Strategic Management 2 Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Strategic Management 2 - Essay Example In this regard, effective strategic leadership has become an extremely important factor for companies for attaining competitive advantage (Pettigrew, 2012). A lot of factors can initiate the process of internationalisation of firms during the period of globalisation. These factors can either be traditional factors that include objectives like, resource and market seeking or emerging objectives like, attaining economies of scale and competitive positioning (Sminia and De Rond, 2012). This essay discusses the case of British Petroleum, a London-based oil and natural gas company and evaluates various aspects of strategic management of the company so as to identify the competitive advantage and elaborate on leadership of the company. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on the organisation’s current competitive advantages based on resource and capabilities view and dynamic possibilities. The international expansion of the company and its strategies in doing so has also been described. Leadership issues of the organisation during the period of international expansion have also been discussed in the final section. British Petroleum is one of the largest oil and natural gas companies of the world. The company has its headquarters in London and was incorporated on 1909. The BP group of companies works under BP Plc. The basic business model of British Petroleum comprises two main parts (BP plc, 2011). The first part is exploring and locating the natural gas and oils; and the second part is extraction of hydrocarbons making them commercially available. The company has a wide business model, which encompasses extraction, production and retail services of petrochemical products around the world. The petrochemical products produced by the company are used in production of a wide range of products, which are used in everyday life (BP plc, 2013). The exploration and production departments

Pragmatism and the Environment Essay Example for Free

Pragmatism and the Environment Essay The environment is at stake. The world we live in is a state of slow death—that the world is dying everyday just as the human body loses body cells every minute. Every natural resource of the world is continually abused without thought of the consequences. In a way, human beings are that of a virus, a systemic biological specie that consumes an abundant and relatively beneficial part, destroys it, moves on to another area, and leaves the consumed, worthless, and decimated. However, human experience teaches us that we cannot always deny the natural law because as intelligible beings capable of understanding, we have the natural ability to adapt to any environment given and finding ways and means to survive. As such, the development of the human race is not possible if not for our natural inclination of adaptability, protection of species, and survival. In the essay Pragmatism and Environmental Thought by Kelly Parker (1996), she mentions â€Å"what we must not try to do is not to master the natural world, but to cultivate meaningful lives within various environments. † This coincides with the natural law of adaptability, in which human beings need not defy standards as defined by nature but to harness it and provide necessary means of survival. Pragmatic Knowledge and Environmental Issues Pragmatism heavily relies on factual understanding rather than the complete belief in the innate ideas of the human mind. William James, John Dewey, Charles Pierce, among other founders of American pragmatism during the start of the century, argued that there are no innate beliefs in which knowledge is based. This means that knowledge is not innately transposed upon the human mind. Rather, experience confirms this â€Å"baseless† knowledge through factual and concrete understanding—that an ideology is only accepted as true if it is to be found practical in application. Human experience is then the basis of such practicality and its truthfulness is defined through practical solutions. The environment is not detached from the pragmatist or any other being. The environment is part of the experience, that there is a symbiotic relationship between the two biological systems as well as other life systems. Parker (1996) emphasized this point in her essay: â€Å"environment, in the most basic sense, is the field where experience occurs, where my life and the lives of others arise and take place† (p. 29). Every circle must have definite bounds in which it interacts and from that interaction is where experience revolves. Through these experiences, there have been developments in the field concerning the environment, especially on ethics. The development of environmental ethics is based on the pragmatic movement. More specifically, the interaction between the two different world views of nature leads to the eventual development of these ethics. These ethics later become moral standards for people until they become a â€Å"norm† of living for most. Based from these practical experiences, these social norms transform into methods of newer forms of social responsibility and enhance environmental awareness such as new laws and legislations concerning the environment, grassroots activism, among others. The Ethical/Global Problem As inferred by the pragmatic view, pragmatism’s role with the environment is more on application rather than theorization. In a more general perspective, human beings have the natural tendency to abuse their surrounding and not to take into account their own actions against different ecological systems around them. This coincides with the debate on moral pluralism and anthropocentrism. Moral pluralism specifies â€Å"no single moral principle or over-arching theory of what is right can be appropriately applied in all ethically problematic solutions† (Parker, 1996, p. 31). There is no ultimate and essential set of moral laws governing every scenario of moral problems. Because of the subjectivity of experience, it cannot be applied to any moral problem because of the lack of objectivity. In relation to environmental cases, there are different moral standards (i. e. , culture, geographical location) that must be taken into account in order for a set of moral/environmental laws to be applied. These different subjective inquiries on what should be protected, allowed, or banned come