Case Study On Armstrongs Handbook Of Human Resource Management Practic

Question: 1. Distinguish between different approaches to the study of leadership and discuss critically the circumstances under which each approach can be implemented 2. You have been hired by a multinational company in the oil gas industry to provide a Consultancy services for a massive restructuring exercise. One of the major assignment you have to carry out is the preparations of job descriptions. Write a job description for the position of Senior Chemical Engineer as a guide to Senior Management. The position reports directly to the Engineering Director. The Senior Chemical Engineer supervises 5 Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller. Answer: Introduction This paper is based on the concepts of different concepts of Human Resource Management. Human resource management (HRM) is defined as the management of people, resources, policies and systems in an organisation (Johnason, 2009). Often, HRM is concerned with recruiting, selection, reimbursement and training of the candidates. This paper aims at distinguishing between different approaches to the study of leadership and discusses critically the circumstances under which each approach can be implemented. In second section, this paper aims at developing a job description for the position of Senior Chemical Engineer as a guide to Senior Management (Marchington Wilkinson, 2012). Distinguish between different approaches to the study of leadership and discuss critically the circumstances under which each approach can be implemented. Generally, leadership is a theory adopted in the context of management and is defined as the social influence in which a person can influence others to follow his footsteps due to his leadership qualities. There are various kinds of approaches to study of leadership. These approaches are used differently under different situations. Various studies of leadership have developed theories that involve traits, functions, situational interaction, behaviour, power, vision etc. Leadership is the process of influence. A leader is someone who motivates, guides its followers towards achievement to their goals. Definition of leadership: Leadership is the ability to persuade an individual or group of individuals. Leadership as a process leads an individual or an organization to their goals. It also means to motivate behavior towards accomplishment (Towers, 2007). Leadership is basically the ability of a authoritative figures to manage and motivate their followers. Thus it relies heavily on interp ersonal and communication skills. It is an important factor in successful operating of firms. A leader by definition must have followers, thus to critically explore the concept of leadership it is essential to study the relationship between leaders and their followers. Leadership is a vigorous process wherein the leader-follower relationship is constantly changing. It is a two- way process and its outcome is directly proportionate to each other in nature (Baumgartel, 1957). Different Approaches to the Study Of Leadership Leadership is a vast topic, it has a huge body of literature. Thus to perceive and understand it critically researchers have adopted various approaches to study leadership. It can be broadly classified into are four different approaches - Traits theory, Behaviouristic theory, Contingency theory and Charismatic theories of leadership (Jonathan, 2010). These approaches use different techniques and approaches to identify successful and unsuccessful leaders. Traits Theory The trait theory of leader, is an approach which uses the traits of leaders to study leadership. This theory proposes that there are certain traits of an individual which make them successful leaders. By observing the traits of leaders it is basically used to predict effectiveness of the leadership. The traits fund in successful leaders are then used judge the effectiveness of other potential leaders (Budhwar Debrah, 2013). The trait approach basically observes and studies the physiological, demographic, personal and social behavior of the potential leaders (Meredith Belbin, 2011). The traits theory basically operates on the assumption that the traits of successful and effective leaders and vastly different from the less effective or unsuccessful leaders (Guest, 2011). One of the Major limitations of the trait approach is the assumption of what or who a successful leader is. Another limitation is that the list of possible traits for successful or unsuccessful leader lends to be very exhaustive. (Jonathan,2010). Behaviouristic theory Behaviouristic theory basically studies the behavior of leaders, their main focus is on What successful leaders do? And how do they do it? Unlike the trait approach which focused on what Leaders are, the Behaviouristic theory focused on what successful leaders do (Price, 2011). They behavior of these leaders were easier to observe and study as compared to traits, which were essentially based on assumptions (Jonathan, 2010). With the limitations of the trait theory, researchers werent successful in determining a fixed list of traits that differentiates successful leaders from unsuccessful ones, they started focusing their attention to observing the behavior of the leaders (Hoque, 2013). According to this theory many leaders display either task oriented behavior or people oriented behavior (Armstrong Taylor, 2014). Task oriented behavior of leaders basically relates to the effectiveness of the leader, whereas people-oriented behaviors are those which focus on employee satisfaction. One of the major limitations of the Behaviouristic theory was that it focused on rather subjective definition of successful leaders, thus focusing only on those who are consistently successful (Jonathan, 2010). The Managerial Grid The Managerial Grid was conceptualized by Blake and Mouton in 1985. With the managerial Grid they tried to study an individuals approach of leadership on two different dimensions - concern for production and concern for people (Mello, 2014). It displays the results on a 9x9 grid where the grid has nine points along each dimension creating of eighty-one possible styles of leader behavior (Jiang et al. 2012). Fig1: Concern for Production Source: Jonathan, 2010 The managerial grid classifies the tendency of leaders to behave in a particular way. The (9,1) style focuses wholly on production is known as the task management. Managers with this style are remarkably proficient with the procedure and working of a particular task but are not so skilled in adept with people (Berman et al 2012). Similarly The (1, 9) style is complete opposite to the (9,1) style thus leaders with this style are better adept at dealing with people with very less focus on task procedure. It is known as country club style of management. Leaders scoring (9, 9) in the managerial grid are considered to be ideal leaders, they have maximum concern for people as well as production.. The Managerial Grid faces strong criticism for assuming and ignoring the considerable influence of the situational aspects. Contingency theories Leadership is known to influence many organizational activities in several ways. Theses influences are basically the ability to motivate and communicate with the subordinates to get effective results. Researchers have established the fact that leadership definitely has positive or negative influences on the operating capacity of subordinates. The Contingency Theory of leadership was conceptualized by Fred E. Fiedler. This theory basically states the team performance is the result of communication between two factors (Jonathan, 2010). Fiedler's model of contingency theory suggests that effectiveness of leadership is the result of communication between the leader and its environment, the first factor in the theory is the leadership style. It is the system of communication which happens between the leader and its team. According