Critical Evaluation of International Essay Example for Free

Critical Evaluation of International Essay A review of literature on international HRM reveals three different approaches (Dowling et al. , 1999, p. 2): Comparative, Cross-cultural and multi-national. Firstly, according to Adler (1997), the early approaches to researching international HRM focused on cross-cultural differences and examination of human behaviour from an international perspective. Certainly, research on cross-cultural organizational behaviour has become a conduit for the understanding of the dynamics of multicultural domestic and international workplaces within the advent of globalisation. There are different levels of analysis within cross-national HRM, national factors, contingent factors and organisational level. Cross-national HRM researchers claim that it is at the levels of national factors and contigent variables that they can make useful contributions through the examination of the impacts of such determinants of HRM policies and practices (Boxall, 1995; Brewster et al, 1996). However, other researchers (Budhwar and Sparrow, 1997; Jackson and Schuler, 1995) argue that national factors and contingent variables are not enough in themselves to provide an understanding of the context-specific nature of HRM practices. It is important therefore, to consider analysis of the impact of organisational-level strategies (Budhwar and Sparrow, 1997). Secondly, the comparative approach focuses on similarities and differences in HRM practices within an international context. Undeniably, Budhwar Sparrow (2002) note that the increase in globalisation of business transactions, the emergence of new markets such as the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as well as hyper competition among organisations at equally the domestic and international level have been associated with an increased significance and need for comparative human resource management (HRM) studies. As a result, there has been a growing number of studies addressing the configuration of HRM in different national contexts (Budhwar Sparrow, 2002). According to Rechie, Lee and Quintanilla (2009) one of the most significant role of comparative HRM research is to provide managers, principally those working in multinational firms, with specific guidelines concerning how to design and implement an effective HRM system taking into consideration cultural differences especially when their business operation enters into different cultural contexts for example western multinationals seeking to do business in China. This notion of being responsive to the context and standardisation of HRM policies and practices has generated controversial but nonetheless critical topics of discussion in comparative HRM, such as the debate on localization versus standardization, and the process of transferring HRM policies and practices across nations (Rechie et al, 2009). The thirdly, multinational approach, tends to focus on HRM practices in multinational organisations. The HRM extant literature reveals that there are two distinct schools of thought as regards approaches to managing people within MNCs: (i) convergence and (ii) divergence. According to Brewster et al. , (2007), the convergence approach is said to be one of the most dominant strands in international management research. On the one hand, the convergence approach has three main assumptions: firstly, the ultimate aim in all organisations is to improve performance through high-performance work systems (Brewster, 2001). Secondly, the universal aim of performance improvement can be achieved by using sound and effective management philosophies that hold true despite of differences among national environments (Girgin, 2005). Thirdly, proponents of the convergence approach argue that if local practices are different from these principles, they are expected to be replaced with ‘the one best way’, converging mainly on the American model as the leading industrial economy (Dowling et al. , 1999). According to Girgin (2005) the concept of convergence towards the one best way practice has been encouraged and/or supported by the forces of globalisation, which has led to the opening of world markets, deregulation, regional integration and improvements in communication technologies. Although HRM as a field of practice was developed in America, the principles and practices designed for America may not hold for other parts of the world. Barlett and Ghoshal (1989), say that, the main suggestion of the globalisation argument is that nationality factors in the operation of national systems and of companies are no longer influential or important as international companies become ‘trans-national’ which converge to a new ‘best model’. Yes, the IHRM literature shows that because multinational corporations are embedded in their home institutional environments, they may attempt to transfer ‘home’ practices to their foreign operations in different cultural environments (Edwards et al. , 1999). However, the study of HRM practices in Europe (see Brewster et al 2007) suggest that national differences are significant in the determination of HRM practices. On the other hand, the divergence approach or contextual paradigm searches for contextually unique practices and approaches to management, it does not search for evidence of similarities (Brewster, 2001). Within the IHRM literature, the focal point of the divergence standpoint is the dissimilarity of policies and applications across different national and regional contexts and tries to understand the particularities of the context with a view to interpret why and how such differences have emerged in these settings (Brewster, 2005). Within the divergence school of thought, there are two distinct approaches to managing human resources in multinational organisations: (i) the culturalist and (ii) the institutionalist perspectives. Based mainly on Hofstede’s (1980) value-based behavioural dimensions and concepts of national culture which have made an attempt to explain the influence of culture upon Multinationals’ behaviour, the culturalist approach has found widespread acceptance in the IHRM literature. Hofstede (1980) came to a conclusion that culture was the main determinant of the variations in work-related values, attitudes and behaviours among employees and managers within the same organisation, and of the same profession, age, or gender. Hofstede found that there were four dimensions that explained the differences in work-related values and behaviours: (i) Individualism and collectivism, (ii) Uncertainty avoidance, (iii) Power distance and (iv) Masculinity and femininity According to Girgin (2005), the culturalist approach endeavours to build an understanding of differences in work organisations, managerial behaviour and human resource practices based on attributes of national cultural distinctiveness in terms of values, ideas and beliefs shared by people in a given society. Under the divergence school of thought, the institutionalist perspective is the second. The main argument of the institutionalist perspective is that national institutional contexts (for example, government systems, training and development systems) play a major role in determining structures and strategies of organisations (Girgin, 2005). According to Girgin (2005), those who support the Institutionalist perspective stress the pressures on companies to acquire and maintain legitimacy in relation to the environment and the way that interlocking practices can bring benefits in particular systemic contexts. This perspective presents itself as a more comprehensive framework for the comparative study of different national systems (Girgin, 2005). For example, despite the knowledge of the influence of culture on organisational behaviour, HR practitioners cannot simply measure cultural values across their operations and predict behaviour, due cognisance must be given to various institutional contexts. As noted by Dewettinck and Remue (2011) certain practices are shared across or within particular contexts; some are distinctive of certain countries; some are unique to certain sectors or sections of an organization or even individuals. Without doubt, while each of the above approaches sharpens the focus on some aspects of HRM, it is possible that solely focusing on one aspect may unavoidably, hinder capturing the positive aspects from other perspectives(Mayrhofer and Brewster, 2005). Indeed what appears to be more significant in researching international HRM is the context. According to Dewettinck and Remue (2011) the notion of context and/or focus on contextual factors has been reflected in the cross-cultural embedment of many international HRM studies (Brewster, Mayrhoferand Morley, 2004), in addition, the Globe project which was focused on leadership also reveals that context is important (House and Javidan, 2004). For example, a recent study by Hartmann et al. (2010) of western multinationals operating in China shows that these organisations implement relatively unchanged HRM practices from their home country in their Chinese subsidiaries. The study of Hartmann et al. , reveals that consideration of contextual factors is important in the understanding of HRM practices and the management of people in an international context. As a matter of fact, results of Hartmann et al. ’s study indicate that, although the Chinese subsidiaries of Western multinationals were able to implement unchanged HRM practices such as talent management from their headquarters, the practices were not successfully internalised. This demonstrates the significance of national cultures and being responsive to local needs in implementing HRM practices. The example above actually shows that context is an important aspect in researching international HRM regardless of the approach taken. In conclusion, there is indeed something to be learnt from each of the perspectives. Each of the perspectives do make considerable contribution to the understanding of international HRM.

