Ice Hockey Vs. Roller Hockey Essay -- essays research papers

Despite the fact that ice hockey and roller hockey both have the word hockey in common, there are extreme differences between the two sports. There are the obvious differences like one being played on ice and the other on a plastic surface, but many of the differences are only noticed by people that have played both sports. As everyone knows, ice hockey is played on ice, which makes it an extremely high paced game. Unlike ice hockey, Roller hockey is played on a plastic floor that consists of many six-inch by six-inch tiles. The plastic floor makes roller hockey a much slower paced game than ice hockey. The reason that roller hockey is so much slower than ice hockey is because there is more friction. The friction is produced in the bearings of the wheels as well as between the floor and the wheels. Turning, stopping, and making lateral movements are extremely easy to do on ice, but roller hockey is completely different. In roller hockey there is no such thing as making a tight turn or stopping on a dime, because the wheels just slide out from underneath the player. The stopping technique for roller hockey is basically the same as ice hockey, but the player slides a little before coming to a complete halt. If a player happens to fall in ice hockey he or she just slides along the ice and most of the time it doesn't hurt, but in roller hockey if a player falls on the plastic floor, it is going to hurt. When players in roller hockey fall, they do not slide, it is more of a...

External or Internal Disaster in Organization

Different Business is affected by internal and external factors. These aspects have significant influences on the way business organisations are operating. One of these is the so-called disasters in an organization.Disasters may be considered as external if the forces happens from the external environment of the organization, like globalization, global financial crisis, technological changes and others while internet disasters are those that happens inside the organization like failure to provide quality service, inability to market the products and service well, inability to handle risks which affects the overall performance of the organization.Primarily, the goal of this paper is to consider an internal disaster from one of the most controversial organizations in the market, i. . the case of Enron. Internal Disaster Aforementioned, one of the most talked-about issues and disasters in the industry is the auditing as well as accounting failure of Enron. It is considered as the larges t bankruptcy and stock collapse (Fox 2003). Before the company faced this issue, Enron has been considered as a major American energy industry. The events or disasters that resulted to the bankruptcy and collapse started long before anyone had suspected fraud and anomalies at the industry.In this disaster, two names have been noted: Arthur Andersen and Enron. One of the disasters that challenged the company is the inability of the management to anticipate the wrongdoings of Arthur Andersen. The disasters are centered in auditing aspects just before Enron filed bankruptcy. For example in 1996, Andersen’s audit report regarding Waste Management finances were discovered to be irrelevant and materially false that results in inflation of Income of the company by over $1 billion in the middle period of the 1990s.On the other hand, in 1997, it has been found out by the SEC that Sunbean has used accounting tricks to create false profits and sales and Andersen’s role in this di saster is that he signed-off these financial reports event after an industry partner flagged them. Herein, the company faced major disaster of partnering or hiring an auditing and consulting industries which is distrustful and irresponsible. Although the company has not been aware, Enron still has some plans to prevent such issue.However, the initiative of the company when it comes to their financial audit has been very weak that it leads to their major bankruptcy. To be able to solve this kind of disaster, Enron management has provided disaster plans by identifying the root f the issue. After knowing the problem about Arthur Andersen, the management immediately seeks third party assistance to clear the issue by making Andersen pay for the scandals and anomalies he has done.On one hand, another disaster faced by the company is in line with the inefficient and strategic decision making approach and also having ambiguous and vague firm economic and practice aims. Although Enron has so me management plan, the company has not been able to execute this plan well. For instance, The CEO of Enron had various product plans which needed major financial support; the organization during that period was also going through major disasters in their international businesses.In addition, it was not until Enron was financially unstable did the company starts to do something. So as to resolve this kind of disaster, the organization implemented different approaches. However, the strategy of the company only went from one major disaster of loss to the other. Because of the failure of the management of the organization to have strategic decision making, this lead to major disaster of investments and partnerships, the organization’s growth slowed down . As a result more of its inabilities and failures had grown more apparent (Zellner et al. 2001).Bankruptcy and various cases against the company had resulted to their bankruptcy. In addition, various employees of the organizatio n had lost their college funds, life savings, and pensions along with the collapse of the company. Herein, it can be said that the management of Enron must be able to have strategic decision making for the future to continuously sustain the strength of the company. In order to solve this disaster, the organization has been able to initiate a proper and strategic decision-making of the company.Herein, the company’s decision should be made made strategically by identifying first the pros and cons of the decision that they made. The management sees to it that everybody should agree to the decision so that further conflict or risks within the company would not arise. Good decision making can be attributed as one of the vital factors that will help the business to achieve its core mission and objective. This alternative is helpful in a way that it can make the company more competitive and survive in the marketing environment. ConclusionThere are many lessons that can be learned fr om the case of Enron and Arthur Andersen. It can be concluded that, based on the case of Enron, it is important that every individual in the business field should know how to manage or to handle disasters, specifically internal disasters in order for the business to achieve success and to be able to managed it effectively. In our case, it is important that the lessons learned from Enron and Arthur Andersen scandal should serve as enlightenment in making an efficient risk management manual