into a moral dilemma—whether it would be practical or not. Moral pluralism is also related to the problem of anthropocentrism—the prioritization of values for human beings. Human life is placed on greater importance rather than other outside factors. In her article, Parker (1996) further explains this line of reasoning: Again, this is not to say that human whim is the measure of all things, only that humans are in fact the measurers. This must be a factor in all our deliberation in all environmental issues. We can and should speak on others behalf when appropriate, but we cannot speak from their experience (p. 2). The essay proposes that we create standards and laws by speaking for ourselves and for the things that we want to protect based on our own experiences and judgment. For instance, the advocates of endangered species or an ecological subsystem represent their â€Å"party† to other human being. It is through the advocates that these creatures are represented in the debate over human need. The Global Challenge With the looming threat of global warming, greenhouse gas, and other ecological concerns, what we should do is concentrate more on proper action and proper representation of all the numerous aspects of the environment. We have already identified several problems that cause environmental distress recently and from these problems, there should be a formulation of steps to quickly counteract these issues. If left ignored or continually debated upon without any concrete formulas of implementation, these problems will continue to grow until they become uncontrollable. The proper need of identifying these problems will help in creating different strategies as well as formulating legal actions that will help protect and preserve environmental issues. The factual and general perspective is the world is dying and it continues to deteriorate as the number of human population increases. The matter of proper action comes into play through the environmental advocacies all around the world that supports of revitalizing planet earth. However, there remains the fact that human beings generally view the environment as something that can be planted, created, destroyed, and recreated again. This cycle implies that even with human intervention, the natural law of nature will still take its place. Society, especially today, should learn to adapt and live harmoniously with the environment in order to create a symbiotic relationship between the two. We also have to address the apathy of humans towards its environment. We should remove from the human mindset that the ecological system that we live in is not infinite and it will soon vanish if we are to let our actions not reflected upon. By examining our actions, we may come to a realization that everything that we do may affect the environment in ways that we might not even know. Removing this unconscious reinforcement may well be one of the keys in solving our environmental problem. The depletion of our natural resources, the unnatural effects of greenhouses gases and the growing number of human population are just a few of many environmental issues that should be given importance. Although these problems are already experiencing drastic developments for the last six years, we already have the initiative and the technology to somehow lessen its steady increase and may eventually, although not essentially eradicate, balance the gap between human state of living and the environment. Living with an ecological system, we must learn how to balance our actions and lifestyles in order to build a beneficial relationship. In this way, everybody wins. Reference Parker, K. (1996) Pragmatism and Environmental Thought. In A. Light E. Katz (Eds. ) Environmental Pragmatism. London and New York: Routledge (21-37).

Animal Farm Essay example -- Literary Analysis, Orwell

I. Subject Animal Farm is about a group of animals that rebel against the farm owner in order to gain control of the farm and to be treated with more respect. It begins by explaining how the animals are wrongly treated by their owner, Mr. Jones. The setting is never made clear throughout the story but it is obvious to be set in the past, because of the dialog used as well as the tools used around the farm. Almost every animal in the story is a main character, although some standout more than others, including; Napoleon, Snowball, Mr. Jones, Old Major, and Boxer. Old Major is the protagonist in this novel because he is the character who instilled the correct morals into each animal. The animals are selfish and in the end, nothing turns out to be in their favor. Mr. Jones, the owner of the farm is cruel and mistreats his animals and does not take proper care of his farm. One day, the Old Major who is the wisest pig, tells the rest of the animals about a dream he has been having to get rid of their human master and run the farm on their own. After Old Major's death, two new leaders of the farm come into power and run Mr. Jones off of the farm which leaves the animals to fend for themselves and to take care of the farm by using a group effort. For a while, the animals work as hard as they possibly can to keep the farm in pristine condition and keep every animal fed with abundant amounts of food. The animals truly did keep much better care of the farm than Mr. Jones ever had. Shortly after, Napoleon becomes so selfish because of his power over the other animals on the farm, that he blocks Snowball from all of his power which then turns the other animals against him. Napoleon then uses Boxer, an intelligent horse to persuade t... ...n two legs. In the beginning of the story they were convinced to never walk on two feet because that was how their enemies walked. 9 IX. Genre The main genre of Animal Farm is political. Political is â€Å"a novel that deals with significant aspects of political life and in which those aspects are essential ingredients of the work† (Harmon 400). This novel has a political genre because it deals with politics in real life. Mainly the Soviet Revolution. A sub drama of Animal Farm is allegory. This means â€Å"a form of an extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative are equated with meanings that lie outside the narrative itself. It represents one thing in the disguise of another† (Harmon 12). This novel is an allegory because every character and event that took place in the book represented something that happened in real life.

