Probable changing role of trade union over the next ten years Free Essays

Abstract It is for a fact that the past few years have seen a steady decline in union membership. Unions no longer wield the power that they had in the past. This is attributed to a series of relentless political, social, technological and economic changes. We will write a custom essay sample on Probable changing role of trade union over the next ten years or any similar topic only for you Order Now Incorporating cutting-edge research, this paper examines the probable changing role of trade union movement in the United Kingdom over the next ten years. This will include exploring on the trade union practices and responsibilities, analyzing the basics of employee industrial relations and exploring on the changing nature of employee relations and how this is impacting on unionism. A pest analysis will be conducted to determine the probable changing role of trade unions over the next ten years. Among the adversities which will be identified as facing unionism are unfavourable political and institutional conditions, structural changes in the economy, global competition, employer sponsored forms of employee participation, legal constraints, changing societal attitudes, labour market fragmentation, enterprise bargaining, a shift to individual contracts as well as the growing trend of outsourcing. The paper will conclude by outlining future directions for trade unions. Introduction Trade unionism is widely recognized for its important role in employee relations. In the past, trade unionism in the UK stood as one of the largest organizations negotiating on behalf of its eight million members in the public sector. Its influence had also been felt in the private sector impacting on important aspects of working life such as employee’s health and safety, their development, training and wellbeing. The past few years have however seen relentless political, social, technological and economic changes (Craden Hall-Jones 2012). Unions worldwide have been struggling to come to terms with these changes. Among the adversities facing unionism are unfavourable political and institutional conditions, structural changes in the economy, global competition, employer sponsored forms of employee participation, legal constraints and a growing trend in outsourcing among many others (Wright 2011). A combination of these challenges seems to have precipitated a significant fall in union membership. While there has been a decline in union membership, the challenge remains for the unions to find ways to prevent a further decline and weakening of trade unions’ position. The question then arises: what should unions do to prevent a further decline in membership and to consolidate on their current positionIncorporating cutting-edge research, this paper examines the probable changing role of trade union movement in the United Kingdom over the next ten years. As a starting point, the paper is going to define trade union, examine trade union responsibilities and practices, conduct a brief history of employee relations and analyze the basics of employees’ industrial relations. What is a trade union? Trade unions refer to organizations set up with the sole purpose of protecting and standing for the interest of its members in the workplace (Kelly 1998). Many activists view it as a movement for justice that is based on power emanating from workers’ solidarity (Kelly 1998). Their existence is mainly to voice concerns facing individual workers such as the work conditions, pay and conditions of employment. By bringing workers together, their power is magnified and they have a higher chance of exerting influence and voicing their opinions on matters regarding their work. Responsibilities of trade unions As noted above, the primary aim of trade unions is to protect and further the interests of its members. Trade unions are able to ensure this protection by: Obtaining satisfactory pay rates (Farnham 2000) Negotiating for their bonuses Ensuring satisfactory working conditions Negotiating for the renewal of their employment contracts and revision of their job descriptions where necessary (Farnham 2000). Negotiating for their promotion Securing adequate work facilities It is clear that the unions have the interests of workers at heart. It is also important to note that trade unions are part of the society and that they have played a central role in ensuring national integration. The other important responsibilities of trade unions include: Achieving industrial peace Ensuring national integration through minimizing the number of industrial disputes (Bach 2002). Inculcating discipline in the work environment Helping employees with social adjustments. That is, the unions help workers from different backgrounds adjust to the new rules, policies and working conditions. Incorporating a sense of corporate social responsibility in workers (Blanchflower 1996). The union’s ability to effectively carry out these functions, however, depends on union density and membership. The smaller the number of union members, the lesser their power and influence in employment relationships. It is striking, however, to note that unions especially in the developed economies have in the past years lost membership. In the UK, for example, the union density stood at 30% during the year of 2000 but by 2010, union density had dropped to a figure of 27% (Wright 2011, p.2). This downward trend has been reported to be more pronounced in the private sector. Although membership in the private sector remained relatively stable, there still was a decline in union membership, albeit at a slower pace (Wright 2011, p.2). The explanations put forth for the decline in union membership have been manifold stressing certain political, social, economical, structural and institutional changes. These changes will be examined in detail in the sections below. Employee relations Undoubtedly many of us experience work as