to Fiedler, the leadership style of an individual is an extension of the personality of the person. To classify the various leadership styles, Fiedler's conceptualized a scale called the least-preferred coworker (LPC) scale (Jonathan, 2010). The scale in plotted on the scale of one to eight ranging on different dimension which include - Unfriendly Friendly, Uncooperative- Cooperative, Hostile- Supportive , Guarded Open, with the eight being the highest and one the lowest. The responses to the scales are calculated by taking a total and averaged, the results of the LPC score suggests the influential ability of the leader. A low LPC score suggest that the leader is more task oriented whereas a high LPC score indicates the leader is more oriented towards people. This theory also purports that leaders who score less on this scale are relatively less preferred in the work space. While those who score high are generally preferred by their subordinates due to their exceptional people pleasing skills. Task 2: Write a job description for the position of Senior Chemical Engineer as a guide to Senior Management. The position reports directly to the Engineering Director. The Senior Chemical Engineer supervises 5 Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller. I have been hired by a multinational company in Oil Gas industry. The company is seeking consultation services in order to restructure its organisation. Hence, I am responsible to write job description of Senior Chemical Engineer who will be reporting directly to Engineering Director. The Senior Chemical Engineer will act a guide to senior management and will also supervise 5 Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller. By definition, job description refers to the details or list of roles and responsibilities that a person has to perform once he is hired. Job descriptions are used by human resource managers to find prospective candidates for the position. Further, these descriptions also provide a clear view to the candidate for the position he or she is applying. As per Torrignton, a job description is usually created by carrying an in-depth analysis of the job, its requirements and the output required from it (Collings, 2009). Managers consider the area of knowledge, relevant skills and experience of the work required to do that task. Job descriptions can also be made person-specific by turning it into Terms of Reference (Paauwe, 2009). A job usually includes number of roles. In order to make job description role-specific, Terms of References are presented as a single document (Klerck, 2009). But in practice, Terms of Reference is included in job description only. The job description of Senior Chemical Engineer is as under: Title: Senior Chemical Engineer Department: Engineering Reports To: Engineering Director General Accountability: This is a full time opportunity for a candidate who will be given the title of Senior Chemical Engineer and will report directly to Engineering Director. Senior Chemical Engineer will act as guide to Senior Management. His prime duty will be to improve the chemical processes involved in the mining of raw materials in order to produce high quality products (Merkle, 2010). The candidate will have to work individually on developing new designs, managing test work and prepare basic design packages in form of flow charts, excel sheets, Pdfs etc. The candidate will have to ensure that all project designs are passed successfully from designing to manufacturing. This person will be responsible to directly contact senior management and also carry a feasibility study at regular intervals to help in operations management (Mayo, 1945). The job role of Senior Chemical Engineer also includes supervising five Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller. Roles and Responsibilities: The candidate to be chosen for the role of Senior Chemical Engineer is expected to have relevant years of experience of working with chemical processes, operations and consulting. For this, a strong academic background in engineering is mandatory to be suitable for the position. The basic roles and responsibilities for the post of Senior Chemical Engineer include investigating, designing, commissioning of chemical processes for the recovery and refining of rare metals (O'Brien, 2009). For this, both theoretical and practical knowledge is required for the candidate. The candidate is also expected to possess some experience in supervising five Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller. The roles and responsibilities of the candidate to be chosen as Senior Chemical Engineer are listed below: Basic theoretical and practical knowledge of dealing with the rare metals 6-7 years of relevant experience in testing various chemical processes such as working with high temperature furnaces, mining, extraction, filtration methodologies such as evaporation, precipitation etc. 5-6 years of relevant experience in developing basic design packages, chemical plant engineering, estimating operational cost, industrial chemical plant experience etc. 3-4 years of experience in supervising five Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller Experience required for the job role: In order to be suitable for the position of Senior Chemical Engineer, the candidate is expected to possess experience in: Handling chemical processes such as working with high temperature furnaces, mining, extraction, filtration methodologies such as evaporation, precipitation etc. Practical experience in operations Risk analysis and quality control experience must Disposal of waste products and handling environmental issues effectively Using computer simulation software for chemical processes In contact with Senior Management and working as guide Supervising five Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller Managing contractors and consulting companies Developing and Implementation of ISO systems Besides the relevant experience, the candidate will also have to travel extensively to different travel planned plant and test sites. Education requirements for the job role of supervising Senior Chemical Engineer: The Senior Chemical Engineer is required to possess a strong academic background in chemical engineering. The educational requirements in detail are: Degree/Diploma in Chemical Engineering/Metallurgy Engineering experience or equivalent Minimum ten years of experience in working with chemical and hydrometallurgical processes Minimum five to six years of experience in Process Safety Management Experience in estimating operational cost and preparation of plan layouts Minimum five to six years of experience in managing contractors and supervising five Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller Required Skills for job role of Senior Chemical Engineer: A Senior Chemical Engineer is required to be skilled and competent professional. Some of the skills required for the job role of Senior Chemical Engineer are: Competency in project management and project accountability Practice the health and safety policies effectively Managing and supervising Chemical Engineers, Cost Engineer and Document Controller Hands-on Senior Chemical Engineer with in-depth knowledge of chemical and hydrometallurgy processes Possesses a methodological and logical approach with strong emphasis on quality rather than quantity Possesses the capability of working in a team and solving problems effectively Possess exceptional verbal and written communication skills Must be willing to travel extensively to monitor plant sites Must be willing to relocate anywhere across globe wherever company requires Must have professional engineer status Salary of the Senior Chemical Engineer: The Salary of a Senior Chemical Engineer can range from75k to 95k depending upon the skills of the candidate. This is the job description of the Senior Chemical Engineer. This job description will enable the human resource managers to select the prospective candidates (Ulrich, 1996). References 1. Armstrong, M., Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.2. Berman, E. M., Bowman, J. S., West, J. P., Van Wart, M. R. (2012). Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes, and problems. Sage.3. udhwar, P. S., Debrah, Y. A. (Eds.). (2013). Human resource management in developing countries. Routledge.4. Collings, G. (2009). Human resource management: A critical approach. In D. G. Collings G. Wood (Eds.), Human resource management: A critical approach (pp. 1-16). London: Routledge.5. Guest, D. E. (2011). Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers. Human Resource Management Journal, 21(1), 3-13.6. Hoque, K. (2013). Human resource management in the hotel industry: Strategy, innovation and performance. Routledge.7. Jiang, K., Lepak, D., Hu, J., Baer, J. (2012). How does human resource management influence organizational outcomes? A meta-analytic investigation of mediati ng mechanisms. Academy of management Journal, amj-2011.8. Johnason, P. (2009). HRM in canging organizational contexts. In D. G. Collings G. Wood (Eds.), Human resource management: A critical approach (pp. 19-37). London: Routledge.9. Jonathan, E. (2010). The Changing Environment of Professional HR Associations. Cornell HR Review. Accessed on 9 March, 2015.10. Klerck, G. (2009). Industrial relations and human resource management. In D. G. Collings G. Wood (Eds.), Human resource management: A critical approach (pp. 238-259). London: Routledge.11. Marchington, M., Wilkinson, A. J. (2012). Human resource management at work. https://www. cipd. co. uk/Bookstore/_catalogue/HRPractice/9781843982678. htm.12. Mayo, E. (1945). Hawthorne and the Western Electric Company. Harvard Business School. Accessed on 9 March, 2015.13. Mello, J. (2014). Strategic human resource management. Cengage Learning.14. Meredith Belbin, R. (2011). Management teams: Why they succeed or fail.Human Resource Man15. Merkle, A. (2010). Management and Ideology. University of California Press.16. O'Brien, M. (2009). HR's Take on The Office. Human Resource Executive Online. Accessed on 9 March, 2015.17. Paauwe, J. (2009). Strategic HRM: A critical review. In D. G. Collings G. Wood (Eds.), Human resource management: A critical approach (pp. 38-54). London: Routledge.18. Price, A. (2011). Human resource management. Cengage Learning.19. Towers, D. (2007). Human Resource Management essays. Accessed on 9 March, 2015.20. Ulrich, D. (1996). Human Resource Champions. The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press.

Auditors Role in Enron free essay sample

The responsibility of an auditor is to express an opinion on the financial statements based on his audit which means verification or check in accordance with International Standards on Auditing. These standards require that the author complies with ethical requirements and performs the audit to obtain reasonable assurance whether the financial statements are free from material misstatement. An audit involves performing procedures to obtain audit evidence about the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. The procedures selected depend on the auditor’s judgment, including the assessment of the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to fraud or error. In making those risk assessments, the auditor considers internal controls relevant to the entity’s preparation and fair presentation of the financial statements in order to design audit procedures that are appropriate in the circumstances. An audit also includes evaluating the appropriateness of accounting policies used and the reasonableness of accounting estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements.   Enron was established in 1985 following the merge of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. In year 2000, Enron reported a remarkable growth of revenue of $ 100. 8 billion, putting it at number seven in the Fortune 500 list of the country’s biggest companies. However, in October 2001, things were reversed with its report of $638 million third-quarter loss and $1. 2 billion reduction in stock value . Following the revise of financial statements for past five years which accounted for $586 million in losses , in December, Enron filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and became the US’s largest ever corporate collapse. Behind this world-shaking collapse is the fact of executives’ self-dealing, greed and the accountancy company’s default. Enron’s collapse recalls the debate of Anglo-Saxon corporate governance model, which supports deregulation, ‘shareholder value’ and opposition of public intervention. One of the important lessons from the Enron collapse is that no one in the ‘audit chain’ could alarm, disclose, and correct its weak financial status and bad business behaviour. The audit chain, including the audit committee of the board, the board, the outside auditor, the market specialists in stock, the stock exchanges, major creditors, and the credit rating agencies, etc. , appears to have not had an enough incentive to find out and disclose the truth of the behaviour of Enron. Among them, Arthur Andersen, the outside auditors, who should be independent from the audited company, failed to report the accurate information because of a conflict of interest between the auditing and consulting activity for Enron. Enron was Arthur Andersens second largest U.S. customer, paying $25 million in audit fees. Failure by auditors to detect a material error or misstatement in accounting information at Enron can arise from three main causes, two of which may be attributed to audit failure . First, auditors may either fail to detect a material error or misstatement, or, having detected an error, fail to recognize it, because they have carried out a substandard audit – i. e. the auditors are incompetent. Second, auditors may identify an error or misstatement and fail to report it or get the directors to put it right – i. e. the auditors lack independence. Third, directors may deliberately deceive auditors. In cases of deliberate deception, auditors may not be held responsible for failure to detect a problem. Andersen’s audit failed due to unconscious bias which is the propensity to interpret data in accordance with our desires. Biased judgments, rather than criminal collusion between auditors and management often cause audit failures. The so called â€Å"integrated audit† that Andersen employed at Enron where it sought to combine its role as external auditor with internal auditing, the process whereby an enterprise checks its own books. Internal audits seek to ensure that an enterprise follows its procedures, safeguards its assets, and operates efficiently. Management has historically selected the accounting principles that an enterprise uses to prepare its financial statements. An audit essentially endorses or rejects the accounting choices that management has made. The auditors have a large part of responsibility while endorsing or rejecting the accounting principles. The Enron collapse has focused world attention on accounting standards and the role of auditors. Accounting bodies have been reviewing the issue because it concerns members in two ways. As investors they need to consider the quality management on accounting standards, corporate governance implications and possible regulatory impact, especially with reference to the impending government review. As preparers of accounts, they need to reassure themselves that the practice is sufficiently robust and that any regulatory changes following Enron will lead to genuine improvements without adding unnecessary cost. It focuses on the need to ward against conflicts of interest between auditors and their clients. Evaluation of external and internal auditors on independency and diligence A number of separate groups have an interest in a company’s accounts: management, shareholders and lenders, and where relevant regulators. While all have a genuine