Abortion: Two Sides of the Argument Essay

In today’s society every time a person turns on the television, goes on a computer, turns on a radio, passes a billboard, or picks up a newspaper that person is bombarded with debates. There are many different debates and each debate with two parties both of which have two very different and sometimes conversational opinions. Everywhere a person looks they are faced with arguments such as president Obama’s affordable healthcare act, gay rights, the matters of the death penalty being legalized or illegalized in all states, and many more. In this paper I will not talk about any of the previously stated arguments. I will however talk about one of the most heated and controversial arguments of today. Before I continue with the debate I have chosen I am stating that I will not be sharing any of my personal opinions or views on the matter. I have chosen to discuss the debate regarding abortion and the two sides of the argument. I will explain both Pro Life and Pro choice and the fallacy both sides use when trying to gain followers. Just about every person has an opinion or a side when it comes to the topic of abortion. I have researched percentages based on people who are Pro Life vs. Pro Choice and if abortion is ever Justified. A poll done by Gallup in May of 2013 helps to show some percentages on what side or sides the American people are taking. Based on a one hundred percent model forty five percent of people are Pro Choice, forty eight percent are Pro Life, three percent were mixed, 2 three percent did not understand the meaning of the terms provided, and two percent had no opinion. In the poll a majority of the people who participated had chosen which side of the argument they had agreed with. In another recent model done in May 2013 by Gallup shows the percentages of people’s views on if abortion hould ever be legal and Justifiable. Legal under any circumstances has a vote of twenty six percent, legal under certain circumstances fifty two percent, illegal in all circumstances twenty percent, and no opinion had two percent. Pro Life is a Christian based non- profit anti- abortion organization that was founded in the year 1980 by Joseph Scheidler with the organizations head quarters in Chicago Illinois. The goal of the organization is to protect and save unborn children and their mothers with non violent protests. The organization believes that women are being exploited by the abortion industry. Also that the abortion industry is the main cause of what the organization believes is the murder of an human being. The members of Pro Life have many different tactics implemented to publically protest abortion. The Pro Life organization does not condone any violence in the protesting of abortion, but the organization does use graphic material in the â€Å"Face the Truth: Public Education Initiative†. This educational initiative uses graphic pictures of real aborted fetuses to show the aftermath of the procedure. This protest is described as â€Å"to show our fellow Americans the ugly truth about abortion†. The Pro Life members line the major road ways and intersection while showcasing the graphic images. Pro Life organization also uses less graphic forms of protesting such as sidewalk counseling, youth outreach projects, public, protest, 3 presence at abortion clinics, and confronting abortionists. The majority of protesting takes place at the abortion clinics. Pro Life members will stand outside of the clinics to perform prayer vigils, last minute consulting to women and couples with abortion alternatives, pregnancy resources, as well as confidential counseling. Pro Choice I organized by the National Abortion Federation. It is the national association for professional abortion providers. The N. A. F provides training and services to qualified abortion providers in North America. The goal of the N. A. F is to ensure women’s safety when to comes to abortion whether it is elective or medically necessary. Pro Choice is centered around that women should be able to make private medical decisions with their healthcare providers and to have the right to chose what happens to their bodies. The N. A. F also supports the education for women