Showing 766–774 of 1965 results
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Thread 1: Examples of TQM
$25.00Thread 1: Examples of TQM
Provide an example of TQM. you may use information that you have learned through media.
Thread 2: TQM vs. others
How does Total Quality Management compare to other similar process improvement systems? What are the similarities? What are the differences? Why would you recommend one program over another (for example, why would you recommend TQM over Six Sigma)?
Thread 3: Organizational performance measures
This week I talked about a number of organizational performance measures commonly used. What measure(s) does your organization use to track organizational performance? What measure(s) should organizations use? For example, I talked about most organizations relying on financial information, is this the most important indicator of organizational performance?
Thread 4: Measuring change
There are several ways in which an organization can measure change, and this partially depends on the change. What measurement is important for change success? Why? How would you define success according to this measure?
Thread 5: Open Topic
This thread is meant to provide students the opportunity to start or engage in a relevant discussion outside of those initiated by the instructor. This is an important component of the course that replaces the “blog posts” component incorporated in previous iterations of this course. This is an opportunity to incorporate outside reference materials, and to view the course material from different angles. This is also the opportunity to discuss the ways in which the course material applies to your specific discipline.
Ground rules:
- The topic you choose MUST be relevant to the course content. Please make this clear in your initial post.
- The topic you choose should be relevant to the current week’s course content.
- When making an initial post, state your observations, and provide any reference material if necessary. Then, try to pose an open-ended question so others can respond to your post with their own observations.
- For clarity and organization…when you reply to this initial post, please re-title your post to convey the topic of discussion you would like to initiate.
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Women Leaders
$7.00Over the course of the semester, we have discussed many facets of entrepreneurship and how certain aspects affect women entrepreneurs specifically. For this blog post, I would like to discuss leadership and women leaders, both from the business perspective and from the leadership perspective.
To start, consider these questions: Are all leaders entrepreneurs? Are all entrepreneurs leaders? Do you need to be an entrepreneur to be a leader? Do you need to be a leader to be an entrepreneur? Why or why not?
Consider the leadership perspective. What set of qualities do you think must be present for a leader to succeed in their endeavors? Read “What Makes for an Effective Leader” by Sandra Larson for her views on the subject.
Now consider the business perspective. Is leadership the same as management? Is a good manager automatically a good leader? What are the differences between the two schools of thought? Hilary Owen of USAToday.com explores these questions in her article, “What Makes a Leader?“
Why would it be important for an entrepreneur to possess leadership skills? What parts of entrepreneurship might require the ability to lead? For one person’s perspective, read this blog post, “What Do Leaders and Entrepreneurs Have in Common?” Do you agree or disagree with the qualities he has mentioned? What other qualities do you think leaders and entrepreneurs have in common?
So what exactly is a leader? Check out this definition. Does it coincide with your definition? Leaders can emerge in all types of arenas. Some that we are most familiar with are business and political, but there are also social leaders, thought leaders, humanitarian leaders, etc.
Every year Forbes Magazine puts out a list of the 100 Most Powerful Women. Go through the 2015 list and explore some of the women on the list. Also check out this article that highlights some of the women on the list. Are these “powerful” women all leaders? What qualifies them (or doesn’t qualify them) as a leader? Choose one or two that you would like to discuss and talk about whether on not you think that she is a leader and why or why not. Are there any women on the list that surprised you? Were you familiar with all, most, most or not many of the women on the list? Forbes has been compiled this list for eleven years. Look at this article to see the women that have made the list since 2004.
The most powerful woman on the Forbes list is Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany. Elected in 2005, she is Germany’s first female Chancellor. Read this New York Times profile for more information on Chancellor Merkel and some of the challenges that a powerful Head of State (male or female) faces in today’s world. Are you familiar with Angela Merkel? Do you feel that a female Head of State faces certain challenges due to her gender that a male Head of State does not face? Do they face the same criticisms or are they different? Click here for a list of all current female leaders. What are your thoughts after seeing the list?