Skills Management and Conceptual Skills

Introduction Research by Robert L. Katz found that managers need three basic and important skills: technical, human and conceptual. What is more, these three skills are relatively essential to managers who are at different levels that include first-line, middle, top management positions. There will be a discussion about the importance of conceptual skills that are needed by all managers at all levels, especially by top level of managers. The purpose of this essay is to identify and discuss the importance of conceptual skills that top managers are required to demonstrate.The essay will state why conceptual skills are not so important as much as lower managers through some supporting evidences,why conceptual skills become more important in top management positions than in other positions, and how top managers use conceptual skills in reality. At the end of essay, a conclusion the major findings will be provided. 1 Conceptual skills mean the ability to think and to conceptualize about a bstract and complex situations (Katz, R. L, 1974). It is different from technical skills and human skills.Technical skills tend to be more essential for lower-level managers because they should have the job specific knowledge and techniques to manage the work of non-managerial people (Katz, R. L, 1974). For example, accounts payable managers should know accounting rules and standardized forms very well so that they can solve problems which relevant to accounting fields. Whereas, human skills are important for managers at all levels, because every manager should have ability to work well with other people individually and in a group, all of managers deal directly with people.They should build cooperative spirit and motivate other workers. For example, first-line managers of food servicing company should communicate with producers to know how everything is going and where they should improve, so effective talking is very necessary to the whole company for any level of managers (Robbin s, S. P, 2011). Even though conceptual skills are not so important as much as lower managers, it does not mean lower managers do not use conceptual skills. In some situations, some of their works are related to conceptual abilities.It is little for mid-level managers, and it is not very required for first-level managers. While these lower-level managers should also make decisions to solve problems in some complex problems in their managerial fields. Whereas Katz thought that lower-level managers normally spend relative more time dealing with observable objects and processes, but upper-level managers often deal with abstract and complex ideas. So top managers’ responsibility matches conceptual skills, because top managers should make organization-wide decisions and establish the goals and plans that affect the entire organization (Robbins, S.P, 2011). That is why top managers are supposed not to only pay attention to small things, they should be leaders and have conceptual ski lls to lead the whole company to get more profits and access to success. Turn to lower-level managers, first-line managers are the lowest level of management, they coordinate the work of people who are non-managerial employees, such as producers. While middle managers manage the work of first-line managers (Robbins, S. P, 2011).Therefore, first-line managers should have special skills like technical skills, so that they can know how to supervise those producers to produce goods. 2 Conversely, conceptual skills are probably some of the most important management skills, which are very important to top managers especially. Katz proposed that these skills become more essential in top management positions. The reason for this is that top managers often deal with abstract ideas, and they are responsible for making organization-wide decisions and establishing the goals and plans that affect the entire organization.While conceptual skills can be described the ability to conceptualize about abstract time, they must see the organization as a whole and clear about the complicated relationships between various subunits. Then these abilities are essential to effective decision-making. So from the definition of conceptual skills, top managers should have many necessary skills, first is problem solving, they need to combine the whole organization together and use professional skills in practice to find how a party will be and what it will be like.The second key probably is study as a whole, so it is related to conceptualize about things. So they will not treat an organization as a part of the industry, looking the organization as a whole can help managers make decision or do something effectively. Conceptual skills also include creative thinking, which needs managers should have creative ideas, no matter for human management or the whole part management. In another word, conceptual skill is the ability to think in terms of models, frameworks and broad relationship such as lo ng-range plans.While technical skill has different characteristics of job performance, it does not matter at the operating and professional levels, but as employees are supposed to develop leadership responsibilities, their technical skills become proportionately less important, they increasingly depend on technical skills of their subordinates; in many cases they have never practiced some of the technical skills that they supervise. Conceptual skill deals with ideas, whereas human skill concerns people and technical skill involves things.So conceptual skills conclude knowing how to formulate ideas, so managers who have strong conceptual skills are supposed to have cognitive abilities to solve problems creatively and effectively. Therefore they can create new products, then they can examine a complicated issue or formulate a distinct and specific action. So when top managers make wide-decisions, conceptual skills are necessary, it will help them to do managing work easily and effect ively (Glaser, R. , & Resnick, L. B, 1989). 