The Media And Its Influence On The Public - 962 Words

In Berger’s views the invention of the camera brought some freedom to art, but did it really? There is always a power struggle over the public’s perception over themselves and others. The picture, which comes hand in hand with the camera, is a mass producer in the influence over the public’s perception. The public has access to this technology, but is the public viewing what the public publishes? Most of the time we are viewing the popular, which is usually a small group of people. This small group of people wins over our perception by persuasion in that the perception they are portraying is the norm. People now need the media news, information for different reasons, on one hand it can be used to socialize and on the other to make reports for the news The media and its influence on the public, has grown in this Century with the grown of technology. First there was the newspaper, magazines, radio, television and now, cell phones, the internet and the new social media etc. There are positive and negative influences of media, which we have to understand. The public depends on the information and to connect with the world and do our daily activities like work, education, entertainment, travelling and anything else that we have to do. Usually person wakes up in the morning checks the TV news or newspaper, goes to work, eats with their family and makes his decisions based on his experience in life or the information that he has either heard from, TV news, friend, familyShow MoreRelatedMedia And Its Influence On The Public1646 Words   |  7 PagesNot only is the interest of the owners of large companies pushed out to the public, but also the interest of the companies who pay these media companies in advertising to citizens to sell their goods. Advertising is an important influence in what the public sees in media and has a direct influence on the public’s interest in the product (Rinallo, Basuray; 2009). Companies such as Nike and Coca-Cola can pay networks such as ABC and FOX large sums of money to advertise their companies through theirRead MoreThe Media s Influence On The Public1233 Words   |  5 PagesOver the last fifty years the media has played a bigger part in the influence on the public by using ever evolving technology. How does the media have influence over the decisions of society? It is simple really, if you have the power to show the public what you want then you have a great influence on them. Malcom X said it well, â€Å"The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that s power. Because they controlRead MoreMedia Bias and Its Public Influence1802 Words   |  8 PagesDo today’s media hold a biased opinion? Political figure heads of modern day America have argued the subject of a biased liberal media for decades. The notion of the media being predominantly liberal is not unheard of because since publicly broadcasted news media first became common, the Republican Party was not yet one to rival the Democrats. The core argument presented is the possibility of a liberal media manipulating the American public and thus influencing them to vote in congruence with theRead Mo reMedia s Influence On The Public Perception Of The Media934 Words   |  4 PagesJournalism is an industry that provides a source of information and news for the public, while popular culture is a source of portrayal of the image of the journalist. Popular culture provides a glimpse and â€Å"shapes the people’s impressions of the news media†, whether it is portrayed in a positive or negative light. There is no denying that popular culture possesses a large effect on what the public perceives and thinks about journalists and the industry through how the characters, plotlines areRead MoreEssay on media and its influence on the public1591 Words   |  7 Pages The media is a huge form of communication and source of information in the United States; on one side of the dispute are the beliefs that the media is too opinionated. On the other side are the beliefs that the media is just a simple informer that just reports the facts. The main issue for both of these belief s is: does the media affect opinions on the issues from opinionated reports, or does it just report the facts that public may already know? If one could answer this question then they wouldRead More Media Influence On Public Policy Essay1847 Words   |  8 Pagespolitical process which is affected by various social and economic factors (Hofferbert, 1974) and media systems play an integral role in shaping the social context in which policies are developed. Through the media, citizens learn how government policies will affect them, and governments gain feedback on their policies and programs. Media systems act as the primary channels between those who might want to influence policy and the policymakers controlling the scope of political discourse and regulatingRead MoreThe Media s Influence On Public Perception Essay1272 Words   |  6 Pagesfrom the media and how Hollywood portrays fictional characters with mental illnesses. At which point there seems to be a common misunderstand ing towards individuals suffering from a mental illness. When it comes to people suffering with mental health, doctors, schools, and everything in between seem to have either a positive or negative outlook on the subject. The stereotypes and misinformation of mental illnesses can lead to a delay in seeking medical help. The media’s influence on public perceptionRead MoreMedia Influence on Public Policy Essays1861 Words   |  8 Pagespolitical process which is affected by various social and economic factors (Hofferbert, 1974) and media systems play an integral role in shaping the social context in which policies are developed. Through the media, citizens learn how government policies will affect them, and governments gain feedback on their policies and programs. Media systems act as the primary channels between those who might want to influence policy and the policymakers controlling the scope of political discourse and regulatingRead MoreMedia s Influence On Public Opinion Essay1833 Words   |  8 Pagesaround the issue that media does influence public opinion, in a way that the media uses different media effects and sources of medium to control the publics opinion. The subconscious media effects of Framing, Agenda setting and priming is used by the media in the method to control and alt er the public opinion on a news story or political campaign. This essay will also look at several major media events throughout the last 80 years, drawing upon the examples of social media and war and how they haveRead MoreHow Media Influences Public Opinion Essay1621 Words   |  7 Pages mass media is the driving force of public opinion. Media sources such as Internet, newspaper, news-broadcasts, etc, play significant roles in shaping a person’s understanding and perception about the events occurred in our daily lives. As long as the newspapers, internet, network television, etc, continued to be easily accessible to the public, the media will continue to have an influence in shaping its opinions. Factors such as agenda-setting, framing and priming help shape the public opinions

The Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer - 963 Words

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer is a collection of 24 stories written during the Middle Ages. The tales were written with the intent of criticizing the functions of societal standards as well as the beliefs of the Church. â€Å"The Miller’s Tale,† one the most popular stories, offers unique insights into the customs and practices of the English middle class during the Middle Ages. The story follows the lives of John, Absolon, and Nicholas, three men who are involved with a beautiful woman named Alisoun. The male characters attempt to win over the heart of the beautiful Alisoun, leading to misfortune and despair. However, this misfortune is not distributed evenly, and the characters, with the purest of intents, end the story far worse off than their immoral counterparts. In â€Å"The Miller’s Tale,† Chaucer shows that life favors the characters with an inverted moral compass while ultimately destroying those who are more honorable. The parish cler k, Absolon, was depicted as a noble man who was mocked for his courtly nature. In the beginning of the tale, Absolon attempted to win the heart of the beautiful Alisoun with sauve gestures. To woo her, â€Å"he sent her sweetened wine, mead, and spiced ale, and wafers piping hot out of the fire... and because she was a townie, he offered money† (3376-3380). His attempt at flattery and courting Alisoun involved patience and offerings of nothing but kindness, music, and riches. Unfortunately, â€Å"he had for his labor nothing to scorn. AndShow MoreRelatedThe Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer1582 Words   |  7 Pages Geoffrey Chaucer wrote the Canterbury tales a collection of short tales in the 14th century. The compilation of stories are told by different characters within the narrative as part of a game proposed by the host. Each individual must tell two stories on their journey and two stories on their way back. Each story tells some aspects of English life during the time and often added satire like qualities to the English life. In particular Chaucer often tells stories with elements of the relationshipRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer913 Words   |  4 PagesThe Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer consists of frame narratives were a group of pilgrims that are traveling from Southwark to the shire of St. Becker in the Canterbury Cathedral, tell each other to pass time until they arrive at their destination. During The Canterbury Tales the reader is exposed to many characters that represent all of the social classes of medieval England and the reader gets to know them from t he general prologue to each individual tale. One of these characters is the PardonerRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer2127 Words   |  9 PagesIt is unknown when Geoffrey Chaucer wrote The Canterbury Tales, but it is assumed that he wrote it in 1387. There are many different aspects and themes throughout this paper that are very prominent. One theme that is very important is the importance of company. This entire tale is about twenty-nine pilgrims who all tell tales while on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket in Canterbury. The importance of company is that this is a pilgrimage that requires companions and friendship. ThoughRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer1073 Words   |  5 PagesIn The Canterbury Tales, Geoffrey Chaucer introduced and described a variety of fictional characters that lived in the Middle Ages. It was the time period that European civilians were governed by a system called feudalism. Where kings were the head of the s ystem and everyone was categorized in social classes. In the prologue of The Canterbury Tales the first character introduced was the knight. Geoffrey Chaucer depicts the