...An old ancient Chinese proverb says, “Women hold up half the Earth.” The corporate world is on the forefront of believing these words. Women of the world today are being acknowledged as the key to economic success. Organizations all over the globe are learning the opportunities of opening up to diversity and adding women to their boardrooms. Ignoring talent in half the population is not the best method for an organization to create a successful and effective board. Urban Outfitters Inc. has not always been a top contender in the diverse corporate world. In this report, we will investigate how Urban Outfitters Inc. reluctantly took a step in the direction of updating the faces of their executive boardroom. We will discuss the challenges and changes gender diversity in the corporate work world meets. We will look at meaningful observations of board effectiveness in the boardroom and the workforce. Introduction Boardroom diversity is highly advocated by companies and investors. Boardrooms hold the main responsibility to ensure human talent planning coincides with developing policies and procedure concerning diversity and diversity issues within an organization. Boardrooms need talent management and ultramodern thinking to build company revenue. Organizations use warm and fuzzy words about diversity, yet only give lukewarm responses in practices. Diversity was sighted as a legal issue in the past; now organizations are opening up to accepting that diversity is not a...
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...Values, Norms, Traditions, and Narratives of North Korean Culture Even though the cultural values of North Korea are always evolving,I felt that the following values and norms are fundamental to their culture. Harmony in personal relationships is a dominant force in a Korean’s life (Moerch). Facts, logic and conclusions are often not nearly as important as how one is looked upon by others. Friendships are tight-knit and valuable. It is an insult to refuse a friend’s request. It is even less forgivable to fail a superior. These friendships are possible because everyone does his or her best to preserve the harmony of good feelings. The bearer of bad news may smile to soften the blow, or they may avoid giving the news, even if s/he is merely the messenger and in no way responsible for it. It is very hard for Koreans to admit failure and it is devastating to lose face in Korean culture. The directness of Westerners is thoroughly unpalatable to many Koreans (especially older and/or more traditional people), whose self-esteem is often on the line. In Korea, it is very important to maintain “kibun” or the feeling of being in a in a comfortable state of mind. Kibun has no literal translation in English. However, it can be described in terms of pride, face, mood, or state of mind. In order to maintain a Korean’s sense of Kibun, particularly in a business context, one must show the proper respect and avoid causing loss of face. In a culture where social harmony is essential, the ability...
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...Adam From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article is about the figure from Abrahamic religions. For the given name, see Adam (given name). For other uses, see Adam (disambiguation). See also: Adam and Eve Adam Hands of God and Adam.jpg Detail from Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam, Sistine Chapel ceiling Spouse(s) Eve Lilith (folklore) Children Cain Abel Seth Creation of Adam, Michelangelo Adam (Hebrew: אָדָם) is a figure from the Book of Genesis, also mentioned in the New Testament, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, and the Book of Iqan. According to Womack's creation myth[1] of Abrahamic religions, and also according to the Holy Bible, he is the first human. In the Genesis creation narratives, he was created by Yahweh-Elohim ("Yahweh-God", the god of Israel), though the term "adam" can refer to both the first individual person, as well as to the general creation of humankind. Christian churches differ on how they view Adam's subsequent behavior of disobeying God (often called the Fall of man), and to the consequences that those actions had on the rest of humanity. Christian and Jewish teachings sometimes hold Adam and Eve (the first woman) to a different level of responsibility for the Fall, though Islamic teaching holds both equally responsible. In addition, Islam holds that Adam was eventually forgiven, while Christianity holds that redemption occurred only later through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Bahá'í Faith, Islam and some Christian denominations...
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...ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis has been conducted at the department of the Graduate School of Business at University of Tun Abdul Razak. During the time period of my writing my thesis, I have gained knowledge from the down and up parts. This journey has been giving me some good experiences and I hope that this thesis will contribute to other students in the subject of Women in Management later. Throughout the writing of the thesis, I would like to thank several people that have been essential for conducting to my work. First and foremost, I would like to thank my beloved supervisor, Associate Professor Dr. Khairudin Damhoeri for being supportive and for his valuable advices. Secondly, I would like to send a special gratitude to my respondent Puan Nor Rubaiha Mohamed Nor, CEO of Yayasan UEM, UEM Group Berhad. Last but not least, a special thanks goes to my husband, family and friends for putting a smile on my face every single day. ABSTRACT The topic of the thesis is Women in Leadership and Management. This essay concerns the subject of thesis work is to make research of women leadership attributes and management styles. In order to get clearer details about that, I have made some investigations or researches on women leadership starting from definition of it, followed by the data collection in order to strengthen the research topic. Data shows that women continue to increase their share of managerial positions but unfortunately the rate of progress is slow and uneven...