3Mintzberg concluded ten different roles but those roles are highly interrelated. Interpersonal role should be symbolic, which is essential for top managers, because top managers are leaders, their ability is to lead, supervise and motivate workers. So during this time, conceptual skills will be used because of many complex situations with employees and employers. Informational roles need managers to have the ability to receive, collect and disseminate information. Decisional roles are typically important to top managers.In usual time, they should do wide-making decisions, they will face many complex and abstract situations, but as a leader, they should solve these problems using their managerial skills. So they will use conceptual skills to make decisions due to solving all of abstract situations (Robbins, S. P, 2011). Otherwise, strategic planning is necessary for top managers in reality. Planning implementation is especially important, which needs managers to implement strategic planning effectively through formalizing and discipline.Managerial innovation includes total quality management. The generation of innovation results in an outcome – a product, service, technology, or practice that is at least new to an organizational population. Decision skills and strategic planning skills are fundamental factors of conceptual skills. For example, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg planned to offer a search feature like Google, he combined social and search together, people can do many things at the same place, even finding a good restaurant or learning about a good job.Facing the biggest competitor Google, Mark needs strategic planning skills to make latest strategies to deal with intense competitions this kind of complex situations. Therefore decision skills and strategic planning skills are related to conceptual skills. How do chief executive officers (CEOs) use conceptual skills? They set the tone for th e organization via the vision they express, decisions they make, policies they implement, and what they pay attention to, measure, and reward (Finkelstein, Hambrick, & Cannella, 2009).Those abstract situations they should face are very normal to a company. How will the members perform, how will set a correct direction, or how to coordinate relationships with stakeholders are complex actions they are supposed to do (Boal & Hooijberg, 2001; Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Ireland & Hitt, 1999). CEO Alan Joyce is leading change at Qantas to deal with the challenges in the airline industry’s fast-moving and competitive environment. Why would Qantas be successful? Because there are many effective strategies Qantas has conducted.Firstly, they split the operations into separate business in order to make each of the business units more accountable. They have also been forced to look at how it can reduce its costs. Secondly, under Joyce’s leadership, the company has a significantly low er cost base than its full service parent, customers are very satisfied with discount airline. Thirdly, an area where cost savings have been seen as necessary is in staffing. And the last point is to surge fuel prices. There are many competitors to Qantas, they all take effective actions at any time.So Alan Joyce has had to deal with as he maps a road that will make Qantas to continue to operate as a successful and profitable airline around the world (Robbins, S. P, 2011). Conclusion In summarize, conceptual skills are needed by all managers at all levels, but these skills are more important in top management positions. In current business, top managers should have these skills to make wide decisions and establish the goals to lead companies to be successful. Conceptual skills represent collaborative processes at the organizational and strategic levels.The degree of leader success will depend largely on the leader's ability to maximize the full potential of these collaborative netwo rks. Reference Boal KB. , ; Hooijberg R. (2001). Strategic leadership: Moving on. The Leadership Quarterly, 11, 515–550. Finkelstein S. , Hambrick DC. , Cannella AA. , ; Jr. (2009). Strategic leadership: Theory and research on executives, top management teams, and boards. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Glaser, R. , ; Resnick, L. B. (1989). Cognitive Apprenticeship: Teaching the Crafts of Reading, Writing, and Mathmatics.In Knowing, learning, and instruction: Essays in honor of Robert Glaser. Hillsdale, N. J: L. Erlbaum Associates,453-490. Kanter, R. M. (1984). The Change Masters. London: Unwin Hyman. Katz, R. L. (1974). Skills of an Effective Administrator. An HBR Classic. Harvard business review,  52(5), 90-102. Retrieved from http://hbr. org/1974/09/skills-of-an-effective-administrator/ar/1 Peters, T. J. , ; Waterman, R. H. (1984). In Search of Excellence. New York: Warner Books. Robbins, S. P. , R. Bergman, et al. (2009). Management. Frenchs Forest, N. S. W. , Pear son Education Australia. * *

