Strategic Human Resource Development Research Paper

Strategic Human Resource Development - Research Paper Example As the stewards of the human capital, the human resource department takes a key role in creating the necessary flexibility required for the optimal performance of State Farm in the industry it operations are based. The department enhances organizational effectiveness and survival in the human capital pool with a broad array of skills as well as developing human resource systems that can be adapted quickly. Coordination flexibility at State Farm goes to the extent the human resource practices can be adapted and applied across a variety of situations where more generally applicable human resource practice is across jobs and situations, the more easily it can be adapted to a particular situation. Management by objectives is a performance appraisal technique favoring majority of job situations due to its flexibility and can be effectively used at State Farm. It is a behaviorally anchored rating system that generally reflects a particular job in a particular setting and therefore is more limited to an application potential across organizations. The increased use of multiple sources of the human capital, as a described, State Farm will need to either develop more generalizable centralized human resource practices or allow more centralized practices that meet specific situational conditions but operate within general organizational parameters. Increasing Diversity and Creating Competitive Advantage at State FarmThe dynamics of change in the labor market are two way due to the flexibility of the working practices.

Mergers and acquisitions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Mergers and acquisitions - Essay Example Concerning this particular aspect, this paper presents a case study analysis of three recent mergers at a cross-border level, i.e. Johnson & Johnsons acquisition of Synthes GmbH, Microsoft Corporations acquisition of Skype Technologies, China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)s acquisition of Nexen Inc. The study signifies that culture, business industry trends and also governmental policies among other attributes play a vital role as a cause of M&As performed by these companies. M&As are often considered as an important strategic function in the modern day business context where recent studies have revealed that companies principally tend to use the strategy of M&A with the intention of enhancing their performances in terms of profitability, greater market share attainment, better resources allocation, risk diversification as well as business expansion. Various factors have been identified in this context to be influencing the performances of companies and therefore, motivating organisational leaders towards the adoption of M&A strategies such as economic and political trade policies enactments as well as social functions. Moreover, globalisation as well as advancement of technology has influenced companies to adopt this strategy in order to perform effectively in the increasingly competitive global market (Coeurdacier & et. al., 2009). In this regard, companies have adopted M&A strategies with the objective of improving competitiveness as well as growth of its market share. It is in this context that M&A strategies assist companies in restructuring its business operations in order to improve its business performances in the global realm (Directors & Boards, 2006). Additionally, it has been observed that the strategy of M&As assist companies in acquiring larger market share, better resources accessibility and an enhanced competitive position within a short term period, thus minimising many hazards which are commonly witnessed by modern day

Masco Corporations Strategic Planning Case Study

Masco Corporations Strategic Planning - Case Study Example The company has successfully developed its product lines for faucets by establishing faucet manufacturing units with advanced business model. In 1986, Masco Corporation developed its vision statement, which reflected its desire to become "Procter & Gamble of consumer durables" (Harvard Business School, 1998). The very vision statement has propelled the company to diversify its business into other consumer durable goods. Alongside, the company has also extended its tentacles to enter the market of oil-field equipments, drilling tools and transport related products like gear shift levers, engine exhaust system etc. The company has even restructured its organizational structure and implemented other methods to reduce its overall cost of production. However, the primary obligation of the company is to enhance its research & development, and manufacturing ability so that the above stated concerns are addressed to. For acquiring technological breakthrough, the company has entered into contracts with research firms like MTI. For optimising the productivity of each manufacturing division, the company has developed formal organiza tional chart aimed at facilitating communication and exchange. In order to reduce the cost associated with its R&D various cost reduction programs were undertaken. This coupled with innovative working procedures and methodologies have helped the company to produce high quality innovative products at a lower cost. Masco's resources The resources of Masco Corporation can be categorized into two types i.e. tangible and intangible. Since its inception, the company has been constructing its manufacturing units in numerous locations that produce a wide range of consumer durable products. This attest the fact that the company is well equipped with necessary plants, machineries, inventories etc. Its intangible resources include its expertise in metalworking. The company has a sound experience in technology, driven by proficient technicians that constantly strive to design and create new products. With its existing resources, Masco can easily enter the $14 billion household furniture industry. The company has already curved out a niche in the mind of its customers by virtue of its quality products. Hence it is expected that the products manufactured by the company will find a ready acceptance. Another vital resource of the company is its high profitability. The company can use its retain-earnings for investments purposes in the furniture industry. Masco's Strategy for entering the furniture industry Before entering the furniture industry, Masco Corporation must implement only those strategies that match with the organizational structure and compatibility. It is of paramount importance for the company to analyze the internal and external factors. The internal factors include the strength and weaknesses of the country whereas the external factors include Porter's five forces of competition and macro-environmental factors like economy, demography, legal etc. Only when the company has successfully scanned these factors, it will develop its strategy focusing on particular areas.

