productivity tools, infotainment, data management, and utilities† ( p.293). This availability of mobile applications in a variety of forms makes consumers receive mobile supported contents in a superior way compared to classical channels of mobiles among them being the short message services and mobile browsing. Consistent with this line of argument, consumers may have three significant benefits accruing from having the ability to gain access to their data via mobile applications. These are volume, speed, and ease of accessibility to advertisements. This advantage forms the basis of success of mobile devices in helping to build good relationships with customers. The modern-day consumers live in a world in which they anticipate getting anything at the time they want it. Therefore, the time within which consumers are able to access whatever information they want is an immense concern that organisations need to address if at all they want to capture this population that is incredibly time cautious. Indeed, while attempting to access one’s data t hrough desktops and notebook computers, the patience of consumers is metered since they have to wait until booting is complete followed by the loading of internet via 3G or 4G network and then starting the search process to receive their data, which is essential in helping to make buying decisions. Taobao deploys mobile applications to enhance successful execution of these purchasing processes because they save time. When the application loads on the mobile device, the consumer will have access to all information he or she needs within minimal time. Surprisingly, in case updating of some information is required, it is accomplished in the applications’ background. Consequently, consumers are given an opportunity to access other data while in the mean time waiting the application to finish loading. In appreciation of this benefit, Myers et al. Laments, â€Å"mobile apps are becoming so functional and popular among consumer especially by considering that nearly half of all corp orate-issued devices will be mobile† (2006, p.39). To the consumers, this means that their data will be available right in their pockets. In a nation that is served by the 3G network, consumers have limitations for storing large amounts of their information in the virtual memories of the internet. However, mobile application has the capacity to keep magnificent volumes of data including catalogues and videos. They then use this information to influence other consumers. This implies that the deployment of mobile applications to execute marketing strategies makes it possible for an organisation to use loyal customers to market or promote their products in the absence of inputs of organisations’ resources (Xiaoni Prybutok 2004). An additional benefit is also realised in that the data is kept within the mobile application, thus prompting improvement of experiences of users who are largely the consumers. Although the era of billboards advertising is not yet over, mobile adv ertising is rapidly catching up. Interestingly, this trend is not anticipated to stop any time soon. Opposed to the localised placement of billboards, mobile advertisement enables consumers to have a constant accessibility to advertisement any time they wish. Therefore, for Taobao, there is no need for timing when to place advertisements. In any marketplace, many scholars have found that understanding consumer behaviour plays a variety of roles in influencing the promotional techniques that will best help to win consumers. For instance, Ward and Lee (2006) argue that understanding customers’ behaviour may reveal that consumers are influenced to buy through logical arguments while they are persuaded to make purchases in some situations through emotional messages or through the creation of promotional strategies, which evoke symbolic appeals (p.8). Studies in consumer behaviour contend that behaviours among people arise at an individual or group level and hence the logic behind market segmentation. Consumer behaviour is studied for a variety of reasons. The single most important reason is to help in developing a winning marketing or promotional strategy for an organisation’s products and services (Carmody 2004). This underlines the significance of the need to study whether there is any relationship between promotional techniques and consumer behaviour in an online marketplace. Existence of a positive relationship implies that online selling organisations such as Taobao should engineer applications, which support promotions via mobile devices. Understanding customers’ behaviour means that promotions can be timed precisely (Carmody 2004). For instance, studies in customers’ purchasing patterns may reveal that most consumers buy certain products such as electronic items at the end of the month when they receive their salaries. Consequently, while using social media, advertisements for such products are made aggressively a few days before the end of the month. Understanding customers’ behaviour also gives an indication to a seller on how to prepare financially to successfully place new products and product lines. In this context, Armstrong (2001) argues that few customers mostly embrace new products upon their first placement in the marketplace. For Taobao, this means that adequate funds are required while attempting to place new products online to ensure that the organisation remains afloat before market picks when customers share their experiences about the products or when the organisation manages to convince potential customers about the usefulness of a product. Online consumers have distinctive behaviours compared to consumers who buy products from physical locations of an organisation. Abhamid, McGrath, and Khatibi (2007) support this assertion by claiming, â€Å"Online consumers are demanding different relationships from service providers (p.543). They have more focus on service quality and effectiven ess in exchange of prices (Anderson Srinivasan 2003). They also conduct an evaluation of quality experiences since they consider high-quality services that are rendered by a given organisation to comprise one of the most important service attributes, which are essential in helping to shape their buying behaviour (Abhamid McGrath 2005). This means that, in the context of determining the relationship between customers’ behaviours and promotional strategies in Taobao marketplace, findings on the studies that determine the features of a service, which most of the customers shopping in an online environment look for are important once incorporated in the analysis of the result findings. With the rapid growth in the number of people who are engaged in social media, many people acquire information about a service or a product experience from their friends or followers. Organisations that sell online should then consider perusing postings made by their customers to determine whethe r their service delivery methods satisfy the preconceived needs of customers when they buy a product or a service from an organisation (Abhamid, McGrath Khatibi 2007). From these theoretical arguments, in the effort to create awareness of the existence of an organisation, social media is incredibly helpful. Such a strategy for building positive brand image is opposed to traditional approaches for brand communication in which organisations mainly focused on â€Å"controlling what was said about their products and brands by dominating communication channels with carefully planned messaging† (Anbu Mavuso 2012, p.319). However, in the modern business environment, control of messages is immensely difficult since the ability of customers to access information through online interactions has become incredibly sophisticated. The significance of effecting communication strategies for marketing the service brand through social media is ardent bearing in mind, â€Å"today, customer c ommunication takes the form of bilateral dialogue† (Rust, Zeithaml Lemon 2004, p.117). This often entails online communication through B2C and C2C as evidenced by the case of Taobao. Sample Selection Empirical studies begin with the selection of an appropriate sample size depending on the desired statistical confidence levels. According to Scott, â€Å"sample size is an important feature of any empirical study in which the goal is to make inferences about a population from a sample† (2011, p.87). Therefore, a sample that will yield a powerful tool for making statistical inferences revealing the consumption behaviour of the entire population is necessary. In the determination of this sample size, some parameters must be known. They include â€Å"confidence interval (margin of error), size of the population, confidence level, and standard deviation† (Saunders, Thornhill Lewis 2009). Population size refers to the number of people who fit within the demographics of an empirical study. In the context of this research, the total number of people forming the Taobao market place is necessary. However, although it is not known, it does not make the research impossible to execute since it is common for the population to be unknown in empirical studies (Saunders, Thornhill Lewis 2009). The only important thing here is to determine the most appropriate demographic group to study. According to the data released by a Taobao report, low-income consumption levels are at â€Å"3 percent, 17 percent for lower middle income consumption, 61 percent for middle, and 15 percent for higher middle income consumption† (Taobao Marketplace Index, 2013). High-income consumption level accounts for only 3 percent. According to the same report, white-collar consumer accounts for 41 percent while students account for only 13 percent. In the context of age demographics, 33 percent of the total buyers are in the age gap of between 0-25 years, 35 percent are in the age gap of 25-30 while those in the age gap of 30 to 35 account for 14 percent (Taobao Marketplace Index, 2013). This means that 79 percent of Taobao’s customers are in the age group of between 0 and 35. This group is a sufficient target group to focus on especially by noting that such an age group has probabilities of positively embracing e-commerce as an acceptable mode of business transactions. Therefore, the people targeted by the primary research are from the middle class society, and those who have employment (aged between10-35 years). Having established the target audience of the research, the other mega challenge is to establish the confidence interval. Samples are not perfect (Bryman 2008). Hence, setting the limits of the error that is permissible in the research is necessary. â€Å"The confidence level determines how much higher or lower than the population researchers are willing to let their sample mean to fall† (Scott 2011, p.89). Although a researcher ha s the freedom of determining the range within which a sample mean should fall in, a standard value of +/-5 is chosen for this research. For statistical analysis, it is necessary to choose an appropriate confidence level. For an empirical research, the mostly used confidence levels are 90 percent, 95 percent, and 99 percent (Smithson 2003, p.67). In the proposed research, 95 percent confidence interval will be deployed. Standard deviation is yet another important parameter in the determination of sample size for utilisation in a primary research. It