...1. What are the three dimensions to business problems? Provide examples of each. The first dimension in the reading is organizational dimensions. These can be described as outdated business processes, political conflict, lack of resources, difficulty of task, unsupportive culture and attitudes, and unstable business environment. Second dimension is technology dimension. Outdated hardware and software, lack of database space, inadequate telecommunications capacity, incompatibility of old systems with new technology, and the rapid technological change are some of the descriptions to look at for this dimension. The final dimension of the three is the people dimension. The problems in this area that are described are lack of training, difficulties of evaluating performance, compliance, work environment, lack of overall company support, indecisive and poor management. In order to have a successful business, I believe that finding solutions to these problems will improve the practice is important. What I have seen in the company I work for now is not everyone is vested in the tasks at hand so the attitudes of some people are poor. If the company can get involvement and interest in the Information System by all members of the company that will eliminate some of the problems and possible create ideas on how to financial fund a good system. 2. What is the difference between IT and information systems? Describe some functions of the information system. Information Technology...
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...Information System Business Problem Dimensions Roland L. Beauchesne, Jr. IT/205 May 25, 2012 Inez Gronewald Information System Business Problem Dimensions The three dimensions of business problems are: 1. Organizational; 2. Technology, and; 3. People. Organizational problems could potentially include business practices that are behind the times, lack of resources, and change. If a business that has practices that are behind the times, or outdated, it can easily find itself being left behind and struggling to compete with competitors. The lack of resources can seriously hinder a business, as it will not be able to obtain the materials and staffing necessary to meet the demands of their consumers and the market. Change is the biggest potential problem, as people resist change and want to remain with what is familiar to them. Change, will being the biggest potential problem, can also be the biggest innovator in advancing the business in its market. As an example, from the text, UPS adapted its procedures to streamline its operations and to meet the needs of their customers while still maintaining their corporate culture of delivering packages in a timely manner at a low cost (Laudon & Laudon, 2011, pp 18, 19) Information technology consists of the desktops, laptops, tablets, servers, software (i.e. Microsoft Office), and handheld devices (i.e. IF guns and smartphones) that a company uses during the course of day to operate effectively. Information systems, on the other...
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...An Article On Business Ethics and Global Dimension of Business Business Ethics and Global Dimension of Business October 19, 2014 Ethical issues have been around for a long time and its association with globalization has been documented. The effects on the association with globalization are similar and closely related to that of international marketing. As a result, the increased globalization over the years has brought an increase in many problems associated with global trading including ethical ones. (WTO, 2011). As indicated by World Trade organization in 2011, there was significant expansion in world trade from 1950 to 2000. This increase was documented to be over twenty-fold with foreign direct investment and exports playing a significant role. This increase in world trade in the middle to late 20th century also saw small businesses increasing their investments in cross border trading. This resulted in an increase in the average yearly outflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) from about $25 billion in 1975 to a record $1.3 trillion in 2000. (UN, 2001). This means that there were a great number of business people with different social and cultural backgrounds doing business in other areas of different geographical, political, legal, social and cultural environments. The challenges that confronted these business people working in these different environments with its associated social and cultural problems created a platform for indulgence in ethical problems and other...
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...Journal of Business Ethics (2007) 75:273–284 DOI 10.1007/s10551-006-9252-9 Ó Springer 2007 Cultural Values and International Differences Bert Scholtens Lammertjan Dam in Business Ethics ABSTRACT. We analyze ethical policies of firms in industrialized countries and try to find out whether culture is a factor that plays a significant role in explaining country differences. We look into the firm’s human rights policy, its governance of bribery and corruption, and the comprehensiveness, implementation and communication of its codes of ethics. We use a dataset on ethical policies of almost 2,700 firms in 24 countries. We find that there are significant differences among ethical policies of firms headquartered in different countries. When we associate these ethical policies with Hofstede’s cultural indicators, we find that individualism and uncertainty avoidance are positively associated with a firm’s ethical policies, whereas masculinity and power distance are negatively related to these policies. KEYWORDS: business ethics, codes of ethics, cultural values JEL: G300, L210, M140 Introduction Are there differences with respect to the ethical policies of firms that are headquartered in different countries? And are there differences among firms that belong to different industries? Chryssides and Bert Scholtens received his Ph.D. at the Universtiy of Amsterdam. Since 1999 he has been working at the Department of Finance of the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. His research...