GEOLOGY - Earths Interior :: essays research papers fc

INTRODUCTION For millennia mankind has inhabited the third planet from the sun; the planet that supports life and is know to us as Earth. Although there has been life on Earth for quite sometime, it is only in the past few centuries that man has come to learn about what makes up the interior of this planet. The English scientist, Isaac Newton, can be seen as a pioneer in regards to learning about the Earth’s interior, as he calculated from his studies of planets and the force of gravity, that the average density of the Earth is twice that of surface rocks and therefore that the Earth's interior must be composed of a much denser material ¹. Our knowledge of what's inside the Earth has improved immensely since Newton's time, but his estimate of the density remains essentially unchanged. So what is this new knowledge of the Earth’s interior? PRESENT KNOWLEDGE ‘A round sphere with many layers, all varying in thickness, each having it’s own colour and taste†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ this is a description of a gob-stopper and also bares a close resemblance to the internal structure of the Earth; a sphere divided into three layers, differing in density, composition, strength, and state. The densest of these layers is the core, which is composed largely of metallic iron, with small amounts of nickel and other elements ². The less dense mantle then covers this layer, being composed of magnesium and iron silicates. The outermost layer is that of the crust, it has the lowest density of all the layers and can be separated further as its thickness varies greatly from place to place, with the difference being distinguished by land and sea and also its composition. For this reason the core is subdivided into the continental crust (average thickness 45km with a granitic composition) and the oceanic crust (average thickness 8km with a basaltic composition) ¹. Similarly the core can also be subdivided, but the difference is not one between compositions but one by physical state. The inner core of the Earth is solid iron; this is because it is under such high pressure, so high that temperature has no bearing on its state. The outer core has a balance between temperature and pressure so it’s iron composition is in the molten state. Rock strength can also add further categorisation to the Earths interior, bringing in the sphere layers: the mesosphere, asthenosphere, and lithosphere.

