Concept of coping Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Concept of coping - Essay Example This paper aims at providing an exploration of the concept of coping and the way it impacts the lives of persons with chronic illness. The attributes of this concept and nursing intervention are discussed with relevance to the book, At the Will of the Body written by Arthur Frank (2002). Furthermore, the paper discusses how the connotations in the book influence nursing practices, in particular to the concept of coping. Frank (2002) details the health challenges he faced, reflecting on his journey of pain, endurance and illness experiences that transformed him to cope with the traumatic situation. One of the concepts of coping strategies that he stresses is the process of coping with grief as it is essential for patients with chronic illness to move to the stage of renewal and recovery from their emotional burdens. Frank clearly expresses how patients are disturbed and affected, when their mourning is limited, and what this restriction does to their emotions when disregarded by the external factors. His distinction between disease and illness sheds light on the fact that treatment of the disease of the body is not the same as the care for the illness experience of the patients living in the collapsed state. â€Å"Illness is the experience of living through the disease† (Frank, 2002, p. 13). Frank’s illness expresses the importance of sharing and emotional support, and what happens whe n it is delivered efficiently for the patients by their caregivers and medical professionals. Coping can be defined as the â€Å"constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage specific external and internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person† (Contrada & Baum, 2010, p. 197). Coping is a holistic phenomenon which involves physical, psychological, emotional and social perspectives that possibly impacts individual behaviors. Moreover, coping

Operation & Logistics Management Essay Example for Free

Operation Logistics Management Essay In modern world, the management of operations and logistics can represent the know-what, the know-how, and know-why of a company’s overall picture as well as its functional areas. Knowledge of the management is acquired by managers and employees, including analysts, by examining and investigating operations under study. This differs from the acquisition of specialized knowledge that is learned by performance over time. Usually, the management of operations and logistics is conducted by company personnel who possess a high level of skills in their field of work, for example, strategic planning, marketing, manufacturing, accounting and finance, and human resources. Besides, there are other company occupations that include some type of management work, directly or indirectly. The management of operations and logistics can therefore be defined as ‘‘the acquisition, creation, packaging, or application of knowledge’’ (Lesser 90). KANGPUT Technology Development Company has been increasingly, and heavily, influenced by economic theories of the firm; notably, developing management systems, selecting appropriate software that may be placed under the umbrella term of the â€Å"knowledge-based view of the firm†. KANGPUT Technology Development Company is based on customer satisfaction. This essay is based on KANGPUT Technology Development Company in China. This paper will consider how to use, maintain and control the knowledge effectively so the current management of operations and logistics of the organisation could be improved and have a better future overall. This work also covers the possible need for the director of KANGPUT Technology Development Company to accommodate changing knowledge work processes. An important part of developing operations and logistics management systems is selecting appropriate software, and therefore software selection is also discussed in the paper. Operations form the base of both multinational and small company, whether in manufacturing, service or non-profit organisations. Operations Management Logistics is a field that involves several subject disciplines such as product development, quality management, logistics, information systems and human resources management. Operations comprise beginning from the performance management of a group of design engineers to the exact forecast of production and delivery performance. People are the source of the ideas and actions that grow organizations. Yet the role of people and human capital has been changing in a fundamental way over the last several decades. Until recently, institutions have been the dominant part of the equation. As long as human inputs into wealth were seen as commodities, then people were interchangeable, one for another. Their contributions were marginal to the profits and practices of the company. As much as leadership proclaimed, â€Å"Our people are our most important resource,† very few organizations actually mobilized their people (Thierauf 32). A major challenge for the organisation is to engage and cultivate its networks of human capital (Bassett 35). In this era, the human capital that supports the company is only partially a group of direct employees. In fact, as time goes on, many organizations will operate with a core group of strategic leadership. The era where benign bureaucracies hired people to have jobs for life has come to an end. Instead, people will work in a number of organizations during their working lives and may have multiple engagements with a number of companies at the same time. People will increasingly begin to see themselves as companies of one, where they are responsible for their learning, their personal growth strategies, the quality of their relationships, and their work environment. As a result, a growing proportion of the people working with enterprises will be independent contractors, outsourced from other organizations, members of organizations with whom the enterprise has alliances. KANGPUT Technology Development Company raises these critical questions and lay the groundwork for establishing the kinds of frameworks, practices, and relationships that are necessary for any company to successfully navigate operations management logistics. KANGPUT Technology Development Company must to make organization that is nothing more than an extension of human thought and action, which makes human capital the only active capital. Financial and physical resources are important, but they cannot be transformed without the lever of human capital. The input of human capital grows in value and is becoming the differentiator for the company. Therefore, KANGPUT Technology Development Company must recalibrate to see how that input operates and bring it into balance with all of the other elements, including long-term knowledge management strategy. There should be a power shift. As people will begin to be better able to autonomously gather information, achieve mobility, and initiate connectivity, they will redefine the role and value of their human capital. As a result, they will make new demands on management for more satisfying kinds of tools and techniques for the management of operations. Operations management has to, in a sense, catch up with its workforce and respond with increasing flexibility to obtain the kinds of capabilities and commitments it needs to succeed (Lowson 120). This is a major reversal for operation management, which is used to being able to dictate the terms of employment. Regardless, it is a necessity. Company leadership must come to know better what human capital it needs, not just for today, but also for tomorrow and the day after. It must understand how to rapidly acquire, compensate, grow, and retain it so that it can positively affect its business performance and operating objectives. The result is that it must change its orientation and its basic systems to be at the lead of the knowledge-based enterprise reality. Managing the knowledge and human capital for continuous learning, sharing, and connecting as human beings needs to be part of the daily practice of everyone, from leadership to the frontline of the company (Thierauf 67-78). In the beginning, it should be said that there is no single hardware or software product or combination of the two that can give a comprehensive approach to operations management. If a comprehensive operations management system environment is the ultimate purpose, hardware and software products cannot be utilized alone. Creating a company-wide knowledge management infrastructure needs the integration of many different technologies. For KANGPUT Technology Development Company to open successfully its collective knowledge for companywide use, it is essential not only to develop and use integrated hardware and software technology but also to use the development company’s employees and their related business processes with this knowledge management technology. If KANGPUT Technology Development Company employees are not working in a collaborative environment or if no procedures are in place to share the knowledge, no amount of operations management system technology can change that. For operations management system environment to work well, it must be viewed by company employees at all levels as a strategic means for KANGPUT Technology Development Company to become more competitive and ensure success in the long run. To better comprehend what needs to be done to develop operations management systems effectively, it is best to begin with past and current approaches to the management of operations. This can be done in the form of expert systems and then go on to various levels of operational knowledge acquisition and use—beginning from tactical knowledge to strategic knowledge (Leonard-Barton 156). To acquire and spread narrow- to wide-based operational knowledge for KANGPUT Technology Development Company’s employees, the present knowledge work processes may have to be innovated. This may include reengineering in which knowledge work processes have to be revamped so that knowledge flows freely to every functional unit and subpart that needs it. In order to achieve this ambitious knowledge work redesign, several approaches can be undertaken by operational knowledge management system developers. First, KANGPUT Technology Development Company can change the content of knowledge by expanding what it encompasses in order to better meet desired goals. Second, the company can reorder the composition of work so that company employees may change the concentration of their jobs from information to knowledge. This change may demand the use of more teams of employees in order to share knowledge learned from previous projects, job assignments, and the like. From another side, the change can concentrate on the employment of new networking technology that lends itself to groupware. Using this technology allows employees to have individual knowledge bases and global knowledge bases so that to improve the effectiveness of their operations. Overall, the described changes are quite consistent with reengineering approaches to work and also bolster the efforts of employees using knowledge to make their jobs more effectively. For the purpose to decide which approach to use for reengineering work processes, it is essential for the operations system developers to define which knowledge orientation is required by the company and its employees. Additionally, there are other factors that can influence which direction to choose. These involve the competitive environment, corporate culture, company strategies, problem-finding approach, and the information technology infrastructure. By creating an effective relationship among knowledge work processes, company employees, and the items set forth above, operations system developers can sort out the important factors and set forth ones that are useful in the final design. Operations management systems represent a new business intelligence technology that is useful. Business intelligence technology has become popular because it gives decision makers the opportunity to access and analyze large quantities of information. This information can be used to distil knowledge concerning current and future patterns and trends. Besides, operations management systems are attractive because they give decision makers faster access to desired knowledge which can be presented in new ways that do not require extensive custom programming. In the future of the company they will assist decision makers in making better informed decisions. The point is that decision makers have a wide base of resources at their command to use on problems facing them. Since no one software product can serve the full range of user knowledge needs, there are a host of products available today. Good operations management systems require the cooperation of the vendors, the computer department, and the company’s decision makers and their employees. Most outside vendor products have limitations that will be reached the first time a user says, ‘‘I need †¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ã¢â‚¬â„¢. What the person then finds is that the package has provided what is thought to be needed. The vendor can do little to adapt it. So instead of simply acquiring this package, it is necessary to look for one or more software packages that provide capabilities for adapting it to the needs of company decision makers. This naturally leads to the next team that must be created, the computer department. Cooperating with the computer department rather than treating it as an outsider will result in a operations management system much better used to the users’ needs. These computer employees, after all, have been providing much of the information that managers and their employees use. Therefore, they know what some of the decision makers’ needs are already. They will also be the people who will create and implement the system and adapt it to decision makers’ needs.

