Process and Content Theories of Motivation Essay Example for Free

Process and Content Theories of Motivation Essay There are several process theories of motivation: The Vroom Expectancy Theory, the Adams’ Equity Theory, the Needs-Goal-Setting Theory, and the Reinforcement Theory of Motivation. Here our centre of attention is on helping you make a clear-cut distinction between process and content. Basically, process theories of motivation focus on how workers needs influence their own behaviour. Here our attention goes beyond motivation, our focal point is on giving you a key conceptual tool to help you manage both the performance of your direct reports (management) and the performance of your entire organization (leadership). â€Å"Process† is how employees work together, as opposed to the what – the â€Å"content,† the task, the issue – they are working on. An example of â€Å"process† is the way in which people interact with each other during a meeting; on the contrary, an example of â€Å"content† is the decision they make in that meeting. Process is hiring (the hiring processes that a company practices); content is the selected candidate that becomes the new employee. Process is the nature in which day-to-day performance conversations take place between the manager and her direct reports; content is what gets talked about, agreed upon, and actually understood. Process is the way in which people interact with each other in order to solve a problem; content is the actual solution to the problem. Most executives have the unconscious tendency to focus on content – which is great, that’s what they get paid for – but unfortunately most executives also have the unconscious tendency to forget about the process they are using. However, the quality of the â€Å"process† that is used (the type of meeting that is used to make a decision for example), has an impact on the quality of the resulting â€Å"content† (if the meeting is poorly designed, the quality of the resulting decision is likely to be poorer, but if the meeting is well designed, the quality of the resulting decision is likely to be better). Again, the better the process used, the better the resulting content, and vice versa: The poorer the process used, the poorer the resulting content. Do the people in your company hate meetings because they spend too much time in them? The problem is not in the meetings themselves, but in the way your company runs those meetings. Does your company have several low performers? The problem is not in those poor people who perform below standards, but in your company’s management practices. Is your company lagging behind its competition? The problem is not in those high performing organizations, but in the leadership skills of your company’s leaders. The process by which a company is led and managed determines its long-term success.heori of Motivation A great company is successful in the long run not because of its great products or services, but because of the nature of its leadership and management processes. You can have the greatest product or service, but if you don’t have the appropriate management and leadership processes, your company won’t get too far. It’s that simple. The next time something doesn’t go as you wanted it to go, stop for a second, step back, get your focus off the content, and take a closer look at the process you are using. How can you improve the process that you are using?