employees and as such managing the employment relationship with our employers is of critical importance. Given the relentless changes outlined above which have prompted the decline of union membership, the importance of employee and industrial relations cannot be sidelined. In this respect, employment relations concerns itself with the management and regulation of employment relationship. This term, which was traditionally conceived as ‘industrial relations’, is concerned with power distribution between management and employees (Bryson 2005). Traditionally, the term ‘Industrial relations’ has been used in reference to the management of the relationship between trade unions and management, as well as management of associated processes such as industrial conflict, negotiation and consultation, and collective bargaining (Ebbinghaus 2002). The shift has largely been a result of a range of developments in the economic, political, social and legal context of employment relationship witnessed in the past few decades. The emergence of new techniques for managing employment relationship such as the HRM, combined with structural changes to a service dominated economy, changing social attitudes, employer sponsored forms of participation and a decline in union power have all resulted in a more diverse employment landscape. Changing nature of employment relations Explanations for the decline in union membership have been attributed to the changing nature of employment relations. Undeniably, employee relations in the past 10 years centered on trade unionism, industrial disputes and collective bargaining. Trade unions were viewed to a large extent as workplace adversaries that negotiated with employers on matters regarding employees work (Gennard 2005). The relationship between employer and individual employee was perceived as secondary. This is no longer the case in today’s employment relationship as the development of new techniques to managing employment relationships such as the HRM, have led to a steady decline in union power and influence (Wright 2011). Unlike in the past, tripartism, strikes and collective bargaining have lesser relevance in the current employment relationship and this has led to a decline in union membership. This is evident from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey conducted in 1998. According to the findings obtained from this survey, 47% of the workplaces in UK had no union members (Wrights 2011, p.5). Moreover, unlike in the past where arrangements could be made between an employer and trade union to recognize union membership as a prerequisite to employment; today’s legislative changes have led to an end in this arrangement (Craden Hall-Jones 2012). Trade union’s bargaining power has shrunk dramatically in the recent years given the changing societal attitude and the new forms of development which have provided employers with the bargaining initiative and extended to them unilateral control over the workplace. According to Taylor (2012), currently only an estimate of around a third of employees in the UK have their pay and conditions determined through collective bargaining agreements. This is in sharp contrast with the preceding years where this number was significantly large. In 1984, for example, the percentage of British employees who had their pay determined through collective bargaining agreements was 70% (Taylor 2012). This indicates a decline in the union’s bargaining power over the years. This has further been compounded by the break-up of national bargaining structures, legal constraints imposed on industrial actions and the changing societal attitudes towards unionism; all of which have precipitated the downward trend. Moreover, instead of reacting to and accommodating unionism managers have also become innovative, developing new techniques to manage employment relations such as the HRM. Research has confirmed that this is one of the main reasons behind the decline in union membership. Due to the development and implementation of new techniques of managing employment relations such as the HRM, the number of union members in the UK has continued to decline. This can be seen in a research conducted by CIPD in 2004 on the changing nature of employee relations work in organizations in the UK. Interviews with HR executives from the leading organizations in the UK formed the basis of this study. From this study, it was found that the role of the trade unions and their collective bargaining power had significantly declined (CIPD 2012). Based on the analysis, the study was forced to conclude that a further decline in union was more likely to happen in the near future. Undeniably, the driving force for the downward trend has been the changing nature of employee relations. There has been a shift in focus of employee relations from working with trade unions to a more contemporary focus on improving employee participation and business performance without the need for unions. In order to explore on the probable changing role of trade unions in the UK over the next 10 years, we are going to conduct a PEST analysis of trade union in the present times. PEST Analysis Among the range of issues that will be taken into account are: Political factors Economic factors Technological factors And Social factors Political factors Political factors, in this context, include legislation and government policies as well as foreign influences especially from the EU. In the past, trade unions were protected from the law of conspiracy and they had a right to picket peacefully (Bach 2002). However, a series of strike actions in the 1970s culminated in the drive for ‘anti-union laws’ which have since undermined the position and the role of the unions (Bach 2002). Legal restrictions imposed on the unions against recruiting new members have thus contributed to the downward trend. In addition, unions have generally been cut out of the political loop. Furthermore, the integration of most