Religion Is More Effective Social Control Mechanism Essay

In the discussion of this work, I have divided it into three main segment . The first parts would consider the introduction which would talk about the concept of religion and that of social control. In the same section I would also consider the position of Ross as stating that religion is a more social control mechanism that enacted laws of society. The second and third part would look at how these religious elements would or can inform crime prevention and last the conclusion respectively. By definition religion has been defined by many scholars in various ways according to their perspectives but all seems to be pointing at one being which the belief in the supernatural. For the purpose of this work, I would go for the definition according to J. B Pratt (1920; p. 2). According to J B Pratt, religion is â€Å"the serious and social attitude of individuals and communities towards the power or powers which they conceive of as having ultimate control over their interest, and destinies†. This definition was captured by Max Assimeng In his book â€Å"Religion and Social Change in Ghana: introduction to the study of religion†. Based on this and many of the definition on religion, I agree with Ross that religion is a more effective social control mechanism that enacted laws for society. What is social control one may ask? Social control in its broader sense is the system of maintaining law and order in society and ensuring that members of society conform to the accepted ways of behavior. (Nukunya, 1992:81). This definition of religion and social control takes us to the basic argument of Ross for postulating that religion is a more effective social control mechanism that enacted laws for society is found in the macro theory of social control as suggested by Abotchie (2012). In this theory Ross argued that instead of thinking that social control mechanism could be found in some conventional laws constructed by some individuals or groups, one should think of it as embedded in the belief systems which is grounded in religion. For him, a person’s behavior is determine by the fact that he fears the wrath of the supernatural and this make him to conform to the laws of society. This belief can be supported by a verse in the Christian bible that states that â€Å"behold I come quickly and my reward is with me, to give every according to his work shall be† (Rev. 22:12). As an institution, the marriage institution was and still can be lively bringing in elements such as the traditional social control mechanism. This is because they believe in these mechanisms such as the concept of psychic padlock and gbolomagba for instance was and can still be useful combating crimes such as infidelity and adultery as postulated by Abotchie. Thus, this belief is the believe vested in the gods and the people trusted in their powers and so send their cases to them for a verdict to be given where the offenders may be dealt with severely if found guilty. Again religion serves as social control mechanism that enacted laws for the people in a sense and thereby preventing crimes in Ghana as it is believe that the offences committed strikes at the collective conscience of the community represented by the ancestors. Thus people would not do certain things such as destroying a clan’s totem. This action would inform crime prevention in that it would prevent people from poaching in the Ghanaian society. Among some communities in Ghana however the people believe that committing suicide is an act of abomination which is punishable the ancestors. Also people see this suicide as associated by evil spirit and that a family with such records for instance would be refuse marriages from other families. This instance may instill into the people a sense of refraining from committing such acts. In Ross supposition, the political system of the country is also influenced by religion as a control mechanism. For instance, before a person is elected into office, the Holy Bible or the Holy Quran IS given to the person to swear with. This is done because it is believe that the taking of the oath would compel the person to conform to the rules and regulations since the infringement of the laws would bring about inner sanctions between the individual and the supernatural. As a means of informing crime prevention in Ghana, religion provides a sense of community where people find security and safety. This has to a large extent brought some prevention since the desperate and the dejected could find belongingness within these bodies and would allow them to refrain from acts which otherwise would have been unlawful in our society. Thus for Ross religion gives assurance as it is stated in the bible â€Å"seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all other things shall be added unto you† (math 6:33).

Life As a Fashion Designer Essay

The career in which I am most interested in the textile industry is that of the fashion designer. A fashion designer is the person who comes up with the ideas and designs today, for the clothes that we, the consumers, will be wearing tomorrow. This alone, the power to inspire the world of fashion , would be enough to make me want to become a designer, but designing clothes is also a way of expressing yourself. Each designer is unique and thus the clothes that each create are just as unique. Although the job of a fashion designer may seem easy, there are many abilities involved in the job. Some of these abilities, which I posses, include a love for fashion, understanding of color and combinations of color, and the ability to convey design ideas through pictures. Along with the possessed above qualities, taking clothing classes in school has made me realize the many ideas that I have for clothing and becoming a fashion designer would allow me to convey these ideas to those around me. Life As A Fashion Designer In essence a fashion designer is a person who develops new styles for clothing or clothing accessories. These new styles can be achieved by creating original designs or by adding personal ideas to old styles to suit popular trends or environmental requirements. â€Å"For The job of a fashion designer involves many different duties. Typically a fashion designer must first develop an idea for a garment and then convey this idea graphically through drawing or computer visuals. Once this is done a pattern must be created and thus the designer must meet with pattern makers. Along with creating the pattern, the designer must choose the fabric type and color for the garment. After these choices have been made, samples of the garment must be created and shown to the management, sales and manufacturing staff. Once prices for the garment are calculated, finishing samples are created and must be approved before they go into production. Finally, once the garments are in production, the designer meets with the production staff to ensure quality control. Along with this immense amount of work, a designer is still expected to stay in tune with current fashion trends not only where they  presently live, but all over the world. It is almost as if learning and putting that information into action never ends for a fashion designer. To become a fashion designer, one must have a lot of creativity, imagination, fearlessness and passion. † I am really passionate with making clothes.† (said by Francesca Marotta in interview) People in the fashion design world must also have a strong sense of the esthetics. This is an eye for color and detail, a sense of balance and proportion, and an appreciation for beauty. Although computers have aided in fashion design, the ability to sketch design images is an important skill that all prospective fashion designers should possess. It is also necessary to keep a good portfolio, a collection of examples of a designer’s best work, so that prospective employers can have a sense of the quality of your work. Fashion design may seem like a career that involves no school training, but this is not true. Along with a portfolio, as mentioned above, designers are usually require to have a 2 or 4-year college degree in design. One example of a designer who attended college is Francesca Marotta, who attended the London College of Fashion. Education in fashion will be important, especially for prospective fashion designers, because statistics are now showing that the employment rate in the design industry is growing faster than the average. People looking for jobs in the fashion design industry should expect to face fierce competition for designing positions. People with little to no education in design, along with those who lack creativity and imagination, will find it extremely hard to start and maintain a career in fashion design. In terms of money the median annual earnings for fashion designers were $48,530 in 2000. The middle 50 percent earned between $34,800 and $73,780. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $24,710, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $103,970. Benefits vary with employers. Designers often negotiate their salaries and benefits individually with employers. Some firms provide vacation and group health insurance plans. Self employed designers must supply themselves with their own insurance, but it also means that their schedule is very flexible and allows them to take time off to  travel for business or pleasure at any time which is convenient to them. Interview Basement Couture by Marian Buckley In a Ladbroke Grove basement studio flat, I sit down with designer Francesca Marotta. This is couture heaven, W11 style. Francesca says she always knew she wanted to be a fashion designer. â€Å"When I was 4 I said to my Mum, ‘I am going to work in fashion’.† By the age of 10 Francesca was whipping out the family Singer to run-up dolls’ clothes. â€Å"I remember when my Mum used to go shopping, I would open up the sewing machine and make clothes for my sister’s dolls, and then when I heard the car come back I would quickly put the sewing machine away again.† After studying at university in Belgium (her family relocated to Belgium, leaving Sicily when she was 5) Francesca moved to London to study for a BTEC National Diploma at The London College of Fashion. She never completed the course. â€Å"They never liked my style,† she explains. â€Å"The London College of Fashion is very good for technique, but at the time they weren’t broadminded, they weren’t like St Martin’s – the crazier you are the more they like you! But there it was very different. It was good, but there were about 20 people who just didn’t fit in.† Despite having a rough time at LCF, Francesca fell in love with London and has made the city her home ever since. â€Å"There is a London style,† she says. â€Å"whenever I go away and I am coming back I can feel the buzz on the plane†¦ there’s a London smell.† Since LCF, Francesca has designed for Souled Out, worked for a retail company, taken a business course and is now looking at expanding her business. In March 2002 she came 2nd at the Neuvieme Concours Jeunes  Creaturs, an award for new design talent in Lille. Her latest collection is in a suitcase. â€Å"I start by finding the fabric first,† she tells me as she unsheathes reams of gorgeous textures – a crystallized piece of mesh that’s she discovered in a fabric shop, it looks like woven gold wire with glittering beads, but feels like a piece of jewelry. Francesca describes how this will form a top with just a fastening at the back. Her inspiration for the collection was, â€Å"What do I want to wear next winter?†. She adds â€Å"It’s very feminine.† Don’t expect any easy, straight to the high street trends going on here. Forget jackets and other cold weather items. Francesca loves ball gowns. For this collection she’s created a bonkers straight-at-the-front-curved-at-the-back skirt with an under wired petticoat, leather tops, feather arms bands. She’s using taffeta, silk, curtain fabrics and has a magpie’s stash of feathers (chicken and turkey bought from a basement sh op just off Oxford Street), chicken wire, camping tent rings, pendant earrings and leather. From this amassed material 8 outfits are to emerge to be shown at The Cobden Club in a few weeks time. â€Å"I am really passionate with making clothes,† she confesses, and you know this woman is telling the truth. Marotta has developed her own unique couture – it could never officially be labeled couture because it doesn’t comply with the rigid rules that govern the practice – but it is her own version. â€Å"I love couture,† she admits. â€Å"If I could, I would make a million pound dress†¦ Most people think of couture as something for mature women. I like edgy couture. It’s not French, it’s more avant garde.† The collection will be handmade and most elements are designed on the fly. She doesn’t work with a toile and although she can sketch, she prefers to dive in and design without one. Her mother is fantastic knitter and she contributes to the collections: â€Å"All the knitting you see in my collections my Mum makes for me. She could have been a designer because she does some really funky pieces.† Her parents are also her main backers, but Francesca is hoping to find some investors, people who like her vision. â€Å"I am trying to find investors to be able to do the London Fashion Week. I would really  like to do that,† she says with a beaming smile. â€Å"I’ve always liked the idea of becoming a band stylist, where each song has a new theme so you design a mini collection for the band. With bands you can always go over the edge and use your imagination.† Which bands would she ideally like to work with? â€Å"Ms Dynamite, I think she’s funky or So Solid Crew.† In the meantime, she’s building up her personal client list by making one-off pieces. â€Å"If a friend says to me I want a top I know exactly what to do†¦ a friend said they wanted a velour tracksuit I say we don’t do velour we do suede with crystals. I have people say they want a fake Versace and a fake whatever and I can do that – you know you have to make ends meet.† She’s approached a few shops but local retailers feel she would be better in the West End. â€Å"I went to a few shops in Portobello and they said my designs were too futuristic. I am hoping that Pineal Eye, Tokian To Zai somewhere like that will take some pieces.† Conclusion Being a fashion designer had many advantages, but it has many disadvantages as well. Below is a chart of most of each. Being a fashion designer is not a job that I would like to pursue professionally. I love to create clothes for myself, but only for my pleasure, almost like a hobby. If I were interested in pursuing the career, there are a few things that I could do. These include taking clothing courses and designing courses. As a junior it is also important to look for good colleges that specialize in fashion design. Through college there are some co-op programs that make the transition to the work place easier. Bibliography Buckley, Marian; Basement Couture [interview on-line] (London, England: WideMedia Ltd., 1995, accessed May 20, 2003); available from http://www.widemedia.com/fashionuk/fashion/marotta/index.html ; Internet. Battock, Tina ; In Style [magazine online] (Boulder, Colorado: About Inc., 2003 accessed May 20, 2003); available from http://sewing.about.com ; Internet. Ungless, Simon. â€Å"Careers in the Fashion Industry.† The Career Center [magazine article] May 31,2002.