Current event write up Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Current event write up - Essay Example Perhaps this is because the couples are law enforcers: in the Orange County city of Yorba Linda. As the chief of Orange Countys Human Relations Commission, Kennedy tracks crimes touching the Black people who makeup only 2 % of the countys populace, "but they are the most frequently targeted victims, year after year after year," (Banks, par 4). The story of the Yorba Linda folks hints on an unknown truth. With the intention of not showing the case on hate crime list, shows that the police had handled case as a normal harm. (Banks, par 6). What followed was the formation of small circles by black people who shared their personal stories of discrimination and the pains they went through. Most of the stories were about problems and the brutality they had with the police. Remember, these are the people they expect to protect them from harm. For instance, Bettys grandson for skateboarding in an empty parking lot was detained by the police. A police officer who said, â€Å"I have not seen you around here before," blocked a man new to Brea near his home. Jona Knight-Hall said she was pulled more than three times in 2007, in her new Mercedes. It was always something like â€Å"Your passenger is not wearing her seat belt properly. She rarely stopped in her old car. Nevertheless, you cannot think of driving an expensive car. People look at you like What is she doing with that? "(Banks, par 13). "I felt totally helpless," she said. She once attempted to file a grievance, which was alleging racial profiling. "However there is nothing that you can about it. People act as if you are imagining things that do not happen in the real world. There have been a lot reported cases on police brutality particularly to black guerilla family gangs. These gangs by no means should not be tolerated. The gangs are made up young black American boys who are very young. The issue is the way police treat the gang members when they catch them. Most of the gang members die in

Seasonal Workers Essay Example for Free

Seasonal Workers Essay Seasonal work, the ideal job for young people, college students, and those in need of working urgently. We will show how some companies benefit from seasonal jobs and how individuals make these jobs an opportunity to reach their goals using this chance as a stepping stone. Different ways to reach out those in need of a job, and the trouble these seasonal jobs cause companies when not fill completely or in time for the summer demands. Review/Analysis of the Case Being able to fill positions during demanding times is crucial for all businesses regardless of their affiliations. For companies like High Sierra pools that need lifeguards and pool staff, but can’t obtain them throughout promoting the positions locally, using outside agencies is the best choice. With the policies Congress has impose over the H-2B visas that will prevent previous employees under the visa program apply again, will generate a significant problem while trying to hire employees for the season. Businesses must result to other strategies in order to accommodate their needs. Requesting volunteers from within the company to work extra hours, or add more days to their schedules could help them resolve the current issue. Other ways to fill up the empty positions would be to promote a program that will secure individuals looking for a possible permanent position; having the flexibility to hire for the season with high probabilities of keeping the job would attract more people for those positions locally. Also promising your business directly to one agency may give them the motivation to work the extra mile and bring the best seasonal workers out there. I would recommend them to create a hiring program that would brings students looking for a chance within a business, that will allow them to start at a certain position with the opportunity to apply for others within the company. This would allow them to bring in those looking for interships in business environment. Adapt the program to allow those with a business major to be selected as trainees in different positions within the company, allowing the the chance to stay as a permanent employee or even come back next year during the same time frame. This could serve as a experience stepping stone for those about to graduate and looking for a background experience for other promising jobs. Other strategies that could be use to gain more employees, would be to seek students directly. Going to campuses and providing briefings about the company, their vision, employment programs, and benefits for those young future employees facing the business world. Could promote a higher rate of employment for the company, not only throughout the seasonal time but chances of permanent and best experienced workers in a near future. By providing a good advertisement, the company can be found easier in the many search engines used now days. Making it easier for students to come across them while in the internet. High Sierra Pools, should take this strategies to consideration and give them a try, it could help them find workers faster, easier, and expend less money searching for employees instead of using an outside agency to do the work for them like the previous years. Summary and Conclusions If High Sierra Pools maintains the current employment issue without searching for other alternatives. They will eventually face a major downfall when the summer season comes around. This could hurt their business greatly, not only by not having enough employees, but the current customers may notice a change in the services provided and change their location comes next year season. Being able to adapt to the demanding load of customers and service will be a key tool for the success of their business. Make themselves reliable and flexible to future employees and candidates will maintain the flow of seasonal employees they need to succeed every year. Whether is a company or corporation being able to supply the required number of employees and provide an attractive work environment with good opportunities, will provide the business with a steady growth every season.