European countries has changed the environment in which trade unions act (Blaschke 2000). Over the past two decades, this integration has moved beyond its narrow economic basis to impact on other key areas such as social policies, macroeconomic policies and industrial relations (Blaschke 2000). This expansion is anticipated to change the structure facing unions by creating challenges as well as opportunities. The integration is likely to undermine existing national trade union arrangements and at the same time create a new arena of policy that is open to influence from trade unions. Economic factors Fragmentations in the labour market, enterprise bargaining and a shift to individual contracts as well as the growing trend of outsourcing to other firms have also been reported to have precipitated into the decline of union membership (Ebbinghaus 2002). Moreover, the growth in ‘atypical’ and indirect forms of employment including self-employment and agency labour has also been suggested to have contributed to the weakening of the bargaining power of trade unions (Wright 2011). These forms of atypical and indirect employment have been facilitated by an increase in migration and workforce participation. Representing such workers in atypical jobs has been quite challenging to trade unions. Such cases of atypical and indirect employment have not only been a challenge for the unions, but have also presented challenges to regulators and enforcement bodies mandated with the responsibility of upholding labour standards. The downward trend in unionism is also attributed to the structural changes in the economy. Over the past few years, the resolution of industrial conflict has been given less priority and the focus of government has shifted to the international performance of national economies (Craden Hall-Jones 2012). The threat of communism seems to be fading away. In addition global competition has made cost-reduction increasingly important for management (Craden Hall-Jones 2012). This has resulted in a change of focus of IR policy. This is expected to continue over the next ten years with the aim of Industrial Relation policy likely to change from being a mechanism of avoiding industrial conflicts to one that is more focused on enhancing competitiveness (Craden Hall-Jones 2012). Given that this change has received overwhelming support from the government, it is obvious that the management priorities will increasingly change and the unions will be expected to justify their existence, perhaps in terms of â€Å"added value’ in the workplace. Social changes When considering the reasons behind the decline in union membership, some aspects of social origin must be taken account of. Ideally, in this case, the attitude of employees and the general public towards unionism matter a lot. However, public opinion on the importance of trade unions in employee relations seems somewhat vague. Some have shown mild support for trade unions whereas others have remained on stout opposition. What is clear, however, is the changing management attitude towards trade unionism in the UK. The change in management attitude from negotiating with the union representatives towards negotiating with employees on an individual basis seems to have contributed to this downward trend (Gennard 2005). Attitudes to work and towards trade union recognition have changed over time. This is also anticipated to continue to impact on trade unionism in the UK over the next ten years. The focus of employee relations in the near future is expected to be more on individual employee rather than employees as a collective body. Technological factors The decline is also attributed to rapid development and implementation of easily transferable technologies. Rapid technological changes have created problems in the domain of industrial relations given their impact on employment and the nature of skills (Craden Hall-Jones 2012). Undeniably, this change has received an enormous amount of resistance from the trade unions due to fears of unemployment and redundancy of the workers. For example, the trend of outsourcing of non-core activities of a firm to other organizations has contributed to the decline in union’s collective bargaining power (Wright 2011). Outsourcing tends to affect the relationship between a firm and trade union as it provides the firm with the bargaining initiative, extending to the firm unilateral control over the workplace. The implementation of such transferrable technologies weakens the unions. Prospects of union revival Given the various legislative changes and restrictions imposed against industrial actions, one may ponder whether there is possibility for the government in the near future to restore good relations with trade unions and whether there is a possibility for union revival. Will unions still be perceived by the government as conspiratorsAre trade unions going to be viewed forever as bodies to be tightly controlled by government regulationHow will the government restore good relations with trade unions And, are we likely to see prospects for union revival with the power that they once wielded? Most of the restrictions were however imposed on trade union activities back in the 1980s. But the fact that most of these complex restrictions still remain even after years of Labour governments indicate how far apart the government and unions have grown. Trade union activists also wonder why there has been little support from the media for the many attempts by trade unions to pressurize the government to repeal anti-union laws. For example, in 2006, though supported by over a hundred MPs, the â€Å"Trade Union Freedom Bill’ disappeared in the face of government hostility without a trace (Moher 2012). Moreover, it is hard to find any journalistic or academic appreciation of the positives and contributions made by the unions on democracy (Moher 2012). The decline in union power and influence over the workplace raise serious doubts about the