Equal Opportunities for Women in Management Positions

Equal Opportunities for Women in Management Positions Women in Management This paper looks at the issue of women in management within the financial services sector, focusing on high street banks in the United Kingdom, in the context of addressing the issue of gender discrimination within top management. This is done by looking at past and present published papers that revolve around the subject matter under a theoretical hypothesis. The theoretical hypothesis, which is based on published material on women in management, is used to explain the issues surrounding women in management. Three high street banks were assessed as case studies to identify the issue of gender discrimination within UK banks. The outcomes are also categorised under specific themes. Finally a critical review of matches and mismatches is used to compare and contrast similarities between the theoretical hypothesis and the empirical evidence gathered for this paper. Chapter 1: The Concept of Women In Management Since the end of the Second World War, organisations all over the world have been slow to recognize the importance of women in the development and building of strong solid leadership from within. This has raised serious issues with regard to top management particularly within the financial services sectors, being male dominated, not allowing women into positions of authority, or top management. Although, organisations all over the world have moved on since then, and there have been positive results so far in today’s modern day society, however the relative percentage of women in relation to men in top management positions still remains unsolved. In the United Kingdom, certain sectors seem to have made substantial progress with regard to addressing these issues, e.g. the financial sectors, and the health and social services. However, this is not the case across the whole spectrum of job sectors. E.g. the military, production services, distribution, Information and communication technology, and agriculture. Aims and Objectives The aim of this paper is to address the issue of top management, which is predominantly male dominated, within the financial services sector allowing and encouraging women to progress into management positions in their field of expertise. I.e. Understanding the problems associated with women breaking through the glass ceiling into top management within the financial services sector. The objective of this research is to first provide a detailed analysis of the theoretical aspects that women face when it comes to stepping into management positions within banks in the United Kingdom. Secondly, to understand the processes and mechanisms that are inherent within financial organisations that slowdown the pace of women into management positions. Thirdly, to highlight the issue of gender discrimination associated with the latter mentioned. Lastly, I will critically appraise the validity of published material so far covering women in management in the context of equal opportunity policies and flexible work patterns. Chapter 2: Existing Literature Reviewed Over the past 50 years gender inequalities i.e. women in management, particularly within the UK banking sector has been the subject of bureaucratic scrutiny to a certain degree. For example Crompton (1989)states that UK banks have increasingly become the major employers of female labour. However, women in banks have not historically had the same career opportunities as men, for a variety of reasons, ranging from deliberate male exclusion practices to the broken and often short-term nature of many women’s work histories. Additionally, the contrast between the experiences of men and women in the same occupation is used to question the conventional view of occupational class analysis, where the (male) occupational structure is treated as if it were the class structure. Rutherford’s (1999) case study of banking, also illustrates how the discourses of gendered biological and psychological difference might be used to justify the scarcity of women in management grades and in so doing reproduce the status quo of male domination. After all, if women were not suited to management in banking what would be the point of creating policies to attempt to improve their representation there? Thus jobs become infused with stereotyped characteristics, which are believed to be linked to gender, race (Liff and Dickens, 2000) and to some extent age. Alvesson and Billing (1997) talks about the pressures for homogeneity and cultural competent behaviour. This involves individuals, consciously or unconsciously, conforming and adapting to organisational norms in order to fit in or progress their careers, for example by adopting the expected and desired language, work style, appearance and so on. The demand for cultural competence reinforces and reproduces the dominant, from which those who do not comply, or conform, remain excluded. Collin son (1990) argues about the cultural assumptions underlying male manager’s stereotypes of male and female attributes. He states that when evaluating male candidates, involvement in sport was a definite advantage, whereas females sporting achievements we reread as indicative of a very narrow existence. Another example was behaviour of men which was described as ‘pushy’ when exhibited by female candidate and as ‘showing initiative’ when a male candidate was involved. Thus women were less likely to be recruited to what were viewed as gender-incongruent jobs. It must also be recognised that policy approaches, which focus on certain groups of employees most typically women and ethnic minorities, tend to engender employee resentment (Cockburn, 1991; Miller and Rowney, 1999). Webb (1997) adds that ironically the radical feminist agenda, which asserts women’s differences from men and their potential for creating a better world, had been adapted to the concerns of liberal feminism with providing rationale for the promotion of women in management, on the grounds that women’s nurturing capacities contribute to the diversity needed by post-modern organisations. Webb (1997) goes on to state that we need to move beyond the ultimately limiting debate about whether women are the same as or different from men to a renewed concern with the material conditions of women’s lives and with the construction of equality initiatives which address the continuing exclusion of many women from adequate standards of living. Rees (1998) argues that relative strenuous efforts to tackle discrimination and disadvantage within the organisation are hampered by structural inequalities at societal level, in particular the interrelationship between education, training and employment. The continued existence of social inequalities could be said to indicate that as a society we are not yet ready to value gender diversity, or ethnic diversity, adopting the language will not make it happen. However, this should not be used as an excuse for organisational inertia or fatalism. Businesses have social responsibilities (one of these is to treat employees fairly) and they also have a need for social legitimacy in order to survive in the longer term (Miller and Rowney, 1999). This would point to need for organisations to value workforce diversity, irrespective of the purchase of short-term solutions. Sisson (1995) also adds that the problem with regard to women in management within the UK banking industry is that most organisations are predominantly concerned with the bottom line, short-term profitability and this orientation militates against long-term agendas. This renders it all the more important that the retrograde step of abandoning or neglecting equal opportunity policy should be avoided. Dickens (1994) argues that there is not a business case but a series of business rationales that are contingent. Organizational and managerial receptiveness to them is uneven, and they lead to only selective action. He goes on to state that the business case ‘carrot’ shares a similar weakness to the legal compliance ‘stick’. Calls for action beyond the individual organisation in a multi-pronged approach requiring state action, in which equality legislation and business case rationales each have apart to play. Chapter 3: Research Approach and Methodology Employed Research Approach The research approach will be carried out using the positivist case research approach. According to Cavite (1996), positivist epistemology tries to understand a social setting by identifying individual components of a phenomenon and explains the phenomenon in terms of constructs and relationships between constructs. The theoretical constructs describing the phenomenon are considered to be distinct from empirical reality. Hence, empirical observations can be used to test theory. This looks at the world as external and objective. Positivism employs four major research evaluation criteria: a good research should make controlled observations, should be able to be replicated should be generalizable and should use formal logic. Under positivism, case research findings are not statistically generalizable to a population, as the case or cases cannot be considered representative of a population, however, case research can claim theoretical generalizability. This will also include comparing, contrasting and critically evaluating past and present papers, articles, journals, and established theories that have been published on the subject matter. Methodology Employed Multiple-Case Study Design This project uses the multiple case study method in order to enable analysis of data across cases and relating it to the theoretical perspectives in the available literature of Information systems strategy. This enables the researcher to verify that findings are not merely the result of idiosyncrasies of research setting (Miles andHuberman, 1984). According to Yin (1994), in such a method it is important to use: multiple sources of evidence. Due to the time constraint attached with this paper, only three case studies of Women in management within the UK banking sector were gathered. The appropriate number of cases depends, firstly, on how much is known about the phenomenon after studying a case and secondly, on how much new information is likely to emerge from studying further cases(Eisenhardt, 1997). The paper provides three case studies of UK high street banks namely HSBC, NatWest Bank, and Lloyds TSB. Comparing and contrasting the roles of the women who are in the top management in these banks. Qualitative Data Cavite (1996) states that qualitative investigation refers to distilling meaning and understanding from a phenomenon and is not primarily concerned with measuring and quantification of the phenomenon. Direct and in-depth knowledge of a research setting are necessary to achieve contextual understanding. Hence, qualitative methods are associated with face-to-face contact with persons in the research setting, with verbal data being gathered. Qualitative data can be collected in a number of forms. One major form of qualitative evidence is interviews, which may be recorded and later transcribed. Qualitative data are rich, full, holistic ‘real’ their face validity seems impeachable; they preserve chronological flow where that is important. In spite of the above mentioned, qualitative data have weaknesses (Miles1979; Miles and Huberman, 1984). Collecting and analysing data is time-consuming and demanding. In addition, data analysis is not easy, as qualitative data analysis methods are not well established. Recognised rules of logic can be applied to verbal data in order to make sense of the evidence and to formally analyse the data. Rubin and Rubin (1995) state that it is most desirable to disclose the identities of both the case and the individuals interviewed because, †¢ The reader is able to recall any other previous information he or she may have learned about the same case from previous research or other sources in reading and interpreting the case report. †¢ The entire case can be reviewed more readily, so that footnotes and citations can be checked, if necessary, and appropriate criticisms can be raised about the published case. Nevertheless, there are some occasions when anonymity is necessary. The most common rationale is that when the case study has been on controversial topic, anonymity serves to protect the real case and its real participants. The second reason is that the issuance of the final case report may affect the subsequent actions of those that were studied. In the case of this paper, the positions of the participants within the organisations interviewed are mentioned. However, anonymity is adopted to protect the Identities of the participants and the real case. Why? Because the issue of women in management within Banks in the UK has been a long standing problem, in which revealing their names could hinder future revelations on their part and their jobs. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows: Chapter 4: Theoretical Hypothesis on Women in Management Chapter 5: Empirical Analysis (Three Banks) Chapter 6: Comparing and contrasting Theoretical Hypothesis and Empirical Analysis Chapter 7: Summary and Conclusion. Chapter 4: Theoretical Hypothesis of Women In Management In order to have a clear understanding of women in management, we will first need to identify the meaning attached to this phenomenon. Since the mid 1990s, women’s representation amongst executives has doubled and amongst company directors it has tripled. At the same time there has been an overall increase in women working in management jobs. However, women still comprise less than a quarter of executives and only one in ten company directors. The ‘glass ceiling’, the situation where women can see but not reach higher level jobs and so are prevented from progressing in their careers, appears still to exist in many organisations. This is what led to the creation of the terminology ‘women in management’. Several key factors account for the continuing low representation of women in management. Firstly, like most other occupations, there is a tendency for some types of management jobs to be associated with either women or men. For example, whilst women are comparatively well represented in personnel and the public sector, men still predominate in production management and Information and communication technology. Secondly, opportunities to work part-time are limited, with only six present of managers and senior officials employed part-time. Although it may be difficult to carry out some management functions on a part-time basis, there are still far too few opportunities for flexible working at senior levels in organisations. With this in mind, we can now move on to discuss the theoretical perspectives of women in management. There are several already established theoretical perspectives that have been used to gather a better understanding of this issue, however, the ones used in this paper are: 1) Issues and problems facing women reaching the top (manager) 2) Why so few women reaching the top? 3) Why are women workers still going cheap? 4) What causes the gender pay gap? 5) Have women achieved equality in the UK banking industry? 4.1 Issues and problems facing women reaching the top (manager) Several factors account for the continuing low representation of women reaching the top. One of the key issues is that women consider family obligations and the predominance of ‘male values’ in corporate culture to be the main obstacles to career advancement for them. The nature of the obstacles blocking women’s progress to higher management varies, however, from those encountered at lower levels. Higher ranking female bank managers seem to experience discrimination to a greater extent, both on terms of structural and cultural barriers, where insufficient personal contacts and dominance of ‘male values’ adversely affect their advancement. The difficulties women face in reaching the top is also reflected in the higher levels of education and effort often demanded of them. The hurdles facing women aspiring to management jobs can be so formidable that they sometimes abandon efforts to make it to the top of large firms. They often take their energy and know-how to smaller and more flexible companies or set up their own businesses. Another principal constraint on the level and type of labour market participation of women is the responsibility they carry for raising children and performing household tasks. An important feature of professional and especially managerial work is the extended working hours that seem to be required to gain recognition and eventual promotion. It can be practically impossible to reconcile the long hours often required of management staff with the amount of time needed to care for a home and children, not to mention care of the elderly. Yet the availability of part-time managerial work varies across organisations. Women who desire both a family and a career often juggle heavy responsibilities in both domains. Those who opt for part-time work early in their careers may find their advancement hampered, even after a return to full-time employment, since their male counterparts will have invested heavily in career building during the same period. 4.2 Why so few women reaching the top? Few women gain access to the highest positions as executive heads of organizations and, despite some improvements, many would claim that the pace of change is still far too slow given the large number of qualified women in the labour market today. Where figures are available (ILO data, 2002), they show women holding from 1 present to 5percent of top executive positions. While it must be acknowledged that time is still needed for women at junior and middle management levels(those in the pipeline) to move into executive positions, the fact still remains that women are not moving quickly enough nor insufficient numbers into line or strategic positions. Yet this factories crucial for enlarging the pool of women aspiring to senior positions and for building a critical mass of senior women for networking and providing role models for those down the line. Speeding up women’s movement towards the top requires that recruitment and promotion methods be objective and fair. Above all, there has to be awareness and commitment from directors of companies as to the benefits for their organizations from promoting women to high-level managerial positions. Women seem to experience the most difficulty in obtaining executive jobs in large corporations, even though they often have greater opportunities at junior and middle management levels in these same corporations. Another reason for this purge is the educational attainment required for top management positions. Evidence provided byte Equal opportunities Commission in the United Kingdom suggest that, in some cases women do not have the educational qualifications to get into management positions, and even when that is not the case, they still do find it hard to break into management, due to the fact that its predominantly male dominated. Another reason is that few senior women are in the so called ‘line’ positions that involve profit and loss or revenue generating responsibilities, and which are critical for advancement to the highest level. Additionally, in the United Kingdom, the share of women among financial managers rose from 11 present to 17percent in the 1980s and still increasing, although they are still outnumbered by men in top management positions in the 21st century. 4.3 Why are women workers still going cheap? Much of women’s work has historically tended to be undervalued or unrecognized. While the United Nations system and governments are making more systematic efforts to value and account for women’s work in national statistics, research on women in management is a relatively new field and comparisons over time and across countries are limited. This is further made complicated by the range of definitions employed and the non-availability of statistics for different countries overtime. Under a report provided by the United Nations in 1996 called the Human development report, it states that ‘no society treats its women as well as men’. A gender related development index was created to record achievements and monitor progress. This is based on life expectancy, educational attainment and income, but adjusts the latter mentioned for gender equality. They noted that life expectancy rates are positively affected by care in different forms, such as social support and social relationships. For example, unmarried adults have higher mortality rates than married ones and, according to them, children in a caring environment fare better in terms of health than those who lack this attention. It is not only the weak and sick that need care to prosper; even the healthiest of adults need a certain amount of care. A deficit in care services not only destroys human development, but it also undermines economic growth. That these factors are overlooked has considerable implications for gender equality, as women still carry the main responsibility for care. Gender discrimination is perpetuated through the lack of value placed on women’s caring role in society. As managers, women are affected byte common assumption that in the event of building families they will bear the main burden of responsibility arising out of this. Thus, there is not the same degree of investment in women. They are less likely to receive the same encouragement or career advice through mentoring as men. Another important factor is that in some countries equal opportunity policies tend to be established within organizations, however, in some countries they are not strictly adhered to. In the Ukase scheme known as ‘Opportunity 2000’ was launched in 2000. Its member included 300 organizations ranging from the financial services to the educational departments. They agreed to increase the number of women into management positions, and between 1994 to 2000, women’s share of management positions increased from 25 present to 35 present. Therefore, one can say although women are still going cheap in certain jobs in other parts of the world this is not the case universally. 4.4 What causes the gender pay gap? A difference in management positions does tend to contribute to earnings differentials. Although rates of pay may be similar, actual earnings can vary because of the different salary packages offered to managers, which provide various fringe benefits and access to certain schemes for boosting bonuses. Earnings gaps may also reflect differences in seniority and concentration of women in low-paid managerial sub-groups. Additionally, certain jobs tend to be affiliated with men and to women, i.e. productions and manufacturing jobs tend to be affiliated with men, while nursing, and household jobs tend to be affiliated with women, this contributes to the pay gap between men and women. Within the Banking sector in the United Kingdom, there has been an increase of the number of women into both middle and top management. However, the positions they tend to head are not profit-making positions or revenue generating positions, which are positions of higher pay and responsibility. They tend to be based within the retail, customer services, and bookkeeping departments, which are areas of significance to the organization, but are of less repute. 4.5 Have women achieved equality in the UK banking industry? In the area of finance, women have certainly increased their share of management positions, although at a varying pace. In the United Kingdom, the share of women among financial managers rose from 11 present to 17 present during the 1980’s and at the turn of the century increased to 25 present. While women have captured an ever-increasing share of the labour market, improvements in the quality of women’s jobs have not kept pace. This is reflected in the smaller representation of women in management positions, particularly in the private sector, and their virtual absence from most senior jobs, i.e. Directorships, or Presidents of Banks. Wage differentials in male and female managerial jobs stem from the reality that even when women hold management jobs, they are often in less strategic lower-paying areas oaf company’s operations. They are also linked to the fact that women managers tend to be younger on average, as most senior jobs tend to be dominated by older men. Despite the persistent inequalities at managerial level, the continuous entry of women into higher-level jobs is being addressed; however, they still remain under-represented in senior management. With few exceptions, the main challenge appears tube the sheer slowness in the in the progress of women into senior leadership positions in organizations, which suggests that discrimination is greatest where the most power is exercised. However, the growth in entrepreneurship and increasing numbers of women running their own businesses, both large and small, heralds a different future for societies. The economic power gained by women will play a key role in the struggle to sweep aside gender inequalities in all walks of life in which the UK banking sector is no exception. Chapter 5: Empirical Analysis In this chapter I present (3)case descriptions from my research on Women in management within the Banking Sector. The descriptions are organised in terms of the following headings; Continuity and Change in Women’s twentieth century in comparison to now experience, the position of women in the financial industry in general, the position of women in the UK banking sector, the changing role of women in the UK banking sector, pay differentials, women broken through glass ceiling, employment law and maternity right, and balancing work and family responsibilities. Due to the short timespan to collect data and incorporate to this paper I have been limited to three UK high street banks. The names of the individuals interviewed are not mentioned to protect confidentiality. It must be said that there are some differences in the both the quality and quantity of data available between the cases described, but in each case there is sufficient data for comparability across the features mentioned above. Women managers or the most senior of positions with regard to women in the three high street banks are analysed to address the issue of women in management. See Appendix A for the questions used. All interviews lasted approximately 40 minutes. 