China Blue Documentary

Erin Brumbaugh 03. 18. 2013 ChinaBlue/Ngai China Blue offered a different perspective on the working women of China in sweatshops. The quota levels and the pay was very disorganized, and called for very in-depth attention to the workers by management. In China Blue, the girl was marveled at the accommodations of the factory, and quickly realized that these accommodations, and the food provided was not free, nor were they really much better than her home life.According to Ngai, dormitory labor systems regulate the labor mobility, and control the labor force in a way that is usually not seen. Many of the laborers are migrant workers that travel from the countryside to the city to find work, and as seen in China Blue, these workers are often underpaid, and have strict regulations from being in the city. In both the article and the film, the factory controls the migrant workers, and the city provides legislation and/or policy that the factories must house them.By having dormitories onsit e, the factory is almost its own little city. It provides food, shelter, and because they control every portion of the laborers life, they can force them to work late, and penalize them for bad behavior, or not meeting their quotas. According to Ngai, the dormitory system is also stressful on these migrant workers as it removes them from their families. Isolation and maltreatment in the form of cheap labor is how China expects to compete globally.The force their workers to work long hours, subsidize their living expenses, and keep their wages low. There seems to be a force dependency upon the work. This is seen in the film. The girl was isolated, and unable to return home during the New Year. She was left by herself, and she relied heavily upon her fellow workers. However, the camaraderie between coworkers only extended so far. There is also the issue of adjusting to the new economy. As China entered the WTO, and the rural life became harder, people began to send their children to t he city to earn more money.These low educated youth are expected to work in the factories, and have very little knowledge of the world outside their farmstead. This is the major point discussed in the film. These factories make a lot of money exporting their goods abroad. China’s economy is based upon exports. And their profit margin increases when they don’t have to pay their workers well. It was seen quickly that when a strike was going to be staged, the manager in China Blue was willing to concede immediately to get their shipment sent. In order to do that, the workers were forced to work all night.

Rare Earth Minerals Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Rare Earth Minerals - Essay Example According to the IUPAC, these elements include Yttrium, Scandium and the fifteen Lanthanoids of the periodic table. Yttrium and Scandium exhibit similar physical and chemical properties. They usually exist in their compound forms in the same ore deposits and that is the reason why they are termed as rare (Saunders, p23). With the exception of the radio active promethium, the rest of the rare earth minerals are relatively plentiful and they are distributed all over the earth’s crust inform of ores or minerals. Centum is one of the rare earth’s element, however, it is the 25th most abundant element with a concentration of 68 part per million (Saunders, p24). Due to their geochemical properties, these elements are greatly dispersed all over the earth’s crust and are only found in traceable amounts which can be economically mined in the forms referred to us rare earth minerals. The question that we should asks ourselves, is why the united States hire and pay China to ship in these minerals to manufacture products such as missiles even though they are equally distributed across the globe? It should be noted, that most countries have little interest to mine and exploit these elements since they have several negative effects on the surrounding. One of the most dangerous wastes resulting from the exploitation of these minerals is the radioactive waste byproducts which many countries still can not handle (OECD Nuclear Energy Agency p37). This is the reason why the U.S. shut down its largest rare mineral mine at the Mountain Pass California. Currently, China is the leading producer of cheap electronic gadgets made from these rare earth minerals mined at high environmental costs. What is their worth? The prices of the rare earth minerals increased significantly between January and August 2010 by an average of 300 per cent. For example, the Samarium, a rare mineral that aids navigation in M1A2 Abrahams tanks has increased from $4.5 per kilogram to $34 per kilogram (Geological survey(US), p61). This is attributed to the artificial intervention by the Chinese government. Most of the industries all over the world including the U.S. industries have been relocated to China because the Chinese manufacturing firms that utilize the rare earth minerals enjoy monopoly powers. Some of the industries that have relocated to China due to Tax break and Quotas include Diaodo Electronics (Japan), Rhodia Group (France), General Electric (USA) and New Material Technology (Canada) (Geological survey(US), p62). Foreign international firms have collaborated with the Chinese local enterprises since the Quotas system only relate to raw materials but not the finished or partially finished rare earth minerals’ products. A Chinese investor, Rogers, told Indian business television, that â€Å"The future of the rare earth is great. What is happening is the prices are going through the roof because the Chinese do control the supply. But it is a pure s imple capitalistic economics now† (Geological survey (US), p64). Production of the rare earth mineral across the world The current survey that was conducted established that the total amount of rare earth minerals in the entire world is approximately 99 million tones. The United States and China are the key producers of these reserves. China controls about 36 million tones, which is 30 per cent of the total