interest in understanding the business and its prospects, the motivation may not be the same in every case. Management has an incentive to paint a positive picture to the other groups. Shareholders and creditors need an objective view. Accounting rules need to be robust in order to ensure that the picture is objective. The audit process needs to be independent in order to prevent undue influence by management. It is thus appropriate to review of accounting bodies practice from these standpoints. There may be a case for change in some areas, but these should not generally go in the direction of detailed prescription and additional rule making. This approach should also be preserved for the elaboration of international standards, which are due to enter force in the future accounting conference. It would be wrong to shift towards a more rule-based approach in the wake of Enron, not least because that would encourage companies and their auditors to seek loopholes. Nonetheless it is appropriate that investors and audit committees should tighten their scrutiny of the audit process. Auditors must be in a position to resist pressure from management to present an overly positive view of the business. They must not make themselves vulnerable to such pressure by coming to rely heavily on fees for non-audit consultancy work from companies whose accounts they audit. External and internal auditors continually strive for improvement and eliminating the conflict of Interest Two main means of preventing conflicts of interest have featured in the debate over Enron. Some have suggested that auditors should be rotated on a regular basis. Others have suggested that there should be a formal separation of the roles of auditor and consultant. Both ideas have attractions. Both have flaws. Of the two, that of rotating auditors is the more problematic, because there would be regular periods of transition during which scrutiny would be weak. Critical issues might thus be overlooked. A more practical approach might be to impose more frequent rotation of audit partners than the current seven-year norm. This would be part of a process that would also ensure a steady and continuous rotation of audit teams. Some members believe the audit partner should be rotated every three years. Another suggestion is that the audit partner be named in the annual report. This, it is argued, would instill a greater sense of personal responsibility and raise the quality of the audit. Another idea, to which shareholders attach considerable importance, is that the audit partner should not move across to a senior position within the client company, particularly as finance director. While shareholders are not in favor of rotating auditors, they do believe that such an appointment should automatically trigger the appointment of new auditors. The idea of separating audit and consultancy work also finds some support. However there are reservations on two counts about prescribing such change. Some types of non-audit work fall naturally to auditors. An example is the preparation of regulatory returns for insurance companies. For this reason the accounting bodies has resisted the temptation to prescribe a formal separation of the audit/consultancy role or to prescribe any maximal for the ratio of non-audit to audit fees. There is, however, scope for strengthening governance in this area, even as an interim measures pending the conclusion of broader debate. The U. S. accounting bodies already monitors the ratio of audit to non-audit fees. When the latter exceed the former and now plan to follow through with a letter to the chairman of the audit committee, asking for an explanation of the fees, confirmation that the committee is comfortable with the award of non-audit work to its auditor and to state whether non-audit work had been put out to tender. If institutional shareholders want to ensure that company accounts are properly audited, they must be prepared to sanction appropriate fees. It may well be that audit fees should raise as standards are tightened in the wake of Enron. Shareholders should support this if it leads to higher quality audits and reduces the temptation for audit firms to raise additional revenue through consultancy. Alas it would be wrong to concede higher fees simply because a contraction in the number of large audit firms had reduced competitive pressure. Companies need a diversity of choice when looking for an auditor. Second, higher fees would also require higher standards of supervision. There is a strong case for revisiting the role of the audit committee and for requiring it to make regular disclosure in the annual report about its activity in supervising the audit process. Section 404 of the act requires management to acknowledge its responsibility for establishing and maintaining adequate internal controls, including asserting their effectiveness in writing. The financial statement auditor, in turn, must report on management’s assertion about the effectiveness of its internal controls as of the company’s yearend. These provisions apply to entities with market capitalization of more than $75 million for fiscal years ending on or after June 15, 2004. (Smaller companies must comply as of the first fiscal year ending on or after June 15, 2005. The Sarbanes-Oxley internal control certification provisions impose significant responsibilities on both management and the auditor. The former will have to take ownership of the process of identifying, documenting and evaluating significant controls, as well as determining which locations or business units to evaluate. For auditors, providing an opinion on the effectiveness of an entity’s inter nal controls is a significant engagement. Management and auditors should recognize the process will be valuable for several reasons. Management’s assessment of internal controls should enhance the entity’s risk identification processes by lending entity wide consistency. The assessment also should enhance controls consciousness throughout the company and may reveal unnecessary or duplicate controls, as well as areas for improvement. Better control processes could result in operating efficiencies and reduced litigation and fraud. Key Proposed Tests of Controls An effective detective control can compensate for a deficient preventative control, therefore avoiding a significant deficiency or material weakness. The auditor should more extensively test controls on which other significant controls depend. Evidence about the control environment (including fraud programs) often is highly subjective; the auditor should not rely on results of tests others perform. The auditor should limit use of the work of others in areas such as controls over significant nonroutine and nonsystematic transactions and the period-end financial reporting process. Unless the control environment is deficient, the auditor can test controls at an interim date, but should consider obtaining additional evidence for the remaining time period. Where the entity has changed controls, the auditor need not ordinarily consider those superseded controls to render an opinion on controls effectiveness as of yearend; however, changed controls may relate to reliance on controls in the financial statement audit due to the nature of earnings and cash flow measurement. If reasons for a control exception do not indicate weakness in general design or control operation, the deviation may not indicate a significant deficiency. Regardless of reasons, numerous or repeated instances of a deficiency may constitute a significant deficiency. Although individually insignificant, numerous control deficiencies having a common feature or attribute may constitute a significant deficiency. A material misstatement the auditor detects, but the entity does not identify, ordinarily is a material weakness in controls. Where multiple locations exist, the auditor should perform tests of controls if a location is Individually important.