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...The Dimension of Business Growth The Process of Growth Four Perspectives: 1. Financial Growth-relates to the development of the business as a commercial entity. 2. Strategic Growth-changes that take place in the way in which organization interacts with its environment. 3. Structural Growth-changes in the way the business organizes its internal systems. 4. Organizational Growth-changes in the organization’s processes, culture, and attitudes as it grows and develops. Financial Analysis The Balance Sheet-structure of financial reporting shows the assets and liabilities of the firm as being equal. The Profit and Loss Account-provides a summary of the revenues obtained as a result of trading activity over the period in question. 1. Gross Profits-profits generated by the business. 2. Profit before Tax-profits left after interest on debts has been paid. 3. Profit after Tax-profits after any tax owing to the government has been paid. 4. Retained Profits-profit left after tax has been paid is properly the property of the firm’s shareholders. Ratio Analysis-can be used to provide valuable insight into the performance, condition and stability of the venture. Three Types of Ratio 1. Performance Ratio-indicate the way the business is performing. a. Profit Margin-ratio of profits to turnover. b. Return on Investment-fundamental measure of a venture’s performance. * Return on Equity-ratio of profit after interest payments...
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...Adam Foxcroft K0219955 Adam Foxcroft K0219955 International Dimensions of business Individual Assignment International Dimensions of business Individual Assignment International dimensions of business individual assignment Introduction This assignment will look at one of the world’s largest companies, Wal-Mart, and will look into the company’s choice to expand into China by looking into the factors in the home, host and other international countries that might have had an effect on how and why Wal-Mart moved into china. Brief history Even the world’s largest companies have to start somewhere and for Wal-Mart this was with the opening of its first store in Arkansas in the year 1962 with the intention of creating a discount chain that would offer its customers lower prices by taking lower profit margins. Sam Walton the founder of Wal-Mart and considered the father of modern retailing took Wal-Mart from this one store to the world’s largest and most powerful company in just 50 years. He did this by adopting an extremely aggressive growth policy that in just 12 years took Wal-Mart to the position of having125 stores across 8 states, employing 7500 people and had sales reaching $340.3 million. This is however not the end of the company’s rapid growth and by introducing systems, such as barcode for stock management, computer systems and distribution networks, before most of its...
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...SYSTEM BUSINESS PROBLEM DIMENSIONS IT/205 09/27/12 1) Business problems are comprised of three categories which are: People, Processes, and Technology. The People category describes individuals such as those found on the staff at a business or company, along with others such as vendors and suppliers, among many other individuals with stakes in the company. Any system would be incomplete if we did not stop and recognize the effects on the individuals who are required to use it, whether they do so as operators or as customers. In a data-entry system, this category (people) could be an administrative assistant in charge of manually inputting data, or patrons adding to the database trough online and in-store forms. The second category Processes describes the many different ways information is handled within the system. An example of this occurs when new data is accepted and conveyed to the administrative assistant to be entered into the system, followed by the storage location in which the unprocessed data end up once in the system. The third category technology is a reference to automated systems, mainly computers, which facilitate the completion of required processes by us humans. In an example of this particular category, the aforementioned technology is the end result of the database program and the front end data entry module being combined. 2) Information system is basically the term used to describe the bridging of the gap between business and the...