refers to the degree in which the interviewees’ responses should vary. 0.5 is utilised in this research since â€Å"it is the most forgiving number that ensures that a sample is large enough† (Scott 2011, p.89). Choosing a large sample is important since a larger sample attracts representativeness of the population characteristics. A given confidence level corresponds to a given Z score value. For 95 percent confidence, Z sc ore value is 1.96. With this value, it becomes possible to calculate the required sample size using the formula- (Scott 2011). When the chosen values are substituted in this equation, the value of sample size is 385. Methodology Conducting a business in online environments implies that a physical contact between customers and sellers rarely takes place. This means that holding face-to-face interviews with customers of Taobao in the effort to garner information on their motivation for buying is incredibly difficult and an unreliable method of data collection. Indeed, garnering data for this research requires deployment of more than one technique. To enhance transaction through the B2C and C2C criteria, the seller and buyer share contact information including telephone numbers and e-mail contacts. The researcher proposes to utilise contact information of customers of Taobao contained in the organisation’s database to e-mail questionnaires, conduct telephone interviews, and whe re possible to request some of the customers who are successfully incorporated in the sample for a face-to face-interview. The researcher also determines various proportional strategies deployed by Taobao and the impacts of such strategies on the selling capability of the company. Through the questionnaires and the telephone interview, the audience provides information on how they knew about Taobao and their perception about online payments and procurement. This information helps in the determination of correlation and relationship between marketing strategy and consumer behaviours within Taobao marketplace. Conclusion Different customers require different promotional strategies to place products and services of an organisation to them. For online shoppers, it is hypothesised by the dissertation that such shoppers have a particular buying behaviour, which requires specific promotional strategies. The hypothesis suggests that a relationship exists between customers’ behaviour and promotional strategy. While this may be true for organisations selling through physical premises, minimal research has been conducted to determine this relationship for online marketplace especially in China. In the effort to seal this gap, the dissertation proposes a research to determine a relationship between customers’ behaviour and promotional strategies used by Taobao. For Taobao, majority of the online shoppers are middle class and in the age group of between 0 and 35 years. Consequently, the research will be based on this target group by use of e-mailed questionnaires, face-to-face interviews and telephone interviews as the main primary methods of data collections for a sample of 385 Taobao online shoppers. Analysis will then be conducted to determine the correlation and hence the relationship between the two aspects. References Abhamid, N McGrath, M 2005, ‘The Diffusion of Internet’s Interactivity on E-tail Web Sites: A Customer Relationship Modelâ €™, Communications of the International Information Management Association, vol. 2 no.1, pp. 45-70. Abhamid, N, McGrath, M Khatibi, A 2007, ‘Retaining Online Consumers: Evidence from South East Asia’, WSEAS Transactions on Systems, vol. 6 no. 3, pp. 541-548. Anbu, J Mavuso, M 2012, ‘Old Wine in New Wine Skin: Marketing Services Through SMS-Based Alert Services’, Library Hi Tech, vol. 30 no. 2, pp. 310-320. Anderson, E Srinivasan, S 2003, ‘E-satisfaction and e-loyalty: A contingency framework’, Psychology Marketing, vol. 20 no. 3, pp. 123-138. Armstrong, S 2001, ‘Prediction of Consumer Behaviour by Experts and Novices’, Journal of Consumer Research, vol.18 no.6, pp. 251–256. Blackwell, M Engel, C 2006, Consumer Behaviour, Thomson Learning, New York. Bryman, A 2008, Social Research Methods, OUP, Oxford. Carmody, B 2004, Online Promotions: Winning Strategies And Tactics, Black Forest Press, New York. Creaswell, J 2008, Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches, Sage Publications, New York. Foxall, G 2005, Understanding Consumer Choice, Palgrave Macmillian, Baingstoke. Kalakota, R Whinston, A 2008, Frontiers of electronic commerce, Addison Wesley, New Jersey. Kardes, F et al. 2011, Consumer Behaviour, Cengage Learning, Mason, OH. Khosla, S 2010, ‘Consumer Psychology: The Essence of Marketing’, International Journal of Educational Administration, vol. 2 no. 2, pp. 220–225. Lorenzo, C 2010, Consumer Behaviour in an Online Shopping Environment: Effects and interactions, Kinga Po Trebovaniy, Poland. Maktoba, O, Ian, B Sonny, N 2011, ‘Internet marketing and customer satisfaction in emerging markets: the case of Chinese online shoppers, Competitiveness Review’, An International Business Journal incorporating Journal of Global Competitiveness, vol. 21 no. 2, pp. 224-237. Myers, A, Nichols, J, Wobbrock, O Miller, R 2006, ‘Taking hand held devices to the next level’, IEEE Computer Journal, vol. 37 no. 12, pp. 36−43. Paco, U 2008, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, UpdRev Publications, New Jersey. Rust, T, Zeithaml, A Lemon, N 2004, ‘Customer centred brand management’, Harvard Business Review, vol. 82 no. 4, pp. 110-118. Saunders, M, Thornhill, A Lewis, P 2009, Research Methods for Business Students, Financial Times, Prentice Hall. Scott, S 2011, ‘Research methodology: Sampling techniques’, Journal of scientific research, vol. 2 no.1, pp. 87-92. Smithson, M 2003, Confidence intervals: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences, Sage Publications, Belmont, CA. Solomon, M 2004, Consumer Behaviour, Allyn Bacon, London. Taobao Marketplace 2013, Online Promotion Strategy. Web. Taobao Marketplace Index, 2013, Taobao Marketplace user market segmentation. Web. Ward, R Lee, J 2006, ‘Internet shopping, consumer search and product branding’, Journal of Product a nd Brand Management, vol. 9 no. 1, pp. 6-12. Xiaoni, Z Prybutok, V 2004, ‘An empirical study of online shopping: a service perspective’, International Journal of Service Technology and Management, vol. 5 no.1, pp. 1-13. Zhang, D Adipat, B 2005, ‘Challenges, methodologies, and issues in the usability of testing mobile applications’, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, vol. 18 no. 3, pp. 293-308. This dissertation on Promotion Strategy and Customers’ Behaviour: Taobao was written and submitted by user Hepz1bah to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

Definition and Examples of Verbal Placeholders

Definition and Examples of Verbal Placeholders A placeholder is a word (such as whatchamacallit) used by speakers to signal that they dont know or cant remember a more precise word for something. Also known as a  kadigan, tongue-tipper, and dummy noun. Examples and Observations You need something to sell. Now this could be anything. It could be a thingamajig. Or a whosi-whatsi. Or [pulls out a Watchamacallit candy bar from his pocket] a Whatchamacallit.(Steve Carell as Michael Scott in Business Office, The Office)Work, the whats-its-name of the thingummy and the thing-um-a-bob of the what dyou-call-it.(P.G. Wodehouse, Psmith, Journalist, 1915)I have unspiked the sliding doors at the far end of the barn, so that the greatly increased flow of visitors can move past the whatchamacallit without eddies and backwash. In one end they go, and out the other.   (Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard. Delacorte Press, 1987)It will do magic,Believe it or not,Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.Now Salagadoola meansA-Menchika-boola-roo,But the thingamabobThat does the jobIs Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo.(Al Hoffman, Mack David, and Jerry Livingston, Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo. Cinderella, 1950) Doodad doodad n (Variations: do-dad or do-funny or doofunny or do-hickey or doohickey or do-hinky or doohinky or do-jigger or doojigger or doowhangam or do-whistle or doowhistle or do-willie or doowillie) Any unspecified or unspecifiable thing: something one does not know the name of or does not wish to name.  (Barbara Ann Kipfer and Robert L. Chapman, American Slang, 4th ed. Collins Reference, 2008) Placeholders Placeholders . . . have little or no semantic meaning and should rather be interpreted pragmatically. The placeholder words that Channell discusses... are thing, thingummy (with the variants thingummyjig and thingummybob), whatsisname, whatnot, whosit, and whatsit... Incidentally, they are all defined as slang in Cassells Dictionary of Slang (2000)... The situation where the next dialogue occurs reveals that Fanny does not know the name of the boy who was laughing with Achil and uses thingie as a placeholder: Fanny: And I walked off and like I just walked away and Achil and thingy were laughing at, you know, just not at me at how how crap [name]Kate: [Yeah.]Fanny: had been and how I had to go away.(142304: 13-215) Thingamajig occurs four times with reference to an object and twice with reference to a person. In (107) we meet 14-year-old Carola and Semantha . . . from Hackney: Carola: Can I borrow your thingamajig?Semantha: I dont know what thingamajig it is.(14078-34) Semanthas reaction shows that there is no doubt that thingamajig belongs to the category of vague words. It obviously refers to an object that Carola would like to borrow, but Semantha apparently has no idea of what she is referring to.  (Anna-Brita Stenstrà ¶m et al., Trends in Teenage Talk: Corpus Compilation, Analysis, and Findings. John Benjamins, 2002) Douglas Adams on the Placeholder in Do-Re-Mi One particularly niggling piece of Unfinished Business, it occurred to me the other day in the middle of a singing session with my five-year-old daughter, is the lyrics to ‘Do-Re-Mi,’ from The Sound of Music... Each line of the lyric takes the names of a note from the sol-fa scale, and gives it meaning: ‘Do (doe), a deer, a female deer; Re (ray), a drop of golden sun,’ etc. All well and good so far. ‘Mi (me), a name I call myself; Fa (far), a long, long way to run.’ Fine. I’m not saying this is Keats, exactly, but it’s a perfectly good conceit and it’s working consistently. And here we go into the home stretch. ‘So (sew), a needle pulling thread.’ Yes, good. ‘La, a note to follow so . . . What? Excuse me? ‘La, a note to follow so . . . What kind of lame excuse for a line is that?â€Å"Well, it’s obvious what kind of line it is. It’s a placeholder. A placeholder is what a writer puts in when he can’t think of the right line or idea just at the moment, but he’d better put in something and come back and fix it later. So, I imagine that Oscar Hammerstein just bunged in a ‘a note to follow so’ and thought he’d have another look at it in the morning.Only when he came to have another look at it in the morning, he couldn’t come up with anything better. Or the next morning. Come on, he must have thought, this is simple. Isn’t it? La . . . a something, something ... what?’...â€Å"How difficult can it be? How about this for a suggestion? ‘La, a ... a ...well, I can’t think of one at the moment, but I think that if the whole world pulls together on this, we can crack it.(Douglas Adams, Unfinished Business of the Century. The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time. Macmillan, 2002)