Annual Sports Day Essay

The 16th Dec is the founation day of my school and besides other annual co-curricular events like the magic show, fun fair, annual sports day is the event that students wait for anxiously . This event develops competitiveness, sports man spirit and team work among the students. They are full of joy on this day. As usual an interesting programme was chalked out for the day and printed copies were distributed to the students. The parents were also invited alongwith other digniteries and the chief guest. All the participants of different events were short listed and encouraged to get practice before the event. The physical training instructor was the incharge of the whole show and a full dress rehearsal was carried out a day before to give the final touches to the preparations. A DJ was specially hired to add some musical flavour to the event. An ex-student of the school hosted the event and added excitement to the occasion by her fluent, graceful and spontaneous commentary of the proceedings. The show began exactly at 10 AM after the chief guest has arrived at he stage with big round of applause. Parents had already seated in a separate pavillion and looked excited to see their children partcipating in the sports. At the beginning a boy of 9th class recited few verses of the Holy Quraan which was folowed by Naat to pay homage to the Holy Prophet (PBUH). First of all the atheletes, taking part in diferent events staged a march-past and assembled in front of the main pavillion. A student of 9th class stepped forward and requested the chief guest to formally declare the sports day open with a loud beat of drum and music. To start with, different races were staged among students of junior sectionwhich included the banana race, cycle race, baloon race, and back-ball race. It was great fun watching little kids making funny moves. A wonderful display of physical exercise was exhibited by all the students of school. A photographer was busy in capturing the events. Then it was the  turn of lthe senior section to show their talent in the races like the spoon race, sack race, the three-legged race, the dress-up race, 100 meter race and the 4X100 meter relay race. The famous tug of war won by the 9th class boys who displayed their sheer power and team work to win the contest. Students, teachers and parents shouted and cheered to encourage participants while the DJ added more drama with his musical flashes. The host kept the audience interested and informed by her articulate and fluent commentary. After races children, clad in the karate uniforms, came running in with their hands of their hips to exhibit their skills i the martial arts and self defence. It was followed by a brave display of smashing tiles with their fists and foreheads. Our PTI himself performed a dangerous stunt by breaking a stack of burning tiles with his hand on fire. Every one was dumb founded to see this and gave him a big applause. The girls of senior section performed aerobic exercise with musical rhythm in a graceful style. After that, a boy from 10th class sang a popular song of the famous Junoon band while a grils also sang a sufi folk song and got cheered and applauded by all the audiences. Pre-nursary kids presented and fancy dress show and exhibited as a king & queen, an angel, a soldier, a supreman and few more characters which looked so innocent and cute. At the end the host requested the chief guest to give away prizes to the winners of the different events. To conclude the show the chief guest delivered a brief speech which was followed by ex-principals address who shared her views and experiences and also announced donation for the teaching staff. In the closing speech, the principal thanked all the guests and parents for their valued presence and lauded the students spirit of competition and participation specially to the students who volunteered alongwith teachers in making the whole event a great success.

Symptoms And Treatment Of Bipolar Disorder - 1338 Words

In J. Sloan Manning, MD’s article there is a graph from 2 studies that were done in 2014. The graph is showing how people living with bipolar I and bipolar II have other such conditions that they are struggling with. It is important to get this disorder treated as soon as possible, to lessen the chances of developing another unwanted disorder. Consequently, choice of clinical treatment still occurs largely on the basis of reducing target symptoms (psychosis, depression, mania/hypomania and anxiety), resulting often in use of multiple medical or psychological therapies (Hickie, 2014). To avoid making this diagnosis worse, it is better to get the current symptoms under control as soon as possible. According to Passos, Jansen and Kapczinski,†¦show more content†¦Each of the different colleagues that did this study has each come up with their own idea/stages of how bipolar becomes present in an individual.. What is known is that bipolar sometimes has a genetic component and can run in families (WebMD, 2015). Even though a family can have multiple children, only one might end up with this disorder. They are all growing up in the same environment as each other. But all of the individuals are not the same, they all might have different life style choices and have different genes then the other siblings. Maybe the gene with the bipolar disorder is not triggered with one of the individuals that makes better life style choice, while the one that does have this disorder might smoke and make bad life style choices. Simple little things can trigger the onset of this disorder. Something that triggers it for one person might have absolutely no impact on another individual. Everyon e is different and reacts different to different scenarios. There are trigger points that will activate this disorder to actually show it. You can be born with it and never even show any signs of it, while others will display this disorder early in life. A traumatic life event can happen during this time that will cause that individual to show early signs of being bipolar. For example: a child finds out that his parents are getting a divorce. The parents might think that this child is acting out because of the