Aegean island of Chios Essays

Aegean island of Chios Essays Aegean island of Chios Essay Aegean island of Chios Essay Introduction In the undermentioned pages I am traveling to show a instance survey refering the Aegean island of Chios, in relation to the statements made alonside this survey. This peculiar instance survey is suited for the presentation and scrutiny of the current state of affairss every bit good as development proposals and development of the island from a tourer company or a tourer developer point of position. Description OF THE ISLAND The island of Chios covers an country of 342 square kilometres and has a population of about 60,000, a denseness of 62.35 dwellers per square kilometer. ( The corresponding figure for the state as a whole is 66.5 dwellers per kilometer ) . Administratively, Chios is composed of a individual state ( state of Nomos of Chios ) and includes one metropolis, three towns, 50 five small towns and 101 crossroadss. Lush green fragrant Khioss, besides known as the mastic island, has much to offer to the traveler. It is likely Homer s place of birth, and it has an huge naval and rational tradition. It was inhabited since the Neolithic epoch, has known consecutive vanquishers, was devastated by plagiarist onslaughts during the Byzantine old ages, and after a short period of Enetian domination it came under the Genoan commercial company Maona ( for two centuries ) . It paid a high monetary value during the Grecian Revolution, with the population slaughter ( 1822 ) , despite the fact that the ChioS did nt take part ab initio in the rebellion, since they enjoyed particular privileges given to them by the Turks due to the mastic production. In the South of Chios the mastic mastic has been cultivated for centuries ; the bantam tree that after being pinched by the locals, responds with cryings , offering its premium of cherished rosin. Mastic, which is an sole Chios merchandise, has been cultivated on the island since the first century A.D. and tradition has it that the lentisc started rupturing down when the Saint Isidor was tortured and martyred here by the Romans ( 250 A.D. ) . All the plants in respects to the tree, the rosin aggregation and its uncluttering down, are manual labor. PRESENT TOURIST SITUATION OF CHIOS Tourism in Chios is non developed in comparing with the rest.of the Eastern Aegean Islands. Chios occupies merely 6 % of the entire figure of tourers with Dodecanese ( Rhodes, Kos, etc. ) , 76 % , Samos 10 % and Lesbos 8 % . It has been felt that touristry can play an of import function in the economic life of the island, after the diminution of the transportation industry. Chios has non developed touristry, chiefly because of the two following grounds: foremost, the tierce of the male population used to work on the ships and secondly, the ship proprietors wanted the island much to them ­selves and the dwellers to be employed mostly by them. From the old analysis we can see that touristry developed really quickly over the last few old ages in Greece and that in some topographic points, the sequences of that development had negative effects, altering the societal, economic and environmental balances. Subsequently, the alone character of topographic points was lost and it became similar to other tourer resorts around the universe. So, in a sense, Chios is lucky because has the chance to analyze different tourer development undertakings and signifiers of Tourism and can work the experiences of the other topographic points to its benefit. S.W.O.T ANLYSIS We have so far presented the basic features of Chios. Those features allow us now to continue with the island s SWOT analysis: STREGTHS The civilization and history of Chios of import archeological sites and memorials The life traditions of the island The natural environment of Chios clean seas Tourism in Chios has most expressed features of alternate signifiers of touristry. Large figure of commercial stores and supermarket. Short distance to Turkey ( 1/2 hr to Chesme and 11/2 hr to the 3rd biggest metropolis Ismir ) Quality agricultural green goods Dynamic local industrial companies of rural agricultural merchandises ( citrous fruit fruits, mastic gum, herds and spices e.t.c ) . The long naval tradition. Technical support from the University of the Aegean ( Business School ) which is based in Chios. Failing Lack of Tourist civilization, a development and selling scheme Small tourer period ( 4 to 5 months ) Low degree of tourer modernisation. Large figure of comparatively little tourer endeavors. Lack of specialized employment. Absence of tourer investings Control of the local tourer market from large circuit operators. Relatively little haven and airdrome Opportunity Low tourer activity could be the island s biggest chance for development. Evidence from topographic points with high tourer entreaty like Rhodes, Corfu, Paros, Kos, etc. , already demo environmental and cultural jobs, overcrowding, pollution, e.t.c, sometimes irreversible. Sustainable touristry development that will take to the uninterrupted, parallel and balanced development of all the sectors of the local economic system and esteem the cultural features of the country to the benefit of both locals and tourers. Development of altrnative signifiers of Tourism such as agrotourism local touristry, cultural touristry, ecological touristry, sea and H2O touristry e.tc. The stimulation of local trades and other local popular art which would hold a larger patronage and more agencies of support Encourage investings Incentives to change over traditional edifice into tourer adjustment. Joint tourer undertakings with neighbour Turkey Menace Uncontrolled Tourist development and growing. Unilateral growing of touristry. Ccultural and societal change Damage of the environment Intensity of competition. from states such as Turkey which is expected to accomplish good public presentation in the coming old ages The uncertainness about the future developments of the universe fiscal and economic crisis, makes anticipations on the Greek travel and touristry industry during the forecast period peculiarly hard. Decision An of import measure in strategic planning is to measure concerns and demands of assorted sectors of the local community ( different age groups, the concern sector, the educational and societal services sector, and so on ) and to measure all the elements related to touristry and other options for economic development and environmental preservation in Chios

HBS Essay Sample Guide - A Great Resource For College Students