and youth n different contraceptive methods to help prevent unplanned pregnancies. Also the organization provides resources for women to make inform decisions when it comes to their choices. The organization helps to provide women with the education about abortion, adoption, and parenthood. The organization sets quality standards for abortion care and to make sure the medical providers such as Nurses, Physician Assists, Doctors, and Mid wives are qualified to provide high quality care. N. A. F also helps with legal legislations to keep abortion legal. The organization fears what ould happen to women if abortion was to made illegal. Pro choice does protest to keep abortion legal in the United States. The Pro Choice advertisements are not as graphic as Pro Life’s. Though Pro Choice does have advertisements of what environments women may find themselves in if abortion were to be made illegal. Pro Life also uses education to teach women about what had happened in the 1950’s to the 1960’s before 4 abortion was legal in America. This is used to create awareness so that history will not repeat itself. According to Our Bodies Ourselves a Pro Choice website uses statics o show mortality rate in women to either tried to perform a self initiated abortion. Between 1950 and 1960 before women were legal able to get an abortion 1. 2 million of those women did self performed abortions. In countries where abortion is still illegal unsafe abortion is the leading cause of maternal deaths. This accounts to 219 women dying daily worldwide. Both organizations use medical facts and statics for a large part of their demonstrations, however they both employ of use of a logical fallacy to make their cases. The logical fallacy that Pro Life and Pro Choice both use is appeal to emotion. Appeal to emotion is a fallacy to manipulate the recipients’ views by using an emotional trigger. This means that the parties involved may not be using actual valid intormation to persuade a person. It is very clear botn ot the organizations are against the other. The names are the first thing I had noticed. The names are completely opposite from one another. For example is a person is Pro choice then they are against life or that person is for death or murder. Also if a person is Pro Life then that implies that person is anti-choice. For another example Pro Life members eb advertisement and That I have personally seen driving on 95 is a image of a baby with the saying â€Å"Endangered species. Obviously children are not a endangered species because human beings are not endangered. This is used to evoke a strong emotional response to gain Pro Life members and not using actual facts to prove a point. Pro Choice also use the appeal to emotion to gain members as well. In a advertisement for the Pro Choice Public Education Project it contains a picture of a dirty bathroom thatâ€⠄¢s covered in filth. Above what is the bathtub is a plaque that says † Operating room†. A bathroom is not an operating room this once again used to invoke emotion. The 5 emotions of despair and fear. This is used in the campaign for keeping abortion legal. Also someone the slogans each side uses appeal to emotions a well. For example Pro Life slogan â€Å"You might forgive yourself, but a dead baby sure can’t†. Whether the baby to speak of is dead or alive the said baby does not have the capability to comprehend forgiveness. Both side also use TV adds to discount the other side and to persuade the viewers. The internet video 180 shows how to change a person’s mind about abortion within seconds. The method that was used involved Hitler and his influence on the German people. Ray Comfort is the interviewer in the movie. Comfort asks a few young people about their feeling regarding the killing of the Jewish people. All the participants agreed that what had happened was wrong and that killing a person was wrong. Comfort then moved into abortion after using emotional response to what happened in the holocaust and comparing that to abortion. Comfort put that abortion is America’s holocaust. In conclusion though both Pro Life and Pro Choice have valid points and information both of the rganizations use appeal to emotion to persuade potential followers.