prospect for union’s revival and their ability to recover their position as collective bargaining institutions. There are however a number of revitalizing strategies which may be adopted by trade unions in order for them to consolidate their position. Revitalization strategies Trade unions in the UK may respond to the membership losses in various ways. The remaining unions may, for example, merge in order to consolidate resources and improve on their economies of scale (amalgamation). Other strategies which may be adopted include: formation of partnership, commitment to the organizing agenda, and using the learning agenda among many others (Kelly Frege 2004). Amalgamation In order for the unions to revitalize in the near future, they have to merge with other unions. Union mergers will help them respond to the structural changes and member composition. Additionally, this will help them to reap greater benefits from economies of scale, increasing their influence in the workplace. Partnership In future, trade unions in the UK will in the next ten years be required to justify their existence. They can for example provide evidence on how they are going to bring an added value to employers. In this respect, the concept of partnership may play a vital role. Currently, research evidence on the success of partnership at work seems somewhat divided but it is still early to determine the significance of partnership agreements (Taylor 2012). However, it is clear that majority of unions are increasingly playing a part in such agreements and that most unions have began to formalize such agreements with companies. In future, the Unions will be expected to justify themselves in terms of ‘added value’ to the workplace (Taylor 2012). Organizing agenda Additionally, unions will in the next ten years be expected to commit themselves to the organizing agenda, a key strategy for their revival (Wright 2011). Beyond recruitment, the organizing agenda serves to empower workers by giving them skills to maintain organizational strength and instilling a culture of workplace activism (Alexander Gilmore 1999). Learning agenda There is also the need for the union to deliver learning opportunities to its members besides just representing them. This is an area with much promise as the learning agenda allows trade unions to position themselves around appealing themes such as inclusion, dignity and skills improvement, thereby broadening their bargaining dialogue with employers (Wright 2011). The union will in future be expected to use the learning agenda to ensure their revitalization. Conclusion One of the most significant findings in this analysis is the changing role of trade unions and the decline in union’s membership and collective bargaining power. Union membership seems to be dwindling and their collective bargaining power weakening. The change has been attributed to a range of factors, most of which have resulted from the changing nature of employee relations. Among the adversities identified as facing unionism are unfavourable political and institutional conditions, structural changes in the economy, global competition, employer sponsored forms of employee participation, legal constraints, changing societal attitudes, labour market fragmentation, enterprise bargaining, a shift to individual contracts as well as the growing trend of outsourcing among many others. A combination of these challenges seems to have precipitated a significant fall in union membership and contributed to the decline in the union’s collective bargaining power. The challenge, however, is for the unions to prevent further decline in union membership and weakening of their position. Given the downward trend in union membership, there is need for trade unions to justify their existence by adopting distinctively different roles. This requires profound re-thinking of the roles and practices of trade unions. Reference Alexander, R. and P. Gilmore, (1999) â€Å"A strategic organizing alliance across borders†, In: M. Tillman and M.S. Cummings (eds) The Transformation of U.S. Unions. Voices, Visions and Strategies from the Grassroots, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc. pp.45-67 Anderson et al, (2002). The changing roles of public sector unionism. Working paper No. 83, pp.2-13 Bach, S. (2002), ‘Public-sector Employment Relations Reform under Labour: Muddling Through or Modernization?’ British Journal of Industrial Relations, 40, 2, pp. 319-99. Bacon, N., and P. Blyton, (2004) â€Å"Trade Union Reponses to Workplace Restructuring: exploring union orientations and actions†, Work, Employment and Society, 18(4), pp. 749-773. Blanchflower, D.G., (1996). The role and influence of trade unions in the OECD. National Bureau of Economic Research and Centre for Economic Performance, LSE, pp. 5-39 Blaschke, S. (2000), ‘Union Density and European Integration: Diverging Convergence’, European Journal of Industrial Relations, 6, 2, pp. 217-36. Bryson, A., (2010). Resilient unions: strategies for growth Bryson, A., (2005). ‘Union effects on employee relations in Britain’. Human Relations, vol 58 (9), pp. 1111-1139 CIPD, (2012) Employee relations: an overview. Cox, T., and R. Mason, (2000) â€Å"Trends and developments in east central European industrial relations†, Industrial Relations Journal, 31(2), pp. 97-114. Craden, C. and P. Hall-Jones, (2012). Trade union reform – change is the only constant, Ebbinghaus, (2002). ‘Trade unions’ changing role: membership erosion, organizational reform and social partnership in Europe’. Industrial Relations Journal, P.2-20 Farnham, D., (2000) Employee relations in context. 2nd edition. Chartered Institute of Pers. Gennard, J., (2005) Employee relations. 4th edition. Chartered Inst of Pers/Develop, pp.350-357 Kelly, J. and C. Frege, (eds) (2004) Varieties of Unionism: Strategies of Union Revitalization in a Globalizing Economy,Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kelly, J. (1998) Rethinking Industrial Relations: Mobilization, Collectivism and Long Waves, London: Routledge. pp. 35-56 Moher, J.G., 2012. Trade unions and the law – history and a way forward[Viewed on 19th November 2012] available from http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-63.html Taylor, R., (2012) The future of employment relations. An ESRC Future of Work Programme Seminar Series, pp 23-35 Wright, C.F., (2011). What role for trade unions in future workplace relationsAcas Future of Workplace Relations discussion paper series, pp.2-15 How to cite Probable changing role of trade union over the next ten years, Essay examples