How Research Material Was Gathered and Used Within the Drama Process Essay

When we first began discussing the possible content of our play we were provided with stimulus materials to help us develop our ideas. This included newspaper articles, pictures and extracts from several poems. This selection allowed us to work with a number of influences that we otherwise would not have had. As we further developed our ideas we no longer needed this original stimuli as our concepts had progressed, however, after working with this literature, we were aware of what kinds of research would be useful in developing the play. And so, these stimuli not only helped us to develop our content, they also showed us how we should be conducting our research. Throughout the process, both stimulus and research materials were worked with in the same way; on finding a useful piece of literature or music, we presented it to the group, discussed it, and then either intergraded it into the play, or deciding that it was not useful, it was discarded. This method kept an open dialogue within the group allowing opinions to be constructively voiced, and so, even if the actual material was not used, new ideas were always being developed. When we began to write the play the majority of our ideas had been developed from original war based stimulus, and this left with a very small spectrum of influences. Because of this, we began collecting research on a very wide subject, the subject of war. As this is such an unspecific area of research, we were left with a very large amount of literature to process and discuss. Trying to put all of this research to good use took a large amount of time, and so we produced a very small quantity of practical work for the first couple of weeks. In some ways this work ethic may have been counter-productive, however, while were processing the research we were planning scenes, seeing how new ideas fitted into our concept and generally working on the ‘bigger picture’ of our play. This meant that when we did come to devise and write scenes we had a very clear idea of their purpose and how we wanted them to turn out. There were a number of different sources that were researched; one of the first areas of interest was on the First World War. As we would be focussing on the ‘human aspects’ of war, we did not research facts and figures, but instead found a number of sources that were created by people actually affected by the conflict. In this case war poetry and art proved to be most helpful. The poetry, mainly taken from the Internet, allowed us an insight into the emotional mindset of a soldier. While these poems were not used in the piece, they allowed us to add depth and motivation to the characters that were to be placed in these situations. The art, on the other hand, provided us with some very strong visual images of the Front Line, and with this we took inspiration for our set and lighting designs. Events in the Middle East, which were then being widely depicted in the media, took up a large proportion of our research. From this came the ‘Suicide Bomber’, ‘Child Soldier’, and ‘Bar’ scenes, all of which were set in a non-specific Middle Eastern country. This aspect of our research was by far the most productive; at the time there were great quantities of news reports, both on television, and in the newspapers, and so there was much material to work with. This research was used in two ways; some of it was used directly in the play, for example, Kayleigh’s news report was an unchanged news report taken from the Internet. Other research in this area was used to influence the story line of a scene, for example, with the reporters’ scene we tried to recreate the lives of the people actually making the reports. These different methods allowed us to look at the subject from a number of perspectives and so helped us to build a fuller picture of this aspect of our story. While we were looking into this subject, it became apparent that all of our research was being collected from the Western media, and so we became concerned with the reliability of our sources. It would have been easy to decided not to take notice of this bias, as discarding our work on this subject would mean that we had wasted our time. As we did not want to ignore this fact or scrap the scenes, we decided to include this problem in our script. And so we devised the ‘Journalists’ scene, which depicted the struggles of three Western journalists reporting on a conflict in the Middle East. During the writing of this scene we included a section about one a the journalists changing an interview so to meet his own purposes. Although the audience would not have seen the relevance of this addition, we felt that it was important to highlight the cultural bias of our play. When researching for the ‘Suicide Bomber’ and ‘Child Soldier’ scenes I encountered quite a serious problem. Due to the nature of these scenes there is little literature on the subject, and appropriate websites were very difficult to find, (either they were written from a ‘Western’ perspective, and so carried a serious bias, or were from ‘Eastern’ sites, and so the content was very graphic and unsuitable for the stage). Being that this is such a modern phenomena, there have been very few books written on the subject, and those that have proved unsuitable. Eventually it became obvious that research on this subject was going to be very limited and that we were going to have to create a large amount of the script from fiction. This is almost the only time that we were unable to find research on a subject. As the writing of the play continued, our need for new research material became greatly reduced, and we got to a point that we no longer needed outside information on the subject, and were able to finish the final scenes from scratch, building upon the ideas first provoked by the early research.

The development of E-Commerce Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The development of E-Commerce - Research Paper Example Pure or traditional brick and mortar e-tailing is also constituent of e-commerce. The industry has been growing very steadily over the last two decades but one of the issues that concerns modern day e-commerce is the issues related to the security of business transactions (Andam, 2003, pp.6-13). The history of e-commerce can be dated back to the days when computers, internets and modems were invented. Before 1991, the internet (then popularly known as the Arpanet) was not open for public or commercial uses. Hence, it can be said that the true birth of e-commerce was possible only after the year 1991 when the internet was opened for commercial purposes. Initially the term e-commerce referred only to commercial transactions that took place with the help of electronic media and then latest technology such as EDI and EFT. The process of clearing payments related to business transactions simplified drastically. The lead time also reduced significantly and users soon realized the hidden potential e-commerce and its application the corporate world. The e-commerce was readily accepted in the corporate sector because of cost efficiency, faster transactions, lower cost per transactions, and lower documentation requirements. With the advancement of internet, the popularity of online transactions in US grew very rapidly from the year 1991 (Humphrey, Mansell, & Pare, 1999, pp.31-32). The biggest threat in the virtual world of e-commerce was from the transfer of critical business related information or transactions over the public networks such as the internet. It almost took four years to develop the various security protocols including hypertext transfer protocol (http) that allows the users to get speedy and continuous access to internet (Panagariya, 1999, pp.10-11). In the year 2000, many Western European and American companies represented themselves in the World Wide Web

How to Manage the Risk Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words - 2