Quantitative Easing After the Financial Crisis

Quantitative Easing After the Financial Crisis Jose Nunez The global financial crisis started in August 2007 and lasted to 2009, which was the collapse of the subprime mortgage market (lenders with higher interest rates demand, and borrowers that can repay their loans) that led to a huge amount of losses to financial institutions in that time. The crisis led to one of the worst markets in the past 50 years. The impact it had on the economy was severe, it lead to a downward growth for U.S. companies, and an increase of uncertainty for the U.S. economy. The causes of the 2007- 2009 financial crisis were: financial innovation in mortgage markets, agency problems in the mortgage markets, and the role of asymmetric information in the credit rating process. There weren’t as many innovations back then, so before the year 2000 only credit worthy borrowers could get mortgages unlike others that didn’t have good credit. After advances in technology and new statistical techniques, that led to better evaluations on credit risk for a new risky loan to be made. FICO was developed by the Fair Isaac Corporation, which just predicted the outcome of how likely it was for a borrower to default on their loans and not pay the loan back. By lowering the cost of transactions, newer technology was able to bundle smaller loans that were similar to mortgages into debt securities. With these factors the banks were able to give out subprime mortgages to borrowers with less than good credit scores. Also, there were agency problems in the market, the brokers who made the loans usually did not make an effort to see whether the people taking the loans could actually pay the loans back, in other words they just gave out the loans to almost complete strangers that they knew very little about and they did not have the same interest as the investors had; once the broker earned his or her commission from the loan he or she did not care about the whether the borrowers paid or did not pay the loan off. Credit rating agencies were also a factor because of their asymmetric information; they were telling clients how to structure financial instruments at the time they rated the products so different information was being passed from firms to the borrowers. The effects it had on the U.S. economy were; housing prices went down, many subprime borrowers were finding that their mortgages were going underwater meaning that the house value was falling below the amount of the mortgage. Many homeowners just walked away from their homes giving the keys back to the lenders because the prices were going down. The default on mortgages rose tremendously, which led to many foreclosures. Value of mortgages backed securities and CDOs went down as well, and left the value of those assets to banks and financial institutions. Many of the well-known firms from had to be sold off to other larger companies for less than what they once worth and others had to file for bankruptcy. With all the things that happen in 2007-2009 in the economy, the crisis did not lead to a depression because of the actions of the Federal Reserve and government bailouts of the financial institutions but many call it a â€Å"great recession† instead. The economic recovery has been slow because people are now scared to invest their money in the markets and do not what to take on other risks, jobs are going overseas, inflation is rising, and economies of other countries are going down as well. Michael Farr said in an article from the Huffington â€Å"Corporate managers are just doing what works. Following the financial crisis, investors are not in the mood to take big risks. They would rather have the certainty that comes with higher dividend payments and increased stock buybacks†. When the economy is about to slip into a recession or depression the government uses a tactic called quantitative easing. Quantitative easing is when the central bank makes purchases from the market to bring down the interest rates so more people can have money in their pockets to spend and invest in the market. Federal Reserve gives the financial institutions money so they can lend out to the consumers and increase liquidity. Some of the down sides of quantitative easing are that it can cause inflation to increase due to being a certain amount of goods that are being sold when the money supply of the consumers has increased, and another is that instead of the banks lending out the money that was meant to be loaned out to people or companies was being kept by the banks instead. This strategy of the government in our last financial crisis was not really affective because the banks kept the money for reserve instead of lending it out the people and companies to increase liquidity and s pending. Many articles have been saying that the government has ended QE but according to an article by Terry Burnham  on pbs.org argues, By all accounts, the  Federal Reserve ended its bond buying program, known as quantitative easing, at its policy meeting at the end of last month. Over six years, the central bank bought $4.5 trillion worth of mortgage-backed securities and Treasury bonds. But since the beginning of this year, the Fed has been gradually drawing down its purchases by $10 billion a month to now, zero. It’s not that simple, though, says economist  Terry Burnham. The Fed is continuing what he calls â€Å"Stealth QE,† or the purchase ofmorebonds with the interest the Fed earns on the bonds it has already purchased. In order to stop that, he writes, the Fed would need to shrink its balance sheet by the amount of interest that it earns. Deleverage is when banks start to lose capital so they fall back on loaning money to others. They try to reduce the debt they have by selling their assets. Losses on their loans they gave out begin to drop in value which drops the net worth of the banks and financial institutions. Tejvan Pettinger said â€Å"To reduce debts people sell off assets to gain liquidity. Selling assets causes fall in the price of shares and house prices. Falling house prices cause lower consumer spending, negative equity and more losses for banks.† With less capital the banks and financial institutions have, the more risky they look towards others causing lender-savers to take out their funds. The decrease in funds will mean fewer loans to produce investments. Deleverage hurts the economy for those reasons. Globalization is when different countries trade with each other things such as products, ideas, aspects of their cultures, and other subject matters. Globalization has been increasing and has been getting easier due to the fact of newer and more advanced technology that has been invented till today to help us communicate with each other and transport product from one place to another. With globalization the cost of goods that we are buying that are coming from different parts of the world are low, compared to if we were to make them here because, it cost less for others to make it in their own country. Also the variety of goods within a country will increase because maybe we can’t produce certain goods here like other countries are able too. With globalization we have free trade, promoting jobs, keeping cost of goods low in the economy, and it’s making business more competitive thus stimulating the economy. Globalization also has a negative impact on the economy, that i s jobs are being moved over seas and outsourcing jobs to other places in the worked. The rich will continue to get richer and people looking for jobs will have to take on new jobs for less money because companies are moving out of the country. Both inflation and deflation can have a negative impact in the economy if inflation and deflation rises are severe. Inflation means the prices of goods and services are going up, lowering the purchasing power of the people and lowering the value of the dollar. A certain amount of inflation can also mean that we have a healthy economy because prices of goods and services will continue to go up. Deflation is the opposite of inflation, so instead of the rising prices of goods and services the prices are falling. When deflation is happening people tend to save more money and spend less because the value of the dollar is increasing. By not spending more the demand for goods and services drops and unemployment increases because not many people want to buy things. Deflation can be caused by a decrease in spending by the government, and people. There are also pages that say QE can also lead to deflation. The Wall Street Journal said â€Å"Nearly a decade after Japan’s central bank fi rst experimented with the policy, the country remains mired in deflation, a general decline in wages and prices that has crippled its economy.† Moderate levels of both inflation and deflation are normal have little effect on the economy. Works Cited Burnham, Terry. â€Å"So you thought quantitative easing was over? Think again† PBS News Hour. 24 November 2014. Farr, Michael. â€Å"What Is Causing the Drag?† The Huffington Post, 21 November 2014. Mishkin, S. Frederic. â€Å"The Economics of Money, Banking, and Financial Markets Tenth Edition.† Colombia College. Pearson, 2013. Print. Pettinger, Tejvan. â€Å"Paradox of Deleveraging.† Economics Help, 6 May 2009. WashingtonsBlog. â€Å"Why QE May Lead to DEFLATION In the Long Run.† Washington’s Blog. 18 November 2014.

