Role of Reflection and Reflective Practices in Organisation's Enhanced Essay

Role of Reflection and Reflective Practices in Organisation's Enhanced Performance - Essay Example This research will begin with the statement that the environment in which the businesses are operating these days has changed drastically from simple and less competitive form to extremely dynamic and ever-changing type. Hence, in order to survive in today’s competitive environment, the managers have to ensure that the way in which business activities are being conducted in the organization gets changed simply from responding to changes, the managers need to focus on developing a learning organization. Everyone in the organization needs to understand that collectively they can bring change in the business operations and by their support to the management they will be able to enhance the productivity of the organization. In order to make a learning organization, it is the responsibility of management and employees of the organization to divert their focus from reflective practitioner at an individual level to reflective form of organization. In the last couple of years, many re searchers have conducted studies on the role of reflection and reflective practices in the organization’s performance; some studies have focused on the theories of such practices while some have studied their implications in various forms of organizations. However, the most extensive works have been done by Vince and Walsh who has focussed on the traditional and modern ways for implications of reflection and reflective practices in all types of organizations that are working in distinctive fields. Hence, it is rightly stated by Walsh that it is crucial for the management and managers of the organisation to equip themselves with the various forms of reflective practices that are happening in the real world and make changes in their organisations so that they are compatible with the latest market trends and the structure supports the format required for organisational learning. The researchers have been unable to give the exact definition of the term ‘Reflection’ a s it is composed of numerous concepts. The primary aim of reflection is to help the thinkers do the critical analysis of the situations or problems that are being encountered in the organizations. The managers are encouraged to identify the problem areas, think about the remedial situations available and then select and implement the strategy along with proper evaluation tools. According to Clift and Houston, cited by Solomon, the reflection definition has its foundations from the Western culture that induces the managers to analyze the situation and come up with the problem-solving approach and avoid negotiation, illumination or deliberation. Walsh in the study indicated that reflection is something that can be learned and for that the managers need to undergo the learning processes so that they can encourage such workplace learning environment within the organization. The view is also supported by Johns who stated that the reflection approach helps the businesses to remain alert a ll the time and instead of just sitting in idle situation, it motivates them to work out the plan.

U.S. housing price Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

U.S. housing price - Term Paper Example The situation became worse with the reduction in the availability of credit. This made it impossible for the willing prospects to pay for home ownership. This paper makes an attempt to investigate the housing problems of the US and the future that lies ahead of this sector. The project would also provide a direction to the prospective buyers of the houses and would help to determine how the prices of the new housing projects could be reduced. Necessary graphs and charts have been provided to present the statistics that would support the arguments put forward in the paper. How serious is housing price problem in the USA? Studies have proved that in the United States there exists inequality in the distribution of wealth among the population of the country. Federal Reserve has stated that out of the total net worth of the individuals, 27% is accounted for household real estate. An average American would allocate almost 66 % of his or her wealth for housing. On the other hand the high ne t worth individuals of the country generally keeps their money invested in form of a variety of financial assets. The major part of the investment portfolios of these people do not consist of housing investments. Therefore this group of people generally react less to the fluctuation in the housing prices. Thus when there is a rise in the housing prices the people belonging to the middle get mostly affected by it.... On the other hand the people who had their money invested in their primary residence faced the brunt. Generally the housing prices indices have been used to analyze the prices of the housing investments throughout the country (Holt, 2009). However, it cannot be generalized easily because there are regional disparities in the prices of the housing. The size and location of the housing has an effect on the prices that would exist in the market. There might also be defect in the construction of the housing prices index. These data on these indices present certain surprising information. Situations of distress sales of the housing have caused the builders to review their price setting procedure (Talbott, 2003). However, the homes which have been valued at a very high rate have faced a decline in their values with the problems in the housing market. There are a host of reasons for this. The debt to income ratio of the loans and the amount of down payment that the buyers could make for pur chasing a house had been low. Along with this, the loans that were provided were not underwritten in the proper manner. The long term interest rates in the country have been rising in the recent past. This has also posed a threat to the housing market. If the rate of interest on the bonds rises, people would shy away from making housing investments and would park their money for the long term because such investments would be riskless for the investor. Figure 1: Long term interest rates in 2013 Source: Nothaft, 2013 Thus the affordability of housing is quite low for those families that lie in the middle income group. This is especially true in the metro areas of the country. Again at a time of a boom in the housing prices, the real activities taking place