HBS Essay Sample Guide - A Great Resource For College StudentsThe HBS Essay Sample is a great resource for college students who want to make their high school essays more professional. The sample guide will help you craft a clear and accurate essay that is both concise and informative.This guide comes with the academic writing guidelines and hints that you will need to perfect your essay. You can customize your essay according to your personal and academic needs. The sample also contains sample homework that will give you an idea on how to add value to your research paper.One of the advantages of this sample is that it is written by a Boston College student, who specializes in research methodology. They provide helpful tips on how to maximize the benefits of your research for your essay. They will also show you the secret tricks that you can use to write a high quality research paper. You will definitely find yourself feeling empowered by reading the tips given in the HBS Essay Sampl e.This essay guide can be used for students who are pursuing an undergraduate degree in English. They may also be able to help if you are already taking up a course on the topic. The guide contains lots of useful information for students, which makes it a must read for them. It is written in a way that it should be accessible to every student and it is easy to follow.There are also lots of free resources available online, which will help you in getting the most out of your essay. The HBS Essay Sample guide will provide you with the basic information about essay writing an essay as well. You will also find that the guide includes useful hints, tips and ideas to help you ace your high school essay.The HBS Essay Sample comes with all the tips and hints to help you write your essay perfectly. You can also find lots of suggestions that you can use for the essay. The advice is simple but effective.The resources in the guide will surely help you in preparing a great research paper. In addi tion, the HBS Essay Sample contains a lot of detailed instructions on how to use the free resources that are available online. This guide can be used for high school, undergraduate or graduate level students.

Brand Audit Proposal Essays

Brand Audit Proposal Essays Brand Audit Proposal Paper Brand Audit Proposal Paper The objective of Davits Tea brand audit is to evaluate and relate the theoretical approaches with practical market research and mainly to come to know about the inventory and exploratory expects of the brand. The behavioral and psychological nature of the brand equity will be analyzed and the current position of the brand in industry will be examined. We would like to study and research the brand effectiveness, strategy, positioning, customers perception, and further testify the brand in a multidimensional perspective. Marketing and Business Environment Davits Tea is the first Canadian-based tea company, established by David Seal, a young passionate entrepreneur gaggers to bring the happiness taste of life to people through the consumption of tea. Davits primary functional vision is to provide consumers with a high quality tea developed by its own tea expertise. The company builds its very own brand equity and engagement with customers by delivering a sense of belonging and connecting people who are willing to share their tea experiences together in the brand community. Its first store was successfully launched in 2008 on Queen Street, a metropolitan area in Toronto, Ontario. Traditionally, existing tea consumers re limited to experience a small and narrowed market where not many selection of tea was offered. However, Davits Tea has taken the leading stance in the industry by breaking the traditional concept of tea, informing tea alone possesses an indefinite potential to be developed and grown. In Davits Tea store, customers are offered with over 1 50 types of flavored tea from all over the world. It also differentiates itself from other tea brands such as Tavern from Cataracts and Tim Horrors by providing variety of seasonal tea collections and the Tea of Month, which can be easily made at home, office, and anywhere you want. Unlike Cataracts where tea and coffee sold are consumed on the spot, Davits Tea uniquely sells every supplies needed for tea and also shows how easy and fun it is to make tea with people at your own place. By doing so, people have a chance to be more exposed and dissolved into the tea culture with various people in their daily life. However, back in 2008, investing in the tea industry was considered as a risky move for many beverage companies. According to Statistics of Canada, both tea and coffee industry where most weight is heavily put on represents 1. % of the value of sales of food and beverage goods manufactured. The consumption of tea both in Canada and internationally was lower by far relative to the coffee consumption. Coffee alone generated the revenue more than $1 billion per year whereas tea served just above than 500 million in 2007. The gap between tea and coffee industry seemed to be significant and definite at that time. However, currently in Canada, intensive competition has been rising among beverage brands and retail stores as the consumers preferences and tastes had shifted toward products that enable healthy lifestyle. Tea is a profitable commodity. Store footprints are usually small, while mark-ups and profit margins are high, ranging from 50% to 70%. More businesses attempt to enter the industry to expand the business scale. For example, Tavern, a tea specialty acquired by Cataracts aggressively positioned its products in response to the competition. Stores across America feature Opera Chaw Tea which is personally blended and developed by Opera Winfred, a world renowned and influential TV show host, writer and publisher, to capture more potential customers in beverage industry. In addition, Tavern plans to expand its tea buss news around the world by launching more tea stores every year. Current challenges and untapped opportunities for brand equity Current Challenges Davits Tea has achieved many successful milestones and developed its own competitive advantages over other competing companies. However, there are still some weaknesses and challenges that Davits Tea is facing at the moment. Although there are various challenges for Davits Tea, the biggest four challenges for Davits Tea are 1) its unique but limited operational system 2) heavy training expense due to a high turnover rate 3) difficulty in upturning customers in some countries with a strong coffee preference culture and 4) its limited marketing strategy. Firstly, Davits Tea is famous for owning its unique operation system. The management team of Davits Tea itself operates all the stores in Canada and SACS; there are no franchise opportunity unlike Cataracts, Tim Horrors and Chaw Time. This system may be advantageous for them because the company is able to control every elements starting from location selection to recruitment process, however, this is one of the biggest challenges the Davits Tea is facing. This operational system is time-consuming and it engages resources inefficiently. There would be some limitations to the numbers of shops to open and earning investments from outer company if Davits Tea continues to hold back the franchise opportunities. Consequently, this will decrease the brand awareness and customers accessibility of Davits tea. Secondly, Davits Tea is suffering from the huge employee training expenses due to a high