The Duel :: English Literature Essays

The Duel Walking onto the stage, seeing my challenger; thought not much of him, then I glanced to my left; hundreds upon hundreds of people have come to see this. My nerves shot to hell, I picked it up, plugged it in, waiting for the challenger’s opening riff. â€Å"Just one more time, I’ll get it this time, for sure!† I was tutoring some twelve year old; his name, David Ellison Mai. I was trying to teach him how to play the guitar. I have been playing for so many years, I cannot even begin to think how it is like for a beginner, all those new chords, scales, getting your fingers used to the touch of cold steel; set adrift on memory bliss. The only reason I got into this type of music is because of my brother. He meant to pack up his guitar when he moved out to his student home, he did not have enough space for it, and so he left it a week, and said that his friend would drop it off. Of course, seeing it sitting there in my room, I couldn’t just leave it alone; the shiny black surface, shimmering the light, almost giving it a warm glow. Every day, I would just look at it, and I was just getting into the whole rock music scene, so I knew a lot of inspirational guitarists. I couldn’t just sit around anymore; I pic ked it up, and started to learn. I did not know what to do for the first week, it was only when my brother came back that I started making progress. My brother came back for a week, to tie up some loose ends before he moved out for three years, to get his degree. It wasn’t long before my parents were supporting me to learn, they were always buying me books, strings and anything I needed to progress. I can still remember my fingers getting to the point where they would bleed, due to me playing for so many hours on end. When I wasn’t playing, I would just sit down and imagine myself playing on a stage, with thousands of people cheering me on. That dream was very far off; I was still having trouble holding the thing. Many of the guitarists I knew of all taught themselves, and I could see how good they were. I wanted to be just like them, I vowed never to get a teacher.