5.1 Case Study 1: Natwest Bank Continuity and Change in Women’s twentieth century in comparison to now experience The Woman interviewed was the manager of the branch. She is responsible for 25 people in the branch. She argues that in the past there were no female managers, most women, were household wives and lacked career progression. She believes that a lot has changed over the past 20 years and that within the bank a lot of progress has been made with regard to women into management positions. Additionally, she states that there is a continuing need to have women in management positions because it depicts the bank as being an equal opportunities bank. The position of women in the financial industry in general She argues that they are a lot more women in Finance ministries, central banks, and banking supervisory agencies, which are among the most important political institutions with regard to the coordination and regulation of the financial system than the case maybe in the past. The position of women in UK banking sector She states that although there has been a huge increase in the number of women in management positions within the bank, relative to male managers, it is small percentage that are in this category compared to over 50 years ago. The changing role of women in the UK banking sector She believes that the role of women in the bank has changed over the years. In the past women within the bank were more concentrated in the retail department, but more and more women are going into the trading of stocks and products which are revenue generating departments within the bank. Pay Differential She states categorically, that she is quite happy and content with how much she is being paid and comparing herself to her male counterpart sat other branches of the bank, there isn’t a difference with regard other pay package (it’s the same). Women broken through glass ceiling She believes that within NatWest bank the case of women breaking through the glass ceiling is not an issue. As far as she is concerned if you have the right qualifications and attributes, you will make it through regardless of gender differences. Employment law and Maternity right She argues that there are policies within the bank that ensures equal opportunities for both male and female employees to get into top management. And that women are encouraged to take maternity leave if needs be, and when they are ready to come back to their previous position the job would still be there. Flexible part-time work is available for those who fall under this category she says. Balancing work and Family For the hours she works, it could affect family life being the manager of the branch, however, for the top directors within the bank the want staff to have a good work and family life balance. They do encourage women, if they need to go out on maternity leave and come back to their previous job. 5.2 Case Study 2: Hong-Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Continuity and Change in Women’s twentieth century in comparison to now experience The Woman interviewed was the branch counsellor (Customer services/accounts); she is the most senior woman (retail). She is responsible for 5 people. She argues that in the Bank there were few female managers compared to their male counterparts. Although she believes a lot has changed over the years with regard to women getting into management positions, she states that due to the lack of proper qualifications and starting a family, women have not in general been able to move into management positions. The position of women in financial industry in general She argues that there are not enough women in the financial industry. She acknowledges that there have been improvements but that there is still barrier. The position of women in the UK banking sector She believes that only the determined ones (women) get through. However, from heron knowledge of the bank, there are not a lot of women in top management positions. The changing role of women in the UK banking sector The branch counsellor states that when a woman says she works in a bank it would be depicted that she works as a secretary. This is due to the lack of qualifications and top management being male dominated, the role of women within the bank has remained static. Pay Differential She states that there are certain grades within the bank and each and every person is categorised into one of those grades. The salary band is applied in that manner. She states that for the job responsibilities, she is quite content and happy with what she is being paid, however there is still need for improvement. Women broken through glass ceiling She argues that there is a glass ceiling within the bank and women can only go so far. She adds that women tend to leave to have children and look after the home. Also, she says that there are gender diversity policies within the bank, but they are not adhered to from top management. Employment law and maternity right Within the bank there is policy that allows for part-time flexible work patterns. Legally, they have to keep the position for you, if for example you left to have baby. Equal Opportunities for Women in Management Positions Equal Opportunities for Women in Management Positions Women in Management This paper looks at the issue of women in management within the financial services sector, focusing on high street banks in the United Kingdom, in the context of addressing the issue of gender discrimination within top management. This is done by looking at past and present published papers that revolve around the subject matter under a theoretical hypothesis. The theoretical hypothesis, which is based on published material on women in management, is used to explain the issues surrounding women in management. Three high street banks were assessed as case studies to identify the issue of gender discrimination within UK banks. The outcomes are also categorised under specific themes. Finally a critical review of matches and mismatches is used to compare and contrast similarities between the theoretical hypothesis and the empirical evidence gathered for this paper. Chapter 1: The Concept of Women In Management Since the end of the Second World War, organisations all over the world have been slow to recognize the importance of women in the development and building of strong solid leadership from within. This has raised serious issues with regard to top management particularly within the financial services sectors, being male dominated, not allowing women into positions of authority, or top management. Although, organisations all over the world have moved on since then, and there have been positive results so far in today’s modern day society, however the relative percentage of women in relation to men in top management positions still remains unsolved. In the United Kingdom, certain sectors seem to have made substantial progress with regard to addressing these issues, e.g. the financial sectors, and the health and social services. However, this is not the case across the whole spectrum of job sectors. E.g. the military, production services, distribution, Information and communication technology, and agriculture. Aims and Objectives The aim of this paper is to address the issue of top management, which is predominantly male dominated, within the financial services sector allowing and encouraging women to progress into management positions in their field of expertise. I.e. Understanding the problems associated with women breaking through the glass ceiling into top management within the financial services sector. The objective of this research is to first provide a detailed analysis of the theoretical aspects that women face when it comes to stepping into management positions within banks in the United Kingdom. Secondly, to understand the processes and mechanisms that are inherent within financial organisations that slowdown the pace of women into management positions. Thirdly, to highlight the issue of gender discrimination associated with the latter mentioned. Lastly, I will critically appraise the validity of published material so far covering women in management in the context of equal opportunity policies and flexible work patterns. Chapter 2: Existing Literature Reviewed Over the past 50 years gender inequalities i.e. women in management, particularly within the UK banking sector has been the subject of bureaucratic scrutiny to a certain degree. For example Crompton (1989)states that UK banks have increasingly become the major employers of female labour. However, women in banks have not historically had the same career opportunities as men, for a variety of reasons, ranging from deliberate male exclusion practices to the broken and often short-term nature of many women’s work histories. Additionally, the contrast between the experiences of men and women in the same occupation is used to question the conventional view of occupational class analysis, where the (male) occupational structure is treated as if it were the class structure. Rutherford’s (1999) case study of banking, also illustrates how the discourses of gendered biological and psychological difference might be used to justify the scarcity of women in management grades and in so doing reproduce the status quo of male domination. After all, if women were not suited to management in banking what would be the point of creating policies to attempt to improve their representation there? Thus jobs become infused with stereotyped characteristics, which are believed to be linked to gender, race (Liff and Dickens, 2000) and to some extent age. Alvesson and Billing (1997) talks about the pressures for homogeneity and cultural competent behaviour. This involves individuals, consciously or unconsciously, conforming and adapting to organisational norms in order to fit in or progress their careers, for example by adopting the expected and desired language, work style, appearance and so on. The demand for cultural competence reinforces and reproduces the dominant, from which those who do not comply, or conform, remain excluded. Collin son (1990) argues about the cultural assumptions underlying male manager’s stereotypes of male and female attributes. He states that when evaluating male candidates, involvement in sport was a definite advantage, whereas females sporting achievements we reread as indicative of a very narrow existence. Another example was behaviour of men which was described as ‘pushy’ when exhibited by female candidate and as ‘showing initiative’ when a male candidate was involved. Thus women were less likely to be recruited to what were viewed as gender-incongruent jobs. It must also be recognised that policy approaches, which focus on certain groups of employees most typically women and ethnic minorities, tend to engender employee resentment (Cockburn, 1991; Miller and Rowney, 1999). Webb (1997) adds that ironically the radical feminist agenda, which asserts women’s differences from men and their potential for creating a better world, had been adapted to the concerns of liberal feminism with providing rationale for the promotion of women in management, on the grounds that women’s nurturing capacities contribute to the diversity needed by post-modern organisations. Webb (1997) goes on to state that we need to move beyond the ultimately limiting debate about whether women are the same as or different from men to a renewed concern with the material conditions