Recruitment Challenges In It Industry †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Recruitment Challenges In It Industry. Answer: Introduction Technology organization have already come a very long way in deciding and understanding the secret of creating a company that has achieved both, high performance as well as high amount of trusts. Therefore, it also enables sustainably an awesome outcome and winning the war of talent so far. All the success seems to make this industry a lucrative place to work with and to some extent it is true as well since the technology based companies are making a lot of profit and in number of wats, they are also controlling the overall narrative of how business is performed at international level (Crisp Chen, 2014). Also for many part, people are quite aware of the key for success in the people and many are also developing companies and a culture that is directly aligned with that belief. The biggest reality is that technology is crucial for the success of any kind of organisation in any kind of industry. There is a constant need of technology based employees in a bad manner. To this end, the a cquisition of talent and technology based on hiring the manager from many non-technology organisation are coming for the workforce that technology companies have trained and developed. Discussion: Labour/supply demand It is a biggest challenge for many sectors in the current time however, IT is suffering a lot in comparison of other industries. There are approximately four vacancies for every one developer and it can be a time where it is needed to redraft the job spectrum or revaluate the requires skill set or either re-apportioning of work or looking for people or workforce who can just be taken as an intensive course of training. There are number of efficient IT operators in the industry however, they are not very active or enthusiastic for any kind of new role. Recruiters must or require to be little subtle in their approach to source the technology based workforce in rare circumstances to complete headhunting call (Dunning, 2014). One need to be clear about where they need to hand out and which platform to use and whom to motivate to move or build relationship slowly. Organizational image or industry image It is obvious but then also the number of organisations that form a structured career path or opportunities for the employees is surprising. There is more than any other area, and it is imperative that technology based professional can see where their career is heading and how they can learn the next impressive set of skills or language (Gerasymenko et al, 2015). Definite opinion on compensation Workforce in technology industry, are normally very highly paid. However, the solution to keep them is just to raise the standard of salaries across the board but it is important to understand here it is zero sum kind of game and there is always going to be someone or the other who will pay more to employees. Following the detailed discussion: It is important to determine that what is pay structure in the industry and there is no right or wrong answer however the important key is have the answer that is best for the companys culture along with practices. Element of compensation Opportunities that can be affordable for the workforce which is advanced and work with new kind of initiative. For instance, the important question to ask here that what are best projects to employees or the contractors (Jones et al, 2016). It is also important to determine the career cache where employees can gain experience by working with brands. The days where employees use to work for lifelong is redundant concept now. However, the workforce will also work for organization that are called as innovator because of the experience. Demographic issues Following is the detailed discussion of the demographic challenges: The labour development in IT is robust: as per the number of reviews and research in the current time, the IT field in US grew by forty percent by 2015, however, the overall posting rate for the fourth quarter in 2015 had decreased in comparison of previous quarter. The rate of unemployment in IT industry as per the report remained steady low and maintained the rate of 2.6% which highly below the general rate. Number of public figures that underpins CompTIAs prediction that the current size of US based IT employees grew by three percent every year (Jussila et al, 2014). The level of confidence in IT industry professional remain solid: as per the report and research by CompTIA, IT industry business confidence index for quarter 2 in year 2016 is based on climbing up to new levels. As it can be seen in that in quarter 1, the BCI was at all time high by very close margin and maintained 64 points for the same. From that point, but the overall index started to move downward. The concept of cloud computing is one of the biggest force: the concept of cloud normally leads to be part of list of technology trends in the year 2016. In few year, the hybrid cloud has become the important principal or important infrastructure based models for the worlds centre for data. The cloud resources like computing based power and time or bandwidth of becoming commoditized since a new IT based economy is helping in taking a right kind of shape around the, and just as the industrial revolution was made