The Traveling Salesman Problem Computer Science Essay

The Traveling Salesman Problem Computer Science Essay Travelling sales man problem is one of the challenging problems in the real life and also most well studied combinatorial optimization problem. Many Researches from different fields like operational research, algorithms design and including artificial intelligence attract by it. This problem has been studied by different researches and come up with different solutions and this problem has been solved by using different algorithms like Blind search, Branch and Bound Search , Heuristic algorithm and Genetic algorithms etc. the problem was formulated as a mathematical problem in 1930 and later it is used as bench mark for many optimal solution. 1.1 TRAVELING SALESMAN PROBLEM: A Travelling salesman has a task of visiting N number of cities. He will start from a home location and want to visit each city just once and return back to the original location from where he starts. Travelling salesman route will be plan in such a way that in a given N number of cities cost of travelling from one city to any other city what is the minimum round trip route that visit each city once and then return to the starting place. The goal is to find the shortest tour that visit each city in a given cities exactly ones and then return to the starting city. The only solution to the travelling salesman problem is to calculate and compare the length of all possible ordered combinations. 1.2 History of travelling salesman problem: The travelling salesman problem was treated by a Irish mathematician sir William Rowan Hamilton and British mathematician Thomas Penyngton kirkman in the early 1800s. Hamilton and kirkman work on game called Hamilton Icosian game that requires player to complete tours through 20 points using only the specified connections. The general form of the travelling salesman problem studied by mathematician Karl menger during 1930s. He defines the problem using brute force algorithms and observed nearest neighbour heuristic non optimality. Soon after the name travelling salesman problem introduced by hassler Whitney at princeton university. In the 1940s the Travelling salesman problem was studied by statisticians Mahalanobiss, Jessen, Gosh, Marks. Among them P.C .Mahalanobiss took a sample survey of acreage under jute in Bengal discussed aspects of travelling salesman solutions through randomly chosen locations in the Euclidean plane. And this work is deal with survey of form lands one of the major cost to carrying out the survey was the transport ion of men equipment from one survey point to next. During the period between 1950s and 1960 the problem becomes more popular in scientific group in Europe and USA. a number of solutions designed by George B.Dantzing, Fulkerson and Johnson(1954) . in 1954 Heller publi shed an 88 report which contains many basic solutions on the travelling salesman polytype. In 1957 L.L.Barachet published graphic solution of travelling salesman problem which describes an enumeration scheme for computing near optimal tours. In 1964 R.L Karg and G.L. Thompson were applied heuristic algorithm for a 57 city problem. During the period R.M Karp and M.Held published an article about the travelling salesman and minimum spanning tree which introduced one tree relaxation of the travelling salesman problem and using node weights to improve the bound given by optimal tree. In 1990s Bixby and Cook developed the programme for travelling salesman problem which are using recently. 2.0 GRAPH: 2.1 Travelling salesman problem modelled as graph: Travelling salesman problem can be modelled as Graph where as the cities are the graph vertices, path is graph edges and path distance is edge distance. Our goal is to find the shortest tour that visits each city in a given graph exactly ones and then return to the starting city. 3.0 Search Algorithms: To solve travelling salesman problem we can use different types of algorithms like blind search, heuristic algorithms, uniform cost search etc 3.1 Blind search: Blind search algorithms are such algorithms which does not contain domain knowledge of the problem and it search blindly, hence it is called blind search algorithm. The only thing a blind search can do is it describes a non goal state from goal state. Assume that you are at city A and you want to reach at city D, if we draw a search tree level 1: city E, city B, city C. a blind search will have no idea which node should explore first, hence it explore each and every node blindly. In blind search we may not get information we can use. We just be looking for an answer and we wonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t no until we found it. The blind search is also called as un informed search. Blind search is divided into two searches Algorithm they are 1) Breadth first search and 2) Depth first search 3.2 Breadth first search: Breadth first search is a search which starts at one node and it expands the all the neighbour node then after completing those nodes, it expands remaining nodes unexpanded it process is continues up to reaching a goal. The technique followed by breadth first search is FIFO first in first out) queue, the difference between breadth first and depth first search is, the depth first uses stack i.e. LIFO (last in first out). In this logic the items which are added is equal to the item which are deleted. This process continues up to reach a goal. 3.3 Depth first search: Depth first search is a general technique for traversing a graph. The technique which organise the to Do list was stack that is last in first out (LIFO). Depth first search start at one node and it explore as far as possible along each branch until a required goal node is found. Then it takes backtracking and return to the next node which it hasnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t finished exploring and it keep on repeat the same procedure until it reaches to its goal. If Depth first search goes down a infinite branch and if it does not find a goal state or if it does not find the solution may be a better solution at a higher level in tree. Therefore depth first search is neither complete nor optimal. ALGORITHM: INPUT : A connected graph G ,a starting vertex 1 OUTPUT: An ordered spannig tree T of graph G with root vertex 1 Initialize tree as vertex 1 Initialize S as the set of proper edges incident on vertex 1 While s not equal to null Let e = dfs next edge(G,S). Let w be the non tree end point of edge e. Add edge e and vertex w to tree T. Update Frontier(G,S). Return Tree T. 4.0 DEPTH FIRST SEARCH APPLY TO GRAPH STARTING AT NODE 1: For the above tree diagram we are using Depth first search, from the graph the sales man starts at node a and visits each node and return to original node Step1: from node 1 there is a three ways to