How to Manage the Risk - Essay Example The major purpose of the bank is to support the favorable economic conditions which will help to stabilize the monetary policy of USA. This factor includes price stabilization, money supply, acquisition of credit and increase in overall growth and employment. As a central bank, it also needs to monitor and supervise the operations of other commercial banks to make sure the safety and security and to protect the interest of the customers. The most important enforcement capability of Federal Reserve is that it controls inflation and generates employment opportunities in the United States. It also helps the US govt. and other financial institutions in the US in their operations. There are mainly three types of tools used by Federal Reserve Bank to implement the monetary policy- Open Market Operations, Discount Rate, Reserve Requirement. Monetary policy is set by basically raising or declining the discount rate that is charged to banks for interbank lending of surplus reserves. This rate is decided by the interbank market but FED also influences that by usage of three tools that are mentioned above. Consequences of Federal Reserve are that Federal funds rate actually affects the long-term interest rates in the economy. Fed is able to keep monetary and financial conditions stable with its monetary policy. Fed can also make policies that will help to add more reserves to the banks which will encourage the lending of low-interest rates thus influencing the growth of money and credit in the economy.... This will leverage the returns. But as the economy goes downwards, assets prices also tend to go downward and it magnifies the loss. Same was happened in the case of Lehman Brothers. They invested in Mortgage backed securities and when the housing price bubble started to default the investments became illiquid. Assume that a well managed retail bank might have a leverage of 12 times which means for every 1 pound it can lend 12 pound. But in the year 2004, Lehman had a leverage of 20 and then it increased to 44 in 2007. But then the assets prices had started to move downside. The situation had become like with 10000 pound someone was buying a property using 440000 pound mortgage and the borrower of the bank became insolvent and thus the bank. Inconsistent management decisions are responsible for it. Management should have thought again before investing in subprime mortgages. Liquidity Businesses mainly fail not because of lack of profits, but it fails because of liquidity crunch. Lehm an Brothers had its assets and liabilities based on a small amount of liquidity. In other words it didn’t have enough ready cash or liquid assets to face the crisis. When market fell, other commercial banks started to protect own selves by using Lehman’s base of credits. It means that Lehman was losing it liquidity t a very fast pace and by seen that other banks refused to trade with the company and market lost its confidence over the investment bank which was the final nail in the coffin of Lehman. The bank became totally insolvent. Overconfidence of the management that it will earn liquidity in proper time was the most vulnerable decision for the bank. Losses After the devastation of twin towers in USA in 2001, interest rates started to crash

Research Paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Research Paper - Essay Example The same is also the case with Mark Twain. The present paper aims to elucidate the life and contributions made by the distinguished nineteenth century American writer and humorist Mark Twain. The main objective behind making an investigating into the life of the author above-mentioned included the unveiling and acknowledging the great services rendered by this wonderful personality in the field of American literature, which has left a remarkable impact on the future writers, poets and humorists at large. In addition, second part of this study will elaborate two of the literary pieces created by Mark Twain by making the literary analyses of the same. Both the works selected for the present study appear to be contrary to each other in nature and scope, and portray two entirely divergent scenarios. Actually Twain maintains command over creating literary pieces in two entirely different ways as well as on absolutely divergent topics, which are present an unconditionally different scenari o from one another in nature and scope; it could be witnessed by going through his Two Ways of Seeing a River on the one side, and his Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court on the other. Part I: Samuel Langhorne Clemens alias as Mark Twain enjoys a respectable place among the list of the most talented writers and humorists the American soil has ever produced. By dint of his exceptional talent and dexterity to draw out the realities of life in both serious and comic manner, he has captured the attention and attraction of the readers belonging to various areas and regions of the world. Moreover, because of the universality of theme as well as depth of his ideas that his works still contain validity and significance, and are hence equally popular even this day as they had been popular during the nineteenth century in his life. Twain was born in Florida in November 1835 to Jane and John Marshall Clemens (Clemens 14). He was born only few days after the visit of Halley’ s Comet (New York Times 2009); consequently, the child was predicted to be a famous personality in his future years. Twain was sixth of the seven siblings, though only three of his siblings could survive adulthood (Autobiography 19). He lost his father in 1847 at the age of 11 (Autobiography 216), which left significant affect on his mind. However, the noteworthy author carried on his struggle to survive by first working as the apprentice to a printer, and later started working as contributor to the Hannibal Journal by developing humorous sketches of the prominent personalities since 1851 onward (Clemens 26). The Muscatine Newspaper published his eight stories by 1854-55, which turned out to be supportive for him to start his career as a professional writer. Like the renowned biologist-evolutionist of all times i.e. Sir Charles Darwin, the voyages also leave an indelible impact on the young Twain. It is predominantly the case with his voyage to New Orleans in 1856, where the pilot H orace Bixby encouraged him to embark upon the same profession, which could bring joys and adventures to his life along with offering him respectable and considerable earnings in the wake of it (Clemens 32). As a result, he decided to become the steamboat pilot that turned out to be supportive in respect of observing the ebbs and flows of the river life on the one side, and estimate the beauties the deep waters offer to man on the other. Twain obtained the professional diploma of steamboat

Niagara falls Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Niagara falls - Term Paper Example The City known as Niagara Falls was once a Township number 2 to Mount Dorchester. It was suggested that the United Empire Loyalists would inhibit it in the year 1781.Its roads were Concessions and Lines that became the main grids, the Portage Road that passes through Niagara Falls, and driveways that connect homesteads to the main arteries that became the Lundy’s Lane1. The Portage road was used to portage goods in land through the Niagara Falls in the western side of the River. The area previously was known as Mount Dorchester was renamed Stamford Township. The Stamford Township played a key role in the war of 1812- 1814 .Since the area was a major site for the battle. This battle of the Lundy’s Lane was the worst battle in Canada soil. After it ended the US, army attacked the Bridgewater Mills that was located in Dufferin Islands .There was constructions of hydroelectric stations in the first decade of the 20th century. In the 1920s and 1950s there were many projects introduced, those were essential to the development of electricity in the Niagara Falls2. Economy of Stamford flourished and this led to the development of communities in the township especially in terms of trade and commerce. The area saw a growth in tourism where the debate about who won the battle about the Lundy’s lane paved a way for tourists to visit the area. With the plentiful source of hydroelectric power by the waterfalls, many industries boomed especially electrochemical and electrometallurgical industries in the early 20th century. The industry in the 1970 and 1980s began to move out of the city due to economic recession and with the increase of global competition in the industry-manufacturing sector. Tourism was the most source of revenue for the city. In the 20th century, there was an exchange rate in comparing Canadian and US currencies where Ontario focused on tourism. The Ontario government introduced gambling to the local economies in

Synopsis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Synopsis - Assignment Example Under the new role women were to be confined into homes as guardians of family and hearth. All major decisions were to be done by men only, women should take care about home, bare children and take care of them and keep the institution of family working properly. This, de facto and de iure, was a huge step back for women of Germany who were among the first in the world to be granted voting rights under the Weimar Republic. Yet, somehow large numbers of German women supported Hitler. They were, as Koonz describes, devoted to the cause and, almost religiously committed to it. That way a paradox arose in Nazi Germany, a paradox in which women supported something that will give them a second class citizen status at best. Koonz asserts that women in Germany were same as men distrustful of democracy, liberal and modern ideas, and at the same time, intensely nationalistic. To best illustrate her point Koonz included in the book an interview she did with Gertrud Scholtz Klink in the early 1980’s. Scholtz was a former Head of Frauenschaft, Women’s Department under the Nazis. She, as interview done four decades after the fact shows, embodied exactly what Koonz was claiming. Even then she stated numerous times how proud she was of her so called new power given to her and women in general by Hitler. The whole conversation proved, beyond any doubt, that â€Å"female supporters of the Nazis accepted the Nazi division of the sexes into a public sphere for men and a private sphere for women.† Professor Koonz, also, explores the process in which German women politically influenced the country at that time. By sheer logic, women making one half of German population and having voting rights at the time, were very instrumental in aiding Hitler’s rise to power, which in turn, allowed him and the Nazis to implement their policies and commit atrocities in the coming years. In those years of the Third Reich, German women, like

Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu - Essay Example Today we know about them through the narrative of conquerors, religious, and the surviving Indians that learned how to read and write after the Conquest. Archeologists and historians uncover still the hidden clues of the past, but it is writers and filmmakers who unveil the ideology of a once proud and strong civilization turned into a weak and timid society which in spite of all the deficiencies held or attributed loves its independence and its dignity more than its own life. Cinematography has played a decisive role in the history of Mexico. During the revolution period, many documentaries were filmed about the battles, and it is said that Pancho Villa made a lot of money for the cause and himself by allowing American cinematographers to film him in action. He even choreographed the battle of Celaya for this purpose. Filmmakers like Buà ±uel, Rodriguez , Galindo and "El Indio" Fernandez depicted the urban dramas of the forties using the natural settings of the "vecindarios" and th e "barrios pobres" of cities practically lost within the great metropolis, bringing Mexican movies to its Golden Era. Stories like "Nosotros Los Pobres" and "Ustedes los Ricos" showed the clash of classes that already existed then and have bitterly deepened today. October 1968 would close the golden era of filmmaking. Thousands of students and college professors would be slaughtered between two armed fronts prepared by the hand of the political power; PRI. President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz ordered Luis Echeverria, his secretary of Government, the massacre of students in Tlaltelolco, an historical site known as "The Square of the Three Cultures," holding what's left of the Pre-Hispanic constructions, (1325), the temple of Santiago Apostol,(1535) built after colonization and the modern archeology of the former building for the Foreign Relations Secretary.(Mexicomaxico)