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...saving and uses this money for borrowing purposes. All manner of people from the ordinary laborers and workers to the rich land owners and businessmen can keep their money safely in banks and earn savings on it. People decide which Bank to associate with depending upon its different features or attributes. The importance that customers give to each attribute, however, differs from one consumer to another. The ability to identify the importance of different attributes of banks from the consumers’ perspective is essential for improving an existing bank or establishing a new bank. The purpose of this study is to identify the positioning of major banks in India. The study makes use of the multidimensional scaling technique to identify (a) the dimensions underlying of customers’ evaluation of banks, and (b) the potential opportunities for the new bank in the perceptual map of the consumers’ mind. Keywords: Multi-Dimensional Scaling, Banks in India INTRODUCTION Banks are the heart of a nation’s economy. Firstly they promote savings through offering saving rates. Secondly, they invest this savings either through direct investment or loans to promote the economy of the country. In India, commercial banking has played a vital role in driving the economy for almost 200 years. Pre liberalization, the banks in India where nationalized in order to reach the masses. Later during the post liberalization, retail banking sector saw a rapid growth along with the economy of India. Retail banking...
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...ATENEO DE DAVAO UNIVERSITY – SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND GOVERNANCE | Reaction Paper | FOR ADMINISTRATIVE PROCESSES AND ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR SUBJECT | Mariane P. Salmasan 10/21/2013 | Why Do Employees Resist Change The normal and natural reaction to change is resistance. Every individual has a threshold for how much change they can absorb. This resistance is inevitable and that management must be prepared to respond to it. In his article on why do employees resist change, Paul Strebel described that managers and employees view change differently. Both groups know that vision and leadership drive successful change, but far too few leaders recognize the ways in which individuals commit to change to bring it about. Managers see change as an opportunity to strengthen the business by aligning operations with strategy. However, employees see change as neither something to sought after nor welcome as it is disruptive and intrusive. It changes the balance. In order to fix this difference, managers must put themselves in their employees’ shoes and examine the terms of the personal compacts between the employees and company. Personal compact is the reciprocal obligations and mutual commitments, both stated and implied, between employees and the organization. It has three major dimensions. The first one is the formal dimension wherein employees capture the basic tasks and performance requirements for a job as defined by the company. In return, managers convey the authorities...
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...Introduction to Data Warehousing and Business Intelligence Slides kindly borrowed from the course “Data Warehousing and Machine Learning” Aalborg University, Denmark Christian S. Jensen Torben Bach Pedersen Christian Thomsen {csj,tbp,chr}@cs.aau.dk Course Structure • Business intelligence Extract knowledge from large amounts of data collected in a modern enterprise Data warehousing, machine learning Acquire theoretical background in lectures and literature studies Obtain practical experience on (industrial) tools in practical exercises Data warehousing: construction of a database with only data analysis purpose • Purpose Business Intelligence (BI) Machine learning: find patterns automatically in databases 2 •1 Literature • Multidimensional Databases and Data Warehousing, Christian S. Jensen, Torben Bach Pedersen, Christian Thomsen, Morgan & Claypool Publishers, 2010 • Data Warehouse Design: Modern Principles and Methodologies, Golfarelli and Rizzi, McGraw-Hill, 2009 • Advanced Data Warehouse Design: From Conventional to Spatial and Temporal Applications, Elzbieta Malinowski, Esteban Zimányi, Springer, 2008 • The Data Warehouse Lifecycle Toolkit, Kimball et al., Wiley 1998 • The Data Warehouse Toolkit, 2nd Ed., Kimball and Ross, Wiley, 2002 3 Overview • • • • Why Business Intelligence? Data analysis problems Data Warehouse (DW) introduction DW topics Multidimensional modeling ETL Performance optimization 4 •2 What is Business Intelligence (BI)? • From Encyclopedia...
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...matrix looks like: SPACE matrix strategic management tool example This particular SPACE matrix tells us that our company should pursue an aggressive strategy. Our company has a strong competitive position it the market with rapid growth. It needs to use its internal strengths to develop a market penetration and market development strategy. This can include product development, integration with other companies, acquisition of competitors, and so on. Now, how do we get to the possible outcomes shown in the SPACE matrix? The SPACE Matrix analysis functions upon two internal and two external strategic dimensions in order to determine the organization's strategic posture in the industry. The SPACE matrix is based on four areas of analysis. Internal strategic dimensions: Financial strength (FS) Competitive advantage (CA) External strategic dimensions:...