right or feasible by ubiquitous level of energy. Almost all kind of trends in this sector are highly triggered by the existence of cloud (Ngai et al, 2015). For example, the development in the overall demand for many real-time analytics is based on reconsideration of diverse security based models and the refocus of the industry on software as well as hardware above the hardware as the main or principle development drivers. Recruitment strategies It is very important for the company to have an honest approach here and many recruitment managers and techies tends to distinct kind of people. They speak in a different language with new terminologies. The recruiter is usually very confident by nature as well as highly gregarious and happy to initiate any kind of conversation whereas people in technology industry are quite often reserved and most prefer to converse to other technology based people. There are changes that the solution is for the recruitment management to gain their own set of IT employees involve in the field from early stage (Rafaeli et al, 2017). There are number of social trainers in recruitment agency and the approach they follow is also getting or attracting more and more IT people in the recruitment procedure. These people dont usually see it as an in comparison to them case. Rather they prefer working closely with the recruiter in-house to recognize potential candidates and they also make important contact. T he ability to find this tech-to-tech approach is quite fruitful in overcoming the restrictions. Searching at wrong place Until and unless, the company completely understand the market properly, one may not realize that the external of the main social and recruiting platform are specialist kind of forums along with discussion groups and networking websites that also attract specialist of technology who like to share data (Ratwani et al, 2015). Detailed conversation with the own IT sector, or other tech people and finding out the ways in which people are from the best platforms to connect with people who have based the programming as well as coding skills that is needed. Excess of sourcing technology The important question here is that do recruiters really understand or know the starting line to analyse the specialists. There are number of new tools that should tempt try and keep trying until the management finds the perfect fit. Experienced talent employees understand that they need to have strategy and, they can carefully map the skills and sector the search if people are trying to find those with high and specialized skills set (Sheikh et al, 2015). Conclusion and recommendations The recruiter will have to understand the fact that the hiring function is a gamble and the overall invested in it is high where tens of thousands of moneys is invested or can go down the drain from varied activities like onboarding and training and the function of re-recruiting or re-onboarding. The job market in technology industry is tighter than any other industry especially when the tech pros are not a needle in haystack. The process is quite popular as well as poachable kind of haystack. It is also important to know that the employees base is shifting to a more revolving kind of door with sensibility and even in simple jobs like payroll one. There is highly proportionate rise of many qualified tech people and the current pressure on the Human resource managers is very high (Stiver et al, 2015). The number of workforce in IT and overall planning to recruit is above the current national average which is 44%. A real expert in technical field is usually very hard to find and it is getting worse with time or in some cases better. It entirely depends on the ability to stay competitive in the current competition. However, one thing is clear is that whatever the workplace, the size and scope of the organization is going to need it. Recruitment for technology based need may require a bigger and better picture than just filling the position. References Crisp, N., Chen, L. (2014). Global supply of health professionals.New England Journal of Medicine,370(10), 950-957. Dunning, J. H. (2014).The Globalization of Business (Routledge Revivals): The Challenge of the 1990s. Routledge. Gerasymenko, V., De Clercq, D., Sapienza, H. J. (2015). Changing the business model: Effects of venture capital firms and outside CEOs on portfolio company performance.Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal,9(1), 79-98. Jones, P., Jones, P., Hillier, D., Hillier, D., Comfort, D., Comfort, D. (2016). Sustainability in the hospitality industry: some personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas.International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management,28(1), 36-67. Jussila, J. J., Krkkinen, H., Aramo-Immonen, H. (2014). Social media utilization in business-to-business relationships of technology industry firms.Computers in Human Behavior,30, 606-613. Ngai, E. W., Tao, S. S., Moon, K. K. (2015). Social media research: Theories, constructs, and conceptual frameworks.International Journal of Information Management,35(1), 33-44. Rafaeli, A., Altman, D., Gremler, D. D., Huang, M. H., Grewal, D., Iyer, B., ... de Ruyter, K. (2017). The future of frontline research: Invited commentaries.Journal of Service Research,20(1), 91-99. Ratwani, R. M., Fairbanks, R. J., Hettinger, A. Z., Benda, N. C. (2015). Electronic health record usability: analysis of the user-centered design processes of eleven electronic health record vendors.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,22(6), 1179-1182. Sheikh, A., Sood, H. S., Bates, D. W. (2015). Leveraging health information technology to achieve the triple aim of healthcare reform.Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association,22(4), 849-856. Stiver, A., Barroca, L., Minocha, S., Richards, M., Roberts, D. (2015). Civic crowdfunding research: Challenges, opportunities, and future agenda.New Media Society,17(2), 249-271.