One woman that is considered to be a great leader even though she was not an elected official was Eleanor Roosevelt. (This link provides a video as well.) It is said that she changed the role of First Lady from that of figurehead and social direction to an active participant in the country’s governing (if desired). She was extremely controversial due to her strong opinions about civil rights and matters of state and her willingness to speak freely on subjects of great importance to her, and embraced a leadership position. For an in-depth biography of Eleanor Roosevelt, click here.
What women leaders are you familiar with? Are there any that you admire and/or respect for their leadership abilities? Why? Please feel free to discuss any women this week that you feel exemplify the qualities you associate with leadership and explain why you feel they are important. (They can be historical or current, business or otherwise.) Discuss what you think a leader is and if and why it is an important aspect of entrepreneurship. Lastly, consider whether leadership can be taught or learned, or does it rely on innate qualities. Do you think that you have the potential to be a good leader now or sometime in the future?
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Evaluating Iphone
$5.00Evaluating Iphone
You will evaluate a particular product, performance, OR place by stating a clear judgment and supporting that judgment with commonly recognize criteria or standards. Basically, you will be writing a review without using research or looking online for ideas.
When evaluating a topic, you must be familiar with it, or at least be able to revisit and review it as necessary – absolutely no research allowed. Think back to Lamott and her food reviews – how many times did she revisit the restaurants?
Some more topics to choose from (no research!): Products: clothing, cell phone, car, food/drink
Performances: a play, TV show, movie, a previously recorded concert
Places: restaurant, library, bookstore, coffee shop, park, gym, campus locations
Drafting:
Pay special attention to the ways you choose to explain your topics – you should try to use various explanatory strategies to reach your audience, such as using examples, explaining a process, describing clearly, and analyzing (causes and effects/comparing and contrasting) whenever possible .
Use this checklist as .you work your way through the chapter in Choices:
o STEP 1: Explore Your Choices p. 206-212
o STEP 2: Write Your Discovery Draft p.212-215
o STEP 3: Revise Your Draft p. 215-227
o STEP 4: Edit Your Sentences p. 228-233
o STEP 5: Share Your Essay p. 233-234
o Chapter Checklist p. 234-235
o REFLECTING ON YOUR WRlTING p. 235
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BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION
$25.00Module 3 – Case
BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION
Case Assignment
Please view these videos:
A tour of the “behind the scenes” plant and facilities of Sinai Hospitalhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDM1HCtC8HM
Ottawa hospital transforms operations and processes to improve patient care and safetyhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EurNmCbMXqg
Prepare and submit a paper responding to the following items:
Use the online library, Internet, required reading, and other resources to research and develop a more complete appreciation of business operations and administration.
Based on your findings, write a scholarly paper that clearly addresses the following:
- Identify and describe an area of business operations and administration to include the services provided, key personnel within the department, and how this department supports or is supported by other departments.
- Identify and describe at least two trends that have an impact on the setting you selected. These can be trends related to supply and demand, political climate, regulatory, demographic changes, or patient care.
- Evaluate the impact of these trends on business operations and administration.
- Analyze the trends, and thinking as a healthcare administrator, how do you capitalize on these trends to improve operation and bottom line performance? How can you mitigate the negative impact of the trends?
Assignment Expectations
Write a 3-page double-spaced paper (this does not include title and reference pages). It needs to be well written, based on information from scholarly research, and should demonstrate a thorough analysis of the topic.
Module 3 – Background
BUSINESS OPERATIONS AND ADMINISTRATION
Supplemental Resources
Olsen, K. (n.d). (2014). Outpatient outlook. Retrieved fromhttp://healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAG-86466/Outpatient-Outlook
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How do you hope to achieve career balance
$5.00Throughout your adult life, you will make decisions regarding your career. As college students, you have already started on a career path by choosing your college, major, extracurricular activities, etc. Several of you have posted that you are considering entrepreneurship. In most cases, you will begin by working for a company to start, and then make choices from there.
Regardless of the career path you choose and the home life you choose, you will probably find the need to create a balance between the two. What exactly does that mean and how does one accomplish it? Is creating a balance between career and family harder for one gender than it is for the other? How do you think entrepreneurship might factor into creating and maintaining a work-life balance? Do you think it might be more or less difficult than other options or just different? To the men in the class, do you feel that you have the same issues as the women or do you feel they differ?Traditional gender roles have typically played a part in determining who in the family participates in what activities. Biologically, it is women who bear children, and oftentimes, participates in the bulk of the child-rearing. However, keep in mind that an 1800s farm wife worked 60-90 hours a week in the home doing laundry, cooking, sewing, etc., so they had “jobs,” just not outside the home.