of women’s lives and with the construction of equality initiatives which address the continuing exclusion of many women from adequate standards of living. Rees (1998) argues that relative strenuous efforts to tackle discrimination and disadvantage within the organisation are hampered by structural inequalities at societal level, in particular the interrelationship between education, training and employment. The continued existence of social inequalities could be said to indicate that as a society we are not yet ready to value gender diversity, or ethnic diversity, adopting the language will not make it happen. However, this should not be used as an excuse for organisational inertia or fatalism. Businesses have social responsibilities (one of these is to treat employees fairly) and they also have a need for social legitimacy in order to survive in the longer term (Miller and Rowney, 1999). This would point to need for organisations to value workforce diversity, irrespective of the purchase of short-term solutions. Sisson (1995) also adds that the problem with regard to women in management within the UK banking industry is that most organisations are predominantly concerned with the bottom line, short-term profitability and this orientation militates against long-term agendas. This renders it all the more important that the retrograde step of abandoning or neglecting equal opportunity policy should be avoided. Dickens (1994) argues that there is not a business case but a series of business rationales that are contingent. Organizational and managerial receptiveness to them is uneven, and they lead to only selective action. He goes on to state that the business case ‘carrot’ shares a similar weakness to the legal compliance ‘stick’. Calls for action beyond the individual organisation in a multi-pronged approach requiring state action, in which equality legislation and business case rationales each have apart to play. Chapter 3: Research Approach and Methodology Employed Research Approach The research approach will be carried out using the positivist case research approach. According to Cavite (1996), positivist epistemology tries to understand a social setting by identifying individual components of a phenomenon and explains the phenomenon in terms of constructs and relationships between constructs. The theoretical constructs describing the phenomenon are considered to be distinct from empirical reality. Hence, empirical observations can be used to test theory. This looks at the world as external and objective. Positivism employs four major research evaluation criteria: a good research should make controlled observations, should be able to be replicated should be generalizable and should use formal logic. Under positivism, case research findings are not statistically generalizable to a population, as the case or cases cannot be considered representative of a population, however, case research can claim theoretical generalizability. This will also include comparing, contrasting and critically evaluating past and present papers, articles, journals, and established theories that have been published on the subject matter. Methodology Employed Multiple-Case Study Design This project uses the multiple case study method in order to enable analysis of data across cases and relating it to the theoretical perspectives in the available literature of Information systems strategy. This enables the researcher to verify that findings are not merely the result of idiosyncrasies of research setting (Miles andHuberman, 1984). According to Yin (1994), in such a method it is important to use: multiple sources of evidence. Due to the time constraint attached with this paper, only three case studies of Women in management within the UK banking sector were gathered. The appropriate number of cases depends, firstly, on how much is known about the phenomenon after studying a case and secondly, on how much new information is likely to emerge from studying further cases(Eisenhardt, 1997). The paper provides three case studies of UK high street banks namely HSBC, NatWest Bank, and Lloyds TSB. Comparing and contrasting the roles of the women who are in the top management in these banks. Qualitative Data Cavite (1996) states that qualitative investigation refers to distilling meaning and understanding from a phenomenon and is not primarily concerned with measuring and quantification of the phenomenon. Direct and in-depth knowledge of a research setting are necessary to achieve contextual understanding. Hence, qualitative methods are associated with face-to-face contact with persons in the research setting, with verbal data being gathered. Qualitative data can be collected in a number of forms. One major form of qualitative evidence is interviews, which may be recorded and later transcribed. Qualitative data are rich, full, holistic ‘real’ their face validity seems impeachable; they preserve chronological flow where that is important. In spite of the above mentioned, qualitative data have weaknesses (Miles1979; Miles and Huberman, 1984). Collecting and analysing data is time-consuming and demanding. In addition, data analysis is not easy, as qualitative data analysis methods are not well established. Recognised rules of logic can be applied to verbal data in order to make sense of the evidence and to formally analyse the data. Rubin and Rubin (1995) state that it is most desirable to disclose the identities of both the case and the individuals interviewed because, †¢ The reader is able to recall any other previous information he or she may have learned about the same case from previous research or other sources in reading and interpreting the case report. †¢ The entire case can be reviewed more readily, so that footnotes and citations can be checked, if necessary, and appropriate criticisms can be raised about the published case. Nevertheless, there are some occasions when anonymity is necessary. The most common rationale is that when the case study has been on controversial topic, anonymity serves to protect the real case and its real participants. The second reason is that the issuance of the final case report may affect the subsequent actions of those that were studied. In the case of this paper, the positions of the participants within the organisations interviewed are mentioned. However, anonymity is adopted to protect the Identities of the participants and the real case. Why? Because the issue of women in management within Banks in the UK has been a long standing problem, in which revealing their names could hinder future revelations on their part and their jobs. The remainder of this paper proceeds as follows: Chapter 4: Theoretical Hypothesis on Women in Management Chapter 5: Empirical Analysis (Three Banks) Chapter 6: Comparing and contrasting Theoretical Hypothesis and Empirical Analysis Chapter 7: Summary and Conclusion. Chapter 4: Theoretical Hypothesis of Women In Management In order to have a clear understanding of women in management, we will first need to identify the meaning attached to this phenomenon. Since the mid 1990s, women’s representation amongst executives has doubled and amongst company directors it has tripled. At the same time there has been an overall increase in women working in management jobs. However, women still comprise less than a quarter of executives and only one in ten company directors. The ‘glass ceiling’, the situation where women can see but not reach higher level jobs and so are prevented from progressing in their careers, appears still to exist in many organisations. This is what led to the creation of the terminology ‘women in management’. Several key factors account for the continuing low representation of women in management. Firstly, like most other occupations, there is a tendency for some types of management jobs to be associated with either women or men. For example, whilst women are comparatively well represented in personnel and the public sector, men still predominate in production management and Information and communication technology. Secondly, opportunities to work part-time are limited, with only six present of managers and senior officials employed part-time. Although it may be difficult to carry out some management functions on a part-time basis, there are still far too few opportunities for flexible working at senior levels in organisations. With this in mind, we can now move on to discuss the theoretical perspectives of women in management. There are several already established theoretical perspectives that have been used to gather a better understanding of this issue, however, the ones used in this paper are: 1) Issues and problems facing women reaching the top (manager) 2) Why so few women reaching the top? 3) Why are women workers still going cheap? 4) What causes the gender pay gap? 5) Have women achieved equality in the UK banking industry? 4.1 Issues and problems facing women reaching the top (manager) Several factors account for the continuing low representation of women reaching the top. One of the key issues is that women consider family obligations and the predominance of ‘male values’ in corporate culture to be the main obstacles to career advancement for them. The nature of the obstacles blocking women’s progress to higher management varies, however, from those encountered at lower levels. Higher ranking female bank managers seem to experience discrimination to a greater extent, both on terms of structural and cultural barriers, where insufficient personal contacts and dominance of ‘male values’ adversely affect their advancement. The difficulties women face in reaching the top is also reflected in the higher levels of education and effort often demanded of them. The hurdles facing women aspiring to management jobs can be so formidable that they sometimes abandon efforts to make it to the top of large firms. They often take their energy and know-how to smaller and more flexible companies or set up their own businesses. Another principal constraint on the level and type of labour market participation of women is the responsibility they carry for raising children and performing household tasks. An important feature of professional and especially managerial work is the extended working hours that seem to be required to gain recognition and eventual promotion. It can be practically impossible to reconcile the long hours often required of management staff with the amount of time needed to care for a home and children, not to mention care of the elderly. Yet the availability of part-time managerial work varies across organisations. Women who desire both a family and a career often juggle heavy responsibilities in both domains. Those who opt for part-time work early in their careers may find their advancement hampered, even after a return to full-time employment, since their male counterparts will have invested heavily in career building during the same period. 4.2 Why so few women reaching the top? Few women gain access to the highest positions as executive heads of organizations and, despite some improvements, many would claim that the pace of change is still far too slow given the large number of qualified women in the labour market today. Where figures are available (ILO data, 2002), they show women holding from 1 present to 5percent of top executive positions. While it must be acknowledged that time is still needed for women at junior and middle management levels(those in the pipeline) to move into executive positions, the fact still remains that women are not moving quickly enough nor insufficient numbers into line or strategic positions. Yet this factories crucial for enlarging the pool of women aspiring to senior positions and for building a critical mass of senior women for networking and providing role models for those down the line. Speeding up women’s movement towards the top requires that recruitment and promotion methods be objective and fair. Above all, there has to be awareness and commitment from directors of companies as to the benefits for their organizations from promoting women to high-level managerial positions. Women seem to experience the most difficulty in obtaining executive jobs in large corporations, even though they often have greater opportunities at junior and middle management levels in these same corporations. Another reason for this purge is the educational attainment required for top management positions. Evidence provided byte Equal opportunities Commission in the United Kingdom suggest that, in some cases women do not have the educational qualifications to get into management positions, and even when that is not the case, they still do find it hard to break into management, due to the fact that its predominantly male dominated. Another reason is that few senior women are in the so called ‘line’ positions that involve profit and loss or revenue generating responsibilities, and which are critical for advancement to the highest level. Additionally, in the United Kingdom, the share of women among financial managers rose from 11 present to 17percent in the 1980s and still increasing, although they are still outnumbered by men in top management positions in the 21st century. 