knight correctly by characterizing him as a chivalrous and honorable man,Read MoreThe Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer1585 Words   |  7 Pageswas published toward the end of his life, Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was his longest and most popular work. The plot is made up of tales told by thirty-one different pilgrims as they embark on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Thomas a Becket in Canterbury. His initial idea was to have each pilgrim tell four stories a piece during the pilgrimage, but Chaucer either died before finishing or decided to change this idea, as only twenty-four tales presently make up the work. The prologue ofRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer2664 Words   |  11 PagesThe Canterbury Tales The Canterbury Tales was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392, during the medieval period in Europe. Three important aspects, his family’s ties to the court, his schooling and working for royalty (XI), and his love for reading and learning (XII) all combined and enabled him to create his greatest work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer includes many different characters, pilgrims, all from very unique walks of life. Although there are not as many women included as men, their storiesRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer2648 Words   |  11 PagesThe Canterbury Tales was written by Geoffrey Chaucer in 1392, during the medieval period in Europe. Three important aspects, his family’s ties to the court, his schooling and working for royalty (XI), and his love for reading and learning (XII) all combined and enabled him to create his greatest work, The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer includes many different characters, pilgrims, all from very unique walks of life. Although there are not as many women included as men, their stories give some extraordinaryRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer2221 Words   |  9 Pagesin medieval literature is the Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer. This research seeks to examine the life of Chaucer, the Canterbury Tales, and the impact and legacy of both the author and the work. Agnes Copton gave birth to a baby boy c. 1340, whom she named Geoffrey. The baby took the surname of his father John Chaucer, who came from a family of wine merchants. The family relied on strategic relationships to subsidize where they lacked in wealth. Chaucer was fluent in French, ItalianRead MoreCanterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer1380 Words   |  6 PagesCanterbury Tales Canterbury Tales written by Geoffrey Chaucer was a story of not the people themselves but a social statement of how the people of higher standing were viewed by the middle class. In the time that Canterbury Tales was written it was a time of corruption of the Church. There were many clergy members that were mentioned in this story. Each of the characters was unique in the way they went against the standards they should be held to. The most interesting this story was definitely TheRead MoreThe Canterbury Tales By Geoffrey Chaucer1777 Words   |  8 PagesCanterbury Tales takes place in the late 1300’s also known as the Middle ages. Prior to and at this point in time, people tend to be more conservative and to themselves. Geoffrey Chaucer, the author of these stories does something most authors didn’t do at this time, he ironically pointed out the flaws of the medieval English society. He does this by using estate satire. The Canterbury Tales is a great example of the B ritish human experience at that point in time. Chaucer does a great job describing

The Declaration of Independence In The USA History - Free Essay Example

Sample details Pages: 4 Words: 1077 Downloads: 3 Date added: 2019/04/26 Category History Essay Level High school Tags: Declaration of Independence Essay Did you like this example? The United States of America celebrates Independence Day on 4th of July. This crucial day carries lots of significance for the American people. It is very important to understand the document that led Americans to decide about the separation of the United States from the British regime. The war between France and Britain lasted 7 years. Britain eventually had victory in the War. This massive victory brought a great joy in Britain and also in American colonies. However, this victory turned out to be very expensive to the British government. In order to recover the tremendous debt of the war, Britain levied a number of taxes to the colonies. The Sugar Act was put in action in 1764 which imposed taxes on sugar and other goods. The following year, the British government imposed taxes on all paper documents through the Stamp Act of 1765. Colonists had to pay taxes on each printed paper that were used in the colonies (Stamp Act). 2 years after, in 1767, the Townshend Acts put further taxes on almost everything that were imported by the American colonies. (Townshend Acts). The British government wanted revenue from the American colonies through taxes. However, the Tax Acts imposed by the representatives in Britain were not the representatives from American colonies. This b rought a huge tension in the American colonies. The colonial representatives were furious to the British government which led to the consequences of rebellion in colonies against the British government. The unconstitutional acts against the American colonies rose to the mob violence (Declaration). These mobs started destroying every sculpture which related colonies with British regime. In retaliation, the British government sent troops to stop mob violence which brought more tensions in the colonies since these troops started beating and harassing the mob members. Also, the pamphlet Common Sense written by Thomas Paine forced many colonists to consider Independence as the best option (Goldfield,115). Don’t waste time! Our writers will create an original "The Declaration of Independence In The USA History" essay for you Create order The colonial leaders then began to think of leaving behind the relationship with Britain. The second continental congress started a campaign to cut off the British rule in Colonies. They proposed Thomas Jefferson to write the declaration of independence. In the declaration of Independence Jefferson points out the inevitable reasons to overthrow the British rule from American Colonies. The unanimous decision of the declaration of Independence proposes the impelling causes to the separation. Jefferson writes, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness (Declaration). He is making a conclusion that if any government tries to take away the rights of people given by the Creator, the citizen of that government has moral duty to abolish the government and form a new one in order to protect their rights. Jefferson is indicating that the current government is an evil which is torturing its innocent citizen. He clearly remarks the illegal actions of the King of Great Britain towards the colonial citizens in the Declaration of Independence. Some of his illegal actions are rejecting the laws in colonies, taxation on the imports, disregarding the judicial powers, military dependency, cutting the trades off with the rest of the world, disallowing the legislature system, controlling the sea power, etc. The colonists were not ready to accept another day of British rule. And hence, they declare the right to be independent states Along with the declaration, they wanted to have their own government through which they could do all the actions that an independent country does. They wanted absolute zero connection with Britain (Transcription). Unlike the other founding documents, the Declaration of Independence is not legally binding, but it is powerful (Independence). The British government had been ignoring the past documents that were related to the separation of the Colonies from British rule. However, the Declaration of Independence had shocked badly to the throne. In reply, the British government wrote to the Colonists contradicting the credibility of the declaration document. British King was dissatisfied with the declaration document the way it had blamed King George III for the slave issue. Britain was also unconvinced with the documents statement all men are created equal because they saw that colonists were still owning slaves. Although Britain tried its best to disregard the declaration of independence by criticizing it, the colonists completely ignored Britains comments. In reply, the British sent troops to the colonies within a month of the Declaration of Independence. This time the colonists did not tolerate any of the troops oppression. And hence they started fighting back. Even though the British government tried to console the Colonists, the Colonists were firm about their decision to never fall under the British regime again (Surber). The revolutionary war in the British colonies soon became global. It started to look like the war between two different nations. European countries like Spain and France did not like Britain in that period. They found a way to get back at Great Britain by supporting the Americans. With the help of these foreign countries, the colonists became more powerful and were able to win the war against British rule. With the end of the revolutionary war, the United States of America became a free and independent country (Effects). The significance of the Declaration of Independence has evolved along with the time. Within the next two centuries of the declaration of independence, more than 120 nations have declared their independence. All these nations look bac k at the declaration of independence of the U.S.A as an ideal document. The Declaration of Independence needs to live as long as the United States of America lives. Works Cited Effects of the Declaration decofind1776, https://decofind1776.weebly.com/effects.html. Accessed Nov 23, 2018. Goldfield, David, Carl Abbott, Virginia DeJohn Anderson, Jo Ann E.Argersinger and William L. Barney. Chapter 6: The War for Independence: 1774-1783 The American Journey: A History of The United States. Hoboken, NJ, Pearson, 2017. Stamp Act History, Nov 9, 2009. https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/stamp-act. Accessed Nov 20, 2018. Surber, Katie. British Reply to the Declaration: Summary Analysis Study, https://study.com/academy/lesson/british-reply-to-the-declaration-summary-analysis.html. Accessed Nov 22, 2018. The Declaration of Independence Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration. Accessed Nov 22, 2018. The Declaration of Independence Archives, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/declaration. Accessed Nov 22, 2018. Townshend Acts History, Nov 9, 2009. https://www.history.com/topics/american-revolution/townshend-acts. Accessed Nov 21, 2018. Why Was the Declaration of Independence Written? History, June 29, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/how-the-declaration-of-independence-came-to-be. Accessed Nov 20, 2018.