The “typical” American family today is very different. Many women today pursue careers and raise families at the same time., or choose not to raise families. This is a very different picture than half a century ago, as portrayed in shows like “Leave it to Beaver.” Consider NBC’s show that ended last season, “Parenthood.” Four families are portrayed in the show, including a single mom, a family with a stay-at-home dad, a family with a stay-at-home mom who goes back to work, and a family with two working parents. What does this tell us about our current society’s view on working families? Do you think these are accurate depictions of real families?
The number of stay-at-home dads in the United States has tripled in the last decade, although they still only account for 3.5% of stay-at-home parents. There are many reasons why these numbers are climbing, some of which are considered in this article. There are 5 million stay-at-home moms compared to 462,000 stay-at-home dads that are primary caregivers. Click here to hear (and read) a segment from NPR’s Morning Edition on this topic. Do you think that there are social stigmas against fathers who choose to stay at home with their children? Would you consider this option for your family in the future? Consider the stigmas and thoughts presented in this article.
There are many arguments today about the ability of women to “have it all.” In 2012, two prominent women made very different choices regarding their career and their family. As detailed in this article, Marissa Mayer, chief executive at Google, accepted the position of CEO of Yahoo! Corporation. She was five months pregnant at the time. For one blogger’s opinion about the topic, click here. She then went back to work after only a few weeks of maternity leave last fall. What do you think this shows about women’s career and home options today? Do you have any opinions about Marissa Mayer’s choices? (Interesting note: when I was writing this blog post, I looked for, and couldn’t find, a picture of Marissa Mayer while pregnant. Do you think that means anything?) In February of this year, Mayer made a decision regarding Yahoo! that attracted a lot of attention. She stopped the “work from home” option that Yahoo! had offered to many of its employees. Many mothers who worked for Yahoo! felt negatively about this choice. Read this article about the decision and how it affected people and how Marissa Mayer was perceived because of this choice. How do you feel about it? Do you think that fact that Mayer is herself a working mother should be taken into consideration when deciding how you feel about this choice? (I ask this because her status as a mother and her ways of caring for her child while performing her CEO duties were greatly criticized.) If a male CEO had made the same decision, would the public perception have been the same?
Another woman, Anne-Marie Slaughter, the first woman director of policy planning at the State Department, choose to leave her foreign policy job and return to her family and professorship in Princeton, NJ. She felt that here sons were having issues that could be partly alleviated if she were not living full-time in Washington, D.C., and therefore made the decision to come home. Read her story, in her own words, here. How does this story contrast with Marissa Mayer’s story? What do you think this story shows about the choices and options women today have? Do you have any opinions about Anne-Marie Slaughter’s choices? What do these two examples show about the quest for finding “balance”?
Starting an entrepreneurial venture is an avenue that more and more women are pursuing for a variety of reasons. One of those reasons is the ability to create a schedule that accommodates work and family. However, beginning a business can be an extremely time-consuming venture. Bobbi Brown, founder of Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, wrote about her experiences of balancing a start-up venture in Inc. Magazine. What do you think the challenges would be of running a business and balancing the rest of your life? What do you think the rewards might be? How do you think being an entrepreneur might be helpful in maintaining a balance between work and home life? How do you think it might be detrimental?
Consider these questions and resources as you post your comments this week. How do you hope to achieve career balance? How are you achieving it now? How do you think gender factors into career balance decisions?
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Discussion 8 Global Entrepreneurship
$7.00Throughout the semester, we have discussed reasons for entrepreneurship, qualities that entrepreneurs possess, and many examples of entrepreneurs. But most of our discussions have been focused on the United States and American entrepreneurs. This week, we will be discussing entrepreneurship from a global perspective, and looking at whether certain traits and reasons are universal, or whether the economy, political structure, social norms, etc. have an effect on entrepreneurship and what those effects might be. Also, how do these factors affect women entrepreneurs specifically?
