Homework Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 19

Homework - Essay Example a states that under some circumstances like writing formal letters, school work or letters to an individual’s boss or teacher need to be written without taking a shortcut. This is because people like bosses or teachers should be impressed. She states, â€Å"Your webbish ways can sometimes make you look dumb† (Brockenbrough, 150). Furthermore, Martha gives an example of a competitor in the Olympic who wears a swimsuit and it is okay while the same man can not wear a swimsuit at a public mall and fail to be arrested by the police, since it is awkward. On the other hand, Martha argues that shorthand is acceptable in some places because lack of shorthand makes an individual look out of place. Places that shorthand is acceptable include chat rooms, internet and instant messaging. Martha says â€Å" †¦you run the risk of sounding hopelessly out of touch if you are in a chat room or using instant messaging software and you do not shorten things here and there† (Brockenbrough, 149). This further evidenced by the example of an individual hailing a taxi in full since the word ‘taxi’ is a short form taximeter cabriolet. â€Å"My guess is that anyone who does that will not catch anything more than puzzled looks† (Brockenbrough, 149) states Martha. Conclusively, shorthand is acceptable as it is unacceptable, it depends with the context. When writing on the internet and chat rooms, it is acceptable. Conversely, when writing to a teacher or a boss it is

An Analytical Study of the Earthquakes as a Natural Disaster Research Paper

An Analytical Study of the Earthquakes as a Natural Disaster - Research Paper Example â€Å"An earthquake is a series of vibrations or seismic (shock) waves which originate from the focus – the point at which the plates release their tension or compression suddenly†. Earthquakes involve the phenomenon where the earth surface shakes at certain points in time. It involves some kind of vibration that is emitted from deep within the earth's crust. Earthquakes result from some shocks that are remitted from within the earth's surface which is felt on the land and in the sea. Earthquakes often cause the damage of building and destruction of properties. The epicenter of an earthquake is the part of the surface of the earth which is the focus of the earthquake. Usually, the epicenter is the point on the earth where the highest impact of the earthquake occurs. Aside from the epicenter, the earthquake is felt in other lands around the epicenter. However, relative to the epicenter, the other areas affected by the earthquake is much lesser than that of the epicenter. Earthquakes are emitted by a series of shocks. There are some large shocks whilst there are other smaller shocks. These shocks shake the earth surface and are known as tremors. The tremors that occur before the earthquake are known as foreshocks whilst those that occur after the major earthquake are known as aftershocks. In terms of occurrence, there dynamics of earthquakes vary with the layer within which an earthquake emanates. Primary waves are body shocks in the earth's interior. The occur deep within the earth and close to the earth's core.

Chinese History Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chinese History - Essay Example According to the text, the top trigram is referred to as Tui, the Joyous and denotes gladness. The lower trigram in my throw denotes Chen, also referred to as the Arousing and has the attribute of movement (pantherwebworks.com, 2). When the two trigrams are joined together, they yield gladness in movement (following). According to the text, following is endowed with the utmost victory, perseverance promotes, and no blame. The opposite hexagram (Chieh) warns that one must not persevere in the face of vexing limitation. I wanted to know if this year will offer more good than bad, hence I believe that the divination holds that if I seek to serve on the side of good, then goodness will follow me however the reverse also holds true. The divination also holds that I should strive to overcome all limitations that may prevent me from achieving my following in order to succeed. While I truly did enjoy this exercise, I believe divination is largely idealistic. The exercise did allow me to think more about my question and I believe that the answers that it provided were very helpful. I however would not depend on divinity to solve my large questions/decisions. As to the value, I truly believe that the practice offers temporary peace that can enable one to view their problems in a different

The Role of Business in Addressing the Challenge of Unemployment Essay

The Role of Business in Addressing the Challenge of Unemployment - Essay Example Technological Advancements Progress in technology is one major cause of unemployment that the world faces in this century. Most of the things done today are simply done at the click of a button. The emergence of technology has rendered many people unemployable due to the fact that what they used to do manually can now be done faster and more accurately using computer programs developed for the purpose. No single economy would want to remain behind in terms of technology and thus this poses a big challenge to many people today. Computers have literally replaced men thereby rendering man unnecessary in the workplace. This challenge is addressed when businesses diversify into other areas or fields that do not entirely require the use of technology or computer programs. This has given some employees a lifeline to continue in employment. Lack of the Required Skills or Experience Many people especially the young people have been rendered jobless due to the fact that they do not have the skills or experience that is required for their roles. As technology grows, people also need to upgrade themselves to match the technological trends and the competition that has seen many CEOs spend sleepless nights trying to think on how to be better that their competitor. Without proper skills, one ceases to be an asset to a company as one ought to be but a liability. To address this challenge and to bridge the knowledge gap, many companies spend millions of money to train and expose their staff members on the emerging trends.