Comparing King Arthur and With Honors :: Movies Film With Honors King Arthur Essays

Comparing King Arthur and With Honors Have you ever watched a movie or read a novel without a plot? Most likely your answer to this question would be no, because it would be dull. No one wants to hear a story with no intrigue or conflict. As you read a novel or watch a film, you want to connect with the characters and feel you can relate to the situations they’re dealing with. In every film and every story there’s a conflict the main character(s) is facing. The story of King Arthur, and the film With Honors appear at first to be on opposite sides of the entertainment spectrum. However, both are excellent examples of searching for ones inner human, and life’s meaning. While watching the film With Honors one could pick up on a lot of symbolism, foreshadowing, and numerous heroes’ journeys. Each character goes through their own search and personal development. For example the character Courtney played by Maria Kelly. In the beginning of the film she’s head over heals for her roommate and close friend Monty played by Brendan Fraiser. As the story unfolds, Courtney’s eyes are opened to see Monty’s true inner human qualities. The biggest heroes journey in the film With Honors is the journey Monty a Harvard law student goes through. During a heavy snowstorm one night, his computer freezes up, while he’s in the middle of working on his thesis paper, which he needs to pass in order to graduate. He goes to the library to make a copy of what he already has saved, but then he trips and drops his thesis into the basement of the library. Once in the library he finds a bum burning up his thesis for heat. The bum whose name Simon played by Joe Pesci. Simon makes a deal with Monty he will give him back his thesis page by page, for every good deed he does towards him. As the story unfolds Monty and Simon change each other’s lives. Monty starts off as an uptight, stereotypical, close-minded young man. Before knowing Monty, Simon is very set is his ways, and unapproachable. Because Monty and Simon’s personalities are so different, they are FOILS. As Monty earns back pages of his thesis Simon becomes a father figure to him. He shows him what is really valuable in life. Simon keeps rocks from memorial places; the rocks represent Simon’s life.

Privacy and Confidentiality in the Electronic Medical Record Essay

It was just yesterday when Electronic health records was just introduced in healthcare industry. People were not ready to accept it due to higher cost and consumption of time associated in training people and adopting new technology. Despite of all this criticism, use of Internet and Electronic Health records are now gaining its popularity among health care professionals, as it is the most effective way to communicate with patient and colleagues. More and more hospitals and clinics are getting rid of paper base filling system and investing in cloud base storage. According to HIMSS The Electronic Health Record (EHR) is a longitudinal electronic record of patient health information generated by one or more encounters in any care delivery setting. It includes information from patient demographics, medications, to the laboratory reports. Introduction of Electronic Medical Records in healthcare organizations was to improve the quality care and to lessen the cost by standardizing the means of communication and reducing the errors. However, it raises the â€Å"eyebrows† of many when it comes to patient confidentiality and privacy among healthcare organization. The Problem is 1. Transfer of Information- The problem is remote access of the health records and pooling of large number of data for various purposes like research program and lab work, may lead to an error and confusion. 2. Lack of information centralization- Many patients keep their own records of blood sugars, weight and blood pressure by using various Internet tools. However, healthcare providers cannot access these records because they cannot streamline those records with EHR. 3. Security theft - Internet tools like Google health and Microsoft Vault provides conveni... ...idence of users by agreeing to the policy that the data submitted to their cloud platform will be kept confidential. (Ryan, 2011) The cloud computing is still under development but if it can manage to maintain information privacy and confidentiality than it will become revolutionary in healthcare field. And we never know, in future science and technology might introduce more advanced level of apps and service with enhanced level of privacy and security measures. Patient personalized health cards are also long underling technology that might provide patient a freedom of owning his/her PHI. Transferring data from one hospital to another wouldn’t be a challenge with this password protected health cards. Privacy wouldn’t be much of an issue as all the information is stored in the chip of the card that can be retrieve by a healthcare provider or by patient when needed.