staffs turnover rate. Many workers quit the job due to high expectation from the company compared to their low compensation system and low promotion opportunities. Even though the Davits Tea has high petition for friendly and kind customer service, their employees experiences would create the negative impression upon brands image through word of mouth or posting negative reviews on online if those employees complaints do not resolved. It took 2 times more expenses to train employees to be tea expert compare with training programs from their competitors, but once the employees decide to leave the position, the value resources will be mostly wasted. Third, some countries have strong coffee culture; Most of the North American and European countries like America, Canada, Brazil, Italy, Norway had been influenced by coffee for hundreds of years. The Davits Tea is only serving hundreds of various teas on their menu if so the Davits Tea will miss out a large amount of customers or markets who prefer coffee more than tea. Even though the interest on tea is increasing, the countries culture is hard to change just because of the world trend has changed. Lastly, the Davits Tea marketing is too heavily relied on social media. According to research, Davits Tea is spending a lot of money and time on social media marketing such as replying to every single customers tweet or hiring more staffs in social media marketing department. However, if they continue to approach customers only with social media marketing then their target customers would be very limited to youth people and they would be hard to raise their brand awareness. They should consider other marketing tools to raise brand awareness not solely with social media. Opportunities for Brand Equity Regarding challenges the Davits Tea is currently facing, there are some opportunities the Davits Tea could increase their brand equity and reinforce the challenges they are facing. First, they can create some products to be sold at wholesale markets such as Metro, Lowbrows, Cost and etc. Brand trials and experiences are important in order to raise the brand equity. In order to do so, Davits tea could produce some products designed for wholesale sale, enabling to increase customers accessibility, trial and raise its brand awareness. If the customers have enjoyed the purchased products from the wholesale market than there are high possibilities this would lead to brand preference and visit of retail store nearby. Secondly, there are a lot of markets left for Davits Tea, especially, Global markets such as Asia or Europe. Under strong preference of coffee in European countries, there are increasing interests on decaffeinated products such as tea due to health concerns. Davits Tea could open online orders for other countries as well in order to approach new customers who are willing to buy Davits Tea products in other countries. Furthermore, Davits Tea can be more active on promoting its brand by advertising or using other various marketing methods. As it has been discussed above, marketing of Davits Tea is heavily relied on social media. However, in order to reach various customers and to raise its brand awareness, it should give a shot on other marketing strategies. For example, it could hang up the poster on the ETC wall just like Tim Horrors to allow more potential customers to recognize. Also, it can use Youth videos to introduce an easier way to make a tea at home, or release more an articles regarding the tea industry and their company on magazines/ newspaper. SOOT Analysis Drivers of current brand equity Davits Tea has strong brand equity, created with its uniqueness, favorable and strong factors of the brand. Subconsciously, customer, company and competitors could create brand equity. Positioning and identifying is a first step to build brand equity. Davits tea was first opened in 2008. Currently, they have opened about 120 stores in North America, and be;en the years of 2012 to 2014, they have opened about 40 more stores. The increasing number of stores builds the awareness of Davits Tea by providing easily accessing availability to the consumers. Davits Tea is focusing on sales of specializing in tea and tea related products. Since tea is recognized for healthy beverage that involves relaxation feelings, which is the opposite of coffee or energy drinks, the consumption of tea is growing in a fast rate and about 84% of the population consumes tea every year. Tea is the 2nd most consumed beverage in the world, and the annual sales of tea is estimated to $423 million from annual grocery sales, and $760 million from annual food service sales. Since the consumers purchasing of tea is increasing, their interest towards Davits Tea have also increased. By positioning and identifying its brand, Davits Tea became one of the most recognized teashop in Canada. Furthermore, there are various articles about the massive expansion and innovative corporate structure of Davits tea. This became an unofficial advertisement, and built credibility by distancing itself from rival rand. One of the unofficial advertising examples is that, Melanie Barbaric, the Events Community Relations manager of Davits tea, gave a Davits tea package with hand written note to Opera Winfred. With no expectation at all, this also has brought an amazing effect of advertising in Davits tea. Opera have posted the picture on her Mainstream, where she has more than 1. 3 million followers, and 32,377 people have liked her photo. Nevertheless, she mentioned about how she favors Davits tea on O Magazine. One small gift to a famous person has raised the huge awareness of Davits tea, and since Opera is a celebrity with enormous credibility image, Davits tea also gained the reputation of credibility. Davits tea frequently releases new flavors with over 1 50 variety kinds of selections from all around the world. They have their own style and design, and special collections for holidays and other special occasions (e. G. Christmas Collections, Summer and Winter teas, and Cold fighting teas). Since Davits tea are reputed for its innovative design, the collections gives imagery of perfect gift for people and individuals themselves. Moreover, the unique names of different kinds (e. G. The Skinny, Happy Kampuchea and Read My Lips) gave various positive feelings to people and established brand equity. Potential Drivers of Future Brand Equity Davits tea has created its brand equity by informing customers about their position and brand identity, and gave credibility with positive feelings about its brand. However, they need new and innovative strategies to harden its brand equity. Recently, Agriculture Canada Food Trends Study predicted that in year 2020, the tea consumption would increase to 40%. Louise Robbery, the president of Tea Association of Canada mentioned that one of the factor f the raise of consumption is due to the retiring of baby boomers, who are concerned about their health, and will likely be drinking more tea at home. Therefore, One of the strategies that Davits tea should use is to increase the number of stores, which will give location benefit to consumers. Moreover, Davits tea should use advertising marking to raise its reputation. TO Create a TV commercial, they need to hire an advertising company or a celebrity. Hiring a recognizable celebrity costs about $kick-$300 and making advertising costs more additional. Since Davits tea is still a small brand with mall budget, they should make a campaign video to promote. One of the examples is the smooth Valentines Day video of Wilkinson Sword Shaver Company. This theme of the video is that a man should shave on valentine day, because it is not a day to irritate a lady. It cost small budget to make a video, but have raised more than 1,700,000 views on Youth. A campaign video that shows how healthy it is to drink a tea or the free trade of Davits tea could be an effective and meaningful future driver to building its brand equity. Today, due to cheap and easy access of smart phones, the number of smartened users has reached about 1. 