Physician-Patient Communication Changed by Electronic Mail Exchange Annotated Bibliography

Physician-Patient Communication Changed by Electronic Mail Exchange - Annotated Bibliography Example It was estimated in 2004 than 64% of physician’s use email in their communications with staff, patients, colleagues and third-party payers. This study found that patients are often frustrated and upset with the difficulty they encounter when trying to reach a physician by telephone hence the increase in patients requesting physicians to use email as a communication method. Benefits for physicians allow them to respond at any time and at their convenience while also allowing templates to be provided that respond to certain questions regarding care. Patient Gateway was used as a pilot program in certain ambulatory clinics. Results indicated that physicians felt the program was a positive though limitations of the study were that physicians were not yet using direct general messaging and the sample size was relatively small. The majority of the European populations use the internet for health reasons; only 10% communicate with their physician this way. Two distinct suppliers of internet secure patient communication systems supplied a list of those offices that were currently using their system and of those offices 9 participated in this study.

Systematic Approach to Learning and Development Essay

Systematic Approach to Learning and Development - Essay Example A systematic approach includes a unique but practical network that evaluates approaches before, during and after training to ensure employees truly benefited from the training in terms of enhanced results to the organisation. To be evaluative under such conditions, an organisation must possess capabilities that produce a highly responsive and adaptive system of decision and action. In such a system, it is necessary to evaluate the means of the information, where decisions, and actions are brought into conjunction and involves a complex interplay between individuals, positions, and levels. Such an interplay plays a critical role in evaluating organisational responsiveness and makes flexibility highly important where control and guidance of these processes in a flexible manner are a critical function of an organisation. Systematic approach serves as a tool to apply systems theory in context with organisational change as systems theory or systems thinking is the idea that an organisation is made up of many different resources. It relies upon various sorts of resources which are helpful in utilising it as a person, a group of people, a function, a product or a service to be one part of the entire system. The basic concept lies with the notion that in case one element of the system is changed, the nature and makeup of the entire system is also changed, that means the systems or components of systems that make up an organisation are integrated to accomplish the overall goals of the company. System thinking enables the organisation to make decisions in order to note down even minute effects and their consequences which result in changes that have a broader impact on the company from a broad perspective. This help ensuring the facts that the decisions and steps that that are being taken are made in a wi se manner by considering the overall structure of the organisation rather than seeing only isolated specific events. On the other hand systematic approach addresses the loopholes that remain in the organisation's infrastructure and analyzes the capabilities of their employees in relation to the working scenario. This indicates systems theoretical approach enables systematic approach to first make appropriate decisions and then analyzes the change in the form of evaluation, resulting in change management. The resultant of the systematic approach is the organisational change which in a broader aspect views the impact of change on the organisation and helps the organisation identifying the real causes and issues and address them quickly. However critics point out that such change under the approach of a systematic manner, does not guarantee the notion that change will be without negative consequences. In fact, what is seen is that if the major organisational parts are recognised, their relationships help the organisation integrate the goals of the change throughout the organisation. Evaluating Performances under Change Management Changing organisations advices to fix the

Pay Framework and Store Management of Matalan Retail

Pay Framework and Store Management of Matalan Retail The following paper is a report about the introduction of an innovative pay framework at the Matalan stores. The company is relatively new in the market since its inception in the year 1985. Though the progress has been staggering and the company has moved forward while imbibing some of the best management practices seen in corporate history, there is a slack in the current pay structure practised at Matalan. Though they had a formal structure in the past, at the moment each store has its own recruitment policies and salary structures. Thesis causing problems within the human resource department at each store due to the discrepancy in maintaining similar levels of pay structure. The company would need to undergo change and create a new pay framework, which imbibes all the concepts of equal pay to avoid any legal proceedings in the future. At the same time the paper also takes into consideration factors, which are important while trying to create pay frameworks for organisations – motivation, communication channels, training and development, equal opportunities and similar non financial rewards which have proven to go a long way in improving performance at the work place. The report goes through a series of different headings which come together to weave a structure which best explains the problems, founding issues and a possible solution. Introduction Matalan is one of UK’s leading clothing and home furnishings retailer. The quality of clothes and home ware is relatively high with an affordable price tag. It was John Hargreaves who founded Matalan; he initially discovered the concept of out of town selling at lower prices in the US markets. The learning process was enough for him to know that this could turn out to be a very successful retail strategy in the Upmarket. The first Matalan store was opened in Preston in the year1985. By 1995, the company had made tremendous progress and had 50 stores to their credit across UK. The year 1997 was one with multiple changes in the business strategy and management practices, since the company was growing at a phenomenal pace; the head office was moved to Skelmersdale to be in a better position to oversee company growth and management issues. The success was reinstated in the market with company floatation in the year 1998, at the moment Matalan trades from 5 million square feet in over 170 stores. For the consumers the opportunity to shop at Matalan is very satisfying since they get unrivalled quality at unsurpassed prices. The strategy Matalan follows is to buy from the manufacturers and having out of town less costly stores, which enable them to pass on the cost benefit to the customers. Please refer appendix 2 for more information about Matalan’s positioning the UK market in comparison to other clothing retailers. A visit to a Matalan store reveals the complete family range the store has on offer, there is something for everybody. On an average the store size is an approximate 30,000 sq. ft. per store, the product range is comprehensive combination of home ware, clothing line for men, women and children. Each clothing line has a further divide in range and styles – formal, informal, sporty, seasonal, modern basics to some very classical styling, other than having their own labels on display there are also other brands on offer – Wrangler, Flamer, Lee Cooper, Wonder bra and Wolsey, this gives the customers a more balanced profile to choose from. The head office provides immense functional support tall stores across UK – be it buying, merchandising, marketing, HRM,finance, operations or property management. To get a better understanding of what each store entails in terms of human resources, we have the following line up. Store Manager Deputy Manager Sales Manager Ladies wear Sales Manager Men swear Sales Manager Childrens wear Sales Manager Home ware Full and part time General Sales Assistants At the same time, there are flexible changes in the way roles might be managed in a store, in smaller stores the home ware and children ‘swear departments are overlooked and managed by a one sales manager instead of two which is a norm in bigger sized stores. Matalan prides itself on some very progressive practices in all departments; the management believes that what they have on offer for employees is a fast track progressive career path, which is completely matched with one’s personal ambitions to succeed. [www.matalan.co.uk] The pay framework at Matalan includes the following benefits and perks. Highly competitive Salary Bonus Scheme Discounted Share Save scheme Life assurance policy Private Health Care 10% discount at all stores Generous holiday entitlements [http://www.inretail.co.uk/pages/content.asp?PageID=311] The above is an insight into what Matalan Retail has to offer its employees and staff across the stores. There are problems with the current pay structure, some of the new recruits are paid with regards to market rates and this is not in sync with what is paid to the old recruits in similar roles. The local HR offices have been exercising autonomy in recruitment and salary structures, which might, create friction between employees, peers and draw inter store comparisons. There is no clear-cut strategy for assimilating information on employees, their satisfaction levels and ways to gauge their performance at work. All this and more in the long run can create some damaging effects to the organisations performance as a whole. The following report is to create an understanding and balance between problems, issues and executable solutions so that the company can align the employee/staff goals with the organisation objectives. Literature Review Michael Armstrong (2001), in his book, ‘New dimensions in pay management’ talks about new systems and processes in reward management and pay structures. It also talks in length about the factors, which need consideration when planning a new pay structure in an organisation. It also covers methods of developing; introducing and evaluating new pay structures. Organisations in towards era have to move at a fast pace while adjusting to the changes in the internal and external environment. These pressure make these organisations react indifferent manners, it could be delayering, project based, flexible or continuous. The emphasis is on continuous improvements in terms of performance management, reward management, personnel appraisal, quality control and customer service. The quality of human resources within an organisation is considered a significant advantage and differentiating factor. The focus should also be on business strategies and using