Article Review
X-Engineering sounds like something out of an Extreme Sports magazine or television show. In a way, it is. X-Engineering is a competitive new way to run organizations to compete in today’s economy. Author James Campy shared his ideas on how to reengineer a corporation using X-Engineering in his recent book “X-Engineering the Corporation: Reinventing Your Business in the Digital Age”.
Champy states that it is imperative for an organization to have a brilliant idea and share their ideas amongst their peers. “Billions of dollars could be saved if companies shared processes with customers and suppliers that are now essentially redundant. The future belongs to companies that recognize the primacy of relationships in the networked marketplace” (Lynn). He also states that if your company creates the idea better than anyone else, it really will not matter if your competitors know what you are doing. Read more…
Database models continue to evolve as the information management needs of organizations become more complex. From flat files to relational databases, the growing demands on data integrity, reliability and performance of database management systems (DBMS), has shaped the design of databases and their underlying models. In this document, three database models are discussed comparing and contrasting their major features. The three models in order of discussion are Hierarchical, Network and Relational database models.
Hierarchical Database Model
The hierarchical model is the oldest of the three models discussed here. This model is an improvement of the flat-file database system since it employs a simple data relationship scheme. The relationships in the hierarchical model are child/parent relationships. Read more…
If I were Jean Fanuchi, I would feel bad about my decision. I wouldn’t want my every move and word being monitored so I assume my employees wouldn’t either. After all people are prone to do a lot of things when they’re alone which they wouldn’t otherwise do. Knowing someone has witnessed you doing something in private is embarrassing for both parties. And if only the viewer knows, it can still create uncomfort and tension. Furthermore it is possible for words and actions to be misconstrued since although one can see and hear what people are doing, one can never know what they’re thinking. For example one employee on his way out the door may say to another ‘I really hate that Fanuchi!’ but once they’re outside clarify it with ‘I don’t really hate her, I’m just not happy about all the work she’s dumping on us.’ Unfortunately, Fanuchi would just assume that the person really hates her and will probably start treating him differently.
The first decision (not to install) would have been the right one. As Fanuchi mentioned, how would the public and employees react if they found out? Installing the viewing and listening devices brings up many ethical issues among which include privacy and informed consent. Privacy is held to be a fundamental human right and so it is immoral to violate anyone’s privacy. Even when there seems to be a good reason, this does not justify it. Since the workers were unaware of being monitored, they couldn’t have consented to their privacy being invaded. By not informing the workers and allowing them to choose whether to be monitored or not, Fanuchi robbed them of their freedom of choice. Her first choice was the right one but she bowed under pressure from Katwalski and the continued shrinkage. Read more…
When an employee wakes up at 5:30 in the morning for 20 years someone has to think that this sometimes becomes very routine and boring. Get up at 5:30, be at work at 8 and then watch the clock until 4 that afternoon. This describes many peoples’ attitudes to their workday. What if they are a night person and say could work from 11 that morning to 7 in the evening? This is the idea of flextime and it is gaining in popularity in the United States’ major and smaller corporations.
Flextime is basically allowing an employee to pick the hours of their workday around the core mid-day hours, such as 11 A.M. to 2 P.M. They determine their own starting and stopping hours to best suit them, but they must still put in their regular weekly hours of work. In practice most employers only give employees a limited amount of freedom in choosing their hours, such as an employee has to be in by 10 A.M., but to a mother who needs to have a few more hours of rest in the morning this could make a huge difference in her attitude toward work, job performance, and absenteeism. These are just a few advantages of the flextime work arrangements. Read more…
The Asian economic crisis which began in July 1997 has led to many discussions regarding its genesis. A frequently mentioned cause of the crisis is the lack of transparency in Asia. Rather than arms-length transactions between independent parties, many commercial negotiations in the region are believed to be tinted with and tainted by political and other vested interests. Indeed, allegations of nepotism, corruption, crony capitalism, and collusion may have contributed to the downfall of Asian governments in Japan, Thailand, and Indonesia.
Besides strengthening their banking and financial sectors to address the crisis, Asian economies have been urged to do business in a cleaner and more ethical manner with better corporate governance. Towards this end, present and potential businesspeople and executives in Asia must be favorably predisposed towards a high level of corporate ethics and social responsibility. This poses a major challenge to the extent that even businesses in the West have been criticized for their limited adoption of CESR. Accentuating the difficulty is the fact that this commitment depends on the cultural, institutional, and organizational environments under which managers operate as well as their personal characteristics. Read more…