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) studies entrepreneurship from a global perspective and has released studies specifically on women entrepreneurs. The 2012 GEM Women’s Report is in the class Dropbox folder. Read the executive summary, the key overall findings and any of the subsequent sections that you find interesting. What does this study show about women entrepreneurs worldwide? What topics do they specifically discuss? Are any of the findings surprising to you? One thing that the GEM studies have discovered is that female entrepreneurship is vital to economic growth. Read this business note, “Women Entrepreneurs are Key to Long-Term Economic Growth” on the subject.
Consider the impact of certain factors on entrepreneurship and female entrepreneurship specifically. For example, do you think that the reasons for entrepreneurship might vary in different types of economies? Do women entrepreneurs face the same opportunities and challenges in other countries as they do in the United States?
How about social norms? We have discussed the “glass ceiling” and certain obstacles that women in the United States face. How do you think they compare to obstacles that women in other countries and cultures face? For a look at women entrepreneurs in the Middle East, read “How Women Entrepreneurs Are Driving Business in the Middle East.” (The picture above shows a group of women entrepreneurs with their business plans.) Earlier in the semester, we looked at the 100 Most Creative Women in Business, and Number 1 on the list was Princess Reema Bint Bandar Al-Saud from Saudi Arabia, discussed in the above article. Read updated information on her entrepreneurial venture and her outlook on women in business here.
For another look into how society plays a role in women’s entrepreneurial decisions, read this excerpt from the book African Women and ICTs (edited by Ineke Buskens and Anne Webb), written by Alice Wanjira Munyua, “Women Entrepreneurs in Nairobi: Examining and Contextualizing Women’s Choices.”Zhang Yin, a Chinese entrepreneur, capitalized on an opportunity to recycle paper (mostly from the United States and Europe) into corrugated cardboard in China. Read her story here.
There are several organizations that seek to aid entrepreneurs worldwide. Watch this video to see more about programs that organize microloans for entrepreneurs worldwide. To learn about one of these organizations, check out Kiva’s Web site. How do you think loan programs such as this one help promote female entrepreneurship? Look around the Web site and read some of the stories. What are your thoughts on these entrepreneurs and what they are trying to accomplish? Do you think these programs benefit them and their entrepreneurial efforts? Did you find any entrepreneurs that impressed you? (Keep in mind what we have learned about social entrepreneurship when looking at these organizations.)Kiva was co-founded by a woman entrepreneur, Jessica Jackley. She saw a need for international microloans, and created Kiva to help women entrepreneurs worldwide. Click here to read a short biography and watch a video about her reasons for founding a “socially conscious” business.
Consider all of the reasons that we have spoken about this semester for starting your own business. Do you think that if you lived in a different part of the world, that different reasons would be discussed? Can you come up with any examples? Do you think women are more or less likely to become entrepreneurs in societies other than the one in which we currently live? Do you think that it might be easier or more difficult to start your own business? What opportunities and challenges might exist? Consider different cultures and different parts of the world when you are discussing these questions.Additional Materials:
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Is creativity/innovation always good
$20.00WEEK 14
Thread 1: Is creativity/innovation always good?
Many organizations focus on innovation in order to get a strategic competitive advantage. In fact innovativeness is a commonly sought after trait among managers and employees. Is innovation or creativity always good? In what type of situation may creativity/innovation be bad for organizations?
Thread 2: Inspiring creativity
How is creativity present in your own workplace? What inspires this creativity? What hinders it? As a manager, what could you do to support the creativity of your employees?
Thread 3: Open Topic
This thread is meant to provide students the opportunity to start or engage in a relevant discussion outside of those initiated by the instructor. This is an important component of the course that replaces the “blog posts” component incorporated in previous iterations of this course. This is an opportunity to incorporate outside reference materials, and to view the course material from different angles. This is also the opportunity to discuss the ways in which the course material applies to your specific discipline.
Ground rules:
- The topic you choose MUST be relevant to the course content. Please make this clear in your initial post.
- The topic you choose should be relevant to the current week’s course content.
- When making an initial post, state your observations, and provide any reference material if necessary. Then, try to pose an open-ended question so others can respond to your post with their own observations.