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...WOMEN AND INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS: TAKING STOCK— A 25-YEAR REVIEW Y O C H A N A N A LT M A N A N D S U S A N S H O R T L A N D Women’s progress into management and, more specifically, into the world of expatriates, is the subject of this review. Despite advances in equal opportunities legislation, women failed to embark on expatriate missions in significant numbers during the 1980s. In the 1990s, more women were offered international assignment opportunities but they remained a negligible minority compared to men. The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed a gradual increase in the number and visibility of women in international assignments. Through a comprehensive review of the literature over the period from 1980 to now, this article charts the emerging themes and changes in the tone of discourse: from when organizations were debating whether to “give women a chance” through attempts to identify and remove “blockages” to women’s progress to, most recently, structural changes in the expatriate assignment and claims for women’s superior affinity to operating internationally. We highlight gaps in the current literature and propose a platform for future research. We conclude with recommendations for practice. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Introduction T he last two decades of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first saw a significant rise in cross-border international business activity, driven by globalization and the domination...
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...FUN IN THE WORKPLACE: TOWARD AN ENVIRONMENT-BEHAVIOR FRAMEWORK RELATING OFFICE DESIGN, EMPLOYEE CREATIVITY, AND JOB SATISFACTION By ALEXANDRA M. MILLER A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF INTERIOR DESIGN UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2005 Copyright 2005 by Alexandra M. Miller ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First, I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Margaret Portillo, for her direction and guidance throughout the entire research process. I would also like to thank Dr. M. Joyce Hasell for her support and valuable expertise. Additional thanks go to Dr. Larry Winner for his indispensable assistance as a statistical consultant. I would also like to thank PUSH for providing an excellent example of a fun workplace. In particular, I would like to thank partners John Ludwig, Chris Robb, and Rich Wahl for allowing me to conduct a case study of their business. Additional thanks go to Ron Boucher, Jourdan Crumpler, and Gordon Weller for taking the time to participate in interviews. I would also like to express my gratitude to Kathryn Voorhees for her help, humor, and friendship as she accompanied me throughout the research process. Finally, I would like to thank all of my friends and family for their support. In particular, I would like to thank to my parents for their constant support and for helping me to achieve my dreams. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ..........
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...Assess the usefulness of interactionist approaches to the study of society. (33marks) Interactionism is an action approach, which focuses on the individual, and tries to understand and interpret human behaviour. They focus on the study of individuals, and how society is constructed by members’ interactions and meanings. They also focus on how human action is meaningful and can be interpreted by an observer. Therefore they take an opposite approach to structural theories and believe individuals have the ability to create society through choice, meaning and action. Symbolic interactionism is concerned with explaining social actions in terms of the meanings that people give to them. Interactions are based on meanings we give to situations. We express these meanings through symbols, especially language. Meanings and symbols allow people to carry out human action and interactions. Language and communication deepens our capacity to become self-aware and aware of others. In addition to ‘talking to others’ we engage in talking to ourselves’, that is, engaging in internal conversations when we are making decisions. Mead (1863-1931) states that humans use symbols as a mean of interacting. Without these symbols there would be no human interaction and human society. Symbolic interaction is necessary since humans have no instincts to direct their behaviour. Mead recognized that people had the capacity to reflect on their own actions. This is because everyone has a self which...
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...KYMENLAAKSON AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in International Business ALLISON HOUSE THE CHALLENGES OF WOMEN EXPATRIATES REGARDING INTERNATIONAL ASSIGNMENT Bachelor’s Thesis 2013 1 ABSTRACT KYMMENLAAKSON AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU University of Applied Sciences Degree Programme in International Business House, Allison The Challenges of Women Expatriates Regarding International Assignment Bachelor’s Thesis 74 pages including 12 pages of appendices Supervisor Minna Söderqvist, Principal Lecturer Commissioned by Charlotte Regional Partnership September 2012 Keywords female expatriate, international assignment, male trailing spouse, career advancement, glass ceiling, repatriation With the ever-increasing amount of global business conducted in today’s world, the need for expatriate assignments on behalf of the workplace is increasing also. There is a deficit in the amount of female managers currently on international assignment. The primary objective of this thesis was to identify the challenges facing women, which would have prevented more women from embracing international assignments, and to more thoroughly explore stated challenges in order to pinpoint possible smallscale solutions. The thesis was based on IHRM. The main research method was a collective case study, which consisted mainly of dual perspective qualitative research. The primary conclusions of this thesis are that with additional...