5 billion users. Play store is the smart phone application store of Samsung. In the Play store, the application for Cataracts reached 5 million downloaded, while the application for Tavern reached 50 thousand downloaded. Cataracts smart phone application personalizes by each customers, and has an everyday promotion that if a frequent purchasing customer buys 12 cups of coffee, they get free drink. Howard Schultz, the CEO of Cataracts said that there are more than 7 million mobile transaction is in the stores each week. Since more number of people use different smart phones from other companies, creating a rationalized smart phone application could also help building its awareness and efficiency. Lastly, customers are sensitive about personalization. The brand that could satisfy this factor could create loyal customer, who loves the brand and uses the brand as identifier of themselves. Coca Cola had Share a coke campaign that grew sales for the first time in 10 years. This campaign was writing 250 most popular names on each bottle of coke, and this campaign created the personalized feelings to the consumers with their names on the bottle. Benchmarking this idea, creating tea names with popular names could create a belonging feeling to consumers by personalizing. Data collection methods Data Collection and marketing research is one of the most crucial processes that links the customers and end users to the marketer through information which used to identify and define marketing opportunity while generating, evaluating and refining marketing performances as a brand. The goal of the research and data collection is to identify and assess how changing elements of marketing mix and brand equity impact customer behavior and perception, thus, it is very important to learn and audit a brand from customers perspectives and responses. We plan to conduct a mixed- methodology approach in both qualitative and quantitative research to collect data on the brand audit to make sure both subjective and objective opinions are valued in the data collecting process. Qualitative Research Qualitative Research is an in-depth exploration of what people think, feel, or do, and most importantly, the reason behind the purchasing action. We believe its very helpful to understand the brand performance when customers could have opportunity to talk about their unique experiences with the brand and therefore we propose 2 methods: focus group and depth interview. . Focus groups In focus groups, we will be the moderator uses a scripted series of questions and topics to lead a discussion among a group of people. The advantage of using a focus group is that we could get more subjective response other than a yes or no answer and it will be beneficial for us to further integrate customers responses into analysis. We would like to take a neutr al stance and subjectively ask questions such as please describe your experience when shopping at Davits Tea or How do you feel about the brand? To give people more freedom to discuss both positive and negative opinion towards the brand. In order to get a more relevant and balanced result, we would like to conduct at least 3 groups of people (with around 5-7 people in each group) from age 15-60 and we expect the targeted participants would have various demographic backgrounds: gender, occupation, spending habits, disposable income, Tea/coffee drinking routine, etc. 2. Depth Interviews Depth Interview is another method we would like to use by interviewing people with unstructured and open-ended questions. We would like to conduct an interview in a more intimate environment or via telephone since it allows participants to talk more openly and be more comfortable to give arsenal opinions. The results might not be 100% statistically re opinion may not represent a large enough segment Of the POLL Nevertheless, focus groups and interviews yield valuable insight customer attitudes. Quantitative Research Since the qualitative research might not provide absolute stasis findings, we therefore decided to conduct quantitative research analysis to determine the result. We plan to use a structured quo with mostly closed questions that allow respondents to select it from given list of possible responses. We would distribute sues both online survey resources and printed version to fill out. We excel to report the findings with statistics, tables, and graphs. 1. We would like to use snowball sampling strategy by asking rest participants to pass along a survey link to relevant others, or visa locations where the target market is likely to congregate. We WAC pass the survey through social network like Faceable to ask fan and people online to fill out the question. We will use accessible free online survey programs like surveyings. Com, Zimmerman, Monkey. Also, in order to gather more responses, we plan to go around campus or library/coffee shop to ask people take 2 mini out while waiting for elevator, etc. Please see possible survey IQ Appendix 1. 2. Quantitative Observation Individual responses to surveys and focus groups are sometime from peoples actual behavior, and therefore, we plan to use q observation method to observe some customers purchasing be stores, at work, or other reachable locations. We would like to o customers behavior in Davits Tea and their competitors (suit by examining how customer making the order at different store Davits Tea has very different and unique way to make the order have a traditional menu displayed any where in store, instead, t tea boxes placed on the wall with special names for customers I fore making the purchasing decision. We will observe and cool customers knowledge about the brand and further integrate to Other possible tools to manage data Since The Rotten School of Management maintains a site license: and students to use the Qualities Research Suite, we would like advantage of this system and use it to apply on some of data c methods.

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