travel i.e. node 2, node3 and node5 in level 2 Step2: by following depth first search condition LIFO it expands node 2 until the goal reach So for node 2 there is a two ways to travel i.e. node5 and node4 there is only one way for sales man to reach node 3 so this is not minimal path to travel. After expanding first branch sales man reaches node 3 from node 3 sales man reaches node4 With path length of 8 and from node 4 he reaches node2 with path length of 5 and from node 2 sales man reaches node5 with path length of 6 then length of whole sub tree is 27. After expanding of second branch sales man expands node 5, from node 5 sales man travels node 2 with path length of 6 then from node2 sales man reaches node 4 with path length of 5 From node 4 sales man reaches node 3 path length of 8.then length of whole sub tree is 26 Here we follow the condition that sales man will not visit those not which have already visited. the left vertices in the graph are chosen before right, from above to roots the minimum spanning tree path is 1-5-2-4-3 =26.this is the best minimum root for sales man to visit each city started at city1. 4.1 DEPTH FIRST SEARCH APPLYING TO THE GRAPH STARTING AT NODE 2: For the above tree diagram we are applying depth first search on which sales man starting at node 2. From starting city we have three ways to travel i.e. node 1, node4 and node5. From node 1 sales man has again to two ways to travel i.e. node3 and node5.from node 3 it reaches node 4. but here if we want to visit node5 we have to backtrack again it will not satisfy the condition visiting a city once so we didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t reach goal here sales man expands neighbour node 4, from node 4 sales man reaches node 3 with path length of 8, then sales man processed to node 1with path length of 8, then sales man visits node 5 from node 1 with path length of 7. The length of whole sub tree is 2-4-3-1-5=28. After expanding node4 travel sales man moves to node 5, from node 5 he reaches node1 path length of 7,from node 1 sales man reaches node 3 the path length of 8 and he proceeds to node 4 from node 3 with path length of 8,then whole length of sub tree is 2-5-1-3-4=29. Here sales man follow the condition that visiting each city, then the the best minimum cost route starting at node 2 is 2-4-3-1-5=28. 5.0 INFORMED SEARCH: Informed search is an estimate availability of the distance (cost) from each node(city) to the goal. This estimation will help you to head into the correct direction. The outline of inform search are heuristic search, best first search, greedy search and A* search 5.1 Heuristic search: Heuristic uses domain specific knowledge to estimate the quality or potential of partial solution .A heuristic search that find a good solution in less time comparing to blind search but not always find best solution. This search is very much useful for solving big problem which may may not solved by using other search and this search generate a possible solution which can be either route from the initial location or goal in the problem. For travelling salesman problem the nearest neighbour heuristic work well, but some time due to the arrangement of cites it will not find the shortest route. 5.2 Best first search: Best first search is a general approach of the tree search algorithm. In which it expand a nodes which is based upon a evaluation function. The estimation of cost is constructed as evaluation function then the node with minimum evaluation is expanded first. A best search is a combination of both breadth first search and depth search, a breath first is good because it will not go deeper and the depth first search is best because it can be found without searching all the nodes, hence the best first search allows us to gain benefit both the approaches 5.3 Greedy search: Greedy search select the path that has lowest heuristic value or estimated distance to the goal. Greedy search is a example of best first strategy, and it some cases like depth breast search I may never find the solution and greedy search is not optimal solution take into costly paths . This can be happen in the last step or in the first step. 5.4 A* search: The most widely known form of best first search is called a* search or best first search is simplified as A*search. The evaluation of nodes is carried in A* search was combination of g(n) the cost reached and h(n) the cost get from the node to the goal f(n)=g(n)+h(n) Here f(n) estimate cost of cheapest solution through node n, A* search is both complete and optimal which is identical to uniform cost search. From the above equation: g(n) is the total length between starting place to current location. h(n) is estimated length from current location to goal. A heuristic function which estimate how much distance it takes to reach goal. f(n) is the sum of g(n) and h(n) .then this will be a current estimated shortest path which founds until a A* algorithm is completed. A* Algorithm: A* Algorithm starts with initial nodes then it will take the best node on open such that f(n)=g(n)+h(n) is minimum. If Best is a goal node quit then return to the path from the intial to best or remove the best from open and all among best node naming each node with its path from initial node. 6.0 A* Algorithm applying for given graph: from the above graph , it shows that the node 1 is the initial node where salesman starts and reaches the node 3 which is the current location . then sum of the distance between initial to current location is consider as g (n) ie 1-5-2-4-3= 26.then the estimated length from current location to the goal is consider as h(n) ie 8 and then total minimal distance of path is A*=1-5-2-4-3-1=34 Then this is the minimal path in which salesman can travel starting at node 1. 7.0 Comparison table for depth first search and A* algorithm Algorithm Domain knowledge Memory space Minimum route Time complexity efficient Depth first search It doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t contain domain knowledge more It find after complete search It takes more time less A* search It contain domain knowledge less It has information about it It takes less time more 8.0 CONCLUSION: The Idea of Travel sales man problem has much application in different fields .To Find best routes of travelling salesman we are used two algorithms they are Depth First search and A* Algorithm. Hence we conclude that A* algorithm is more efficient then depth first search algorithm, the time complexity of depth first is more comparing to A* search and it takes less memory space comparing to depth first search. Depth first search algorithm is more suitable finding minimum tour for limited number of cities, because if we take 50 to 100 cites depth first search expands each node of a tree to reach to the goal which is time consuming and memory waste.