systems like reward management and performance appraisal to bring about change in organisations. The reward concept is a focused effort of various forms of rewards, base pay, variable pay, benefits and non-financial rewards. The significance of pay revolves around motivational strategy, attracting and retaining employees in their job roles to build a more effective organisation. The non-financial rewards include more recognition, praise, and training options, responsibility and although more studies on organisational behaviour have revealed that it’s the non-financial rewards, which have more scope for retaining employees. It was in the year 1990 that Ed Bawler spoke about the limitations of using this approach, â€Å"The starting point for any reward system design process needs to be the strategic agenda of the organisation. Thus the first step in designing the reward system for an organisation is to focus on the individual and organisational behaviours that are needed in order for the organisation to be successful†. Bawler further enhanced and improvised on this belief to cover all organisations, â€Å"The business strategy, in particular, serves as a crucial guide in designing organisational systems because it specifies what the company wants to accomplish, how it wants to behave, and the kinds of performance and performance levels it must demonstrate to be effective†. [Michael Armstrong (2001), cap 1-15] Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989) in their books ‘Personnel Management’, talk about how most organisations design their pay and wage packages based on the hierarchy. Another big difference is that blue-collar jobs are usually at an hourly rate, the wages are paid weekly or monthly basis and the salary earners are the ones who are Gina middle or senior management position. The differences are not limited to the salary; they also extend to the additional perks and benefits, which are offered to the employees. The objectives of a policy towards making a payment could be described as to ‘remain competitive for labour whilst rewarding good performance and adopting a position on pay which is felt to be fair by all employees.’ [Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989), cap 210-211] The distinction that companies enjoy while treating different job roles with different salary structures is a matter of internal personnel philosophy. There are certain important criterions, which needs to be considered while planning a salary and wages structure – If the company wishes to afford large salaries and pay packets to employees then they are working with the strategy of getting maximum output and high standards of quality and work from the employees. The effort to keep the standards high has to be sustained through time. If the company wishes to offer other benefits and perks like travel allowance, car, mobile phones, laptops, inflation proof pension etc., the other way of doing this could be by giving the flexibility to the employee to decide what structure would be most appealing to him or her in terms of salary spend. Another option is to trade off these benefits against wages. The most important factor to be seen by organisations remains retaining employees. They need to understand what appeals to the employees, what motivated them to work harder and perform better. Employee retention is a big problem and a lot of organisations are trying to tackle this through financial perks, raising salaries and other perks. There are options like profit share benefits and bonus schemes which also need to be worked through the system. This does not call for direct employee participation and might not prove to be a great motivational tool. There are policies on variation of pay frameworks, what needs consideration from management and organisations is whether pay is the main incentive and motivational tool for employees. They also need to understand the kind of employee evaluation scheme, which needs to be adopted and run. The organisations which operate from more than one location need to understand the repercussions of giving more autonomy to its line managers in terms of drafting salary structure and pay frameworks. The other option would be to draft a company wide policy and run it across all departments and locations irrespective of size, force and structure. The last step would be the pay reviews and how often one needs to undergo one at a certain location. The evidence, which is needed to corroborate what, the employee is saying and how the performance has been in the past. [Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989), cap 210-215] In the same way when one needs to approach the way wages are offered to the resources, the basic flat rate is what is paid to the employee based on the amount of work he or she has put in a specific time frame.ased on this principle the employee can actually generate more income by completing more pieces of workloads and assignments. A differential piecework is what in other words means ‘time allowed ‘system of piecework, other than the amount of bonus one earns, which is further shared between the company and the employee. There are then small group incentive schemes as well as long-term large group incentive schemes. Given that this paper is about a large sized retail organisation, a long term large group scheme should be a more worthwhile option to discuss although one does need to consider the number of revolving labour one is faced with at retail outlets. The big difference between these schemes is that they have a long-term goal to achieve, apply through the whole organisation/factory structure and try and involve the employees in the organisation structure and future objectives. Given the large rotating base of employees at large retail outlets, we will consider the author’s views on small group incentive schemes. The advantages of these schemes are that they draw in the people and their tendency for bringing about a norm, which is acceptable and comfortable. This in turn leads to a team spirit, which does help while building a positive atmosphere at a store/outlet/organisation. In terms of paper work, these schemes are much easier to monitor and control. The cost savings in terms of money, manpower, effort is less considering the monitoring required, less inspection and savings onetime study periods. There are indirect workers who can also participate in these schemes, the workers, cleaners; store assistants can enjoy the same benefits and perks. There is a larger amount of flexibility and teamwork amongst the work force; the people themselves are keen to get rid of hurdles and bottlenecks in the work process to help provide better work environment. There are disadvantages to these schemes too; there might be impacts of group pressures on workers who are not as efficient as the others. The holidays and sickness leaves will easily upset the system; there would be a need to carve out special arrangements to tackle the holidays. Here could be problems with production, supply chain management that could in turn affect the performance of the employees. In retrospect this could create a substantial amount of disillusionment with the scheme. Coming back to the long-term schemes, there are many variations, which might apply to these. The Scan long plan (1947) was a suggestion plan as well as a collective incentive scheme. The suggestion scheme is what one comes across in a lot of production and manufacturing environments. The employees are asked to come up with suggestions on how to improve the efficiency levels and reduce time at work; these ideas are then enhanced and improvised by the management and the union. The bonus calculation in these cases is then based on the improvements shown in reducing the cost of good produced as well as improvements in the actual output, manpower per hour. Another set of work rules would be if there is a reduction in the sales revenue then the e employees would be deprived of a bonus irrespective of how hard they have worked. In long term view there is absolutely no motivational quality attached to this variation in pay structure. The other plan was introduced by Trucker(1955), which entailed the use of ‘productive value’ or added value. This was based on a collective bonus scheme. The value in this variation is the difference between the sales revenue and the cost of raw materials and supplies. This approach is very fragile with regards to the effects market forces might have on this scheme. The advantage of these long-term large group schemes is that it will provide the incentive for long-term earnings. The employee participation helps overcome the most frequently seen sentiment to them versus us. The level of involvement with the management and production base is stronger than in other cases. This helps build trust and stability. Here is more scope of a wider base of applications, which can be used in the business, and the working of the organisation. The value added schemes are being adjusted to the changing conditions the company might be undergoing. [Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989), cap 210-220] There is however disadvantages to this long term, large group schemes. If these are actually applied across the whole production line, it might dissolve the sentiment of teamwork. These schemes need to have some form of bonus for the employees else it will have no incentive for them to perform better or to increase productivity. The larger the number of employees covered through this scheme the less the percentage which goes to each employee, hence in the final turn of events it reduces the usefulness. Another question rather doubt which arises is whether the individuals see their own efforts helping towards the final cause and long term goals of the scheme and production value. Here is a list of variables which can cause damage to the production process – change in personnel, supervision, customer requirements, machinery, external environment changes. Michael H. Bottomed (1983), in his book, Personnel Management, talks about job satisfaction, motivational tools, compensation package sand benefits which are all integral factors affecting the performance of an organisation. The writer brings an interesting fact to the forefront; the compensation package for employees had grown more complex in the past years. A simple break down of the framework seems like a complex thing to do. It is now important to design frameworks, which suit the individual requirements and needs of the employees. Any organisation has to get the mix right for them to address issues like retention, attrition, motivation and performance. While designing the pay framework for an organisation, it is important to note the background of the corporation, individuals job roles and what they entail, individual pay systems and the after effects on the performance and reaction of the employees. The external factors, which affect the way organisations can design pay packages, is because of government taxation rules and pay restraints. A lot of writers have written on the total compensation package, perks and inducements. â€Å"Simon (1958) refers to inducements as payments made by the organisation to its participants in return for contributions. Thomason (1981) identifies a level of consideration necessary to attract labour. Lupton (1975) suggests that the rules of a pay system say how effort is to be related to reward.