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...WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP: THE STATE OF PLAY Deborah L. Rhode and Barbara Kellerman July, 2006 c Some four decades ago, Betty Friedan helped launch the contemporary women’s movement with her publication of The Feminine Mystique. The book famously identified a “problem that has no name”: American women’s confinement to a separate and unequal domestic sphere. One factor contributing to women’s unequal status was their absence from leadership positions. Another aspect of the problem was the lack of cultural consensus that this absence was itself part of the problem, and a matter of social concern. Over the last several decades, we have named that leadership problem and created a cottage industry to address it. Women’s underrepresentation in positions of power generates an increasing array of committees, commissions, consultants, centers, conferences, and commentary such as the essays that follow. Yet while we have made considerable progress in understanding the problem, we remain a dispiriting distance from solving it. I. The Underrepresentation of Women in Leadership Roles The facts are frustratingly familiar. Despite almost a half-century of equal opportunity legislation, women’s opportunities for leadership are anything but equal. To be sure, the situation has improved significantly over this period, particularly if leadership is broadly defined to include informal as well as formal exercises of authority.[i] By that definition, the percentage of women...
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..."The Victorian elements in Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontё" The Victorian Era, in which Brontё composed Wuthering Heights, receives its name from the reign of Queen Victoria of England. The era was a great age of the English novel, which was the ideal form to descibe contemporary life and to entertain the middle class. Emily, born in 1818, lived in a household in the countryside in Yorkshire, locates her fiction in the worlds she knows personally. In addition, she makes the novel even more personal by reflecting her own life and experiences in both characters and action of Wuthering Heights. In fact, many characters in the novel grow up motherless, reflecting Emily’s own childhood, as her mother died when Emily was three years old. Similarly, the vast majority of the novel takes place in two households, which probably is a reflection of author’s own comfort at home as whenever she was away from home she grew homesick. Emily Brontё’s single novel is a unique masterpiece propelled by a vision of elemental passions but controlled by an uncompromising artistic sense. However, despite the relative invisibility of Victorian influence in the plot and content, the attitudes of the Victorian Era make some impact on the story, and the novel is considered not only a form of entertainment but also a means of analyzing and offering solutions to social and political problems. Brontё may not highlight the social aspects in the novel, nevertheless the indications of Victorian society’s...
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...protector. They hashed out a scheme of her posing as his sister, but then later she had to pose as his wife. At the palace their fate was to become political prisoners. Elizabeth Marsh, during her time as a guest, was able to observe and later write about what was going on within the palace. However, as Colley points out “her story will only be written down much later, when she is in another country, and subject to different influences and new pressures.” Colley theorizes that Elizabeth Marsh framed the story as she did because of her reputation. Elizabeth Marsh writes for the money of the sales and to defend her reputation by portraying herself as a sentimental heroine. She told her story as an adventure, in contrast to other female captivity narratives, to increase sales and protect/rescue her reputation. Elizabeth Marsh’s captivity in Morocco showcased how she was not like women of her time because she traveled with non-family men, held her own against adversity; her book also showed that she grasped the social expectations of her gender while also recognizing the literary needs of the English public. Elizabeth Marsh was unlike most women of her time; as she was always trying to improve her class/status, especially during the industrious revolution by using her ambition and skills instead of marital status. Many women of her time would have been envious of the travels of Elizabeth Marsh, and she does stand as the great exception rather than the rule for women of the 18th Century. Elizabeth...