The Education Of The Early Childhood Education Classroom

Over the past few years, the count of immigrants have astronomically increased in the United Stated, this has caused the educational environment throughout schools to reflect a large number of diverse students. Because of the change in the system, the way students are assessed and what teachers need to know have also adjusted. English Language Learners are a group of students with different languages, backgrounds, needs, and goals. Some ELL students have only come to the United States and speak no English and have a family that also speak no English, while some students might live in a home where only English is spoken. Based on the ELL student’s background, learning style and other factors, the way they take in information differs. Most general knowledge teachers only provide ELL students with the basic requirements to gain academic success in the Early Childhood Education classroom. Schools sometimes provide ELD (English Language Development) teachers, ELL specialists and ot her resources including programs and dictionaries to help students develop their English, while other schools believe that by placing the student in a natural environment where they can interact with other students who speak English then the student will eventually learn how to speak English. As a former ELL student who personally experienced the difficulty of learning and adapting to a new language and also as a student who has experienced various classrooms with diverse students, my opinion is thatShow MoreRelatedClassroom Management For Early Childhood Education1000 Words   |  4 Pagestopic explored by this study is classroom management for early childhood education. In general, the literature seems to indicate that effectiveness of classroom management. The information presents skills necessary for teachers to use to become successful in the classroom. Some research calls for a series of steps for one to take teachers to become successful in the classroom. Each task varies f rom teacher to teacher, but overall to have complete success with classroom management one must practiceRead MoreThe Effects Of Computers On Children s Early Childhood Education Essay1737 Words   |  7 Pagesespecially, are needed in most American’s everyday lives. So why would early childhood education be any different? From the beginning stages, there has always been a debate of whether computers have a positive or negative impact on children, young children especially. As computers have intergraded themselves into many children’s lives and their education, the debate is even more prominent. Supporters of computer use in early childhood education believe that with proper monitoring and the right software, computersRead MoreProfessional Development in Early Childhood Education Essay1320 Words   |  6 Pagestheir early childhood development are teacher professionals who have a passion and a genuine desire to help them learn, grow and succeed in their education. Th ese are just a few roles that early childhood educators plays in the field of early childhood education for working with young children in their early childhood years of life, which the requirements, most of the time, are to have both a formal education and passing teacher-certification score. The National Association for Education of YoungRead MoreIntegration Of Arts And The Arts798 Words   |  4 Pagesand development. Each of these creative arts allow children to make meaningful connections and retain the information being taught in the classroom. It also allows for children to focus more in the classroom and it improve their behavior as well. Multiple intelligences also play a role in music, movement, and the arts. By using these creative arts in the classroom, educators are able to adapt to children’s specific learning needs. Music, movement, and the arts appeal to all five developmental domainsRead MoreThe Importance Of A Safe And Healthy Learning Environment1623 Words   |  7 PagesEarly childhood has been on a high due to new research that has proved its effect on education of a child. The goals of Early Childhood programs are to provide programs to children and their parents that support the children in learning, daily routine practice, health needs incl uding wellness, and to strengthen the gap between home and school. All of these goals are beneficial to the student as an individual learner. If a child is healthy and well, then they will be more likely to succeed insideRead MoreThe Truths About Preschool And Kindergarten1704 Words   |  7 Pages Introduction In my research essay I will be researching and talking about the early childhood education in America. In addition to that I will talk about the benefits it is having on our children from what I have learned from my sources, and how teachers of early education are being equipped to handle these classrooms. I will mainly be focusing on pre-K through kindergarten. I have had many volunteer jobs at day camps with this age group, and IRead MoreAn Early Childhood Educator Can Reconstruct The Life Of A Child1708 Words   |  7 Pagesbecoming an Early Childhood Educator can reconstruct the life of a child (Rawlings 127). Early Childhood Education is a profession that works with children from birth up to eight years of age (Garvis and Pendergast 104). Most of the theory of knowledge in early childhood is that children learn through movement. When children engage through play they develop a sense of individuality that helps them discover who they are, build relations with others, and understand their cultural background. In early childhoodRead MoreTechnology And Early Childhood Classroom1583 Words   |  7 Pages Technology in an Early Childhood Classroom Marsha Kinsel ENG122: English Composition II Instructor Susan Luck June 1, 2017 Technology in An Early Childhood Classroom Even though some experts feel children’s physical health is at risk once they are introduced to technology, it is a must, that early childhood educators do just that. In a world where technology is ever changing it is imperative that children are exposed as early as two years old so that they are not left at a disadvantageRead MoreDevelopmentally Appropriate Practices ( Dap )960 Words   |  4 PagesDevelopmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) is a method of teaching that is based on the research about how young children grow and learn and includes standards for high quality care and education for young children. The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) established these guidelines more than 20 years ago. Authors Gordon and Browne state, â€Å"The DAP approach stresses the need for activity-based learning environments and is based on what we know about children throughRead MoreEducation Is A Long Lasting Procedure, And The Building Squares Of Lea rning862 Words   |  4 Pagesimparting what we have learned to others. I feel that education is a long lasting procedure, and the building squares of learning are created in the early phases of life. Education significantly influences the lives of numerous individuals and gives the establishment to a man to set up an arrangement for their future. Accomplished people can shape choices that advantage both themselves and the interests of their general public. A genuine education doesn t comprise of a gathering of classes containing

Integrated Performance Management Through Effective Management Control Free Essays

9 Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control WERNER BRUGGEMAN Performance measurement and performance management are vivid themes in the literature on management control. So, it is only natural that we investigate how this literature has contributed to the field of Integrated Performance Management. The purpose of this chapter is to describe how management control systems can be used to effectively manage company and business performance. We will write a custom essay sample on Integrated Performance Management Through Effective Management Control or any similar topic only for you Order Now First, we define the scope of management control and describe the link with organizational strategy. Then, we focus on the three elements of the management control system: (1) the management control structure; (2) the control process; and (3) the management control culture (beliefs systems). We will describe these three elements in greater detail and give an overview of the findings in mainstream contingency research studying the effectiveness of control systems in various environmental and organizational contexts. Management control defined Management control and the link with strategy Following Anthony and Govindarajan (1995), management control can be defined as a process of motivating managers to perform actions and activities in line with the goals and strategies of the organization. According to this definition, an organization is ‘under control’ when its members do what the management wants them to do. Management control comprises various tasks, among which are: Planning the future activities of the organization; Coordinating the activities of the various members of the organization; Communicating information; Evaluating this information; Deciding on the actions to be taken; and Influencing people to adapt their behaviour according to the company goals (Anthony and Govindarajan, 1995). Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 153 From the definition above, it follows that management control plays a central role in managing the company’s performance and the implementation of its strategies. Therefore, it is of vital importance that management behaviour, which is stimulated by the management control system, is consistent with the strategy to be implemented (the so-called ‘intended strategy’ – see also Chapter 6). The starting points of the management control process are the mission, the vision and the strategies of the organization. We refer to Chapter 6 for a more thorough discussion of each of these concepts, but recapitulate them very briefly here. The mission of an organization is a description in general terms of the role of the company towards its stakeholders. It describes the reasons for the company’s existence, its strategic focus and values, as well as how the long-term goals should be realized. The goals are descriptions of the long-term desired future of the company. The mission and goals translate into strategies, which specify the way in which the vision aspired to should be reached. The strategy in turn is translated into concrete performance objectives or targets. This is usually done through formalized action plans. Management control and goal congruence The purpose of management control is to maximize congruence among the goals of the organization, its various entities and its individual managers. This is called goal congruence. The way in which managers react to management control information depends to a large extent on their personal goals. For effective management control, it is important to be able to measure the impact of these motivators, because they largely determine the behaviour of people in an organization, as well as the desirability of the consequences of their behaviour. Business Management Study Guide iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);" src="https://phdessay.com/business-management-study-guide/embed/#?secret=mjiWZxsYbT" data-secret="mjiWZxsYbT" width="500" height="282" title="#8220;Business Management Study Guide#8221; #8212; Free Essays - PhDessay.com" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"/iframe The management control system should be designed in such a way that, whenever managers take decisions that fit into their personal goals, these decisions should also be in the interests of the company as a whole. In other words, the management control system must create the conditions to foster a feeling within the members of the organization that they can best realize their personal goals by contributing as much as possible to the realization of the general company goals. It is clear that the way in which managers are evaluated and financially rewarded for their performance plays a significant role in reaching ‘goal congruence’ (see also Chapter 13). Goal congruence is an important condition for effective performance management. The