My Teacher, My Hero Essay Example for Free

My Teacher, My Hero Essay When talking about our own teachers and mentors, anyone would be glad to thank them, especially those who are successful and those who learned a great lesson from them. But, are teachers really that great? Aren’t they just a bunch of people teaching everyday? The people who are always giving a lot of homeworks and projects, making our life hard? Teachers are great. They teach us in all ways they could. They guide us through different challenges. They act as light when we’re on darkness. They’re affection strengthens students. They’re patience are unbelievable. For even though, we, students are acting childishly, they forgive us. They’re like a second mom to us. And especially, they love us like a true mother. Once, when I was still young, I had a very kind and loving teacher. And for me, she was the reason why I am here in my spot today. She was the building block of my knowledge. She’s my teacher on kindergarten. She’s strict, yes, but still very affectionate. She was the one who discovered I’m myopic. After discovering this, she told it to my mom and I was able to see the world clearly. She was also the one who always guides me through everything. She taught me how to read, write, count, and how to be strong in every circumstance I face. She taught me how to meet friends. I learned many lessons from her. She always taps my head whenever I learned something new. And in that small gesture, I know how much her affection is for me. She’s a person whom I can ask help from anytime I want. She’s a person willing to help a lost child to make her a successful one. And I’m very thankful to her. She was like my hero once and I know she’ll forever be one. Thanks to her, my parents discovered I’m myopic. Thanks to her, I learned how to make new friends. Thanks to her, I’ve been a good girl. Thanks to her, I learned how to eat veggies. And especially thanks to her, for being my hero, who saves me from any circumstance that surrounds me. I owe her so much yet all I can do is to thank her, to study hard, and to become a successful person someday, for her to be proud of me. If not because of you, I won’t be here where I am today. Thank you My Teacher, My Hero! I salute you, and I will always do.

Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude

Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude The relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Introduction The concept of human resource management (HRM) has received focussed attention for around 20 years, with the catalyst being that many US companies found they were being rivalled and in some instances overtaken, in markets they had dominated (Ehrlich, 1994, p. 492). As Lodge (1985, p. 319) observes: By the early 1980s there was still little disagreement that US corporate managers, employees and trade unions would have to change their ways in order to compete successfully for markets in America and abroad. Harvard university academics introduced a new compulsory component of HRM into their MBA syllabus and reinforced this so-called Harvard Model with influential books and articles (Beer et al., 1984; Walton, 1985b; Walton and Lawrence, 1985). While there would surely have been a genuine desire to help US business, US society, and even US employees, there was also a long-term effort to ensure that the Harvard Business School faculty provided leadership in human resource management (Walton and Lawrence, 1985, p. xx). The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment not simply as a means to employer objectives of improved productivity and profits, but because the fulfilment of many employee needs is taken as a goal rather than merely a means to an end (Walton, 1985a, p. 49). At about the same time as the Harvard concept was being developed another viewpoint was being promulgated by academics who supported a strategic concept of HRM, with the major work edited by Fombrun et al. (1984). This work emphasises that the four generic human resource activities of all organisations: selection/promotion/placement process; reward process; development process; and appraisal process (Tichy et al., 1984, p. 26) need to be strategically aligned with the organisations overall strategic objectives. Hard and soft HRM British writers have focused on the differences between the Harvard commitment concept of HRM and the strategic HRM concept. Keenoy (1990, p. 368) sees the Harvard concept as philosophically grounded in the recognition of multiple stakeholders and the belief that the practice and benefits of HRM can be achieved through neo-pluralist mechanisms, while the strategic concept is almost uniformly unitarist in orientation and displays a quite singular endorsement of managerial values. The former is frequently referred to as soft HRM, while the latter is hard HRM. In theory, soft HRM fulfils employee needs as an end in itself, and the favourable attitudes generated from the use of appropriate HRM practices (Guest, 1997) together with communication, motivation and leadership (Storey, 1987, p. 6), result in commitment to the organisation and improved performance. Hard HRM is only concerned with the effective utilisation of employees (Guest, 2002) and emphasises the quantitative, calculative and business strategic aspects of managing the head count resource in as natural a way as for any other economic factor (Storey, 1987, p. 6). If the reality of soft HRM practice was that it produced the benefits referred to in the rhetoric of academic evangelists such as Richard Walton then it should be highly favoured by both employees and employers. Questions have been raised by a number of researchers, however, about the ability of soft HRM to achieve these benefits. There are two concerns. The first is that the real motive behind its introduction is to undermine unions (Sisson, 1994). Indeed, going back to the introduction of the Harvard concept of soft HRM, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) writes about a seminal colloquium on HRM between 35 senior executives and Harvard academics. He claims that the question as to whether HRM was designed to keep the union out was emphatically denied, and he protested that all but three of the firms represented were at least partially unionised, with several having had a significant number of units of both kinds, with their older plants unionised and the newer ones not. An unreasonable interpr etation therefore would be that these leaders of commitment HRM will happily dispense with unions given the opportunity. Indeed, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) admits that there was a general view that in a well-managed unit with decision-sharing, a union was not needed to represent employee interests. Guest (1990, p. 389) concludes, the main impact of HRM in the United States may have been to provide a smokescreen behind which management can introduce non-unionism or obtain significant concessions from trade unions. The second concern is that meeting the needs of employees has never been an objective in itself, and has simply been the normative view of what Harvard academics would like to see as the employment relationship. Truss et al. (1997, p. 70) in a study of soft and hard models of HRM, concluded that even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always hard, with the interests of the organisation prevailing over those of the individual. Similar conclusions have been reached by Keenoy (1990), Poole and Mansfield (1992), Guest (1995) and Legge (1995a, b, 1998). If the soft model of HRM has validity, then there should be a clear relationship between the experience of soft HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (reflecting their needs are being met) and increasing employee commitment as well as improved productivity. Surprisingly, however, most of the research and reporting on HRM has ignored the views of employees. Legge (1998, p. 14) points out: when reading accounts of HRM practice in the UK and North America it is noticeable the extent to which the data are (literally) the voices of management. Guest (1999, p. 5) agrees, claiming that from its conception human resource management reflected a management agenda to the neglect of workers concerns. Some studies have considered employee reactions to HRM (Gibb, 2001; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000; Mabey et al., 1998) but Guest (2002, p. 335) is perceptive in his criticism that a feature of both advocates and critics of HRM is their neglect of direct evidence about the role and reactions of w orkers. Even the exceptions noted which gave employee reactions to HRM did not relate the employee experience of HRM practices to their reactions, and Guest (1997) argues for a research agenda that addresses this gap. This paper aims to contribute to this gap by fulfilling two major objectives. The first is to add to the limited number of studies which have tested to see if there is a relationship between HRM practice and positive employee attitudes. The second objective is to see if there is a significantly stronger relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes if employee perceptions of HRM practice are taken as the measure of HRM rather than employer perceptions, which has been the approach taken in general by previous researchers. HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes The soft model of HRM, as stated previously, suggests a relationship exists between the use of appropriate HRM practices and positive employee attitudes, and while theoretically these relationships remain poorly developed (Guest, 1997, 2001), a number of attitudes are nonetheless widely considered to be an outcome of soft HRM. For example, levels of job satisfaction, which is the affective perception that results from the achievement of desired outcomes (Harber et al., 1997), are found to be related to levels of HRM practice (Guest, 2002; Ting, 1997). High levels of employee commitment have also been found to be related to the use of appropriate HRM practice (Guest, 2002), and results from investing in HRM practices which benefit employees. For example, the provision of opportunities for training and skill development benefits the employee by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to function autonomously and responsibly (Guest, 2002). Furthermore, it impro ves retention and enables them to cope with change in the work environment (Guest, 2002). Organisational fairness is the term used to describe the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace and is concerned with the ways employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991, p. 845). The HRM systems, policies, and procedures that operate in an organisation have been identified as impacting on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan, 1999; Greenberg, 1990). Studies show that where employees believe they are treated fairly in the workplace then they hold positive attitudes towards the organisation (Moorman, 1991), whereas HRM practices that are perceived to be unfair have been found to result in the employee feeling bewildered and betrayed and thus less committed (Schappe, 1996). As far as the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is concerned, the HRM practice dimension has been measured by collecting data from employers in one of the two ways using additive measures of HRM practice or self-reports about the extent to which particular HRM practices have been operationalised. A possible third approach would be to collect employee views about the operationalisation of HRM practice and then relate these reactions to their attitudes. These approaches are described below. The additive approach To date the most common approach for assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the additive approach. This involves employers indicating, using a yes/no response format, which HRM practices from a predetermined list currently operate in their organisations. The yes responses are then added together, and the assumption is that a higher sum indicates better HRM. Researchers using the additive approach usually correlate the total number of practices with the HRM outcomes being examined. Research exploring this relationship show a strong correlation between high numbers of HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1999; Guest and Conway, 2002; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000). While this approach is frequently used, it has attracted criticism (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1997, 2002). The additive approach is very simplistic. If an employer claims a practice is utilised there is no differentiation on the basis on how well, or to what extent the practice exists. For example, there could be token training and development, or a high level of commitment to a professional and effective training and development programme. Both examples are credited as a yes. This perceived weakness has led some researchers to use employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice. Employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest that an improvement on the additive approach is to assess the extent or strength of practice using response bands such as those contained in Likert scales. Such an approach sees employers self-reporting, either on the extent they consider particular HRM practices to be effective (Delaney and Huselid, 1996), or alternatively on the extent to which HRM practices have been operationalised (i.e. to what extent practices are practised) in their workplace (Kane et al., 1999). Guest (2001, p. 1099) claims further research is needed to test the extent that employer and employee views on HRM practices coincide or differ. Specifically he suggests: There is now a need for more research comparing the responses of managers responsible for developing and overseeing HRM practice and employees to identify levels of agreement about the operation of practices such evidence as it is possible to glean from reports about levels of autonomy and consultation suggest that levels of agreement might be quite low. Support for this assertion has already been found. For example, Appelbaum and Bergs (2000) study comparing supervisor and employee perceptions about participative initiatives in US organisations found wide differences. Similarly, Kane et al. (1999) also found evidence of perceptual differences about HRM between different organisational stakeholders. While managers and employers are important stakeholders, so too are employees. This has led to a strong call for employee voice to be heard in HRM research (Guest, 2001). Employee self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Given the apparent perceptual differences between employers and employees perceptions of HRM then a third approach that could be used would see employees reports on the strength of operationalised HRM practice analysed in relation to their levels of work-related attitudes. There is now growing support for assessing HRM from the employee perspective emerging in the literature (Fiorito, 2002; Gibb, 2001; Guest, 2001), and given that where the concern is employee attitudes, then it is intuitively logical to relate that to employee rather than employer perceptions of the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices. Method The most common approach employed in studies assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the survey (Cully et al., 2000; Guest, 1999), and this is the method of data collection used in this study. Four areas of HRM practice are examined good and safe working conditions, training and development, equal employment opportunities (EEO), and recruitment and selection. These areas of HRM have been selected because they have previously been identified as those likely to have the greatest impact on employee behaviour and attitudes (Guest, 2001). Three employee work-related attitudes are examined organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness. These attitudes are generally considered to be desirable outcomes that result from the use of soft HRM (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Guest, 1997). Measurement Three approaches are used to measure HRM practice an additive measure completed by the employer, and two perceptual measures, one completed by employers and one completed by employees. All three measures relate to practices characterised in the literature as soft HRM or best practice HRM (Guest, 1999; Guest and Peccei, 1992; Johnson, 2000; Kane et al., 1999). They are employee-centred (i.e. they should produce benefits for employees when operationalised), and thus should impact on employee work-related attitudes. The additive measure, as stated, is the one most commonly used in research of this type. The additive measure used in this study asks employers to indicate, using a yes/no response format, which practices, from a comprehensive list of 80 practices (20 for each functional area covered), currently operate in their organisation (for example, Do you consult employees on their training needs?). A 20-item scale consisting of statements about HRM practice is used to assess the strength of HRM practices (five items for each of the four functional areas). Respondents are asked to