Relationships between Critical Thinking & Ethics Essay

Relationships between Critical Thinking & Ethics - Essay Example These values are such as justice, wisdom, care, and compassion, which are lacking in the case of execution of prisoners in order to sell their body parts. Critical thinking enables individuals to make decisions based on verified information and truths. In the case of human organ selling, there is an apparent deviation in the act by the military through their brainwashing due to money. The military and Dr. Dye fail to identify the importance of life due to greed for money. In both cases, the military and the doctor failed to ensure the human right to life. Restricting to logical rules and guidelines will not require ethical decision-making process. Critical thinking determines ways of analyzing and differentiating facts from fiction or a way of understanding or making new discoveries (Ruggiero, 2011). Critical thinking influences culture that determines the way of life of a person through equipping one with a mental process of evaluation. The mental process forms a ground that determines the ethical standards. An inference that critical thinking forms the overall determination of moral values can be made. In the scenario considered, if the military, doctor, and the prospective customers did put considerable thought to the inhumanity of the business, they would not have been

Law Enforcement Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Law Enforcement - Assignment Example In this regard, the project aims to respond to six questions after selecting a state and recording pertinent information relative to criminal activities in the area. To achieve the objective, the state of New York is examined for violent criminal incidents, such as murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault for the period 2006 to 2009. Law Enforcement 1. Select a city, town, or municipality in the United States and examine trends in criminal activity over the last 3 years. Analyze reported crime statistics for major/minor offense categories such as murder, robbery, rape, and CREATE A TABLE OF THE RESULTS. ... What are the overall patterns of crime that you see in the selected town or city? What have you learned by the data? From the data, one learned that in the state of New York for the years 2006 to 2009, majority of violent crimes is reflected in the area of aggravated assault, followed by robbery. Only a negligible amount was recorded in rape and the least in murder. Most notable however, was that the total number of violent crimes have been exhibiting a declining trend from the period 2006 up to 2009. On the other hand, for minor offenses like property crimes, the trend manifests predominance of larceny representing more than 75% of total crimes in 2006 and reaching to 75% in 2009 with the least crime in motor vehicle theft representing only about 10% in 2006 and further declining to 7.5% of all property crimes in 2009. Is there a pattern? In what direction are the trends going? What crimes are on the decline or rise? While it was seen from the chart, there is no clear apparent patte rn in the incidents of violent crimes. The number of incidents for aggravated assault, for example, manifests an up and down pattern where the assaults from 2006 increased, then decreased in 2008 before increasing again in 2009. The same goes with other violent crimes, where the number of incidents increase and decrease intermittently. However, from the total violent crimes, it was eminent that the total number has been manifesting a decreasing trend or pattern since 2006. For minor offenses, the overall manifested trend as exhibited in the total property crime is declining for the period under review and larceny dominating the property offense classification. 3. What are the surprises and usual results in the data that you analyzed? Actually, for a city as New

Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping Convention Essay

Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping Convention - Essay Example One of the many changes to 1978 convention, in 1995, was the requirement of obtaining a new STCW certificate. This was confusing and to some extent it still is as there were two certificates in circulation. The 1978 certificate and the 1995 certificate. The STCW 1978 certificate was there to certify that a sailor was working aboard a vessel prior to 01 Aug 98' and is yet required to fulfill some requirements. Therefore, a new mariner, after 01 Aug 98' cannot be issued a 1978 STCW certificate. New sailors, joining after the aforementioned date, are required to comply with convention requirements before they are eligible for 1995 certificate. 1978 certificate holders are required to go through a training process to close the gap before they can be issued with a 1995 certificate. The fact which gives rise to confusion is that both these certificates were created on the same date. In the US, after 31 Jan 03', no one can get a 1995 certificate by simply completing the training required for the big leap from 1978 to 1995. Each and every sailor is now required to fully comply with 1995 amendment requirements. As all the 1978 certificate holders could not complete all the formalities, the 31 Jan '03 was actually a relaxation of one year to the original date. Despite this relaxation US sailors were still required to get 1995 certification prior to entering waters of a foreign country. Why do we need standards STCW 1978 sets standards of qualification for seafarers on merchant ships. It was initially drafted in 1978 by conference at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) in London. It took six years and finally in 1984 STCW was enforced. In 1995 significant changes were brought about. On an international scale 'STCW 1978' was the first to actually establish and enforce basic requirements for training, certification and watchkeeping for mariners. Prior to this such standards were set by individual governments without any reference to practices in the rest of the world. As expected, the outcome of this chaotic situation was widely varied standards, practices and procedures. STCW lays out minimum standards for training, certification and watchkeeping for seafarers and countries adhering to comply are independent in their choice to accept or exceed these standards. STCW also applies to ships of countries which have not yet accepted to comply with STCW standards (non-party States), in case they visit ports of party States. An article of the convention requires all party States to apply the control without any biasing or favor to party or non-party States. This can expose the vessels of non-party States to difficult and unexpected situations. As a result, majority of the states are now party States. Revisions to SWTC 1978 In December 1992 IMO's Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) agreed to a US proposal to review in detail the 1978 Convention in light of the involvement of human element in maritime accidents. Moreover, there also had been nurturing a feeling amongst some delegations that the Convention should be more people, and standards relating to people, orientated. Rather than emphasizing on construction of ships and equipment standards, areas relating to people, training and operational practices require more concentration. This resulted in MSC directing