†[Michael H. Bottomed (1983), p 80 – 90] An interesting factor, which needs consideration, is the effect of compensation on behaviours. Two of these theories, which have surfaced, are those of expectancy and reinforcement. The critical component of the expectancy theory is the way people relate to compensation with the reward package offered as a result of providing a service. In an important study conducted by Schwa and Heneman (1975), this form of sentiment and perception was found strongest in workers with individual incentives schemes. The reinforcement model finds its origins in Skinner’s (1969) writings. The process defines and develops the patterns, which are experienced while pairing good behaviour with rewards and bad behaviour with punishment. The way this sort of conditioning takes place is through a learning process. The conditioning in this case is so deep and inherent that when an individual is faced with a similar situation, he/she reacts in similar manner as they have done before. [Michael H. Bottomed (1983),p 80 – 95] There are various types of payments and rewards, which can be introduced as part of the main structure. One the popular schemes are the bonus scheme, in effect the system of payments is through a bonus. There is a need to create a specific background before introducing this scheme; the management needs to be committed to the scheme. A big factor towards failure of most of these payment frameworks is the lack of ownership on part of the management. If the cost attached to the transition is not going their way, the management finds it easy to stop the process midway. The employees need to be part of any new scheme, which is in the offing; they need to know the implications, benefits, disadvantages and time frame needed for a successful introduction. The measures, which define productivity, are always a contentious issue and so the management and employees need to be on the same page. A feedback system needs to be in place through which all are informed of the progress made and how the employee stands in terms of rewards towards work input. Communication is essential while implementing any new system or process, the best route would be to discuss the progress, the ways the productivity can be increased and how can all gain the most. The work productivity measure is more or less decided based on the following methodologies – The job role of the employee and the time input needed to complete the job at a satisfactory level The actual physical production of goods/commodities and the time taken to do so The actual physical production of goods/commodities and the cost of production An additional value achieved or the cost of labour The cost of materials used for production, cost needed to get a production going Another way of sharing benefits is through the profit sharing scheme. Good example for this would be NatWest, which introduced this scheme. The staff does reach a point of identification and self-achievement when the results are grouped. The employees feel a greater sense of loyalty and commitment towards the job and the organisation. The performance is not in isolation and with regards to personal achievements; the employees also begin to see the bigger picture and what it means to have greater financial success. At the end all businesses are about profit, the biggest sense of achievement is to derive a balance between employee cost and the profitability. The three common ways to determine how much to pay in the profit sharing scheme are as follows – The amount of profits before tax The directors at their own discretion decide how much to pay the employees under this scheme The amount of profits accumulated after a certain limit has been reached Andrews (1975) talks about reasons, which are critical to the introduction of compensation and pay benefits. As mentioned before by many other writers, the employee base and staff are important resources, it is important for any business/organisation to retain and attract staff to meet the current and future objectives of the company. The staff at all times needs to feel that their efforts in the organisation are noticed and rewarded accordingly. There has to be encouragement and identification of interests, which match those of the employees with regards to reward management. The employees and staff need to be motivated and propelled to perform better and take on more responsibility during the course of their work. There is a need for asset criterion for differentiating between different job roles and titles, each one has its own set of complexities and leverage, this needs to be considered while preparing a compensation package. The company also needs to see some value in the amount of remuneration and rewards being given to the employee. All organisations need to have clear structure for career progression for all employees; they need to know what the future holds for them in the organisation hierarchy. All employees need to have some stability and ways to maintain their standard of living. [Michael H. Bottomed (1983), p 80 – 100] Clive Fletcher and Richard Williams (1992) in their book Performance appraisal and career development talk about appraisal schemes, equal opportunity employment, future challenges and opportunities in this sphere, persisting issues, maintenance and evaluation. The appraisal systems are an effective tool, which has helped a lot of organisations to collect information from the staff and employees about pays and promotions. An increase in the bonus scheme and other incentives, this was a motivating mechanism as well as a productivity enhancer. The management to further develop and plan the welfare of the personnel used the information collected. The appraisal system also acts as process line up for re visiting the initial recruitment decisions also place to decide the promotion schemes and incentives on offer. This can also be an effective communication channel, for introducing new training and development schemes for the personnel; the same can also be used for succession planning. There is an inherent change in the way managers think in current times, pay and rewards are important but appraisal systems will also show that family and time off work is as crucial, else there is bound to be high stress levels and chances of complete burn out. Gorier and Philpot (1978, p 2-5) in their paper point out the following, â€Å"Whilst managers are concerned about their careers, they are equally concerned about their home and family life. Numerous comments on the difficulties of finding time for family and leisure activities whilst coping with a demanding job indicate the potential for conflict between these two areas of their life†. The career concept has undergone an immense amount of change and managers are realising this while planning their internal performance management schemes. Work is no more in isolation, its involves the family and home life as well, else there will always be a carry overload syndrome from home to work and vice versa. An interesting quote in this direction of thought comes from Evans and Bartolome (1980, p7-10), â€Å"Professional life affects the quality of private life on a day to day basis. But the reverse is not true; private life only affects the quality of professional life in extreme situations. The effect of private life on professional life is through its influence on major career and life decisions†. Another issues which organisations now need to consider with stringent measures is that of equal employment opportunities. Equal opportunities could be based on gender, skills, nationality or religion among other factors. Organisations need to revisit their policies and regulations to ensure that they are not breeding grounds for lawsuits on various discriminatory grounds. A big reason why women have not moved too far with context to organisational skills is due to systematic barriers imposed by organisations, the attitude of the management and also partially due to their own behaviour and attitude towards career progression. If we consider the implications of the above issues with regards to retail stores like Matalan, there is a lot of temporary staff and permanent staff; a majority of the temporary staff comprise women. Organisations like Matalan need to consider the implications of treating the part timers and temporary employees as part of the larger picture, one that manages the day-to-day operations at the stores. These employees and staff need to be made part of an appraisal system too to ensure that there can be room for career development opportunities along with the full timers. Much of what has been said about women applies to members of different ethnic backgrounds and racial groups too. Their representation in management and as part of the professional roles is discriminatorily low. Although there have been steps taken to curb this partial reaction, there are still large gaps in the way these people have been treated by line managers. The performance appraisal training needs to consider the attitude and aptitude of these minority groups so that they can be pushed towards a better role when an opportunity arises. All the authors in the literature review have managed to cast important information regarding pay structures, motivation, career development, training and development, equal opportunity, discriminatory pay, appraisal systems to counter balance the changes organisations need to make in personnel management. This will help one understand better in terms of the changes Matalan needs to introduce to mitigate the problems they are currently facing. Methodology The Techniques used for data collection are both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research is exploratory; Quantitative research on the other hand involves statistical surveys to quantify factors previously exposed in qualitative research. Van Mane (1983, p9) defines qualitative techniques as ‘an array of interpretative techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate and otherwise comet terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world’. The data collated for this paper has been primarily through desk research using the internet, online journals, books, reports and the Matalan website. Given the time frame and the confidentiality regarding information on the existing pay framework being used by the Matalan stores did not leave much room for secondary research. The data collated was ample to find out patterns in changes, which had taken place at the stores and the way the staff had reacted to them. It is also reflective of the management involvement and how prompt they are to react when a problem arises at the stores. The organisation culture also came in play while researching this paper, though there is autonomy in job roles, they need to curtail that freedom to ensure that uniform pay framework exists at all stores across job levels. Pay frameworks don’t need to be dictated only by the internal conditions prevailing in the organisation, the existing market structure would also have some bearing to what is being offered to the employees and staff. Some authors have validated the authenticity and importance of personal interviews even though it is a more time consuming tool for data collection. The importance of interviews is summarised by Burgess(1982, p 107): ‘the interview is the opportunity for the researcher to probe deeply to uncover new clues, open up new dimensions of a problem and to secure vivid, accurate inclusive accounts that are based on personal experience’. Jones (1985, p 45) comments that, ‘between these two extremes is an abyss of practice and therefore theory about the purpose and nature of the qualitative interview’. In her view the main reason for conducting qualitative interviews is to understand, ‘how individuals construct the reality of their situation formed from the complex personal framework of beliefs and values, which they developed over their lives in order to help explain and predict events in their world.’ Though due to time constraints and confidentiality factors, interviews were not possible, we have taken information from testimonials and case studies presented by employees at Matalan about the existing framework. Through the course of the research, there was some data collated from testimonials and case studies published on the Matalan corporate website. Though each shows Matalan in a very positive frame, there is no doubt that the company website wont carry information on grudges the employees and staff might have with the way the organisation operates, the management issues and the unsatisfactory pay frameworks. The grounded analysis by Glaser and Strauss (1967) provided major benefits while understanding how the data collected from the testimonials and information from desk research had been analysed. It needs feel and intuition, there is no logical sequence one needs to follow to decipher results, there is constant sifting through, comparison with what has been found, and eventually there are some patterns, themes and categories, which emerge giving way to concepts.[Smith Easter-by Mark, Thorpe Richard and Lowe Andy (2003), p 100 – 130] Data Collection and Findings A report into the Matalan Store Pay framework shows that there areissues and ample grounds for legal proceedings. The way the paystructure is as of now can be the cause for a potential equal pay claims or a sex discrimination pay. The management considers the progress more through the level of jobs instead of the level of responsibility. There is no clear strategy for internal recruitment at the moment. There are reasons for dissatisfied Pay Framework and Store Management of Matalan Retail Pay Framework and Store Management of Matalan Retail The following paper is a report about the introduction of an innovative pay framework at the Matalan stores. The company is relatively new in the market since its inception in the year 1985. Though the progress has been staggering and the company has moved forward while imbibing some of the best management practices seen in corporate history, there is a slack in the current pay structure practised at Matalan. Though they had a formal structure in the past, at the moment each store has its own recruitment policies and salary structures. Thesis causing problems within the human resource department at each store due to the discrepancy in maintaining similar levels of pay structure. The company would need to undergo change and create a new pay framework, which imbibes all the concepts of equal pay to avoid any legal proceedings in the future. At the same time the paper also takes into consideration factors, which are important while trying to create pay frameworks for organisations – motivation, communication channels, training and development, equal opportunities and similar non financial rewards which have proven to go a long way in improving performance at the work place. The report goes through a series of different headings which come together to weave a structure which best explains the problems, founding issues and a possible solution. Introduction Matalan is one of UK’s leading clothing and home furnishings retailer. The quality of clothes and home ware is relatively high with an affordable price tag. It was John Hargreaves who founded Matalan; he initially discovered the concept of out of town selling at lower prices in the US markets. The learning process was enough for him to know that this could turn out to be a very successful retail strategy in the Upmarket. The first Matalan store was opened in Preston in the year1985. By 1995, the company had made tremendous progress and had 50 stores to their credit across UK. The year 1997 was one with multiple changes in the business strategy and management practices, since the company was growing at a phenomenal pace; the head office was moved to Skelmersdale to be in a better position to oversee company growth and management issues. The success was reinstated in the market with company floatation in the year 1998, at the moment Matalan trades from 5 million square feet in over 170 stores. For the consumers the opportunity to shop at Matalan is very satisfying since they get unrivalled quality at unsurpassed prices. The strategy Matalan follows is to buy from the manufacturers and having out of town less costly stores, which enable them to pass on the cost benefit to the customers. Please refer appendix 2 for more information about Matalan’s positioning the UK market in comparison to other clothing retailers. A visit to a Matalan store reveals the complete family range the store has on offer, there is something for everybody. On an average the store size is an approximate 30,000 sq. ft. per store, the product range is comprehensive combination of home ware, clothing line for men, women and children. Each clothing line has a further divide in range and styles – formal, informal, sporty, seasonal, modern basics to some very classical styling, other than having their own labels on display there are also other brands on offer – Wrangler, Flamer, Lee Cooper, Wonder bra and Wolsey, this gives the customers a more balanced profile to choose from. The head office provides immense functional support tall stores across UK – be it buying, merchandising, marketing, HRM,finance, operations or property management. To get a better understanding of what each store entails in terms of human resources, we have the following line up. Store Manager Deputy Manager Sales Manager Ladies wear Sales Manager Men swear Sales Manager Childrens wear Sales Manager Home ware Full and part time General Sales Assistants At the same time, there are flexible changes in the way roles might be managed in a store, in smaller stores the home ware and children ‘swear departments are overlooked and managed by a one sales manager instead of two which is a norm in bigger sized stores. Matalan prides itself on some very progressive practices in all departments; the management believes that what they have on offer for employees is a fast track progressive career path, which is completely matched with one’s personal ambitions to succeed. [www.matalan.co.uk] The pay framework at Matalan includes the following benefits and perks. Highly competitive Salary Bonus Scheme Discounted Share Save scheme Life assurance policy Private Health Care 10% discount at all stores Generous holiday entitlements [http://www.inretail.co.uk/pages/content.asp?PageID=311] The above is an insight into what Matalan Retail has to offer its employees and staff across the stores. There are problems with the current pay structure, some of the new recruits are paid with regards to market rates and this is not in sync with what is paid to the old recruits in similar roles. The local HR offices have been exercising autonomy in recruitment and salary structures, which might, create friction between employees, peers and draw inter store comparisons. There is no clear-cut strategy for assimilating information on employees, their satisfaction levels and ways to gauge their performance at work. All this and more in the long run can create some damaging effects to the organisations performance as a whole. The following report is to create an understanding and balance between problems, issues and executable solutions so that the company can align the employee/staff goals with the organisation objectives. Literature Review Michael Armstrong (2001), in his book, ‘New dimensions in pay management’ talks about new systems and processes in reward management and pay structures. It also talks in length about the factors, which need consideration when planning a new pay structure in an organisation. It also covers methods of developing; introducing and evaluating new pay structures. Organisations in towards era have to move at a fast pace while adjusting to the changes in the internal and external environment. These pressure make these organisations react indifferent manners, it could be delayering, project based, flexible or continuous. The emphasis is on continuous improvements in terms of performance management, reward management, personnel appraisal, quality control and customer service. The quality of human resources within an organisation is considered a significant advantage and differentiating factor. The focus should also be on business strategies and using systems like reward management and performance appraisal to bring about change in organisations. The reward concept is a focused effort of various forms of rewards, base pay, variable pay, benefits and non-financial rewards. The significance of pay revolves around motivational strategy, attracting and retaining employees in their job roles to build a more effective organisation. The non-financial rewards include more recognition, praise, and training options, responsibility and although more studies on organisational behaviour have revealed that it’s the non-financial rewards, which have more scope for retaining employees. It was in the year 1990 that Ed Bawler spoke about the limitations of using this approach, â€Å"The starting point for any reward system design process needs to be the strategic agenda of the organisation. Thus the first step in designing the reward system for an organisation is to focus on the individual and organisational behaviours that are needed in order for the organisation to be successful†. Bawler further enhanced and improvised on this belief to cover all organisations, â€Å"The business strategy, in particular, serves as a crucial guide in designing organisational systems because it specifies what the company wants to accomplish, how it wants to behave, and the kinds of performance and performance levels it must demonstrate to be effective†. [Michael Armstrong (2001), cap 1-15] Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989) in their books ‘Personnel Management’, talk about how most organisations design their pay and wage packages based on the hierarchy. Another big difference is that blue-collar jobs are usually at an hourly rate, the wages are paid weekly or monthly basis and the salary earners are the ones who are Gina middle or senior management position. The differences are not limited to the salary; they also extend to the additional perks and benefits, which are offered to the employees. The objectives of a policy towards making a payment could be described as to ‘remain competitive for labour whilst rewarding good performance and adopting a position on pay which is felt to be fair by all employees.’ [Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989), cap 210-211] The distinction that companies enjoy while treating different job roles with different salary structures is a matter of internal personnel philosophy. There are certain important criterions, which needs to be considered while planning a salary and wages structure – If the company wishes to afford large salaries and pay packets to employees then they are working with the strategy of getting maximum output and high standards of quality and work from the employees. The effort to keep the standards high has to be sustained through time. If the company wishes to offer other benefits and perks like travel allowance, car, mobile phones, laptops, inflation proof pension etc., the other way of doing this could be by giving the flexibility to the employee to decide what structure would be most appealing to him or her in terms of salary spend. Another option is to trade off these benefits against wages. The most important factor to be seen by organisations remains retaining employees. They need to understand what appeals to the employees, what motivated them to work harder and perform better. Employee retention is a big problem and a lot of organisations are trying to tackle this through financial perks, raising salaries and other perks. There are options like profit share benefits and bonus schemes which also need to be worked through the system. This does not call for direct employee participation and might not prove to be a great motivational tool. There are policies on variation of pay frameworks, what needs consideration from management and organisations is whether pay is the main incentive and motivational tool for employees. They also need to understand the kind of employee evaluation scheme, which needs to be adopted and run. The organisations which operate from more than one location need to understand the repercussions of giving more autonomy to its line managers in terms of drafting salary structure and pay frameworks. The other option would be to draft a company wide policy and run it across all departments and locations irrespective of size, force and structure. The last step would be the pay reviews and how often one needs to undergo one at a certain location. The evidence, which is needed to corroborate what, the employee is saying and how the performance has been in the past. [Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989), cap 210-215] In the same way when one needs to approach the way wages are offered to the resources, the basic flat rate is what is paid to the employee based on the amount of work he or she has put in a specific time frame.ased on this principle the employee can actually generate more income by completing more pieces of workloads and assignments. A differential piecework is what in other words means ‘time allowed ‘system of piecework, other than the amount of bonus one earns, which is further shared between the company and the employee. There are then small group incentive schemes as well as long-term large group incentive schemes. Given that this paper is about a large sized retail organisation, a long term large group scheme should be a more worthwhile option to discuss although one does need to consider the number of revolving labour one is faced with at retail outlets. The big difference between these schemes is that they have a long-term goal to achieve, apply through the whole organisation/factory structure and try and involve the employees in the organisation structure and future objectives. Given the large rotating base of employees at large retail outlets, we will consider the author’s views on small group incentive schemes. The advantages of these schemes are that they draw in the people and their tendency for bringing about a norm, which is acceptable and comfortable. This in turn leads to a team spirit, which does help while building a positive atmosphere at a store/outlet/organisation. In terms of paper work, these schemes are much easier to monitor and control. The cost savings in terms of money, manpower, effort is less considering the monitoring required, less inspection and savings onetime study periods. There are indirect workers who can also participate in these schemes, the workers, cleaners; store assistants can enjoy the same benefits and perks. There is a larger amount of flexibility and teamwork amongst the work force; the people themselves are keen to get rid of hurdles and bottlenecks in the work process to help provide better work environment. There are disadvantages to these schemes too; there might be impacts of group pressures on workers who are not as efficient as the others. The holidays and sickness leaves will easily upset the system; there would be a need to carve out special arrangements to tackle the holidays. Here could be problems with production, supply chain management that could in turn affect the performance of the employees. In retrospect this could create a substantial amount of disillusionment with the scheme. Coming back to the long-term schemes, there are many variations, which might apply to these. The Scan long plan (1947) was a suggestion plan as well as a collective incentive scheme. The suggestion scheme is what one comes across in a lot of production and manufacturing environments. The employees are asked to come up with suggestions on how to improve the efficiency levels and reduce time at work; these ideas are then enhanced and improvised by the management and the union. The bonus calculation in these cases is then based on the improvements shown in reducing the cost of good produced as well as improvements in the actual output, manpower per hour. Another set of work rules would be if there is a reduction in the sales revenue then the e employees would be deprived of a bonus irrespective of how hard they have worked. In long term view there is absolutely no motivational quality attached to this variation in pay structure. The other plan was introduced by Trucker(1955), which entailed the use of ‘productive value’ or added value. This was based on a collective bonus scheme. The value in this variation is the difference between the sales revenue and the cost of raw materials and supplies. This approach is very fragile with regards to the effects market forces might have on this scheme. The advantage of these long-term large group schemes is that it will provide the incentive for long-term earnings. The employee participation helps overcome the most frequently seen sentiment to them versus us. The level of involvement with the management and production base is stronger than in other cases. This helps build trust and stability. Here is more scope of a wider base of applications, which can be used in the business, and the working of the organisation. The value added schemes are being adjusted to the changing conditions the company might be undergoing. [Shaun Tyson and Alfred York (1989), cap 210-220] There is however disadvantages to this long term, large group schemes. If these are actually applied across the whole production line, it might dissolve the sentiment of teamwork. These schemes need to have some form of bonus for the employees else it will have no incentive for them to perform better or to increase productivity. The larger the number of employees covered through this scheme the less the percentage which goes to each employee, hence in the final turn of events it reduces the usefulness. Another question rather doubt which arises is whether the individuals see their own efforts helping towards the final cause and long term goals of the scheme and production value. Here is a list of variables which can cause damage to the production process – change in personnel, supervision, customer requirements, machinery, external environment changes. Michael H. Bottomed (1983), in his book, Personnel Management, talks about job satisfaction, motivational tools, compensation package sand benefits which are all integral factors affecting the performance of an organisation. The writer brings an interesting fact to the forefront; the compensation package for employees had grown more complex in the past years. A simple break down of the framework seems like a complex thing to do. It is now important to design frameworks, which suit the individual requirements and needs of the employees. Any organisation has to get the mix right for them to address issues like retention, attrition, motivation and performance. While designing the pay framework for an organisation, it is important to note the background of the corporation, individuals job roles and what they entail, individual pay systems and the after effects on the performance and reaction of the employees. The external factors, which affect the way organisations can design pay packages, is because of government taxation rules and pay restraints. A lot of writers have written on the total compensation package, perks and inducements. â€Å"Simon (1958) refers to inducements as payments made by the organisation to its participants in return for contributions. Thomason (1981) identifies a level of consideration necessary to attract labour. Lupton (1975) suggests that the rules of a pay system say how effort is to be related to reward.†[Michael H. Bottomed (1983), p 80 – 90] An interesting factor, which needs consideration, is the effect of compensation on behaviours. Two of these theories, which have surfaced, are those of expectancy and reinforcement. The critical component of the expectancy theory is the way people relate to compensation with the reward package offered as a result of providing a service. In an important study conducted by Schwa and Heneman (1975), this form of sentiment and perception was found strongest in workers with individual incentives schemes. The reinforcement model finds its origins in Skinner’s (1969) writings. The process defines and develops the patterns, which are experienced while pairing good behaviour with rewards and bad behaviour with punishment. The way this sort of conditioning takes place is through a learning process. The conditioning in this case is so deep and inherent that when an individual is faced with a similar situation, he/she reacts in similar manner as they have done before. [Michael H. Bottomed (1983),p 80 – 95] There are various types of payments and rewards, which can be introduced as part of the main structure. One the popular schemes are the bonus scheme, in effect the system of payments is through a bonus. There is a need to create a specific background before introducing this scheme; the management needs to be committed to the scheme. A big factor towards failure of most of these payment frameworks is the lack of ownership on part of the management. If the cost attached to the transition is not going their way, the management finds it easy to stop the process midway. The employees need to be part of any new scheme, which is in the offing; they need to know the implications, benefits, disadvantages and time frame needed for a successful introduction. The measures, which define productivity, are always a contentious issue and so the management and employees need to be on the same page. A feedback system needs to be in place through which all are informed of the progress made and how the employee stands in terms of rewards towards work input. Communication is essential while implementing any new system or process, the best route would be to discuss the progress, the ways the productivity can be increased and how can all gain the most. The work productivity measure is