4.3 Why are women workers still going cheap? Much of women’s work has historically tended to be undervalued or unrecognized. While the United Nations system and governments are making more systematic efforts to value and account for women’s work in national statistics, research on women in management is a relatively new field and comparisons over time and across countries are limited. This is further made complicated by the range of definitions employed and the non-availability of statistics for different countries overtime. Under a report provided by the United Nations in 1996 called the Human development report, it states that ‘no society treats its women as well as men’. A gender related development index was created to record achievements and monitor progress. This is based on life expectancy, educational attainment and income, but adjusts the latter mentioned for gender equality. They noted that life expectancy rates are positively affected by care in different forms, such as social support and social relationships. For example, unmarried adults have higher mortality rates than married ones and, according to them, children in a caring environment fare better in terms of health than those who lack this attention. It is not only the weak and sick that need care to prosper; even the healthiest of adults need a certain amount of care. A deficit in care services not only destroys human development, but it also undermines economic growth. That these factors are overlooked has considerable implications for gender equality, as women still carry the main responsibility for care. Gender discrimination is perpetuated through the lack of value placed on women’s caring role in society. As managers, women are affected byte common assumption that in the event of building families they will bear the main burden of responsibility arising out of this. Thus, there is not the same degree of investment in women. They are less likely to receive the same encouragement or career advice through mentoring as men. Another important factor is that in some countries equal opportunity policies tend to be established within organizations, however, in some countries they are not strictly adhered to. In the Ukase scheme known as ‘Opportunity 2000’ was launched in 2000. Its member included 300 organizations ranging from the financial services to the educational departments. They agreed to increase the number of women into management positions, and between 1994 to 2000, women’s share of management positions increased from 25 present to 35 present. Therefore, one can say although women are still going cheap in certain jobs in other parts of the world this is not the case universally. 4.4 What causes the gender pay gap? A difference in management positions does tend to contribute to earnings differentials. Although rates of pay may be similar, actual earnings can vary because of the different salary packages offered to managers, which provide various fringe benefits and access to certain schemes for boosting bonuses. Earnings gaps may also reflect differences in seniority and concentration of women in low-paid managerial sub-groups. Additionally, certain jobs tend to be affiliated with men and to women, i.e. productions and manufacturing jobs tend to be affiliated with men, while nursing, and household jobs tend to be affiliated with women, this contributes to the pay gap between men and women. Within the Banking sector in the United Kingdom, there has been an increase of the number of women into both middle and top management. However, the positions they tend to head are not profit-making positions or revenue generating positions, which are positions of higher pay and responsibility. They tend to be based within the retail, customer services, and bookkeeping departments, which are areas of significance to the organization, but are of less repute. 4.5 Have women achieved equality in the UK banking industry? In the area of finance, women have certainly increased their share of management positions, although at a varying pace. In the United Kingdom, the share of women among financial managers rose from 11 present to 17 present during the 1980’s and at the turn of the century increased to 25 present. While women have captured an ever-increasing share of the labour market, improvements in the quality of women’s jobs have not kept pace. This is reflected in the smaller representation of women in management positions, particularly in the private sector, and their virtual absence from most senior jobs, i.e. Directorships, or Presidents of Banks. Wage differentials in male and female managerial jobs stem from the reality that even when women hold management jobs, they are often in less strategic lower-paying areas oaf company’s operations. They are also linked to the fact that women managers tend to be younger on average, as most senior jobs tend to be dominated by older men. Despite the persistent inequalities at managerial level, the continuous entry of women into higher-level jobs is being addressed; however, they still remain under-represented in senior management. With few exceptions, the main challenge appears tube the sheer slowness in the in the progress of women into senior leadership positions in organizations, which suggests that discrimination is greatest where the most power is exercised. However, the growth in entrepreneurship and increasing numbers of women running their own businesses, both large and small, heralds a different future for societies. The economic power gained by women will play a key role in the struggle to sweep aside gender inequalities in all walks of life in which the UK banking sector is no exception. Chapter 5: Empirical Analysis In this chapter I present (3)case descriptions from my research on Women in management within the Banking Sector. The descriptions are organised in terms of the following headings; Continuity and Change in Women’s twentieth century in comparison to now experience, the position of women in the financial industry in general, the position of women in the UK banking sector, the changing role of women in the UK banking sector, pay differentials, women broken through glass ceiling, employment law and maternity right, and balancing work and family responsibilities. Due to the short timespan to collect data and incorporate to this paper I have been limited to three UK high street banks. The names of the individuals interviewed are not mentioned to protect confidentiality. It must be said that there are some differences in the both the quality and quantity of data available between the cases described, but in each case there is sufficient data for comparability across the features mentioned above. Women managers or the most senior of positions with regard to women in the three high street banks are analysed to address the issue of women in management. See Appendix A for the questions used. All interviews lasted approximately 40 minutes. 5.1 Case Study 1: Natwest Bank Continuity and Change in Women’s twentieth century in comparison to now experience The Woman interviewed was the manager of the branch. She is responsible for 25 people in the branch. She argues that in the past there were no female managers, most women, were household wives and lacked career progression. She believes that a lot has changed over the past 20 years and that within the bank a lot of progress has been made with regard to women into management positions. Additionally, she states that there is a continuing need to have women in management positions because it depicts the bank as being an equal opportunities bank. The position of women in the financial industry in general She argues that they are a lot more women in Finance ministries, central banks, and banking supervisory agencies, which are among the most important political institutions with regard to the coordination and regulation of the financial system than the case maybe in the past. The position of women in UK banking sector She states that although there has been a huge increase in the number of women in management positions within the bank, relative to male managers, it is small percentage that are in this category compared to over 50 years ago. The changing role of women in the UK banking sector She believes that the role of women in the bank has changed over the years. In the past women within the bank were more concentrated in the retail department, but more and more women are going into the trading of stocks and products which are revenue generating departments within the bank. Pay Differential She states categorically, that she is quite happy and content with how much she is being paid and comparing herself to her male counterpart sat other branches of the bank, there isn’t a difference with regard other pay package (it’s the same). Women broken through glass ceiling She believes that within NatWest bank the case of women breaking through the glass ceiling is not an issue. As far as she is concerned if you have the right qualifications and attributes, you will make it through regardless of gender differences. Employment law and Maternity right She argues that there are policies within the bank that ensures equal opportunities for both male and female employees to get into top management. And that women are encouraged to take maternity leave if needs be, and when they are ready to come back to their previous position the job would still be there. Flexible part-time work is available for those who fall under this category she says. Balancing work and Family For the hours she works, it could affect family life being the manager of the branch, however, for the top directors within the bank the want staff to have a good work and family life balance. They do encourage women, if they need to go out on maternity leave and come back to their previous job. 5.2 Case Study 2: Hong-Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Continuity and Change in Women’s twentieth century in comparison to now experience The Woman interviewed was the branch counsellor (Customer services/accounts); she is the most senior woman (retail). She is responsible for 5 people. She argues that in the Bank there were few female managers compared to their male counterparts. Although she believes a lot has changed over the years with regard to women getting into management positions, she states that due to the lack of proper qualifications and starting a family, women have not in general been able to move into management positions. The position of women in financial industry in general She argues that there are not enough women in the financial industry. She acknowledges that there have been improvements but that there is still barrier. The position of women in the UK banking sector She believes that only the determined ones (women) get through. However, from heron knowledge of the bank, there are not a lot of women in top management positions. The changing role of women in the UK banking sector The branch counsellor states that when a woman says she works in a bank it would be depicted that she works as a secretary. This is due to the lack of qualifications and top management being male dominated, the role of women within the bank has remained static. Pay Differential She states that there are certain grades within the bank and each and every person is categorised into one of those grades. The salary band is applied in that manner. She states that for the job responsibilities, she is quite content and happy with what she is being paid, however there is still need for improvement. Women broken through glass ceiling She argues that there is a glass ceiling within the bank and women can only go so far. She adds that women tend to leave to have children and look after the home. Also, she says that there are gender diversity policies within the bank, but they are not adhered to from top management. Employment law and maternity right Within the bank there is policy that allows for part-time flexible work patterns. Legally, they have to keep the position for you, if for example you left to have baby.