Critical Review and Application in HP Company Essay

Critical Review and Application in HP Company - Essay Example In their efforts to diagnose an organisation, diagnosticians view an organization as an open system that comprises of input, outputs as well as throughputs. Argyris (1970) argues that key the importance of organizational model includes understanding of an organizational behavior, interpretation of the data that relate to an organisation, interpretation of the data and provision of understandable language. This paper seeks to analyze various diagnoses models and determine the most appropriate model that makes HP Company to have a competitive edge in the technology industry. Force Field Analysis Force Field Analysis was developed by Kurt Lewin with an aim of analyzing and managing problems that faces an organisation. According to this model, there exist forces that stimulate changes within a firm and restraining forces such as poor morale and limited resources that acts as obstacles to change. To understand the problems that face a company, the management must first identify and define the restricting and driving forces. This is followed by planning the goals that are effective in pushing the equilibrium of an organisation towards achieving the desired goals. According to Beer and Spector (1993), one of the major objectives of the Force Field Analysis is to achieve a state of equilibrium by eliminating the restraining forces as well as by adding the appropriate driving forces. Being based upon the change process, Force Field Analysis assumes that within a dynamic company the changes occur simultaneously. Leavitt’s Model Leavitt’s Model was developed in 1965 by Lewin. Being a simple model that is appropriate to deal with problems that face organisations, Leavitt’s Model specify various models that a firm can adopt rather than the driving forces that are adopted by the Force Field Analysis. Major variables emulated by Leavitt’s Model include human variables, task variables, technological variables and structure variables. Bollen and Long (1993) stipulates that key aspects that make up the structure variable include communication system, work flow within a firm as well as authority systems. According to this model, effective collaboration of all the systems within an organization is a vital aspect that ensures all the problems facing an organisation are effectively addressed. This model depicts that the major technological variables includes the machinery and equipments used by the task variable. On the other hand, task variables include all the activities and subtasks adopted during the provision of goods and services. Human variables encompass all the human resources that are involved during in undertaking various activities in order to achieve the organizational objectives (Emery and Trist, 1965). According to Leavitt’s Models, the interdependence of all the variables is imperative to achieve the desired change. This means that a change in one of the variables generate an impact on the entire model. For in stance, if a new technology is introduced in an organisation, the quality of the products and services that make up the task variables is improved. In the same way, human resources will be motivated due to the improved communication within and outside the organisation. Basically, any improvement in the technology will positively impact on the ent

An analysis of the childrens aid society and its contributions to the community Essay Example for Free