more or less decided based on the following methodologies – The job role of the employee and the time input needed to complete the job at a satisfactory level The actual physical production of goods/commodities and the time taken to do so The actual physical production of goods/commodities and the cost of production An additional value achieved or the cost of labour The cost of materials used for production, cost needed to get a production going Another way of sharing benefits is through the profit sharing scheme. Good example for this would be NatWest, which introduced this scheme. The staff does reach a point of identification and self-achievement when the results are grouped. The employees feel a greater sense of loyalty and commitment towards the job and the organisation. The performance is not in isolation and with regards to personal achievements; the employees also begin to see the bigger picture and what it means to have greater financial success. At the end all businesses are about profit, the biggest sense of achievement is to derive a balance between employee cost and the profitability. The three common ways to determine how much to pay in the profit sharing scheme are as follows – The amount of profits before tax The directors at their own discretion decide how much to pay the employees under this scheme The amount of profits accumulated after a certain limit has been reached Andrews (1975) talks about reasons, which are critical to the introduction of compensation and pay benefits. As mentioned before by many other writers, the employee base and staff are important resources, it is important for any business/organisation to retain and attract staff to meet the current and future objectives of the company. The staff at all times needs to feel that their efforts in the organisation are noticed and rewarded accordingly. There has to be encouragement and identification of interests, which match those of the employees with regards to reward management. The employees and staff need to be motivated and propelled to perform better and take on more responsibility during the course of their work. There is a need for asset criterion for differentiating between different job roles and titles, each one has its own set of complexities and leverage, this needs to be considered while preparing a compensation package. The company also needs to see some value in the amount of remuneration and rewards being given to the employee. All organisations need to have clear structure for career progression for all employees; they need to know what the future holds for them in the organisation hierarchy. All employees need to have some stability and ways to maintain their standard of living. [Michael H. Bottomed (1983), p 80 – 100] Clive Fletcher and Richard Williams (1992) in their book Performance appraisal and career development talk about appraisal schemes, equal opportunity employment, future challenges and opportunities in this sphere, persisting issues, maintenance and evaluation. The appraisal systems are an effective tool, which has helped a lot of organisations to collect information from the staff and employees about pays and promotions. An increase in the bonus scheme and other incentives, this was a motivating mechanism as well as a productivity enhancer. The management to further develop and plan the welfare of the personnel used the information collected. The appraisal system also acts as process line up for re visiting the initial recruitment decisions also place to decide the promotion schemes and incentives on offer. This can also be an effective communication channel, for introducing new training and development schemes for the personnel; the same can also be used for succession planning. There is an inherent change in the way managers think in current times, pay and rewards are important but appraisal systems will also show that family and time off work is as crucial, else there is bound to be high stress levels and chances of complete burn out. Gorier and Philpot (1978, p 2-5) in their paper point out the following, â€Å"Whilst managers are concerned about their careers, they are equally concerned about their home and family life. Numerous comments on the difficulties of finding time for family and leisure activities whilst coping with a demanding job indicate the potential for conflict between these two areas of their life†. The career concept has undergone an immense amount of change and managers are realising this while planning their internal performance management schemes. Work is no more in isolation, its involves the family and home life as well, else there will always be a carry overload syndrome from home to work and vice versa. An interesting quote in this direction of thought comes from Evans and Bartolome (1980, p7-10), â€Å"Professional life affects the quality of private life on a day to day basis. But the reverse is not true; private life only affects the quality of professional life in extreme situations. The effect of private life on professional life is through its influence on major career and life decisions†. Another issues which organisations now need to consider with stringent measures is that of equal employment opportunities. Equal opportunities could be based on gender, skills, nationality or religion among other factors. Organisations need to revisit their policies and regulations to ensure that they are not breeding grounds for lawsuits on various discriminatory grounds. A big reason why women have not moved too far with context to organisational skills is due to systematic barriers imposed by organisations, the attitude of the management and also partially due to their own behaviour and attitude towards career progression. If we consider the implications of the above issues with regards to retail stores like Matalan, there is a lot of temporary staff and permanent staff; a majority of the temporary staff comprise women. Organisations like Matalan need to consider the implications of treating the part timers and temporary employees as part of the larger picture, one that manages the day-to-day operations at the stores. These employees and staff need to be made part of an appraisal system too to ensure that there can be room for career development opportunities along with the full timers. Much of what has been said about women applies to members of different ethnic backgrounds and racial groups too. Their representation in management and as part of the professional roles is discriminatorily low. Although there have been steps taken to curb this partial reaction, there are still large gaps in the way these people have been treated by line managers. The performance appraisal training needs to consider the attitude and aptitude of these minority groups so that they can be pushed towards a better role when an opportunity arises. All the authors in the literature review have managed to cast important information regarding pay structures, motivation, career development, training and development, equal opportunity, discriminatory pay, appraisal systems to counter balance the changes organisations need to make in personnel management. This will help one understand better in terms of the changes Matalan needs to introduce to mitigate the problems they are currently facing. Methodology The Techniques used for data collection are both qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research is exploratory; Quantitative research on the other hand involves statistical surveys to quantify factors previously exposed in qualitative research. Van Mane (1983, p9) defines qualitative techniques as ‘an array of interpretative techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate and otherwise comet terms with the meaning, not the frequency, of certain more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world’. The data collated for this paper has been primarily through desk research using the internet, online journals, books, reports and the Matalan website. Given the time frame and the confidentiality regarding information on the existing pay framework being used by the Matalan stores did not leave much room for secondary research. The data collated was ample to find out patterns in changes, which had taken place at the stores and the way the staff had reacted to them. It is also reflective of the management involvement and how prompt they are to react when a problem arises at the stores. The organisation culture also came in play while researching this paper, though there is autonomy in job roles, they need to curtail that freedom to ensure that uniform pay framework exists at all stores across job levels. Pay frameworks don’t need to be dictated only by the internal conditions prevailing in the organisation, the existing market structure would also have some bearing to what is being offered to the employees and staff. Some authors have validated the authenticity and importance of personal interviews even though it is a more time consuming tool for data collection. The importance of interviews is summarised by Burgess(1982, p 107): ‘the interview is the opportunity for the researcher to probe deeply to uncover new clues, open up new dimensions of a problem and to secure vivid, accurate inclusive accounts that are based on personal experience’. Jones (1985, p 45) comments that, ‘between these two extremes is an abyss of practice and therefore theory about the purpose and nature of the qualitative interview’. In her view the main reason for conducting qualitative interviews is to understand, ‘how individuals construct the reality of their situation formed from the complex personal framework of beliefs and values, which they developed over their lives in order to help explain and predict events in their world.’ Though due to time constraints and confidentiality factors, interviews were not possible, we have taken information from testimonials and case studies presented by employees at Matalan about the existing framework. Through the course of the research, there was some data collated from testimonials and case studies published on the Matalan corporate website. Though each shows Matalan in a very positive frame, there is no doubt that the company website wont carry information on grudges the employees and staff might have with the way the organisation operates, the management issues and the unsatisfactory pay frameworks. The grounded analysis by Glaser and Strauss (1967) provided major benefits while understanding how the data collected from the testimonials and information from desk research had been analysed. It needs feel and intuition, there is no logical sequence one needs to follow to decipher results, there is constant sifting through, comparison with what has been found, and eventually there are some patterns, themes and categories, which emerge giving way to concepts.[Smith Easter-by Mark, Thorpe Richard and Lowe Andy (2003), p 100 – 130] Data Collection and Findings A report into the Matalan Store Pay framework shows that there areissues and ample grounds for legal proceedings. The way the paystructure is as of now can be the cause for a potential equal pay claims or a sex discrimination pay. The management considers the progress more through the level of jobs instead of the level of responsibility. There is no clear strategy for internal recruitment at the moment. There are reasons for dissatisfied