- For clarity and organization…when you reply to this initial post, please re-title your post to convey the topic of discussion you would like to initiate.
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What does it mean for a company to have strategic human resource management
$25.00Respond to discussion boards:
- Strategic human resource management
What does it mean for a company to have strategic human resource management? What value is there to thinking about human resource management from strategic perspective? What value is there to including HR at the executive decision-making table?
- Recruitment
What is the best way to recruit job applicants? If you were recommending this method to your own company, what evidence would you use to support your recommendation?
- Good interview question
Imagine you are in a situation where you are interviewing candidates for a job as a flight attendant at Southwest Airlines, provide one example of an interview question you would want to ask. Why would you ask this question, and what answer would you expect from a qualified applicant?
- Selection practices at Southwest
Evaluate the selection practices at Southwest airlines (as discussed in the case). What are they doing well? Where might they improve upon these practices?
- Are employment laws necessary?
Some people feel there are simply too many laws and regulations governing how companies may manage their employees. These people believe everyone would be better off if we let the free market work without so much government interference. Other people believe that employees are not sufficiently protected against unfair treatment by employers. They believe employers would treat employees poorly if our laws didn’t forbid them from doing so. Which position do you agree with more? Why?
Additional Materials:
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Discussion 7 Financing a Venture
$7.00How do you successfully grow and sustain a business? What are your options for financing and how would you go about securing it? How do you manage the growth of your business? Have you considered an exit strategy? How do you ensure that your business “evolves” positively? These are all questions to consider about the business you want to start or already own.
Nearly all businesses, no matter the size, will require financing of some kind at some point in its lifespan. Some ventures may be solely backed by the entrepreneur, or financed by the entrepreneur’s friends or family. Others might require large influxes of money from angel investors or venture capitalists. Many entrepreneurs seek bank loans or open a line of credit to provide access to cash for the business. The type of financing a business owner seeks will depend greatly on the type of business and the amount of financing needed. Inc. Magazine compiled an article consisting of various articles on the subject, “How To Raise Start-Up Capital.” Go through the article, and follow the links to the articles that interest you. In your comments this week, you should engage in conversations about various types of financing options. In what circumstances would you most likely utilize each type of financing? What are the positive and negative aspects of the different types of financing?
Do you think that women entrepreneurs are more likely to seek one type of financing over another? What do you think the reasons for this might be? Women-owned firms backed by venture capitalists have traditionally been a low number. However, the numbers are rising. See the above graph for the current numbers, and read “Women Taking a Growing Share of Venture Capital” for an analysis. “The VC Word: Women And Venture Capital,” by Amanda Steinberg, shares a personal story of seeking venture capital.
A relatively new type of funding is crowdfunding, which eliminates the need for one large investor, and allows people to contribute small amounts of money in exchange for goods or services. Click here to read more about crowdfunding. Then go tokickstarter and check out some of the current projects. What do you think of crowdfunding? What do you think the benefits and pitfalls might be? Do you think it is a viable strategy for raising money? Do you think some types of projects have better success rates than other projects.
“Change is inevitable. Growth is intentional.” -Glenda Cloud. Growing a business requires intentional thought and management of that growth. For one woman’s story, read, “A New Model for Medicine” by Janet Holloway. What do you think are important aspects to consider when growing a business? Do you agree that growth needs to be intentional? What pitfalls might the entrepreneur encounter when growing their business?
Every entrepreneur must ask themselves where they want the business to take them? Are they looking to stay in the business until they retire? Pass it on to children? Sell it to another company or entity? One must consider the goals of the business growth and the eventual exit strategy. Read “Exit Strategies for your Business” by Steven Robbins for further information on exit strategies. Several studies have been conducted on the differences between male and female entrepreneurs in regard to exit strategies. For information on some of the findings, read “Exit Strategy – Exiting the Business: Women Entrepreneurs Learn How to Do It Right” by Susan W. Sweetser.
Consider what you think the important aspects of growing your business would be. How do you think you would manage growth? What would your end-goals be for exiting the business? These are all topics of conversation. A PowerPoint presentation has been uploaded discusses the different resources available. Look at the slides and include the information laid out in your discussions.