Leonard Peltier Should be Released from Prison Essay -- Argumentative

Leonard Peltier is currently serving time in the Leavenworth federal penitentiary for the shooting deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents. According to FBI documents, at around 11:50 A.M. on June 26th, 1975, agents Jack Color and Ron Williams were supposedly searching for Jimmy Eagle, a thief wanted for stealing a pair of cowboy boots. The agents encroached on the Jumping Bull Compound in Oglala, South Dakota of the Pine Ridge reservation, in two separate vehicles that no one could recognize (Incident). In this area, there were several members of the American Indian Movement (AIM). After the intrusion of the agents, someone-and it is unsure who-fired a shot and a shoot out began. By the end of the shoot out at Pine Ridge, Williams, Color, and one AIM activist, Joe Stuntz Killsright, were dead (Incident). Peltier was one of the AIM members at the Jumping Bull Compound, and ultimately he was charged and convicted on murder charges. There is a great controversy surr ounding the Peltier case. A large contingency of both domestic and international citizens and organizations feel that Peltier has been wrongly convicted, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government authorities here feel as justice was served. Leonard Peltier should be released from prison via Executive Clemency because the evidence that he was convicted under was inconclusive and insufficient to warrant a conviction, the FBI committed many acts of misconduct when pursuing Peltier as fugitive and trying to extradite him from Canada, and his trial was unfair. As an individual committed to social justice, human solidarity, and the liberation of the people, this case is of great interest to me since it is a prime example of the ri... ...ight be lying or covering up something, or even just being far too zealous and unprofessional, is rejected a priori because of the cognitive dissonance it causes in the individual that believes in the FBI. Most people that push for Peltier's guilt simply don't look honestly and objectively (or at least as objectively as possible) at the evidence. Leonard Peltier, currently serving his twenty- fourth year of prison, should be immediately released. As I have shown, there is much reasonable doubt as to whether or not he committed this crime. The hard evidence is minimal to non-existent against him, he was illegally extradited from Canada on perjured affidavits, and his trial was unfair since it was in a hostile setting and the actions of the court seemed biased. While there is no good reason to keep him in prison, there are several good ones for letting him out. Leonard Peltier Should be Released from Prison Essay -- Argumentative Leonard Peltier is currently serving time in the Leavenworth federal penitentiary for the shooting deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agents. According to FBI documents, at around 11:50 A.M. on June 26th, 1975, agents Jack Color and Ron Williams were supposedly searching for Jimmy Eagle, a thief wanted for stealing a pair of cowboy boots. The agents encroached on the Jumping Bull Compound in Oglala, South Dakota of the Pine Ridge reservation, in two separate vehicles that no one could recognize (Incident). In this area, there were several members of the American Indian Movement (AIM). After the intrusion of the agents, someone-and it is unsure who-fired a shot and a shoot out began. By the end of the shoot out at Pine Ridge, Williams, Color, and one AIM activist, Joe Stuntz Killsright, were dead (Incident). Peltier was one of the AIM members at the Jumping Bull Compound, and ultimately he was charged and convicted on murder charges. There is a great controversy surr ounding the Peltier case. A large contingency of both domestic and international citizens and organizations feel that Peltier has been wrongly convicted, while the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other government authorities here feel as justice was served. Leonard Peltier should be released from prison via Executive Clemency because the evidence that he was convicted under was inconclusive and insufficient to warrant a conviction, the FBI committed many acts of misconduct when pursuing Peltier as fugitive and trying to extradite him from Canada, and his trial was unfair. As an individual committed to social justice, human solidarity, and the liberation of the people, this case is of great interest to me since it is a prime example of the ri... ...ight be lying or covering up something, or even just being far too zealous and unprofessional, is rejected a priori because of the cognitive dissonance it causes in the individual that believes in the FBI. Most people that push for Peltier's guilt simply don't look honestly and objectively (or at least as objectively as possible) at the evidence. Leonard Peltier, currently serving his twenty- fourth year of prison, should be immediately released. As I have shown, there is much reasonable doubt as to whether or not he committed this crime. The hard evidence is minimal to non-existent against him, he was illegally extradited from Canada on perjured affidavits, and his trial was unfair since it was in a hostile setting and the actions of the court seemed biased. While there is no good reason to keep him in prison, there are several good ones for letting him out.

A Health and Fitness Company Essay

You are a top executive in your corporation. After careful consideration, you were selected to work on a project to use MIS to change the way business is run. In a group of 5, you will be responsible for researching the practices in your industry, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the industry, and make an innovative plan to use MIS to improve on current practices. Finally, you will be required to submit a typed report and deliver an oral presentation to the board of directors following these guidelines: Your report MUST include the following side headings: 1. History and Background (provide detailed information about the industry, past and present business model/practices, the industry’s strengths and weaknesses) 2. Target Customer (identify the target customer in terms of age, gender, income, location, needs†¦etc. Have your customers’ needs changed over the years? Are all their needs fulfilled? Is there a gap between customers’ needs and market offerings?) 3. Competition (who is your competition? What are your plans to ensure that you are steps ahead of your competition and how will you respond to changes in the competitive environment?) 4. Survey and Results (you are required to design a survey to help you with your project. Be sure to include a copy of your survey questions, sample size, summary of results, and recommendations) 5. Proposed Use of MIS (explain how MIS will benefit your industry/corporation. Provide details of the benefits and challenges of using MIS in your industry/corporation) 6. Implications (what are the implications of the suggested use of MIS on the industry?) 7. Financial Benefits (what are the costs and financial benefits of using your proposed plan? Explain the impact on revenue, fixed costs, variable costs, initial investment, training, implementation, customer acquisition, customer retention, and customer satisfaction) 8. The Future (what changes do you foresee in the future of your industry/corporation? How will you respond to changes in technology, processes, competitive environment, customers’ taste/needs, economic environment†¦etc.?) The purpose of your research is to a) provide you with an opportunity to learn more about a specific industry and the current processes used b) Identify opportunities to use MIS to change how business is run and improve on current business practices. All group members must participate in the preparation of the written report and delivery of the oral presentation. Do not read directly from your report (you may use index cards to remind yourself of important points), face the audience when presenting. Allow time for questions from the audience and be prepared to answer them. Audience members must be prepared to ask questions also. Your report must be TYPED, double-spaced, use Times New Roman size 12 font for body of report. Include a cover page (with all group members’ names, title (Industry/corporation), date, presented to: Prof. Eshra) and a correctly formatted references page (APA) for all sources used (minimum of 5 different sources). Prepare a minimum of 10 PowerPoint slides to use when presenting your report. Before your due date, you are required to submit a printed copy as well as an electronic copy of: 1. Your report (10 pages minimum excluding cover page/table of contents/references) April 6, 2013 2. PowerPoint presentation (minimum 10 slides)-Submit on the day you present Be as creative as you can to capture the attention of your audience (use of multimedia, original digital pictures, short videos is encouraged).