Patriot's Act Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Patriot's Act - Essay Example The Patriot’s Act has given more powers to security agents in the United States to conduct searches, gather intelligence without need of warrants. The Act also allowed the government to freeze monies meant for terror groups and online security has also been bolstered. All these provisions in the Patriot’ Act have increased security and thwarted terror attacks against the United States. However, some provisions of the Act have been ineffective in fighting terrorism and most of these acts are stem from foreign based provisions. Introduction The September 11, 2001 terror attack on the United States shocked the country and the world at large. Following the attacks, several security measures from different fronts were initiated to guard against more terror attacks on the Unites States. One of the measures that were initiated was the enactment of the Patriot’s Act, a law enacted a few weeks after the September 11, 2011 attacks. The Patriot’s act contains several provisions that were to safeguard the United States from terrorism. For instance, the act gives power to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other agencies to conduct random searches on an individual’s household. The Patriot act is still in operation till today and President Obama extended some of the provisions of the act that were to expire this year. ... Security agencies in the United States have been given more freedom to investigate or interrogate terrorists from all regions globally. The Patriot act has also led to increased security at border points and entry points into the United States including ports and airports. The Patriot Act had a profound effect on the definition of terrorism especially on the front of domestic terrorism where acts of terrors were taken seriously (Wong, 2007). The act reduced restrictions on security agencies and it gave them power to investigate any American citizen while at the same time, the act allowed American security forces to investigate any foreigner suspected of being a terrorist. The act also allowed American security forces to protect critical infrastructure and demand information concerning any individual in the United States (Smith, 2009). The Patriot Act also gave powers to the secretary of Finance to regulate funds of suspected foreign individuals or corporations involved in corruption. The act has however tightened the noose on money laundering and this has reduced terror activities in the United States. The Act contains provisions that gave power to authorities to detain or deport immigrants involved in terrorism. These provisions have been successful in reducing acts of terror in the United States (Citizen 68, 2010). Increased surveillance of the internet and online activity has enhanced security since it has been effective in curbing theft of sensitive information. In terms of general safety, the Patriot Act has been effective in ensuring that acts of terror against the United States are greatly reduced (Stefoff, 2010). The Patriot’s Act has

Level 6 diploma in career guidance and development Essay - 1

Level 6 diploma in career guidance and development - Essay Example ossible to measure an individual’s attitudes and talent required in a specific job, which he claims can be matched to achieve the â€Å"good fit† attitude, these is the stage at which an individual is in jobs best suited to his/ her abilities. At this stage they do perform the final best out of what we can, and produce their best. While applying the same philosophical tradition, a researcher and a scientist Holland, in the year 1966, 1973, 1985,1997 Come up with an occupation classification system which categorizes the personalities and environments in six model types, social, realistic, artistic, investigate, conventional and enterprising. This his ideas often than not fall broadly in within the matching tradition that was based by (Parsons 1908) sine he proposed. Consequently developments of this theory do place a lot of emphasis on the interaction of a person with the environment and the influence of the heredity (Holland, 1985). He obseved renovating the internal appearance of his theory to give it more descriptive power. He referred plainly to the way in which he had his own typology to entail values, goals, self-beliefs and problem solving styles and how this growing nature of types all over the entire life span is at the moment incorporated Holland, 1997 It is a theory from the Krumboltz in the year 1976, it majorly focuses on the teaching clients career decision making alternatives in addition to making use of the concepts of the triadic reciprocal interaction, and learning as an interaction to the environment and genetic endowment† and the emphasis the role of the instrumental and associative learning, as a result, key concepts/ tools for the practitioner attempting to identify and put correct measures to correct any incorrect beliefs that are held by the client concerning the decision making process. He argued in favor of a radical, and many activist perspective on the careers guidance and embracing complexity, education,  and reforming