ABSTRACT Essays - Health Sciences, Medicine, Nursing,

ABSTRACT INTRODUCTION: The development of patient classification systems (PCS) in fields other than acute medicine raises the question if the principle of using existing data (i.e. diagnoses; procedures where available) is sufficent to describe the products of hospital care. METHODS/MATERIAL: The essence of a PCS (type "iso-cost") is to estimate costs of treatment needed in a defined setting by means of a description of the patient status (conditions) and the treatment goals. Two hypotheses guided our research into PCS development: (1) The description of patient status and treatment goals has to include multiple aspects which ideally are coded by using scales to show changes during the course of time. (2) In a multiprofessional team, costs of treatment of each professional sector can depend on different aspects of the patient status. Therefore, in a first step treatment costs could be described multidimensionally: for each profession sector separately. - In a test study, 1795 treatment weeks of 274 patients of 4 medical rehabilitation institutions were described by a variety of patient status indicators. RESULT: The test study showed that the sum of nursing times per week and patient were best grouped by a two-dimensional grid constructed by using the motor scale and the cognitive scale of the Functional Independence Measure (FIM). These scales are used as indicators of the patient status. The six final groups lead to a variance reduction of approx. 65%. But the time spent by several therapeutic professionals could not be explained by the same indicators. CONCLUSIONS: The test study encourages further research about the introduction of multidimensional and scaled measures in order to explain the multidimensional cost vectors of a multiprofessional health treatment. In the acute setting a first model could be to use DRGs to estimate costs related to or dependent on physicians' activities and a measure of functional status to estimate (independent) nursing costs. A proposed research field is the treatment of patients with chronic diseases. |

Teen Smoking Essays (1383 words) - Smoking, Human Behavior, Tobacco

Teen Smoking Essays (1383 words) - Smoking, Human Behavior, Tobacco Teen Smoking Problems With Teen Smoking in America Teen smoking is a serious problem in the United States because the tobacco industry targets teenagers with their persuasive advertising. We see often in public places, teenagers who are standing around, smoking cigarettes. Recently, there has been legislation that has been turned down by Republicans in Congress, which was supposed to send a strong message to the tobacco industry. While this legislation was turned down, President Bill Clinton has vowed to continue his efforts to lower the rates of teen smoking. Yes, this problem steadily increases and the age groups become younger, but the problem will get worse if Congress does not try to target the tobacco industry. Many teen smokers take up smoking as a daily habit. The number of teen smokers has increased to 73 percent between 1988 and 1996. This percentage was proposed on October 8, 1998. More than 1.2 million Americans under the age of eighteen started smoking daily in 1996, up from an estimated 708,000 in 1988. The rate teens become teen smokers has also increased up to fifty percent. In 1996, 77 out of every 1, 000 nonsmoking teens picked up the habit. In 1988, the rate was 51 per 1,000. The study was based on surveys of 78,330 Americans between the ages of 12 and 66 conducted by the CDC between 1994 and 1997. They asked if they ever had a daily smoking habit and if so, when they started. They were also asked when they smoked their first cigarette. There have been recent studies that prove that increasing the prices of tobacco will reduce the number of teen smokers. The tobacco companies know that increasing the price of tobacco will decrease teen smoking. Tobacco companies deny that they are increasing the prices of tobacco, but they still continue to recruit new smokers who are young. An estimated 420,000 teenagers were prevented from becoming smokers due to price increases in tobacco. The tobacco industry, on the other hand, is conducting a multi-million dollar campaign disinforming the public that they are not increasing prices to reduce teen smoking. There have been numerous economic researches in peer-reviewed journals about price increases in tobacco. Research proves in these documented journals that increase in the price of cigarettes will reduce teen smoking by seven percent. The tobacco industry is almost fully reliant on teenagers. According to a web site sponsored by the American Lung Association of Gulf Coast Florida, those who die from smoking each year, plus those who quit the daily habit, are replaced by one million teenagers who begin smoking annually (American Lung Association). The tobacco industry has its own words to say about price increase on cigarettes. The industry claims that price increases are disastrous and ineffective for the tobacco industry and other industries. The Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services sponsored a Tobacco Bill to ban all advertisements of cigarettes and an effort to help stop teen smoking. The Republicans in Congress turned it down. It was turned down because it was too expensive. The cost of this bill would have cost an estimated $52 billion dollars a year to send out strong messages to these tobacco companies. I think that it should have been used because there are so many other things that our nation's budget spends on each year that does not seem as important. Teen smoking is a real serious issue because later on these teenagers will have some serious health problems. I see my friends smoking and I tell them that it will cause some serious health problems for them in the future. After the defeat of the tobacco bill in the senate, President Clinton scolded Senate Republicans for Walking away from its obligation to our children (qtd. in Kaleidoscope Interactive). He also called for the Department o f Health and Human Services to conduct an annual national survey of the cigarette brands most frequently used by teenagers. Im instructing the Department of Health and Human services to produce the first-ever annual survey on the brands of cigarettes teenagers smoke, and which companies are most responsible for the problem(qtd. in Kaleidoscope Interactive). Parents should know of this problem and they should also have the