New Heritage Doll Company Essay

1. Describe and compare the business rationales for each of the two project proposals under consideration. Which do you feel is the more compelling? Project 1: Match My Doll Clothing Line Expansion Expand the successful Match My Doll Clothing Line to include matching all-season clothing for tween girls and their dolls. Pros: Current popularity will enable company to maintain premium prices. Company could take advantage of off-peak discounts offered by some suppliers and contract manufacturers. Would help reduce the seasonality in New Heritage’s sales and earnings. Project poses moderate risk – about the same as the production division’s existing business as a whole. Cons: Company has to exploit the opportunity without delay to be able to exploit the current popularity of the original Match My Doll Clothing line. Large outlays for R&D, market research and marketing are needed. Project 2: Design Your Own Doll Targets existing customers and will offer customized dolls that the customer could customize to create one-of-a-kind addition to their existing collection of dolls. Pros: Market research with focus group indicates that there is a lot of enthusiasm for the product concept. Company will be able to charge premium prices for this product. Will improve customer loyalty. Will create a unique experience for customers. Cons: Increased manufacturing complexity and expense, involves higher risk. Low production runs and volumes would mean higher fixed costs per unit. Therefore, higher breakeven volume for project (longer payback period). Would require the company to make significant changes to its existing technology infrastructure, expand its webhosting capacity and involve legal measure to implement new third party service agreements to provide better service quality. Longer development time (including product testing) – up to 12 months. Much larger initial investment required than the first project.  The Match My Doll Clothing Line expansion project uses existing infrastructure and technology/ products. It will also fill the â€Å"gap† in the year-round revenues that occur due to the seasonality of demand. This project requires a smaller investment and has a shorter payback period. The Design Your Own Doll project requires a larger investment and will require new equipment, technology and third-party agreements. The business plan and process will become more complicated. This project also has a longer payback period. On the other hand, this project will earn higher returns. Both the projects will require some continuing capital expenditures. However, the Design Your Own Doll option will require higher capital expenditures compared to the Match My Doll Clothing Line project. Design Your Own Doll project is expected to make higher returns according to the projections. It also carries a higher risk due to the complexity of operations involved. See attached sheet for detailed calculations. 2. What are the free cash flows that are relevant to analyzing the two projects? 3. Match My Doll Clothing Line Free Cash Flow (without TV) = $2,091.54 Match My Doll Clothing Line Free Cash Flow (with TV) = $16,344.40 Design Your Own Doll Free Cash Flow (without TV) = -$1,019.8 Design Your Own Doll Free Cash Flow (with TV) = $24,732.06 4. What are the NPVs of the two projects? What decision should Emily Harris recommend? 5. NPV Calculation Match My Doll Clothing Line: NPV = $7,148.35 Design My Doll: NPV = $7,285.68 Based on the calculations in the above steps, it is determined that Design My Doll project has a higher NPV and hence would be a better choice, but the first project is less risky and has a shorter payback period and therefore might be more attractive to the board.

Roland Barthes and the Hermeneutic Code

French literary theorist, philosopher, linguist, critic, and cosmetician. He had very well-established ideas and theories on how narrative texts use components of their structure to affect the audience's reading and interpretations while bringing out the multiple meanings and connotations within them. According to Berates, all narrative texts share structural features that each narrative weaves together and uses in different ways. These structural features are known as his â€Å"five codes†, and Berates used them to analyses the different dimensions of story-telling and realism.The appropriate and hermeneutic codes are two of Berates' five codes. They were established by Berates when he wished to determine the forces within a story which drive the narrative and furthermore the audience's desire to keep reading. They are the two ways in which suspense is created within a narrative text. Hermeneutic (the voice of truth) is the code of enigmas or puzzles. It refers to the suspens e caused in a narrative by unanswered questions and unsolved resolutions Plot elements in the narrative raise questions for the audience, and the audience is generally not satisfied until the questions are answered and all â€Å"loose ends† are tied.The lack of explanation of the hermeneutic code right away creates a tension, which engages the audience, and leads it to some sort of prediction about what will happen at the end. Usually, a narrative will towards its end explain the previous events and solve any previously unanswered questions. The best example of a narrative which operates on the hermeneutic code Is the detective story. We are introduced to the unsolved mystery at the beginning of the story, and the rest of the narrative is devoted to the detective uncovering clues and piecing them together to determine the solution and solve the puzzles Introduced In the Initial scenes.