problem of goal congruence can be described in more detail in the following way. Corporate goals are translated into departmental goals, and in these departments people are working who also have their personal goals. A first problem that can arise is a lack of congruence between the corporate and departmental goals. For example, a department or division of a company can have a long-term vision that says it is desirable to stay small and be profitable (in other words ‘small is 154 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework beautiful’). On the other hand, top management might be striving for a company goal of strong growth and therefore wants the division to grow. In this case, there is a lack of congruence between the different visions, and a number of meetings will have to be organized to align the goals and strategies. However, there is also the possibility that the division manager is opposed to the growth of his division because he is personally reluctant to make the required efforts. In this case, there is a conflict between the personal goals of the manager and the goals of the company. Role of management control in performance management Verifying whether the company (or the business unit or department) is on track is an important management function. Management control is an important instrument for motivating personnel to act in accordance with the goals and strategies of the organization. This motivation is one of the major driving forces of the performance and the value of the company. The management control system must be adjusted to the goals and the strategies of the company and it must be optimally aligned. The contribution of control to strategy implementation Robert Simons (1995) has outlined how management control can contribute to effective strategy implementation. In his book, Levers of Control, he introduced four key constructs that must be analysed and understood in order to implement strategy successfully: core values, risks to be avoided, critical performance variables and strategic uncertainties. Each construct is controlled by a different system, or lever, the use of which has different implications. These levers are: †¢ Beliefs systems, used to inspire and direct the search for new opportunities. †¢ Boundary systems, used to set limits on opportunity-seeking behaviour. There are three broad categories of boundary systems: business conduct boundaries, internal controls and strategic boundaries. 1 †¢ Diagnostic control systems, used to motivate, monitor and reward achievement of specified goals. Diagnostic control systems attempt to measure output variables that represent important performance dimensions of a given strategy: critical performance variables. These factors must be achieved or implemented successfully for the intended strategy of the business to succeed. Diagnostic variables should be measured, monitored and controlled, but reporting on them to higher management is on an exception basis only, when a value falls outside a normal control limit and corrective actions must be taken. Interactive control systems, used to stimulate search and learning, allowing new strategies to emerge as participants throughout the Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 155 organization respond to perceived opportunities and threats. As a fourth lever of control, these systems focus attention on strategic uncertainties and enable strategic renewal (i. e. , emergent strategies). Figure 9. 1 Levers of control Source: Simons (1995: 159) Control of busine ss strategy is achieved by integrating these four levers of control. The power of these levers in implementing strategy does not lie in how each is used alone, but rather in how they complement each other when used together. Two of the control systems – beliefs systems and interactive control systems – motivate organizational participants to search creatively and expand the opportunity space. These systems create intrinsic motivation by creating a positive informational environment that encourages information sharing and learning. The other two levers of control – boundary systems and diagnostic control systems – are used to constrain search behaviour and allocate scarce attention. These systems rely on extrinsic motivation by providing explicit goals, formula-based rewards and clear limits to opportunity-seeking. These four levers create tension between creative innovation and predictable goal movement. This tension requires managers of effective organizations to know how to achieve both high degrees of learning (innovation) and high degrees of control (efficiency) (Simons, 2000: 304). Levers of control and the organizational lifecycle Developing an integrated control system does not happen overnight. Managers of small entrepreneurial firms perform their strategic control 56 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework rather informally. As the business grows larger, however, informal processes become inadequate. Simons (1995, 2000) illustrates how the levers of control can be successfully implemented as a business grows and matures (see Figure 9. 2). Figure 9. 2 Introduction of control systems over the lifecycle of a business Source: Simons (1995: 128) I n their most recent book, Kaplan and Norton (2001) point out the importance of using the Balanced Scorecard (see Chapter 3) as an interactive control system. It is clear from Figure 9. 2 that an organization must have some experience with other control systems before it can exploit the Balanced Scorecard in this way. Diagnostic systems, boundary systems, and internal control systems are all necessary, but they do not create a learning organization aligned to a focused strategy. Some Balanced Scorecard implementation failures occurred because organizations used their scorecard only diagnostically, and failed to get the learning and innovation benefits from an interactive system. The CEOs of successful Balanced Scorecard adopters succeeded because they use the scorecard interactively, for communication and to drive learning and improvement. They set overall strategy and then encouraged people within their organization to identify the local actions and initiatives that would have the highest impact for accomplishing the scorecard objectives. (Kaplan and Norton, 2001: 350) Management control versus task control Anthony and Govindarajan (1995) distinguish management control, which ultimately is about implementing strategies, from strategic planning and control and task control: Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 157 †¢ Strategic planning and control is the process of determining and evaluating the goals of the organization, and formulating or reformulating the broad strategies to be used in attaining these goals. Strategic control refers to the maintenance of the environmental conditions of strategies. Strategic control is used to evaluate the background of existing strategies and the environmental assumptions on which the strategies were formulated. It can also involve the reformulation of strategies. †¢ Task control is the process of ensuring that specific tasks are carried out effectively and efficiently. For example, internal audit and internal control are often associated with task control. Elements of a management control system In the previous paragraphs, we have described the importance of management control for strategy implementation and for performance management. In the remainder of this chapter, we go deeper into the details of the management control system and focus on its compounding elements. A management control system consists of three basic elements: (1) the management control structure; (2) the management control process; and (3) the management control culture. The first element, the management control structure, deals with the division of the organization into ‘responsibility centres’. A distinction needs to be made among the various types of responsibility centre, such as ‘revenue centres’, ‘expense centres’, ‘profit centres’, and ‘investment centres’. Determining the optimal structure is part of the task of management control. The second element in a management control system, the management control process, comprises the cycle of: planning for the expected input and output; measuring the results; comparing plan to reality; and, finally, adjusting if necessary. The third element is the management control culture or the beliefs systems. This is the combination of communal values and behavioural norms, which determine the behaviour of managers and staff. Choosing an effective management control structure To manage an organization according to certain objectives, you must first choose an appropriate management control structure. A management control structure is the system of basic principles for the functioning of the organization or the organizational structure in which the management control will take place. Hellriegel, Slocum and Woodman (1992: 5) define the organizational structure as ‘the structure and formal system of communication, division of labor, coordination, control, authority and responsibility necessary to achieve the organization’s goals’. 158 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework Elements of a management control structure When defining the management control structure, the following questions must be answered: What are the various departments in the organization? †¢ What are the responsibilities of the various department managers? †¢ How are the activities of the various departments coordinated, and what are the coordination mechanisms? Defining the departmental structure In organizing for effective performance management, the company may choose a f unctional organization structure, a multidivisional structure, a matrix organization or a network organization structure. When choosing the functional organization structure, the tasks are grouped based on the functional specialty to which they belong. Traditionally, the following departments are presented in the organizational chart: ‘Sales and Marketing’, ‘Engineering’, ‘Production’, ‘Distribution’, ‘Purchasing’ and ‘Finance’. An organization can also be controlled within a multidivisional structure, which is a structure based on products or markets instead of functions. If based on products, we have a product-oriented department structure. The sales, development, production and purchasing activities with regard to a certain product are concentrated in one, individual department. On the other hand, the organization could also be structured around markets. In this case, all tasks that deal with a certain geographical market are grouped. The multidivisional structure groups management tasks in divisions, each of which focuses on a certain product or geographical area where the products are sold. Division managers are responsible for the daily operational decisions within their division. Top management no longer wants to engage itself in daily problems, but instead focuses on the important strategic decisions (e. g. , investment decisions, acquisitions and divestments). When designing a multidivisional structure, the business unit concept can be taken as a starting point. In this concept, the organization is structured around strategic business units or SBUs. An SBU is an operating unit of a planning focus that groups a distinct set of products or services sold to a uniform set of customers, facing a well-defined set of competitors. Many companies have a combination of functional and product- or market-oriented structures in their organizational structure. They prefer to work in a matrix organization. On the horizontal line, we find an RD manager, a production manager, a financial manager and a purchasing manager. On the vertical line, we see the various business or product line managers. They are responsible, first of all, for the marketing and sales of their product line, but they must also take care of the coordination between the various functional departments. Staff members in the various functional departments are thus led by two managers. Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 159 Defining the responsibility of managers After determining the department structure by which the organization will be controlled, it is important to define the responsibilities of each department. A department or an organizational unit, led by a manager with clearly specified responsibilities, is called a responsibility centre. An organizational structure is therefore a hierarchy of responsibility centres. Delegated responsibility demands appropriate authority. When assigning the responsibility for a specific output to a certain department, this department should also have control over its output. So, responsibility requires the existence of ‘controllability’. Delegated responsibility also requires an appropriate ‘accountability’. A manager is considered to be ‘accountable’ when he or she is assessed according to the realization of his or her objectives. In other words, performance is monitored, and if his or her performance turns out to be bad, management will take the necessary actions. A responsibility centre is not only assessed on its output (which result has been achieved? ), but also on its input (how many inputs were used? ). In general, a responsibility centre should be assessed on two basic criteria: efficiency and effectiveness. Efficiency is the relation between output and input. The more cars that are made in a car manufacturing company with the same production costs, the more efficient the operation is. The cost per unit (i. e. , the total production cost divided by the number of units produced) is therefore an efficiency norm. Effectiveness expresses the extent to which the realized output is aligned with the goals and strategies to be realized. It could be that the sales department has become more efficient by selling more with the same people, but that the sales efforts were focused on markets in which the company has chosen not to be active for strategic reasons. In this case, the sales efforts were not effective, i. e. , they did not contribute to the realization of the corporate strategy. When designing a management control system, one must determine what efficiency and effectiveness mean concretely for each department and how these can be measured. Assigning responsibilities to the departments means determining the right performance measures. The responsibilities of the manager can be divided into financial, strategic and operational responsibilities. Performance measures must be defined for each of these responsibility areas. We call them financial, strategic and operational performance measures. With regard to the financial responsibilities, we can distinguish among the following types of responsibility centres: expense centres, revenue centres, profit centres and investment centres. †¢ Expense centres are departments that are responsible for the costs they have made (input), but whose output is not measured in financial terms. In a functional organization structure, typical expense centres are the production department, the RD department, the purchasing department and the financial department. Staff functions are also usually controlled as expense centres. 160 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework †¢ Revenue centres are departments in which the output, but not the input, is measured in financial terms. Typical revenue centres are the sales departments. Their management task is not concerned with the costs incurred; instead, they strive to reach a turnover objective. †¢ In a profit centre, the manager is responsible for the costs and also for the revenues of the department. Thus, the ‘profit centre’ manager receives a profit report for his or her department. In investment centres, the profit as well as the investments (‘assets employed’) are measured. The department manager has the authority to take investment decisions and is also responsible for the profitability of the investments made. A typical performance measure for investment centres is the return on investment (ROI). Regarding strategic responsibilities, a managerâ₠¬â„¢s task not only involves realizing financial goals; the manager and his or her team may also be charged with contributing towards realizing the competitive strategy of their division and the general strategy of the company. For example, the general company strategy may be concerned with growth in all business units and with global operations. Choosing and formulating this strategy may be the work of general management, but translating it into the business unit may be the responsibility of the division manager. The division manager may also be responsible for defining and developing a competitive advantage (in the areas of quality, flexibility and customer service, for example) for his or her business unit. The manager may be responsible for constantly tracking the evolution of customer satisfaction and adapting the competitive strategy in time to this evolution. When strategic responsibilities are also delegated to a lower level in the organization, the manager responsible should be evaluated with regard to the level of success of the chosen strategies. Performance measures must be determined for this as well. The method of the Balanced Scorecard (see Chapter 3) may be of help here. Finally, regarding operational responsibilities, it is obvious that managers of responsibility centres are also responsible for managing daily operations. A number of ‘key performance measures’ can be defined for this, which are followed up closely by top management. The division manager may be asked to realize objectives with regard to inventory levels, processing times, products out of specification, revision times, etc. Restriction of responsibilities and freedom of action Each responsibility centre is restricted in its activity by a number of rules and procedures. Rules are formal expressions of the behaviours that are permitted and not permitted to the members of a department. Procedures are descriptions of steps to be followed in executing a task or in making decisions. Rules and procedures provide a detailed specification of the kinds of responsibility and freedom of action the responsibility centre has or does not have. They indicate how the responsibilities and freedom of action are restricted. The Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 161 indicated restrictions can be expressed in a positive or negative way. Positive responsibility restrictions describe what the responsibility centre manager may do. Negative restrictions describe what the manager is not allowed to do. Some restrictions relate to responsibilities, others are involved with the manager’s freedom of decision. The freedom of an individual in an organization can also be restricted by general codes of behaviour, which result from existing laws, statutory provisions and ethical values. These are meant to prevent the potential mix of personal and company interests (e. g. , they indicate in what way confidential information should be treated). Restriction of responsibilities and freedom of action are all part of the boundary systems of a company. These are ‘explicit statements embedded in formal information systems that define and communicate specific risks to be avoided’ (Simons, 1995: 112). Coordination mechanisms When the department structure and the responsibilities of the various departments are defined, rules must be set up with regard to the actions between departments as well. The responsibility for realizing the global company goals and strategies cannot be split up into independent partial responsibilities. Departments and divisions must cooperate in various areas. Therefore, it is important that rules with respect to this cooperation be defined that motivate the managers maximally to target their efforts towards realizing the global company goals. There are two important kinds of rules that coordinate actions between departments: (1) formal coordination mechanisms (task forces, standing committees, integrating managers); and (2) transfer price systems. Choosing the optimal management control structure Designing the management control structure involves a number of choices. The decision can be made to manage in a functional structure or in a divisional tructure. Within a divisional structure, the divisions can be structured around products, markets, business units, or a combination of these. One can also choose to work in a matrix organization. Then, a choice must be made regarding the degree of delegation of responsibilities. A department can be led as an expense centre, a revenue centre, a profit centre or an investment centre. The responsibi lities of these centres can be restricted in various ways, and cooperation between departments can be coordinated by several coordination mechanisms and rules regarding transfer prices. In some companies, management control is characterized by a detailed set of formal rules, centralized decision power, limited delegated responsibilities and a strict hierarchy of authority. Such a structure is called mechanistic. At the other end of the spectrum, we have the organic organizations. They are characterized by few rules, decentralized power of 162 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework decision, group decision-making, broadly defined functional responsibilities and a flexible application of the hierarchic relations. We can now ask the question: Do optimal choices exist? In order to answer this question, we must first define what makes a management control structure optimal. The answer to this question can be found in the description of the task of management control: the objective of management control is to motivate managers maximally to realize the corporate goals and to implement the strategies. So, a management control structure is optimal when it maximally stimulates the desired goal-oriented behaviour and minimally leads to undesired (or dysfunctional) behaviour. To be able to choose a management control structure, one must predict what the effect of the choice will be on the management behaviour and whether the expected effect is desired or not. For example: †¢ A company that wants to realize a competitive strategy of flexibility (custom-made work) in its business units wonders if it is optimal to manage the departments in a functional organization structure, in which the sales department is responsible for the turnover and the production departments (as expense centres) are responsible for the price of the products made. To be able to answer this question, we need to know to what extent the production managers are inclined to handle specific customer demands in a flexible way when the price of the products is the most important performance measure. †¢ Universities lead their faculties and departments as discretionary expense centres with respect to educational activities. In the short term, the deans and department heads are responsible for the costs of their faculties and departments, and not directly for the number of students and the revenues. As a consequence, the professors are not motivated to have many students, and they organize very few (if any) activities to influence and increase the number of students in the short term. Faculties and departments could also be managed as profit centres. The question is: What would be the effect on the management behaviour of deans, chairmen and professors? Would they act in a more commercial way? Would they lose their interest in research? Would this lead to overly aggressive competition among universities and, if so, is aggressive competition a corporate strategic choice within educational policy? To be able to make an optimal choice of management control structure, good insight into the strategy that is to be realized is crucial. The choice of the management control structure must be aligned with the strategic choices of the company. Knowledge of how managers will be influenced by certain structural choices is also important. One can learn from one’s own experience or from the experiences of other companies. In most cases, companies learn from their own experience. Setting up a management control structure is a dynamic process. The key is to look for Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 163 both well-motivated and dysfunctional management behaviours in the existing structure. Ultimately, the process should yield new ideas for improving the structure to promote the desired behaviour and eliminate the dysfunctional behaviour. Experiences from other companies can also be helpful. A significant part of the literature