Last Hurrah :: essays research papers

Edwin O'Connor's novel The Last Hurrah presents an effective view of the difficult and complex life of the Irish-American community in Boston of the 1950's. The author uses a number of characterizations to produce themes that relate to the political and social considerations of this era. He also provides most of the accounts in his novel from a single perspective, that of Frank Skeffington. He is the main character. This character in particular enables O'Connor to present the topic with some accuracy while continuing to create a fictional account of the time frame. This was his goal, to provide truth inside a fictional story.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  O'Connor talks directly about and gives great consideration in the system of criminal activity. He feels it directly corresponds with the political structure in the community. The author develops his novel around Skeffington, but also around the characterization of James Michael Curley, the forceful and corrupt political force in the community in Boston. These two characters seem to be greatly different, but they also have some likeness to each other. This novel portrays the complexity of the corruption within this community and the political structure. He also demonstrates the support for this type of institution and its importance within the community itself.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There is particular consideration given to the political climate in this story. It is incorporated with social and ethnic concerns that are prevalent. The story also addresses prejudice and the theme of ethnic stereotyping through his character development. O'Connor does not present a work that is riddled with Irish slurs or ethnic approximations. Instead, he attempts to provide an account that is both informative and accurate.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  One important theme that is developed through the characterization of Skeffington is the great importance he has of the historical perspective on the current life of the Irish immigrant community. While O'Connor uses this character to present a dignified representation of Irish immigrant politics, it is also clear that Skeffington serves as a contrast to Curley. Curley demonstrates a clearly determined form of corruption without concern for the ethnic or political history of the Irish immigrant community. Skeffington cannot ignore the past and the impact history has on his community.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Skeffington is a product of the Irish community, and reflects on his origin in many instances through out this story. There are a number of important elements that are unique to the Irish community in Boston and also significant to the life of Skeffington.