An analysis of the childrens aid society and its contributions to the community Essay Evaluation of Children’s Aid Society Mission Statement The Children’s Aid Society is a 501Â ©3 children’s services agency that helps children in poverty to succeed and thrive. They do this by providing comprehensive support to children and their families living in high needs New York City neighborhoods (website). This organization has developed services that ensure children have access to programs that promote health and wellness as well as social-emotional development skills. They also strive to make sure that children attend college. The Form 990 on page 2 does not provide any further detailed information. With the available information from the mission statement on the website, as well as Form 990 part I and III, it is difficult to evaluate this nonprofit organization’s mission. The quality and the quantity of the available information from the website, and Form 990 is difficult to evaluate because the mission statement was not stated in the annual report. The Children’s Aid Society provides information about its programs on their website. The Form 990 and the annual report are very similar because it is almost the same information. They provide numbers about how many people they serve and the impact the programs have on the children and families. The website and the annual report 2013 both mention this information. Effectiveness From the information obtained, the website provides the effectiveness of the programs from the website, the annual report and the Form 990. The programmatic goals state how many children receive service from various programs. The website provides the number of children served by the organization. The Children’s Aid Society has three major programs that include Early Childhood (0-5), School Age (5-13), and Adolescence (14-18). Early Childhood- The program’s goals are preparing young children for school success through physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development. The core services they provide are Early Head Start for children ages 0-3, and Head Start and Early Learn Day Care for ages 3-5. School Age- The program’s goal is to promote physical, social, and emotional well-being as key factors for high school graduation and college success. This program serves to engage children, families, schools, and communities through a focus on academics, services, support, and opportunities. The core services include out-of-school time programs in Children’s Aid Community Centers and schools, summer camps, athletics, and the national center for community schools that provide assistance to developing a community school model nationally and internationally. Adolescence-The goals of this program are to enhance young people’s physical, social, and emotional competencies as well as improving their academic performance and preparing them for successful careers and gaining financial independence. According to the Form 990, the core services that the organization provides are the Carrera adolescent pregnancy prevention program, which meets the top-tier evidence of effectiveness standards by the coalition for evidence-based policy. The EXCEL college support program assists young people to enter and complete college. The HOPE Leadership Academy provides wrap-around support and develops leadership through a peer education model. They also provide teen employment services such as AmeriCorps internships and the summer youth employment program. Efficiency From the information obtained from the three sources, it is very difficult to determine whether these programs have been efficient in the programs that they administer. After looking into the Form 990, there is no available information about the total costs per person in the programs provided. The three most expensive programs are school age, adolescence, and early childhood. School-age- The total cost of this program is $18,843,068. In Form 990 on page 2, the organization mentions that its goal is promoting physical, social and emotional well-being. However, they do not mention any specific programs. In the annual report, it states that they provide health services to about 4,000 children through school-based health clinics. They do not provide costs for each child served by the school-based health clinics. The annual report also states that the Office of Client Advocacy helped 345 clients avoid eviction. There is no information on the program information in Form 990, pg 2. Adolescence- The total cost of this program is $15,402, 365. In Form 990, page 2 mentions Carrera-Adolescent Prevention Program but does not provide any further information on the number of people served and the costs. The annual report also does not state how many adolescents were served and at what cost. However, the annual report states that the program reduced teen pregnancy by 50 percent. The EXCEL college support program does not provide information on the number of students served as well as how much it costs. The annual report states that more than 90 percent of EXCEL students graduate high school and go on to college. There is no information on how many students are in the program. The quality and the quantity of available information is not very satisfying because there should be detailed information on the exact costs of each major program within the program. Early Childhood- The total cost of this program is $11,612,396. According to the Form 990 page 2, the organization mentions the Early Head Start program. The program provides numbers on its website stating that each family receives a minimum of 32 home visits a year for 90 minutes each. However, it does not state the number of families served. The 2013 annual report does not contain any specific numbers about the program. The quality and quantity of available information are not satisfying because there are no exact costs of how much program costs. According to the nonprofit’s annual report, the management and general administration costs increased to $7,378 in 2012 compared to $6,546 in 2011. This organization increased its expenses, which means that they are spending money on ways to increase mission impact and evaluate programs that may or may not work. The costs of the programs from the Form 990 do not match the financial statement in the annual report. In Form 990, it states larger expanses and is not specific about where the money went. In the annual report, the expenses are more specific but the costs seem to be smaller in Form 990. This shows that the organization is not efficient in its programs. It also shows that they may not have provided other essential information. Governance The Form 990 claims that the Children’s Aid Society has a governing body where the organization documents all meetings. It also states that the committees have the authority to represent the organization on behalf of the governing body. This organization also has different policies. The two main policies that it has based on Form 990 are the whistleblower policy and the written document retention and destruction policy. The Form 990 states that the organization consists of 31 Board Members. These members also have the power to elect other members to the governing body. The Children’s Aid Society has executive centrality governance. Finances The organizations current total revenue is $117,154,454 and its current total expense is $121,692,560. This organization is running a deficit rather than a surplus. The organization is losing its revenue stream and its assets will not cover it for a long time. The organization is fiscally unsustainable. The organization has net unrestricted assets total of $258,063,545 and its restricted assets is a total of $13,848,823. According to the Form 990, the organization received a total of $31,966,571 in contributions and grants. However, it only spent $31,966,571 on fundraising expenses. After dividing the expenses by costs, a total cost of raising a dollar was .09, which is very low. The salary of the Chief Executive Officer is $408,431.00 and it is too much. The average salary according to www.payscale.com states that the average salary is $100,000 for a Chief Executive Officer of a nonprofit organization. After calculating the organization’s program expanse it came up to be .88 ratio from dividing its total program service expenses by its total functional expenses. After analyzing the Children’s Aid Society, I determined that this organization is not worthy of a significant contribution because it is not transparent in providing information to the public. Even though it has a high mission impact in helping children get out of poverty, financially it is starting to become unsustainable in its assets and revenues. This shows that the organization is mismanaging its finances spending. This organization does not earn the seal of approval because the potential donor wants to donate to an organization that is impact-oriented and achieves results cost-effectively, which this organization does not achieve.