on management control focuses on research of the general tendencies and patterns in management behaviour in various types of management control structure. A general conclusion is that there is no management control structure that is optimal for all control situations. The optimal management control structure depends on the situation. The research that studies which management control structure best suits which type of environment is called ‘contingency research’. This contingency research has focused on two major contingency variables: (1) the environment; and (2) a firm’s strategy. Study of the first contingency variable has helped identify the appropriate structures to fit the levels of uncertainty in the environment (Burns and Stalker, 1961; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Galbraith, 1973; Drazin and Van de Ven, 1985). Structure is generally discussed in terms of mechanistic versus organic approaches to organizing, and it is believed that more organic structures are best suited to uncertain environments. These are structures that focus on ‘clan control’, i. e. , social control coordinated by integrative mechanisms such as task forces and meetings. Contingency research also shows that management control structures should be well suited to the company’s chosen strategy. Different strategies may require different control structures. A popular typology deals with the strategic mission of business units, which may vary from a ‘build’ strategy, to a ‘hold’ strategy, a ‘harvest’ strategy and, finally, a ‘divest’ strategy. The objective of a build strategy is to increase market share and production volumes, while a hold strategy tries to protect the existing market share and maintain the current competitive position. A harvest strategy focuses on maximizing cash flow and profit in the short run, even if this is at the expense of market share. Last, the divest strategy concerns the decision to withdraw from a certain business. Other strategy typologies that are often used in the management control literature come from Porter (1985) and Miles and Snow (1978) (see Chapter 6 for more information). Evidence from the strategy/organizational design research suggests that for strategies characterized by a conservative orientation (defenders), harvest and cost leadership are best served by entralized control systems, specialized and formalized work, simple coordination mechanisms, and directing attention to problem areas (Miles and Snow, 1978; Porter, 1985; Miller and Friesen, 1982). For strategies characterized by an entrepreneurial orientation (prospectors), build and product differentiation are linked to a lack of standardized procedures, decentralized and results-oriented evaluation, flexible structur es and processes, complex coordination of overlapping project teams, and directing attention at curbing excess innovation. 164 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework Designing an effective management control process Phases in the management control process The management control process can best be represented by a closed loop control cycle (see Figure 9. 3). The process starts from the strategy of the company, from which the action programmes are derived. Once the programmes are set up and approved, their financial implications for the coming year can be expressed in a budget. At the end of the budget period, the actual performance is measured and compared to the budget. The results of this analysis are then reported to top management and used in the evaluation of the efficiency and effectiveness of the responsibility centres concerned and their managers. The management control process thus starts from strategic planning and target setting and consists of the following five phases: Figure 9. 3 The management control process Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 165 †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ †¢ Planning action programmes (programming); Preparing the budget; Executing the plan; Measuring performance, following up the budget and reporting; and Evaluating and rewarding. Important design parameters of the control process When used in an appropriate way, the budgeting process may motivate managers to improve performance. The motivating impact of the budget is influenced by the following parameters. The level of management commitment to budget targets First of all, companies may use the budget to assess the financial impact of their strategic action plans. In this case, budgeting is primarily used as a feed forward control mechanism and its primary function is to support the planning process (‘budgeting for planning’). Budget targets are an indication and show the direction in which the company wants to go, but managers do not feel a strong pressure to realize the targets. Budget targets can also be seen as commitments for the managers. In this case, the budget is used for control. Top-down versus bottom-up budgeting Budget targets may be imposed topdown by executive management (in consultation with the division managers, or not). Besides this, there is also a bottom-up process, in which each division sets up its own budget, yet within the general goals and directions of the company. The global company budget is then formed by combining the various sub-budgets. The level of participation during the budgeting process When setting up a budgeting process, an important parameter is the level of participation managers may have in the target-setting process. We can talk about participative budgeting when subordinate managers participate in the budgeting process and in defining the budget objectives. Participative budgeting involves back-and-forth communication between superiors and subordinates – they share information and converge on a mutually acceptable budget. It is generally agreed that involvement in setting up the budget leads to higher acceptance than when the budget is imposed fully from the top. Moreover, it is assumed that participative budgeting has a positive effect on the commitment of the division managers who have to realize the budget later on. The difficulty of budget targets It is necessary to think about guidelines regarding the degree of difficulty in realizing the budgets (‘goal difficulty’). Certain companies have a policy of realistic budgets, where the budget objective will be accepted if it most probably can be reached. Other 166 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework companies prefer challenging budgets, where top management expects the division managers to work very hard. The basic assumption behind challenging budgets is that managers can always achieve more with their team than they think they can. The task of top management is to stimulate managers to try to excel themselves over and over again. In this situation, managers who submit realistic budgets are evaluated poorly beforehand and a more challenging budget is imposed on them from the top. Whatever the budget philosophy, a budget can be accepted if it holds sufficient task content, i. e. , if the team in the department will have to exert a lot of effort to realize the budget. As a general rule, the set targets ought to be realistic but challenging. This means that they may not be set unattainably high, which results in frustration and manipulation of data, but they may also not be too easily achievable, because then most of the performance stimulus disappears. Tolerance for budget slack It should also be verified whether or not the budget is too pessimistic. Some managers may be inclined to build a certain ‘slack’ into their budget. The phenomenon of budget slack occurs when a manager submits a budget in which a certain ‘buffer’ is built in so that the budget objectives are relatively easy to reach. Indeed, in a participative budgeting process the tendency might exist to ask more than one strictly needs to cover oneself against unforeseen circumstances or out of fear that top management will reduce the budget by a certain amount. For example, if the purchasing department fears that it will no longer be able to buy raw materials at the prices that were budgeted in the past, it can ask for extra means for this part of the budget. It can also be that managers prefer not to set the budget standards too high in companies where their bonuses are calculated on the degree to which they have reached their budget objectives. In all these cases, the general interests of the company are not respected because, by building in budget slack, the company funds are not optimally allocated. Fairness in budget target setting When assessing the budget, one should verify whether the task content of the budgets of the various departments are of equal value. The budget negotiation process is not only a vertical negotiation process in the organization, it is also a process of comparing the planned efforts of the various departments. Dynamic managers, who always work with challenging budget objectives, may become demotivated when they discover that other departments are tolerated when they exert less effort (i. e. , make less profit or be less productive). However, equally balancing the task content of the budgets of the various departments presents difficulties because the management problems may differ widely per department (e. g. , different management functions, product groups, markets, etc. ) and the concept ‘task content’ is difficult to measure objectively. The task content of a budget depends on the experience of the manager and his or her team. There is also a certain Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 167 psychological insight involved here. Some managers, along with their teams, feel more quickly swamped with work than others. In any case, clear imbalances in the performances of the various departments need to be eliminated as quickly as possible. For instance, in a profit centre structure, where all divisions are making profits and a certain division is constantly in the red, a thorough restructuring plan must be set up in the short run to make the department profit-making as fast as possible. Tightness of budget control With regard to following up the budget, a choice can be made between tight and loose control. The tightness of the control is determined by the degree to which restrictions are imposed on the freedom of subordinates and emphasis is placed on reaching the predefined objectives. In most cases, it is assumed that tight control provides more certainty that the people in the organization will act as is expected of them. This can be done by determining the activities in detail, by following up very accurately the results of the departments, and by exerting pressure on the responsible managers to adjust quickly potentially unfavourable anomalies. With tight budget control, it is frequently (e. g. monthly) verified whether the real costs and revenues are in accordance with the planned short-term objectives. Undesired anomalies in the budget are not tolerated and must be eliminated quickly. The advantage of tight control is that managers become more aware of the importance of costs and profitability, and they actively seek ways to eliminate inefficiencies. However, tight control may a lso have undesired dysfunctional effects. Focusing on short-term results too intently may encourage managers to organize actions that optimize profitability in the short term, but that are disadvantageous in the long term. For example, in order to reach its budget figures, the purchasing department may decide to buy cheaper, but qualitatively inferior, raw materials. However, this may lead to significant quality problems in production and possibly to lower quality end products, which result in losing the goodwill of the customers. When the emphasis is primarily on reaching budget objectives in the short term, managers may also not be motivated to make the strategic investments that are necessary for the long-term survival of the company. Moreover, excessively tight budget control may lead to building in ‘slack’ when setting up the budget objectives or to playing accounting tricks to artificially boost the short-term results. On the contrary, with loose budget control deviations from the budget that arise in between are overlooked by top management, and there is a trust that potentially unfavourable anomalies will