Free Essays on The Ford Motor Company

Like most great enterprises, Ford’s beginnings were modest. The company had anxious moments in its infancy, balancing precariously on the edge of bankruptcy. But one month after incorporation a ray of hope shone when the first car was sold to a Chicago dentist named Penning. A worried group of stockholders, skeptically eyeing a bank balance that had dwindled to $223.65, breathed easier, and a young For Motor Company had taken its first step. During the first five years, young Henry Ford, as chief engineer and later as president, directed a development and production program which started in a converted wagon factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit and later moved to a larger building at Piquette and Beaubien Streets. In the first 15 months 1,700 Model of cars chugged out of the old wagon factory. Between 1903 and 1908, Henry Ford and his engineers used the first 19 letters of the alphabet to assign their creations, although some of the cars were experimental and never reached the public. The most successful of the early production cars was the model (N), a small, light, four-cylinder machine that went on the market at $500.00. The model (K), a $2,500.00, six-cylinder, luxury car, sold poorly. The model K’s failure, along with Mr. Ford’s insistence that the company’s future lay in the production of inexpensive cars for a mass market, caused increasing friction between Mr. Ford and Alexander Malcomson, a Detroit coal dealer who had been instrumental in raising the original $28,000.00. As a result, Mr. Malcomson left t he company and Mr. Ford acquired enough of his stock to increase his holdings to 58.5 percent. He became president in 1906, replacing John S. Gray, a Detroit banker. Quarrel among the stockholders did not threaten the young company’s future, as seriously as a man named George Selden did. Mr. Selden had a patent on â€Å"road locomotives† powered by internal combustion engines. To protect his patent, he formed a power... Free Essays on The Ford Motor Company Free Essays on The Ford Motor Company Like most great enterprises, Ford’s beginnings were modest. The company had anxious moments in its infancy, balancing precariously on the edge of bankruptcy. But one month after incorporation a ray of hope shone when the first car was sold to a Chicago dentist named Penning. A worried group of stockholders, skeptically eyeing a bank balance that had dwindled to $223.65, breathed easier, and a young For Motor Company had taken its first step. During the first five years, young Henry Ford, as chief engineer and later as president, directed a development and production program which started in a converted wagon factory on Mack Avenue in Detroit and later moved to a larger building at Piquette and Beaubien Streets. In the first 15 months 1,700 Model of cars chugged out of the old wagon factory. Between 1903 and 1908, Henry Ford and his engineers used the first 19 letters of the alphabet to assign their creations, although some of the cars were experimental and never reached the public. The most successful of the early production cars was the model (N), a small, light, four-cylinder machine that went on the market at $500.00. The model (K), a $2,500.00, six-cylinder, luxury car, sold poorly. The model K’s failure, along with Mr. Ford’s insistence that the company’s future lay in the production of inexpensive cars for a mass market, caused increasing friction between Mr. Ford and Alexander Malcomson, a Detroit coal dealer who had been instrumental in raising the original $28,000.00. As a result, Mr. Malcomson left t he company and Mr. Ford acquired enough of his stock to increase his holdings to 58.5 percent. He became president in 1906, replacing John S. Gray, a Detroit banker. Quarrel among the stockholders did not threaten the young company’s future, as seriously as a man named George Selden did. Mr. Selden had a patent on â€Å"road locomotives† powered by internal combustion engines. To protect his patent, he formed a power...

Rule of Thumb

Rule of Thumb Rule of Thumb Rule of Thumb By Maeve Maddox Reader Cynthia Turney  asks Do you know where the phrase rule of thumb came from? This is a figurative expression that means a general guideline that has a broad application, but which is not strictly accurate in every case. I hope that by now everyone knows that this expression does not come from an ancient law limiting the circumference of the stick a man could use to beat his wife. The expression originates from some forgotten literal context in which a craftsman or farmer used his thumb (about an inch) as a unit of measurement. The word rule in this expression does not mean principle or maxim as in Roberts Rules of Order. It has more to do with ruler, meaning something to measure with or a strip used for making straight lines. Body parts have long been used as units of measurement. See the DWT post Body Parts As Tools of Measurement. This Wikipedia article on rule of thumb will tell you all you can want to know about the expressions false etymology. (There used to be an article on this expression at Snopes.com, but I couldnt find it last time I looked.) Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Expressions category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Apply to, Apply for, and Apply withWriting the CenturyHonorary vs. Honourary

computer hackers essays

computer hackers essays REACTION PAPER FOR CASE STUDY #2, Chapter 17 This Reaction Paper represents my comments about and answers to questions concerning Case Study #2 in Chapter 17, pages 531 and 532 of the textbook. The comments and answers represent my interpretation of what the Case Study is about. Question 1. Sometimes, a successful break-in into system makes it easy to invade many other systems. Answer. Some systems include information that helps hackers invade other systems. Some systems hold such information as credit card numbers, cell phone numbers, and passwords to other computers. If the main computer can be broke into then the other systems can be filtrated. Companies can loose money from accounts being drained, and valuable time being spent on repairing files. Question 2. List the lessons one can draw from this case for any organization that maintains a Web site. Answer. One lesson is that no organization is immune to attacks against its Web site, unless proper measures are taken. Organizations must use such measures as encryption and firewalls for security. With Web Sites available to the public anyone that knows how can attempt to crack codes. This is a very scary thing. I know Clinton has put a lot of money into information protection for the country. Additional Comments. I fell large organizations must have some kind of security for there Web Sites. If not a lot of money and work hours can easily be lost. More and more people are trying to crash web sites for competition reasons and just for plan old fun. Internet security is a must for large businesses of this time. ...

RISK MANAGEMENT Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

RISK MANAGEMENT - Essay Example This also means that the insurance market is similar to the goods market, whose demand depends on certain factors. Consumers may fail to cover their lives, vehicles, and health even if doing so is beneficial. An understanding of the factors that affect consumer demand for insurance is essential for both the sellers and buyers of policies. The understanding helps these buyers to make the right decisions at the right time (Williams, Smith, & Young, 1998). Structure of Insurance Markets The market structure of an insurance industry includes the number of sellers and whether they are efficient. This is because the efficiency of a market is directly proportional to its structure (Greene, & Serbian, 1983). There are various market structures that influence the demand for insurance; they include perfect competitive, oligopoly, and monopoly. The perfect competitive market is one that has numerous sellers and buyers, and the insurance companies are free to penetrate and exit the market. This market is characterized by perfect information and standardization of products and prices. This means that insurance buyers have the full knowledge of the market activities such as the types of policies, their prices, and the underwriting guidelines. Buyers in this market have the freedom to purchase the policy they want from any seller because prices are standard. Insurance purchasers also have the freedom to leave one insurer and purchase a policy in another seller’s company when they find out that there are price differentials. The standardization and freedom in this market motivates buyers to purchase insurance policies (Dickson, 1989). A monopoly market, on the other hand, is the one that has a single seller. The seller dictates the policy to provide for the market and the price at which to sell the insurance. Monopolies are inefficient because of their ability to determine the product and the price at which to provide the good. This means that such as insurance market o ffers few choices to buyers in terms of the available policies. Buyers have no freedom to leave the market because they may not find the insurance policy elsewhere. Therefore, insurance buyers in a monopoly market have no freedom in the market; they may only follow the rules of the seller (Woodhouse, 1993). The lack of freedom may discourage buyers from alleviating risks using insurance. An oligopoly market is the one that has few sellers and the products are differentiated from one insurer to the other. Buyers in this market have the freedom to purchase the policy that suits their needs the best. However, since the sellers in the market are few, buyers do not have a wide range of choices. The few choices in this market may motivate some buyers to purchase insurance policies while other may not find the policies that suit their needs (Harrington, & Niehause, 2004). Price of Cover The price of an insurance cover also determines whether a buyer purchases the policy. This is because th e incomes of buyers differ from one buyer to the other. A high price of an insurance policy discourages buyers from purchasing a policy. This is according to the law of demand, which argues that rational consumers prefer goods and services at low prices (Woodhouse, 1993). However, buyers may choose to purchase insurance policies at high prices when benefits are guaranteed. An example of a policy that buyers may purchase at high prices is life insurance. The life insurance policy is the one that covers the whole life of a person, and it is renewable after the death of

Orporate law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Orporate law - Essay Example This software is directly connected to ASIC. However if a person doesn't wish to engage in this and instead wishes to contact ASIC directly, they will need to do the following: Once the same is selected, it needs to be reserved with ASIC. This is done by completing 'Form 410' that is meant for this purpose. Once the form is completed, ASIC would reserve the name for a period of two months. Names are not indefinitely reserved and extension can be requested. Reserving a name is important because once you have decided on a name and you do not want anyone to use it and there is still some time before you can register the firm then ASIC protects your name for the period. e) The Banned and Disqualified Registers contains information about persons who have been disallowed by the government to engage in the management of a company. Some of them are banned from participating in the financial services industry completely. The registers would contain information such as person's full name, his address, the date when banning order was passed and the date when it would end. These registers are divided into four categories namely: This register contains information only about persons who have been disqualified from managing a corporation under the Corporations Act. The notices about such persons are sent to the ASIC and their names are then added to the register. However it must be carefully noted that there are other persons who are not allowed to manage a corporate because they are bankrupt or have a criminal record. The notices may not reach ASIC in these cases and thus their names do not appear on the list. Banned Securities Representatives Register This registers contains names of pre-AFS licensees. The people who hold these licenses act as authorized representatives of licensed advisers. In the case the adviser or a representative is prohibited by the ASIC for giving advice, their names will appear in this register. These people are also part of the Banned and Disqualified register but their names may not be duplicated there. Banned Futures Representatives Register: The people on this register are those who have the pre-AFS license but are not allowed to practice as advisors in future. AFS Banned/Disqualified Persons Register Any person who works in the financial services sectors needs to have AFS license or work as a representative of someone who has this license. These people are authorized dealers and their names can be found on the list of authorized advisors. However under FSR legislation, which commenced on 11 March 2002, there are