Will Project Creep Cost You Or Create Value

Mediators scope adjustments to accommodate new realities or incorporate new capabilities can pay off, but only when they're done very intentionally and with a hard-nosed insistence on demonstrating up front where the money is going to come from. Such vigilance doesn't just happen, which is why for every story like Infant's, there's probably three or four that speak to the dangers of creep. Need an example? Think of the Big Dig, the highway project to put Boson's central artery underground, in which scope changes were all too casually agreed to when they were noticed at all.Construction for this project began in 1991 and was supposed to take 10 years and cost $4. 9 billion. Current projections suggest that more realistic figures are, at minimum, 14 years and $14. 6 billion. You treat every project as utterly unique, none of the learning from one project to another-?which essentially has to do with recognizing patterns-?transfers over,† says Steven Wheelwright, a professor and se nior associate dean at Harvard Business School (HOBS) whose research focuses on product and process development.And just what is this relevant learning Wheelwright is referring to? Conversations with project managers who have a track record of success underscore the importance of adopting, in the initial planning phase, key frameworks, rules, and structures to ensure: ; The right people have defined the project's scope. ; The project's boundaries have been sharply delineated. ; The impact of potential alterations or slippage can be quickly calculated.In the implementation phase, the challenge is to organize the work so as to minimize the inherent uncertainties. Whether you're the manager or the executive sponsor of any major project, a solid methodology that's sensitive to creep can make it easier for you to decide, in the moment, which project add-ions to say yes to and which to pass on. The planning phase A surprising number of projects get under way without a thorough attempt to define their parameters, specs, and performance characteristics.Haste is the chief culprit here, says Dave Nonfat, who brings 40 years of industry project management experience to his role as Enron operations adviser at HOBS and project manager for the renovation of one of the school's main classroom buildings. â€Å"There's a minimum lead time that all projects require,† says Nonfat, and it's the responsibility of the project's manager to know what that lead time is and to ensure that it not squeezed. Here are the key tasks of the planning phase: Differentiate scope from purpose.As you define the parameters of a project, its critical to separate its scope from its purpose. â€Å"A project's purpose is the general benefit it will provide to the organization,† explains Alex Walton, a Winter Park, AAA. Based project con- Copyright C 2005 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. 3 Project Creep (continued) sultan who's worked with computer, aerospace, financial, and medical/nutritional companies. â€Å"Its scope comprises the particular elements (or product attributes) that the project team can control and has agreed to deliver. For example, a project's purpose may be to create a new food item that will increase sales by $20 million. But the team developing the product needs to know what features the product must have and what the budget for producing the product will be. This is the information that a three- to four-sentence document known as a scope statement provides; it spells out how the team intends to achieve success and, thus, the criteria on which it will be evaluated. Involve key stakeholders.Make sure that you have the right people defining the project's scope. â€Å"If you don't have all the affected stakeholders and sponsors at the table, either you won't get an accurate identification of the critical dependencies and functionalities or you won't have the people who can ensure that the project hews to th ose critical dependencies and functionalities,† says Brian Dobby, a Enron project manager for Meddles, a Mason, Ohio-based subsidiary of Custodianship's, who oversees the installation of electronics systems in health care facilities.For this reason, it's crucial to include â€Å"the end users perspective and needs when you're scoping out the functionality that's required,† says Wheelwright. In the renovation of Baker Library at HOBS, for example, project planners solicited faculty members' input about the prototypes of the new office spaces that were being designed for them. Plan in the aggregate. Getting the right people involved in defining the scope ND devoting sufficient time to the project planning phase aren't enough to ensure that the project has clear boundaries, however. Organizations also need to do aggregate project planning,† says Wheelwright, â€Å"in which they develop a strategy that lays out a pattern and rhythm for when subsequent projects will o ccur. † This is especially important for new product development. Without such a schedule for future projects, a product engineer with a new idea can grow concerned that it will never be implemented; as a result, there's a strong temptation for the engineer to try to slip that idea into the product that's currently in placement-?regardless of its impact on the cost and schedule.The analysis of prior projects serves as a valuable adjunct to aggregate planning. For example, study the past 1 0 internal IT projects your company has undertaken what patterns emerge? The findings can help you identify and better prepare for potential trouble spots in the IT projects that are on the docket for the coming years. Set the rules. One last piece Of work in the planning phase that can minimize the chances of project creep involves creating buffers or rules that make it difficult for significant hanged to occur without conscious discussion and approval. For instance: ; Set up a change contro l board.In highly structured project environments, such a group is responsible for â€Å"gathering information about the impact that a proposed change will have on the schedule, budget, or scope; voting on the proposed change; and then sending a request-for-change document on for the project sponsors' signature,† says Bob Tartan, a senior consultant who specializes in IT and telecommunications projects for Haverford, pa. -based PM Solutions. Thus, for an IT project affecting the sales, marketing, and logistics departments, the change intro board would comprise senior managers from each of these units.