indicate, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree, the extent they consider each practice occurs in their organisation, for example, EEO is promoted within this organisation (see Appendix 1 for a full list of statements). The same scale is used for both the employer and the employee groups, with the wording amended to reflect their different perspectives. Employer and employee assessments of HRM using this measure are, therefore, concerned with the judgements these groups make about the extent a particular HRM practice has been operationalised in the workplace. The ÃŽ ± coefficients for the five item measures relating to each of the four areas of HRM practice examined ranged from 0.83 to 0.88, suggesting high internal consistency exists (Browne, 2000). The s tatements about HRM practice on the perceptual measure closely reflect the ones used in the additive measure, but there is not a direct correspondence as that would have resulted in an excessively long measure. Three widely accepted measures of employee attitudes are used. Guest (1997) suggests organisational commitment should be measured using the standard measure developed by Mowday et al. (1979) the organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) because this scale captures the extent the employee identifies with the organisation, their desire to remain in the organisation and their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation. An adapted and shortened version of the OCQ is used in this study to measure organisational commitment. Again, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.8535). To measure job satisfaction, an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (Weiss et al., 1967) is used. The scale has six items and respondents are asked to indicate how satisfied they are with respect to each of the statements, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=very dissatisfied to 5=very satisfied (ÃŽ ±=0.8664). While organisational fairness has two dimensions distributive and procedural this study is concerned only with procedural fairness and HRM policy and practice. The measure used is an adapted and shortened six-item version of the procedural justice scale used by Moorman (1991). This measures employees perceptions about the way formal procedures are carried out. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.9160). Employer and employee respondents were also asked to provide a range of demographic information. Analysis Data are analysed using SPSS, Version 11, using matched employer and aggregated employee data from 37 organisations. Correlations, using Pearsons r, are completed to explore the relationships between HRM practice and employee attitudes. The multiple linear regression technique is used to explore the differential impacts of the three approaches being tested. The sample In total, 234 organisations were originally contacted to participate in this study. A total of 40 organisations agreed to participate. The person most responsible for operationalising HRM practice was requested to complete the employer survey. Employee participation was voluntary, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The employer participant was requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1,075 full- and part-time employees from the 40 participating organisations. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58 per cent) by completing the survey and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. In total, 37 usable matched sets of data were obtained. These 37 matched data sets comprise one completed employer questionnaire (total usable employer responses=37) and on average 15 employee questionnai res for each organisation (total usable employee responses=572). The number of actual employee responses received for each organisation varied with workplace size, and ranged from eight to 31. The demographics for the employer and employee samples are reported in Table I. New Zealand is a relatively small country and organisations employing in excess of 100 employees are usually classified as large, with those having between 50 and 99 employees classified as medium and organisations with under 50 employees as small. Three-fifths of the organisations participating in this study can be classified as large; one-fifth are medium, and the remaining five small. Of the 37 participating organisations, 19 are located in the private sector, 18 in the public sector. Around 35 per cent of the participating organisations are located in the service industry, with this group being evenly represented across both sectors. All other organisations are classified in the manufacturing, transport, retail, sales, education and health industries. Both the employer and the employee samples are reasonably a representative of organisations and the composition of the workforce in New Zealand, with the only notable exception being the employee sample is skewed in terms of occupation towards professional and semi-professional groups. Results The first analysis examines the relationship between additive measures of HRM practice and attitudes. The number of practices for each functional area varied considerably between organisations. Generally it is found that there are relatively high levels of practice for the areas of good and safe working conditions (M=15.95, SD=3.22), training and development (M=16.77, SD=2.76), along with recruitment and selection (M=16.52, SD=2.50). EEO is the one area, on the other hand, where a considerably lower mean level of practice exists (M=12.17, SD=5.96). According to prior research, high numbers of HRM practice are associated with positive employee attitudes (Guest, 1999). The results of the analysis for this relationship are reported in Table II. These findings differ from those previously reported. Using aggregated employee means, when levels of organisational commitment (M=3.72, SD=0.78), job satisfaction (M=3.72, SD=0.79) and organisational fairness (M=3.70, SD=0.86) are correlated with the combined additive measure of HRM practice, the results show that higher index scores in the number of HRM practices are not related to higher levels of organisational commitment (r=0.155, df=35, p=>0.05), job satisfaction (r=0.085, df=35, p=>0.05) or organisational fairness (r=0.146, df=35, p=>0.05). When this relationship is examined by functional area the correlations are also found not to be significant. Next the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is examined using first employer self-reports, and second employee self-reports. These results are also reported in Table II. Statistically significant correlations are found to exist between the three attitudes measured and employee assessments of HRM practice for all the functional areas examined. However, no significant correlations are found between employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice and employee attitudes. Data are then analysed using a regression technique, enabling the predictive qualities of each of the three approaches for assessing HRM practice to be explored. The model used for regressions is shown in Figure 1. All the measures of HRM practices were entered into a multiple regression[1] equation so that the character of the relationship between different measures of HRM practice and employee attitudes could be explored. It is found that nearly 51 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment (R 2=0.506, p The results of the regressions for the three measures of HRM practice, along with the three measures of employee attitudes, are presented in Table III. When the results of the regression for the three different measures of HRM practice are analysed it becomes evident that employee assessments have the greatest level of predictive power for attitudes. The regression reveals that numbers of HRM practice and employer assessments about the strength of HRM practice account for very little of the variance in attitudes. On the other hand, employee assessments of HRM practice appear to be very influential. Around 47 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment is explained by employee assessments of practice across the four HRM areas examined, with even larger and equally significant levels of variance being explained by this for job satisfaction and organisational fairness. If we exclude employee assessments related to EEO from the analysis, as it uniformly records the lowest ÃŽ ² across all three attitudes, the ÃŽ ² statistic for the remaining three functional areas of HRM practice implies that for every increment in employee assessments, levels of attitudes increase by between 0.17 and 0.34. The most statistically significant and consistent increments are in relation to employee assessments of good and safe working conditions, along with training and development, and these are found to apply to all aspects of work-related attitudes measured. Also worth noting is that, not surprisingly, assessments of recruitment and selection practices accounted for the largest variance in levels of organisational fairness. Discussion and concluding remarks Consistent with the work of Appelbaum and Berg (2000), Cully et al. (2000) and Guest (1999), this study also finds that a significant relationship exists between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes. There is a strong statistically significant relationship when HRM is researched from the employee perspective. However, there was no significant relationship when HRM practice was measured using the additive approach or employer self-reports. These results have implications for current approaches used to assess the HRM practice-employee work-related attitudes relationship. This study demonstrates that by far the greatest correlate of employee attitudes are employees own assessments of the strength of HRM practice. Interestingly, higher levels of HRM practice, using an additive measure, are not found to be significantly associated with attitudes across any of the four functional areas of HRM examined. In fact, it is revealed that higher levels of HRM practice are in some cases related to decreased levels of job satisfaction and organisational fairness. For example, looking at the data for each functional HRM area, it is possible that higher levels of EEO practice may actually have no, or even a negative, effect on employee attitudes, with a strong inverse relationship being found for job satisfaction. Similarly, weak relationships are found when the relationship between employer assessments about operationalised practice and attitudes are examined. So while Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest these areas are important aspects of best practice HRM, this study finds them to be unrelated to attitudes when data are collected from employers. Put together these results suggest that if managers want to maximise employee attitudes, then implementing lots of practices is not sufficient. Practitioners need to be aware that the way they implement their HRM practices may be a more important determinant of employee attitudes than the number of practices they put in place. This builds on the research findings of other recent studies (Armstrong, 2001) that suggest it is possible that it is the quality of the practice that counts and not the quantity. It may be that practitioners may need to undertake regular attitudinal surveys to assess employee reactions to current HRM practice and assess these on a longitudinal basis to identify what is working and what is not. It was beyond the parameters of this study to examine the complex relationship between HRM practice, employee attitudes and business performance; it has, however, explored the narrower relationship between HRM practice (for the areas of good and safe working conditions, training and development, EEO and recruitment and selection) and three employee attitudes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness). While regressions tell us nothing about the cause-effect nature of relationships between assessments of HRM practice and employee attitudes, these findings strongly suggest that incorporating the employees experience of HRM into analyses exploring the HRM practice, employee attitudes relationship will contribute further to our understanding about what aspects of HRM have the potential to yield the greatest performance outcomes. Arguably, more so, it would appear, than exploring this particular relationship solely using additive measures or employer self-re ports. This study has some limitations. This study found the standard deviations for assessments of HRM practice and work-related attitudes amongst employee groups within each organisation to be reasonably low, showing close agreement. Nonetheless the aggregated data has been developed from a relatively small sample, thus it may not be representative of the bulk of employee views. The evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance (i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito, 2002)). Also, the HRM practices used in this study are supposedly best practice; however, there is still insufficient evidence available to confirm that they are indeed best practice. Finally, Gibb (2001) suggests effective HRM is about implementing best practice. While this may very well be true, it is clear from this study that simply introducing best practice, or even assessing the effectiveness of practice from the employers viewpoint, is no guarantee that they have been successfully implemented. If the organisations objective is to improve employees workplace attitudes, then possibly a better way to confirm which HRM practices are having the greatest impact, and hence are effective, is to correlate employees assessment of them with employees attitudes. Further studies in this area are now required. References Appelbaum, E., Berg, P. (2000), High performance work systems: giving workers a stake, in Blair, M., Kochan, T. (Eds),The New Relationship: Human Capital in the American Corporation, Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Armstrong, G. (2001), The Change Agenda: Performance through People, The New People Management, CODE, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Mills, D.Q., Walton, R.E. (1984), Managing Human Assets, Free Press, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Browne, J.H. (2000), Benchmarking HRM practices in healthy work organizations, American Business Review, Vol. 18 No.2, pp.54-61. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Cully, M., Woodland, S., OReilly, A., Dix, G. (2000), Britain at Work: As Depicted by the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, Routledge, London, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Delaney, J.T., Huselid, M.A. (1996), The impact of human resource management practices on perceptions of organizational performance, Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 39 No.4, pp.949-69. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Ehrlich, C.J. (1994), Creating an employer-employee relationship for the future, Human Resource Management, Vol. 33 No.3, pp.491-501. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Fiorito, J. (2002), Human resource management practices and worker desires for union representation, in Bennett, J., Kaufman, B. (Eds),The Future of Private Sector Unionism in the United States, M.E. Sharpe, Armonk, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] (1984), in Fombrun, C., Tichy, N., Devanna, M. (Eds),Strategic Human Resource Management, Wiley, New York, NY, . [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Gibb, S. (2001), The state of human resource management: evidence from employees view of HRM systems and staff, Employee Relations, Vol. 23 No.4, pp.318-36. [Manual request] [Infotrieve] Greenberg, J. (1990), Organisational justice: yesterday, today and tomorrow, Journal of Management, Vol. 16 pp.399-43 Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude Relationship Between HRM and Employee Attitude The relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes Introduction The concept of human resource management (HRM) has received focussed attention for around 20 years, with the catalyst being that many US companies found they were being rivalled and in some instances overtaken, in markets they had dominated (Ehrlich, 1994, p. 492). As Lodge (1985, p. 319) observes: By the early 1980s there was still little disagreement that US corporate managers, employees and trade unions would have to change their ways in order to compete successfully for markets in America and abroad. Harvard university academics introduced a new compulsory component of HRM into their MBA syllabus and reinforced this so-called Harvard Model with influential books and articles (Beer et al., 1984; Walton, 1985b; Walton and Lawrence, 1985). While there would surely have been a genuine desire to help US business, US society, and even US employees, there was also a long-term effort to ensure that the Harvard Business School faculty provided leadership in human resource management (Walton and Lawrence, 1985, p. xx). The Harvard concept stresses that HRM should lead to employee commitment not simply as a means to employer objectives of improved productivity and profits, but because the fulfilment of many employee needs is taken as a goal rather than merely a means to an end (Walton, 1985a, p. 49). At about the same time as the Harvard concept was being developed another viewpoint was being promulgated by academics who supported a strategic concept of HRM, with the major work edited by Fombrun et al. (1984). This work emphasises that the four generic human resource activities of all organisations: selection/promotion/placement process; reward process; development process; and appraisal process (Tichy et al., 1984, p. 26) need to be strategically aligned with the organisations overall strategic objectives. Hard and soft HRM British writers have focused on the differences between the Harvard commitment concept of HRM and the strategic HRM concept. Keenoy (1990, p. 368) sees the Harvard concept as philosophically grounded in the recognition of multiple stakeholders and the belief that the practice and benefits of HRM can be achieved through neo-pluralist mechanisms, while the strategic concept is almost uniformly unitarist in orientation and displays a quite singular endorsement of managerial values. The former is frequently referred to as soft HRM, while the latter is hard HRM. In theory, soft HRM fulfils employee needs as an end in itself, and the favourable attitudes generated from the use of appropriate HRM practices (Guest, 1997) together with communication, motivation and leadership (Storey, 1987, p. 6), result in commitment to the organisation and improved performance. Hard HRM is only concerned with the effective utilisation of employees (Guest, 2002) and emphasises the quantitative, calculative and business strategic aspects of managing the head count resource in as natural a way as for any other economic factor (Storey, 1987, p. 6). If the reality of soft HRM practice was that it produced the benefits referred to in the rhetoric of academic evangelists such as Richard Walton then it should be highly favoured by both employees and employers. Questions have been raised by a number of researchers, however, about the ability of soft HRM to achieve these benefits. There are two concerns. The first is that the real motive behind its introduction is to undermine unions (Sisson, 1994). Indeed, going back to the introduction of the Harvard concept of soft HRM, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) writes about a seminal colloquium on HRM between 35 senior executives and Harvard academics. He claims that the question as to whether HRM was designed to keep the union out was emphatically denied, and he protested that all but three of the firms represented were at least partially unionised, with several having had a significant number of units of both kinds, with their older plants unionised and the newer ones not. An unreasonable interpr etation therefore would be that these leaders of commitment HRM will happily dispense with unions given the opportunity. Indeed, Lawrence (1985, p. 362) admits that there was a general view that in a well-managed unit with decision-sharing, a union was not needed to represent employee interests. Guest (1990, p. 389) concludes, the main impact of HRM in the United States may have been to provide a smokescreen behind which management can introduce non-unionism or obtain significant concessions from trade unions. The second concern is that meeting the needs of employees has never been an objective in itself, and has simply been the normative view of what Harvard academics would like to see as the employment relationship. Truss et al. (1997, p. 70) in a study of soft and hard models of HRM, concluded that even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always hard, with the interests of the organisation prevailing over those of the individual. Similar conclusions have been reached by Keenoy (1990), Poole and Mansfield (1992), Guest (1995) and Legge (1995a, b, 1998). If the soft model of HRM has validity, then there should be a clear relationship between the experience of soft HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (reflecting their needs are being met) and increasing employee commitment as well as improved productivity. Surprisingly, however, most of the research and reporting on HRM has ignored the views of employees. Legge (1998, p. 14) points out: when reading accounts of HRM practice in the UK and North America it is noticeable the extent to which the data are (literally) the voices of management. Guest (1999, p. 5) agrees, claiming that from its conception human resource management reflected a management agenda to the neglect of workers concerns. Some studies have considered employee reactions to HRM (Gibb, 2001; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000; Mabey et al., 1998) but Guest (2002, p. 335) is perceptive in his criticism that a feature of both advocates and critics of HRM is their neglect of direct evidence about the role and reactions of w orkers. Even the exceptions noted which gave employee reactions to HRM did not relate the employee experience of HRM practices to their reactions, and Guest (1997) argues for a research agenda that addresses this gap. This paper aims to contribute to this gap by fulfilling two major objectives. The first is to add to the limited number of studies which have tested to see if there is a relationship between HRM practice and positive employee attitudes. The second objective is to see if there is a significantly stronger relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes if employee perceptions of HRM practice are taken as the measure of HRM rather than employer perceptions, which has been the approach taken in general by previous researchers. HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes The soft model of HRM, as stated previously, suggests a relationship exists between the use of appropriate HRM practices and positive employee attitudes, and while theoretically these relationships remain poorly developed (Guest, 1997, 2001), a number of attitudes are nonetheless widely considered to be an outcome of soft HRM. For example, levels of job satisfaction, which is the affective perception that results from the achievement of desired outcomes (Harber et al., 1997), are found to be related to levels of HRM practice (Guest, 2002; Ting, 1997). High levels of employee commitment have also been found to be related to the use of appropriate HRM practice (Guest, 2002), and results from investing in HRM practices which benefit employees. For example, the provision of opportunities for training and skill development benefits the employee by equipping them with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to function autonomously and responsibly (Guest, 2002). Furthermore, it impro ves retention and enables them to cope with change in the work environment (Guest, 2002). Organisational fairness is the term used to describe the role of fairness as it directly relates to the workplace and is concerned with the ways employees determine if they have been treated fairly in their jobs and the ways in which those determinations influence other work-related variables (Moorman, 1991, p. 845). The HRM systems, policies, and procedures that operate in an organisation have been identified as impacting on an individuals perceptions of bias and fairness (Kurland and Egan, 1999; Greenberg, 1990). Studies show that where employees believe they are treated fairly in the workplace then they hold positive attitudes towards the organisation (Moorman, 1991), whereas HRM practices that are perceived to be unfair have been found to result in the employee feeling bewildered and betrayed and thus less committed (Schappe, 1996). As far as the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is concerned, the HRM practice dimension has been measured by collecting data from employers in one of the two ways using additive measures of HRM practice or self-reports about the extent to which particular HRM practices have been operationalised. A possible third approach would be to collect employee views about the operationalisation of HRM practice and then relate these reactions to their attitudes. These approaches are described below. The additive approach To date the most common approach for assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the additive approach. This involves employers indicating, using a yes/no response format, which HRM practices from a predetermined list currently operate in their organisations. The yes responses are then added together, and the assumption is that a higher sum indicates better HRM. Researchers using the additive approach usually correlate the total number of practices with the HRM outcomes being examined. Research exploring this relationship show a strong correlation between high numbers of HRM practice and positive employee attitudes (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1999; Guest and Conway, 2002; Appelbaum and Berg, 2000). While this approach is frequently used, it has attracted criticism (Fiorito, 2002; Guest, 1997, 2002). The additive approach is very simplistic. If an employer claims a practice is utilised there is no differentiation on the basis on how well, or to what extent the practice exists. For example, there could be token training and development, or a high level of commitment to a professional and effective training and development programme. Both examples are credited as a yes. This perceived weakness has led some researchers to use employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice. Employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest that an improvement on the additive approach is to assess the extent or strength of practice using response bands such as those contained in Likert scales. Such an approach sees employers self-reporting, either on the extent they consider particular HRM practices to be effective (Delaney and Huselid, 1996), or alternatively on the extent to which HRM practices have been operationalised (i.e. to what extent practices are practised) in their workplace (Kane et al., 1999). Guest (2001, p. 1099) claims further research is needed to test the extent that employer and employee views on HRM practices coincide or differ. Specifically he suggests: There is now a need for more research comparing the responses of managers responsible for developing and overseeing HRM practice and employees to identify levels of agreement about the operation of practices such evidence as it is possible to glean from reports about levels of autonomy and consultation suggest that levels of agreement might be quite low. Support for this assertion has already been found. For example, Appelbaum and Bergs (2000) study comparing supervisor and employee perceptions about participative initiatives in US organisations found wide differences. Similarly, Kane et al. (1999) also found evidence of perceptual differences about HRM between different organisational stakeholders. While managers and employers are important stakeholders, so too are employees. This has led to a strong call for employee voice to be heard in HRM research (Guest, 2001). Employee self-reports about the strength of HRM practice Given the apparent perceptual differences between employers and employees perceptions of HRM then a third approach that could be used would see employees reports on the strength of operationalised HRM practice analysed in relation to their levels of work-related attitudes. There is now growing support for assessing HRM from the employee perspective emerging in the literature (Fiorito, 2002; Gibb, 2001; Guest, 2001), and given that where the concern is employee attitudes, then it is intuitively logical to relate that to employee rather than employer perceptions of the effectiveness of HRM policies and practices. Method The most common approach employed in studies assessing the relationship between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes is the survey (Cully et al., 2000; Guest, 1999), and this is the method of data collection used in this study. Four areas of HRM practice are examined good and safe working conditions, training and development, equal employment opportunities (EEO), and recruitment and selection. These areas of HRM have been selected because they have previously been identified as those likely to have the greatest impact on employee behaviour and attitudes (Guest, 2001). Three employee work-related attitudes are examined organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness. These attitudes are generally considered to be desirable outcomes that result from the use of soft HRM (Meyer and Smith, 2000; Guest, 1997). Measurement Three approaches are used to measure HRM practice an additive measure completed by the employer, and two perceptual measures, one completed by employers and one completed by employees. All three measures relate to practices