be eliminated by the divisional managers at the end of the budget period. The budget is used more for communication and planning, and there is less pressure to undertake immediate short-term actions to adjust the results. The use of budget performance in rewarding managers When setting up the budget, for managers of responsibility centres it is required that the 168 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework proposed objectives be realized (although we know some companies that start paying bonuses when only 80 per cent – and even 60 per cent – of the budget target is realized). At the end of the year, the actual results are compared to the planned objectives and are further analysed by means of variance analysis. In this way, the budget is an ideal basis for evaluating the performances of the responsible managers. Managers who succeed in realizing the proposed objectives must be rewarded for their good performance. This reward may be of a financial nature (e. g. , bonus, salary increase or other financial advantages), but the reward may also be more focused on non-financial motivators, such as promotion, extension of responsibilities and recognition. A bonus for performance relative to the budget can be determined subjectively or by formula. To be effective, the reward system must be designed in such a way that it optimally motivates the managers to act in accordance with the corporate goals and strategies. Optimizing management control process policies A management control process (and more specifically, the budgeting process) is effective when it motivates managers on the various levels of the organization to perform actions in line with the organizational goals and strategies. From contingency research on management control, evidence suggests links between strategy and the characteristics of the management control process. Defenders, and companies with conservative, cost leadership strategies, find cost control and specific operating goals and budgets more appropriate than entrepreneurs, prospectors and companies with product differentiation strategies (Simons, 1987; Dent, 1990; Chenhall and Morris, 1995). Chenhall and Morris (1995) have found that tight control is suitable for conservative strategies; they also found tight control in entrepreneurial situations but, importantly, operating together with organic decision styles and communications. Some research has been focused on the relationship between the chosen competitive strategy and the management control process. Differentiation strategies are associated with a de-emphasis on budgetary goals for performance evaluation (Govindarajan, 1988). Govindarajan and Fisher (1990) found that product differentiation with high sharing of resources (between functional departments) and a reliance on behavioural control was associated with enhanced effectiveness. Bruggeman and Van der Stede (1993) found that business units implementing differentiation strategies based on a make-to-order strategy preferred loose control in budgeting, while business units with a cost leader strategy or a differentiation strategy based on standard products found tight budget control more suitable. They also found that bottom-up budgeting and a commitment to budget targets was considered optimal for all competitive strategies. Overall, Van der Stede Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 169 2000) has shown that product differentiation strategies are associated with less rigid budgetary control, but this is also associated with increased budgetary slack. It has also been suggested that bonus systems must be suited to the strategy. Anthony and Govindarajan (1995) suggest that formula-based bonus determination approaches should be used with a harvest strategy and that subjective bonus determination is optimal for build strategies. Contingency research has also found relationships between characteristics of the management control process and the level of uncertainty in the environment. Companies operating in an environment of unpredictable change require an appropriate set of control process characteristics. Uncertainty has been related to performance evaluation characterized by a more subjective evaluation style (Govindarajan, 1984; Moores and Sharma, 1998), less reliance on incentive-based pay (Bloom, 1998), non-accounting style of performance evaluation (Ross, 1995), and participative budgeting (Govindarajan, 1986). As environmental uncertainty increases, using more participative budgeting increases performance. In contrast, when environmental uncertainty is low, participative budgeting ecreases performance. In situations where environments are stable and predictable, there is little informational benefit from participation because superiors have sufficient information to develop budgets. Companies may also operate in a hostile, difficult environment. This is an environment that is stressful, dominating and restrictive. Environmental hostility has been associate d with a strong emphasis on meeting budgets (Otley, 1978). Hostility from intense competition has been related to a reliance on formal control and sophisticated accounting, production and statistical control (Khandwalla, 1972; Imoisili, 1985). The optimization of target-setting approaches seems to be related to task complexity. Locke and Latham (1990) found that difficult goals lead to higher performance, but this effect is moderated by task complexity. The result leads us to expect that performance will be higher when managers are invited to work towards challenging targets, except when the performance task is too complex. The appropriateness of bottom-up budgeting has been associated with information asymmetry between superiors and subordinate managers (Shields and Young, 1993). When subordinates have much better information about their business than their superiors do, bottom-up budgeting leads to more accurate budgets, arising from the use of the subordinates’ better information. When top-down budgeting is used in the case of high information asymmetry, subordinates may reject the budget because it is not consistent with their information. Top-down budgeting is beneficial in situations where superiors have sufficient knowledge about the subordinate’s activities being budgeted. 170 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework The role of beliefs systems The management control culture is the third and final part of the management control system. Managers’ behaviours and actions are not only influenced by structural and procedural elements, but also by the formal beliefs systems in the organization. Simons defines beliefs systems as ‘the explicit set of organizational definitions that senior managers communicate formally and reinforce systematically to provide basic values, purpose, and direction for the organization’ (Simons, 1995: 34). Beliefs systems are an important element of an organization’s corporate culture. The corporate culture is the set of values, beliefs and norms of behaviour shared by members of a firm that influences individual employee preferences and behaviours (Besanko et al. , 2000). Ouchi (1980, 1981; Ouchi and Johnson, 1978) considers culture as an alternative control system in the organization. He introduces the idea of clan control, by which he means control through an internal system of organizational norms and values. Culture influences the behaviour of individuals. Individuals who value belonging to the culture will align their individual goals and behaviours to those of the firm and pay more attention to selfcontrol. A culture that is intensively held by most employees is called a strong culture. Culture can support a company’s competitive advantage (Barney, 1986). It is supportive when the values espoused by the culture are very much in line with the chosen direction and the performance objectives of the firm (e. g. , a company with a product leadership strategy where all employees love to change things and learn from new experiences). In this case, we talk about a ‘high performance culture’. In other words, the culture is clearly aligned with the strategy of the firm. Of course, the opposite also holds. If there is a cultural misfit, culture can also be a source of persistently poor performance. This occurs when the values underlying the firm’s culture are in conflict with the chosen strategic direction. For example, a culture stressing efficiency, stability and routine behaviour will not support the implementation of a flexibility strategy. In this case, culture may be a barrier to change and managers will experience a ‘low performance culture’. So, it is important that the majority of the employees believe what top management believes. It is the task of management control to define a set of common beliefs. It frequently happens that top managers have explicitly expressed the vision, the mission, the goals, the key values and the strategies of the firm, but lower-level managers and employees do not share the underlying beliefs. Goal statements about creating shareholder value are experienced as ‘grand terminology’ when employees do not feel the passion of working on value-creating projects. A strategy of highquality products will not succeed if all employees are not convinced that they should work to ‘zero defect’ and do their work ‘right the first time’. Many flexibility strategies fail because people do not like ‘to change their Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 171 Figure 9. 4 The origins of unhealthy corporate cultures Source: Kotter and Heskett (1992: 145) 172 ? The Integrated Performance Management Framework plans. ’ In general, successful strategy implementation needs beliefs systems supporting the chosen strategy. The beliefs of employees and managers may be hard to change, but they can be influenced by training sessions, by inspiring leadership, and by demonstrating the success of the new strategy and successful strategic projects. John Kotter and James Heskett (1992) have written a book about corporate culture and performance in which they propose a stepwise approach to the creation of a high-performance culture and focus on the origins of healthy and unhealthy corporate cultures. Their ideas are presented in Figure 9. 4 and Figure 9. 5. Figure 9. 5 The creation of a performance-enhancing culture Source: Kotter and Heskett (1992: 147) Integrated Performance Management through Effective Management Control ? 173 Conclusion Control and evaluation is the fourth component of our Integrated Performance Management Framework. In this chapter, we have shown the important role of management control for strategy implementation and for performance management. Developing an appropriate management control system is a prerequisite for effectively managing an organization. On a broader level, Simons (1995) has shown that control of business strategy is achieved by integrating four levers of control. These levers create tension between creative innovation (emergent strategies) and predictable goal movement (intended strategies). This proves the crucial role of control in the strategy implementation and performance management process. We then focused our attention on the three basic elements of the management control system: (1) the management control structure; (2) the management control process; and (3) the beliefs systems. We have analysed optimal management control structures and processes from a goal congruence perspective. That is, we have investigated how to design a management control structure and process that maximally stimulates goal-oriented behaviour and leads to minimal dysfunctional behaviour. Attention is also paid to how strategy affects the choice for a particular management control system. It is clear that management control also interacts with the organizational behaviour component. From Chapter 10 on, we investigate this fifth component in greater detail. Note 1 Business conduct boundaries are those that define and communicate standards of business conduct for all employees. Like the Ten Commandments, they specify actions that are forbidden. Internal controls are the policies and procedures designed to ensure reliable accounting information and safeguard company assets. Strategic boundaries define what types of business opportunity should be avoided, thereby drawing a box around the opportunities that individuals are encouraged to exploit. Strategic boundaries are installed to ensure that individuals throughout the organization are engaged in activities that support the basic strategy of the business (Simons, 2000: 289). How to cite Integrated Performance Management Through Effective Management Control, Papers