Contemporary issues in management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Contemporary issues in management - Essay Example From this research it is clear that change management is frequently gaining importance which in turn indicates the importance of the passage in the present time. While exploring the issues of modern management, they are also linked with the context of the passage. Furthermore, a theoretical approach is adopted along with real examples of companies and their change leaders. It is elaborated in the passage that the idea of change management and its importance in the achieving success in different circumstances. Machiavelli was of the view that in order to achieve success in different place and circumstances, local resources should be optimally utilised rather exploitation. Furthermore, his passage indicated that ethical values should not be underestimated while dealing with change in the business environment. Also, strong ethical values bring strong goodwill in the market place. Main idea of passage of the Machiavelli is managing change while encountering the problems of the change. It is written the passage that when a company enters into a new country it should have understand its varying needs and its culture in order to stay there for long term. On the contrary, if a company ignores or avoids a country’s culture on which its entire system is based then that company surely fails to sustain there. Machiavelli writes in the context of the country that if one country wants to succeed over another country then first of all it should gather support of general public of that. Along with this, the inhabitants of that country should be treated as useful resource for utilisation rather than for exploitation. Thus, it says that company should manage the change with ethical values and give the due respect to the inhabitants (Zadek 2004). A company which is constantly crossing milestones in its respective area may suddenly fall down because it’s changing relationship with its business environment and lack of response on the part of the company. Change is ine vitable and minor changes continuously occur in every industry. However, major changes like recession; decide the future of the companies in relation to success and failure. These changes can be related with a number of aspects of the business, however, three fields have major impact on the companies i.e. macro environment, technology and government. These changes together form a basis for the uncertainties in the environment. In order to address the uncertainties in the environment, there should be formulation of certain strategies and policies which again indicates relevance with the Machiavelli’s passage. Thus, mission, vision, goals and philosophy of a company possess an important place in managing the change (Worthington and Britton 2009). It is supported by a series of examples. In order to understand the influence of the change management on level of success or failure can be understood by a series of examples. In this context, example of British Airways is very crucia l. In 1981, the company was going through one of its worst time phase. Then the company appointed a new chairman who went

The Treachery of Images Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 3

The Treachery of Images - Essay Example The important distinction between them, which is present in the Magritte’s works, follows: words reference the world and images represent the world. His ideas about real and unreal differ from the classical concepts. Rene Magritte argued that: "Sometimes the image of the object takes the place of its name. The word can take place of the object in the reality. From the mismatch the artist came to the denial. By writing "This is not a pipe" he brings havoc to all the traditional relationship between word and image. The word "representational," when it’s used as a determination for a work of art, means that the painting depicts something taken from a real world which most spectators can easily recognize. Representation can be regarded as a smooth transition between artist’s thoughts and the real embodiment of a piece of art, whereas the understanding of representation by an audience may not coincide with the initial artist’s idea. At the same time the artist tries to convey the idea so that it could be understood by the audience, so, representational pieces of art requires one’s efforts to understand it since itis initially presupposed to contain some particular sense. This type of art is clearly seen on the painting of Giovanni Arnolfini and His Wife by Van Eyck and The Rocky Mountains by Bierstadt. Abstract art in its turn, tends to "harmonization", to the creation of a combination of certain colors and geometric shapes in order to cause a variety of contemplative associations. Abstract aims to create an extremely saturated painting with quite an ambiguous meaning conveyed by its figures.

Android Security Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Android Security - Research Paper Example The authors continue by stating that in fact, ICC mediation defines the core security structure and is the article’s focus, but it improves on the assurances provided by the underlying Linux system (Enck, Ongtang and McDaniel 53). The rest of the subtopic goes deep into the security enforcement element of the Android operating system, covering the mandatory access control (MAC) among other features. The next subtopic is security refinements, with a short introduction. Under this comes a discussion of public vs. private components, implicitly open components, broadcast intent permissions, content provider permissions, service hooks, protected APIs, permission protection levels, pending intents, and URI permissions (Enck, Ongtang and McDaniel 54). The final subtopic in the article is lessons in defining policy, which covers the results (experiences) the author have had after working with the Android security policy. They state that the results showed that Android security policy starts with a relatively simple easy-to-understand MAC enforcement model, but the number and subtlety of refinements make it hard for someone to discover an application’s policy by simply looking at it (Enck, Ongtang and McDaniel 56). Some refinements push policy into the application code while others add delegation, which combines discretionary controls into the otherwise typical MAC model (Enck, Ongtang and McDaniel 56). This scenario makes mustering a firm grasp on Android's security model non-trivial.