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...Week 1: Checkpoint Assignment IT/205 10/10/2013 Week 1: Checkpoint Assignment What are the three dimensions of business problems? Provide an example of each. There are three dimensions of business problems which are people, organization, and technology. They are much related in many ways to make a system perform properly. 1. People Dimension: People are the backbone of a company. Without knowledgeable, trained, and skilled employees to input information and maintain the information technology infrastructure, a company’s system will not perform efficiently. 2. Organization Dimension: Organizations are set up with a set infrastructure of several different levels of people from upper-level employees which are management, professional, and technicians, and the lower-level is made up of the operational personnel. There are also many different departments in an organization. Many times problems can occur from within the departments, such as if one department does not input information properly. Another problem that can exist in an organization is if network technician does not maintain the system properly the system will fail. 3. Technology Dimension: is a system made up of computer hardware, software, data management, and networks. With the use of technology all a company’s information is stored in one place, so that the information can be used and shared with other departments, such as management, payroll, human resources, and many others. If the technology is outdated...
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...What are the three dimensions to business problems? Provide examples of each. Organizational Dimension is a common problem within a business. What this means is that with all of the information that is gathered by a company, the information is not put in a way that is easily used. It could also be that the information is more like raw data and is not suitable for use in a practical manner. The Technology dimension is another issue that companies face and I feel this is a big issue. Within a company that spends money to keep their technology up to date in order to compete with other similar companies, this can be a very expensive and time consuming task. Because of this most companies decide to keep the “old” system in place because it works. Well that old system may work for now but it isn’t being as efficient as it could be. This could cost some companies millions of dollars in revenue. Within this dimension, old outdated technology; both hardware and software are the issue. The final dimension is the people dimension. The People in this dimension are the actual employees at the company. The problem with them would be the lack of skill and/or training. Management problems and even the work environment also account for a part of this issue. What is the difference between IT and information systems? Describe some functions of information systems. The main differences between the two are that Information Technology and Information systems are quite clear. IT is the hardware...
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...Differences and Multinational Business The eminent Dutch psychologist, management researcher, and culture expert Geert Hofstede, early in his career, interviewed unsuccessfully for an engineering job with an American company. Later, he wrote of typical cross-cultural misunderstandings that crop up when American managers interview Dutch recruits and vice versa: “American applicants, to Dutch eyes, oversell themselves. Their CVs are worded in superlatives…during the interview they try to behave assertively, promising things they are very unlikely to realize…Dutch applicants in American eyes undersell themselves. They write modest and usually short CVs, counting on the interviewer to find out by asking how good they really are…they are very careful not to be seen as braggarts and not to make promises they are not absolutely sure they can fulfill. American interviewers know how to interpret American CVs and interviews and they tend to discount the information provided. Dutch interviewers, accustomed to Dutch applicants, tend to upgrade the information. To an uninitiated American interviewer an uninitiated Dutch applicant comes across as a sucker. To an uninitiated Dutch interviewer an uninitiated American applicant comes across as a braggart.”1 Cultural differences, while difficult to observe and measure, are obviously very important. Failure to appreciate and account for them can lead to embarrassing blunders, strain relationships, and drag down business performance. And the effects...
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...University of Lethbridge Course: MGT 3650 – B (Introduction to International Business) Instructor: Dr. Rehana Afaqi Research Paper Three Approaches That Will Help in Comparing Cultural Differences By Emmanuel Makoni, Sonia Jerin & Laren Michel Due Date: November 6th 2014 Introduction: There are around 196 countries in the world and the cultures and values differ between the different countries. There are still similarities in some of the culture traits. In today’s world people are more willing to engage in global business and for this reason they need to be able to adapt to the different cultures. As the cultures vary from country to country, people around the world may face many difficulties during their communication. Many businesses have failed due to the fact that they failed to fully assess the market they were entering in. The paper will portray three different approaches that will aid in understanding cultural differences that can be utilized as effective tools in conducting global business. These approaches are known as the context approach, the cluster approach and the dimension approach. 1. Context Approach: This is one of the three main approaches to understand cultural differences. Context approach is considered as the most straightforward as it relies on a single dimension. In addition, there are two parts of the context approach, known as: (i) High context cultures and (ii) Low context cultures. The two types of contexts have different cultures...
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