Analysis Of A Christmas Carol Essay Example For Students

Analysis Of A Christmas Carol Essay Charles Dickenss A Christmas Carol tells us that we are all on the earth to improve and better ourselves. This is shown through Scrooges behaviour and his life. At the beginning of the novel Scrooge is bitter, horrible and cold. If I could work my will said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with a Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled in his own pudding, and buried with a steak of holly through his heart. He should! Here Scrooge shows his extreme dislike for the Christmas season by saying that everyone who celebrates Christmas should be butchered in their own Christmas dinner. But after seeing his life and how it affects the people around him, he starts to change for the better. The spirit of Christmas present quoted Scrooges own words right back in his face. Have they no refuge or resource? Cried Scrooge. Are there no prisons? said the spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. Are there no work houses? Seeing the wisdom and power of the three spirits Scrooge changes and by the end of the novel treasures Christmas in his heart. I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The spirits of all three shall strive within me Scrooges nephew, Fred is very important to the novel because he portrays the moral message of families being together at Christmas, and also the fact that Christmas is a time for forgiveness. This links with how Dickens wrote the novel, in the setting of Christmas. We meet Scrooges nephew, who personifies the theme of families through the Christmas season. This is seen, as hes tolerant towards his uncle Scrooges thoughts towards Christmas. Every year Scrooge refuses his nephews invitation and every year his nephew forgives him and invites them to Christmas dinner. Through Jacob Marley Dickens teaches us that mans obligation is to look out for his fellow man and to aid those less providential than themselves: to be philanthropic rather than misanthropic. I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on my own free will and of my own free will I wore it or would you know the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a ponderous chain! Here in stave one Marleys ghost emerges and informs Scrooge that it is necessary for him to change otherwise he will have to bear a chain much the same as Marley. Through his old colleagues spirit Scrooge learns that he needs to alter whilst there is still time. Marley expresses his own sorrows to Scrooge and Scrooge believes that his own personal senses are deceiving him and he says, A little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. Here Scrooge evidently states that he doubts that anything beyond reality exists, nevertheless, Marleys visit will be certain to reside within his mind throughout the visits of the other spirits. Scrooge represents Victorian society through many factors; there are four key ones, which represent the majority of Victorians. The first is hatred. Scrooge hates Christmas and everything to do with it. Merry Christmas! What right do you have to be merry?! .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 , .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .postImageUrl , .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 , .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:hover , .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:visited , .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:active { border:0!important; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:active , .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5 .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u80eb9736c1a9965b64f90fd0cd95b0c5:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Conduct of internal audit Essay He doesnt want to spend time with his family at any time of the year and doesnt see why Christmas should be an exception. He doesnt want to spend time with his family because as a child his immediate family were not loving and kind towards him. Because of all this Christmas is a very unhappy time of year for Scrooge and because of that fact he doesnt want anybody else to enjoy it. This also represents selfishness. Most Victorians were both selfish and jealous, faults that generate hate towards those who have what they want. The second factor is disrespect. Scrooge shows great disrespect to a lot of people, including the gentlemen collecting for charity. I wish to be left alone since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I dont make myself merry at Christmas, and I cant afford to make idle people merry. I think he says this because he thinks the gentlemen are below him. This represents Victorian society because back then the class system was more enforced than it is now.

Platos The Symposium Essay Example For Students

Platos The Symposium Essay Platos The SymposiumIn Greek culture around the time of Plato, the perfect ideal person was considered. Platos idea that there was a perfect world of ideas affected this pieces subject and thesubjects action. Many works of his time period were sculptures that were meant to beviewed from all angles, attempting to be a closer match to that of the ideal. This idea that theideal world was real and what matter not the physical also effect the actions depicted inmany works of this time period. Most of the works are depicting an ideal Greek personperforming a noble act not just a common act. Many of the works are also just a still imageof a figure from a single moment in time. All of the male sculptures appear in the nudebecause they represent a perfect man with nothing to hide. These are some of the artisticconventions that were influenced by Platos ideas. There are many different aspects ofGreek art that can be accredited to Plato for creating. Among them was the Perfect figurethat resented the ideal person that existed in the world of ideas. The definition of what aperfect person was devel oped by Plato. Plato believed that the physical world did not matter. It was the form in the idealworld and this value of form and thought can be seen throughout many of the works of art. Plato said that in the physical world we did not see the real object we only saw a shadow ofit. The art of this time period showed form and subject that were far more perfect than onecould actually exist in the real would in an attempt to represent the world of ideas. All ofthese aspects together confirm that Plato has a major influence on Greek art of the time. Throughout human existence, the subject of love has also been of great fascination tomany. Questions such as : What is love? and What is the work of love? are some ofgreat questions of the universe that has transcended time; yet with no absolute answers. There is perhaps no correct answers to the phenomena of love. It exists in many strata. It isperpetually subject to debate, for we all are experts of love in our own rights. In TheSymposium, Plato gave accounts of speeches from different speakers. Yet the focus of thisessay is on Aristophanes and Socrates. Their explanations of love and critical comments towill be answered to these questions: What is love? How do lovers select theirbeloveds? and What is the work of love? What is love? In his speech, Aristophanes engages in the discussion of love,encompassing human nature as whole rather than individualistic aspects. According to amyth, we were originally created as a single being, united with our beloved. As pairs, wewere quite powerful and chaotic, such that the god had to split us into two. Thereafter, lifebecame pursuit, a pursuit for the other half, a pursuit for wholeness, to be complete. Andthesis what Aristophanes defines as love. He believes that love is innate: love is born intoevery human being. He is expressing that the phenomenon of love is as natural andinherent to us as breathing itself. Like other amenities of life, Love fulfills us. To bein love is to see the other individual as a special complement to ones existence. Socrates, onthe other hand, defines love as the desire to possess good and beautifulentities, which he presently lacks. By a dialectical method, questioning Agathon, hemanifests that love cannot presently possess the object of affection. Even when he desireswhat he has, what he really desire is the preservation of what he now has in time to come,so that he will have it then. It follows then, that he wants, rather than has the good. Thus,Love itself is not beautiful. This however, does not imply that Love is ugly or evil. Rather,Love is in between; just as there is something between wisdom and ignorance- theright opinion. He is in between mortal and immortal. Thus, Love is an intermediate spiritwho interprets between gods and men. Although there seems to be great disparity betweenthe two, Aristophanes and Socrates speeches actually merge in their paths. Is it not humaninclination to desire goodand beauty? Is it not then, that to have good and beauty is toembrace it body and soul and never wanting to depart it? Thus, the desire to unite with theother half is analogous, if not the same to the desire to possess good and beauty, but in abroader scope. Aristophanes and Socrates explanations of love greatly mirror the nature ofour existence today. Love is the knot that binds two people together. Love is havingpossession of freedom, which lies, perhaps, in the highest scale of goodness. The Americansare notorious for their freedom. They have it now. And it is certain that they want to alwayspossess it. How do lovers select their beloveds? The subjects and objects in Aristophanesschema of love is confined solely to human beings. The question is then, how do loversselect their beloveds? According toAristophanes, they choose their original other half. A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies EssayThroughout their speeches, Socrates and Aristophanes speak of a recurrent theme oflove; its ultimate end beatitude. Though, the speeches are set in different regard andideologies, they are in many respect, similar. That is , to acquire or unite with good andbeauty to embrace happiness. The speech of Aristophanes indeed, foreshadows that ofSocrates. In Greek culture around the time of Plato, the perfect ideal person was also considered. The piece has a great amount of detail and its weight is shifted from perfectbalance. The subject is depicted in a performing a perfect act. Platos idea that there was aperfect world of ideas affected this pieces subject and the subjects action. Many works ofthis time period were sculptures that were meant to be viewed from all angles, attempting tobe a closer match to that of the ideal. This idea that the ideal world was real and what matternot the physical also effect the actions depicted in many works of this time period. Most ofthe works are depicting an ideal Greek person performing a noble act not just a mundanecommon act. Many of the works are also just a still image of a figure from a single momentin time. All of the male sculptures appear in the nude because they represent a perfect manwith nothing to hide. These are some of the artistic conventions that were influenced byPlatos ideas. T here are many different aspects of Greek art that can be accredited to Platofor creating. Among them was the Perfect figure that resented the ideal person that existedin the world of ideas. The definition of what a perfect person was developed by Plato. Platobelieved that the physical world did not matter it was the form in the ideal world and thisvalue of form and thought can be seen throughout many of the works of art. Plato said thatin the physical world we did not see the real object we only saw a shadow of it. The art ofthis time period showed form and subject that were far more perfect than one could actuallyexist in the real would in an attempt to represent the world of ideas. All of these aspectstogether confirm that Plato has a major influence on Greek art of the time. Philosophy