characterised in the literature as soft HRM or best practice HRM (Guest, 1999; Guest and Peccei, 1992; Johnson, 2000; Kane et al., 1999). They are employee-centred (i.e. they should produce benefits for employees when operationalised), and thus should impact on employee work-related attitudes. The additive measure, as stated, is the one most commonly used in research of this type. The additive measure used in this study asks employers to indicate, using a yes/no response format, which practices, from a comprehensive list of 80 practices (20 for each functional area covered), currently operate in their organisation (for example, Do you consult employees on their training needs?). A 20-item scale consisting of statements about HRM practice is used to assess the strength of HRM practices (five items for each of the four functional areas). Respondents are asked to indicate, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree, the extent they consider each practice occurs in their organisation, for example, EEO is promoted within this organisation (see Appendix 1 for a full list of statements). The same scale is used for both the employer and the employee groups, with the wording amended to reflect their different perspectives. Employer and employee assessments of HRM using this measure are, therefore, concerned with the judgements these groups make about the extent a particular HRM practice has been operationalised in the workplace. The ÃŽ ± coefficients for the five item measures relating to each of the four areas of HRM practice examined ranged from 0.83 to 0.88, suggesting high internal consistency exists (Browne, 2000). The s tatements about HRM practice on the perceptual measure closely reflect the ones used in the additive measure, but there is not a direct correspondence as that would have resulted in an excessively long measure. Three widely accepted measures of employee attitudes are used. Guest (1997) suggests organisational commitment should be measured using the standard measure developed by Mowday et al. (1979) the organisational commitment questionnaire (OCQ) because this scale captures the extent the employee identifies with the organisation, their desire to remain in the organisation and their willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation. An adapted and shortened version of the OCQ is used in this study to measure organisational commitment. Again, respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.8535). To measure job satisfaction, an adapted and shortened form of the Minnesota satisfaction questionnaire (Weiss et al., 1967) is used. The scale has six items and respondents are asked to indicate how satisfied they are with respect to each of the statements, using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=very dissatisfied to 5=very satisfied (ÃŽ ±=0.8664). While organisational fairness has two dimensions distributive and procedural this study is concerned only with procedural fairness and HRM policy and practice. The measure used is an adapted and shortened six-item version of the procedural justice scale used by Moorman (1991). This measures employees perceptions about the way formal procedures are carried out. Respondents are asked to indicate the extent to which they agree with each of the statements using a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1=strongly disagree to 5=strongly agree (ÃŽ ±=0.9160). Employer and employee respondents were also asked to provide a range of demographic information. Analysis Data are analysed using SPSS, Version 11, using matched employer and aggregated employee data from 37 organisations. Correlations, using Pearsons r, are completed to explore the relationships between HRM practice and employee attitudes. The multiple linear regression technique is used to explore the differential impacts of the three approaches being tested. The sample In total, 234 organisations were originally contacted to participate in this study. A total of 40 organisations agreed to participate. The person most responsible for operationalising HRM practice was requested to complete the employer survey. Employee participation was voluntary, and the company fully endorsed their participation. The employer participant was requested to distribute the surveys to a representative sample of their workforce, in terms of occupational classification, ethnicity and gender. The targeted population of employees consisted of a total of 1,075 full- and part-time employees from the 40 participating organisations. A total of 626 employees responded (a response rate of 58 per cent) by completing the survey and returning it in the reply-paid envelope provided. In total, 37 usable matched sets of data were obtained. These 37 matched data sets comprise one completed employer questionnaire (total usable employer responses=37) and on average 15 employee questionnai res for each organisation (total usable employee responses=572). The number of actual employee responses received for each organisation varied with workplace size, and ranged from eight to 31. The demographics for the employer and employee samples are reported in Table I. New Zealand is a relatively small country and organisations employing in excess of 100 employees are usually classified as large, with those having between 50 and 99 employees classified as medium and organisations with under 50 employees as small. Three-fifths of the organisations participating in this study can be classified as large; one-fifth are medium, and the remaining five small. Of the 37 participating organisations, 19 are located in the private sector, 18 in the public sector. Around 35 per cent of the participating organisations are located in the service industry, with this group being evenly represented across both sectors. All other organisations are classified in the manufacturing, transport, retail, sales, education and health industries. Both the employer and the employee samples are reasonably a representative of organisations and the composition of the workforce in New Zealand, with the only notable exception being the employee sample is skewed in terms of occupation towards professional and semi-professional groups. Results The first analysis examines the relationship between additive measures of HRM practice and attitudes. The number of practices for each functional area varied considerably between organisations. Generally it is found that there are relatively high levels of practice for the areas of good and safe working conditions (M=15.95, SD=3.22), training and development (M=16.77, SD=2.76), along with recruitment and selection (M=16.52, SD=2.50). EEO is the one area, on the other hand, where a considerably lower mean level of practice exists (M=12.17, SD=5.96). According to prior research, high numbers of HRM practice are associated with positive employee attitudes (Guest, 1999). The results of the analysis for this relationship are reported in Table II. These findings differ from those previously reported. Using aggregated employee means, when levels of organisational commitment (M=3.72, SD=0.78), job satisfaction (M=3.72, SD=0.79) and organisational fairness (M=3.70, SD=0.86) are correlated with the combined additive measure of HRM practice, the results show that higher index scores in the number of HRM practices are not related to higher levels of organisational commitment (r=0.155, df=35, p=>0.05), job satisfaction (r=0.085, df=35, p=>0.05) or organisational fairness (r=0.146, df=35, p=>0.05). When this relationship is examined by functional area the correlations are also found not to be significant. Next the relationship between HRM practice and employee attitudes is examined using first employer self-reports, and second employee self-reports. These results are also reported in Table II. Statistically significant correlations are found to exist between the three attitudes measured and employee assessments of HRM practice for all the functional areas examined. However, no significant correlations are found between employer self-reports about the strength of HRM practice and employee attitudes. Data are then analysed using a regression technique, enabling the predictive qualities of each of the three approaches for assessing HRM practice to be explored. The model used for regressions is shown in Figure 1. All the measures of HRM practices were entered into a multiple regression[1] equation so that the character of the relationship between different measures of HRM practice and employee attitudes could be explored. It is found that nearly 51 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment (R 2=0.506, p The results of the regressions for the three measures of HRM practice, along with the three measures of employee attitudes, are presented in Table III. When the results of the regression for the three different measures of HRM practice are analysed it becomes evident that employee assessments have the greatest level of predictive power for attitudes. The regression reveals that numbers of HRM practice and employer assessments about the strength of HRM practice account for very little of the variance in attitudes. On the other hand, employee assessments of HRM practice appear to be very influential. Around 47 per cent of the variance in organisational commitment is explained by employee assessments of practice across the four HRM areas examined, with even larger and equally significant levels of variance being explained by this for job satisfaction and organisational fairness. If we exclude employee assessments related to EEO from the analysis, as it uniformly records the lowest ÃŽ ² across all three attitudes, the ÃŽ ² statistic for the remaining three functional areas of HRM practice implies that for every increment in employee assessments, levels of attitudes increase by between 0.17 and 0.34. The most statistically significant and consistent increments are in relation to employee assessments of good and safe working conditions, along with training and development, and these are found to apply to all aspects of work-related attitudes measured. Also worth noting is that, not surprisingly, assessments of recruitment and selection practices accounted for the largest variance in levels of organisational fairness. Discussion and concluding remarks Consistent with the work of Appelbaum and Berg (2000), Cully et al. (2000) and Guest (1999), this study also finds that a significant relationship exists between HRM practice and employee work-related attitudes. There is a strong statistically significant relationship when HRM is researched from the employee perspective. However, there was no significant relationship when HRM practice was measured using the additive approach or employer self-reports. These results have implications for current approaches used to assess the HRM practice-employee work-related attitudes relationship. This study demonstrates that by far the greatest correlate of employee attitudes are employees own assessments of the strength of HRM practice. Interestingly, higher levels of HRM practice, using an additive measure, are not found to be significantly associated with attitudes across any of the four functional areas of HRM examined. In fact, it is revealed that higher levels of HRM practice are in some cases related to decreased levels of job satisfaction and organisational fairness. For example, looking at the data for each functional HRM area, it is possible that higher levels of EEO practice may actually have no, or even a negative, effect on employee attitudes, with a strong inverse relationship being found for job satisfaction. Similarly, weak relationships are found when the relationship between employer assessments about operationalised practice and attitudes are examined. So while Guest and Peccei (1994) suggest these areas are important aspects of best practice HRM, this study finds them to be unrelated to attitudes when data are collected from employers. Put together these results suggest that if managers want to maximise employee attitudes, then implementing lots of practices is not sufficient. Practitioners need to be aware that the way they implement their HRM practices may be a more important determinant of employee attitudes than the number of practices they put in place. This builds on the research findings of other recent studies (Armstrong, 2001) that suggest it is possible that it is the quality of the practice that counts and not the quantity. It may be that practitioners may need to undertake regular attitudinal surveys to assess employee reactions to current HRM practice and assess these on a longitudinal basis to identify what is working and what is not. It was beyond the parameters of this study to examine the complex relationship between HRM practice, employee attitudes and business performance; it has, however, explored the narrower relationship between HRM practice (for the areas of good and safe working conditions, training and development, EEO and recruitment and selection) and three employee attitudes (organisational commitment, job satisfaction and organisational fairness). While regressions tell us nothing about the cause-effect nature of relationships between assessments of HRM practice and employee attitudes, these findings strongly suggest that incorporating the employees experience of HRM into analyses exploring the HRM practice, employee attitudes relationship will contribute further to our understanding about what aspects of HRM have the potential to yield the greatest performance outcomes. Arguably, more so, it would appear, than exploring this particular relationship solely using additive measures or employer self-re ports. This study has some limitations. This study found the standard deviations for assessments of HRM practice and work-related attitudes amongst employee groups within each organisation to be reasonably low, showing close agreement. Nonetheless the aggregated data has been developed from a relatively small sample, thus it may not be representative of the bulk of employee views. The evaluative nature of the questions used introduces the possibility of common method variance (i.e. an artificial correlation across questions due to mood or other contaminants (Fiorito, 2002)). Also, the HRM practices used in this study are supposedly best practice; however, there is still insufficient evidence available to confirm that they are indeed best practice. Finally, Gibb (2001) suggests effective HRM is about implementing best practice. While this may very well be true, it is clear from this study that simply introducing best practice, or even assessing the effectiveness of practice from the employers viewpoint, is no guarantee that they have been successfully implemented. If the organisations objective is to improve employees workplace attitudes, then possibly a better way to confirm which HRM practices are having the greatest impact, and hence are effective, is to correlate employees assessment of them with employees attitudes. 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