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...Race Discrimination Chapter Outline * Opening Scenarios * Statutory Basis * Surprised? * Background * General Considerations * Recognizing Race Discrimination * Racial Harassment * A Word about Color * The Reconstruction Civil Rights Acts * 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 * 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 * 42 U.S.C. Section 1985 * Management Tips * Summary * Chapter-End Questions Opening Scenarios SCENARIO 1 An employer has a “no-beard” policy, which applies across the board to all employees. A black employee tells the employer he cannot shave without getting severe facial bumps from ingrown hairs. The employer replies that the policy is without exception and the employee must comply. The employee refuses and is later terminated. The employee brings suit under Title VII on the basis of race discrimination. Does he win? Why? Why not? SCENARIO 2 Two truck driver employees are found to have stolen goods from the cargo they were carrying. The black employee is retained and reprimanded. The white employee is terminated. The white employee sues the employer for race discrimination under Title VII. Who wins and why? SCENARIO 3 A black female employee is terminated during a downsizing at her place of employment. The decision was made to terminate the two worst employees, and she was one of them. The employer had not told the employee of her poor performance nor given her any negative feedback during evaluations...
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...Summary Friedman concludes that the world is flat on a visit to Infosys Technologies Limited in India, where he travels with Discovery Times. Friedman is impressed by the campus’s advanced technology such as the glass-and-steel buildings and large flat-screen televisions. Nandan Nilekani, the company’s CEO, tells Friedman that the playing field has been leveled; now countries like India can compete for global knowledge. Friedman realizes that the world is flat, which fills him with both dread and excitement. Friedman believes there are historically three great eras of globalization. The first was from 1492-1800, which he calls Globalization 1.0; the second was from 1800-2000, which he calls Globalization 2.0. Friedman argues that we are now in the midst of Globalization 3.0 is a period in which the world shrinks from small to tiny, flattening to such a degree that individuals can collaborate and compete globally. Friedman tells the reader that the purpose of this book is to understand how the world became flat as well as the implications of that development. Friedman spends a night in an Indian call center. Twenty-five hundred twenty-somethings work in this multi-floor facility; some are “outbound” operators, selling various items, others are “inbound” operators, tending to the customer-service needs of various companies. Friedman notes that there are about 245,000 Indians working in this industry, which offers them high-paying, high-prestige jobs. Employees are trained how...
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..."I hope you guys left the explosives at home." — President Obama welcoming television's "Mythbusters" to a science education event (CongressDaily 2009) The primary aim of science communication is to communicate the scientific method effectively with an entire audience. In order to do this, Olson suggests that the goal is to “move the process out of your head, into your heart with sincerity, into your gut with humour, and, ideally, if you’re sexy enough, into your lower organs with sex appeal” (Olson 2009). The Discovery Channel television show Mythbusters portrays an example of this effective communication, as it breaks the bridge between subjectivity and objectivity by presenting the scientific method in a context of popular culture and myth. Firstly, it does this by arousing scientific interest by referencing popular urban myths, wives tales or movie scenes and testing these by embracing the spontaneity of the cast. This cast plays a vital role in accessing the ‘gut’ and ‘heart’ of the viewers, as they break stereotypes previously formed in the media about scientists but still communicate scientific concepts effectively. Mythbusters accurately communicates the modern image of a scientist by embracing diversity within the scientific field and utilising sex appeal. Finally, the show uses communication techniques to target audiences and demographic that aren’t often targeted by scientific communication. All these factors work together to arouse the interest of the television-viewing...
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...Sustainable Habitat mission – Climate Change action plan for Chandigarh The good building is not one that hurts the landscape, but one which makes the landscape more beautiful than it was before the building was built. - Frank Lloyd Wright A National Mission on Sustainable Habitat was launched to improve energy efficiency in buildings, manage solid wastes and modal shift to public transport. The Mission aims to promote energy efficiency as an integral part of urban planning and urban renewal through three initiatives: (i) The Energy Conservation Building Code, which addresses optimization of building energy demand; (ii) Recycling of material and Urban Waste Management with a special focus on producing power from waste, biochemical conversion, waste water use, sewage utilization and recycling options wherever possible and others; (iii) Better urban planning and modal shift to public transport to ensure efficient and convenient public transport. In addition, the Mission will address the need to adapt to future climate change by improving the resilience of infrastructure, community based disaster management, and measures for improving the warning system for extreme weather events. Capacity building would be an important component of this Mission. As part of the Mission for Sustainable Habitat and Green Code for Chandigarh, detailed action plan and guidelines have been prepared by the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD) which could be City’s vision for sustainability. Chandigarh...
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