Job stress to job performance Essay Example for Free

Job stress to job performance Essay The thesis selected for my critique which is called â€Å"A Study on Job Stress to Job Performance: Counseling as a Moderator† was written by Tseng, Yu-man in 2013. The thesis was done by a partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Human Resource Management. It can be discovered on the Electronic Thesis Harvestable and Extensible System of National Sun Yat-Sen University. In this article, the overview of the thesis will be simply described followed by the critique on the research design and data analysis. A terse paragraph on the overall impressions will also be comprised with possible suggestions made in the conclusion part. Overview of the research thesis: In the thesis, the author intended to understand the relationship between job stress and job performance. According to the relationship, she explored â€Å"Is consultant a moderator between job stress and job performance. † She also examined â€Å"Is the personal demographic information as an obvious difference between job stress and job performance. † Quantitative method was applied and data was collected from the questionnaire survey. Furthermore, the thesis used some statistic method in this research, such as conducting the poll through questionnaires, factor analysis, descriptive statistic, T test, ANOVA, correlation analysis, regression analysis. However, unfortunately, there is no information to demonstrate if the consultant as a moderator between job stress and job performance. The author suggested backward researcher can apply ink to paper or depth interview more when doing questionnaire design. The results indicated that: 1. Job stress and job performance have statistically negative relationship. 2. There is no answer about if the consultant as a moderator between job stress and job performance. No one has the experience of seeking the consultant in the retrieved questionnaire materials. Therefore, it is unable to learn if the consultant as a moderator between job stress and job performance. 3. Marriage has an influential effect in the relationship between job stress and job performance. Other personal demographic information, such as gender, age, schooling record, seniority and current position within company, do not have significant difference in the relationship between job stress and job performance. Critique of the research design: (a) Problem statement/ introduction part: The introduction part consists of the pressures among our daily life and how it affects us to become stressful that threaten our lives. This is because there are differences between pressures and stresses. Pressures come from external, but stresses generate from internal. The author states particularly and precisely the causal relationships of pressures and stresses. First, she brought out a concept that suicide is a serious philosophic problem. It leads out another concept that â€Å"Should we struggle to survive? † Then, she used lots of instances for demonstration. Lastly, she said there will be less ill effects if we have moderate ways to relax when we have pressures and stresses. The author seems to have missed out specifying what the right behaviors are for releasing our pressures and stresses. This is noteworthy to tell the readers that some people relax in bad behaviors such as smoking which can produce a more aggravated problem than pressures and stresses. (b) Literature review of the study: In the literature review section of this thesis, the content is discussed systematically in the following arrangement: stress; job stress; job performance; the relationship between job stress and job performance; and consultative. The literatures represented exhaustive and related to the themes of study. The literature reviews have a few strengths that help the readers understand the contents easily. The contents described deeply with different types of diagrams appropriately. For example, it mentioned the scholars have lots of views in different years, it shows there are frequent changes in the definitions of the terms each year. Moreover, it used descriptive statistic to analyze the factors precisely. However, there are some improvements needed in the areas. It seems to be a little bit unbalanced in defining all the terms. Here are some suggestions for improvement. First, it depicted a lot in each factor of stress, job stress and job performance. The thesis is mainly focused on the relationship between job stress and job performance, but the literature reviews depicted the relationship in a very simple manner. There should be more information with instances to analyze the relationship. Therefore, the reliability of the investigation will be increased and the persuasiveness will also be enhanced. (c) Methodology of the study: The research was to investigate the practical states of the variables among the research subjects. The research subjects are the employees of manufacturing and service industry. Therefore, the author used a questionnaires method to handle the research. Firstly, she constructed the research frameworks. Secondly, she set up the research assumptions after the research frameworks. She also confirms the operational definitions and ponders what should be used as the instrument. In the first phrase, the research frameworks set up a framework of the relation between job stress and job performance, also with the other factor of counseling. Then, the research assumptions set up two assumptions as the relativity assumption and diverseness assumption. For the relativity assumption, the author assumed that there is an obvious correlation and consultant as a moderator has an influential effect in the relationship between job stress and job performance. For the diverseness assumption, the author assumed that sex, age, marriage, level of education, years of service and current duty have variant effect in the relationship between job stress and job performance. In the second phrase, the research design has used factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression analysis in operational definition, job stress measurement table and job performance measurement table among job stress, job performance and counseling. For job stress, the author used Strees’s theory (1988) which believes a person will have job stress when facing some threats from job. Also, she used the measurement table with 32 questions in 5-point likert scale: always, often, sometimes, seldom and never, published by Institute of Occupational Safety and Health in Council of Labor Affairs in 1995 to measure. For job performance, the author used Campbell’s theory (1987) which believes that job performance related to the process when a person who has the willingness to help the organization to accomplish the goals. Moreover, she used the measurement table with 24 questions in 5-point likert scale: very agree, agree, no opinion, disagree and very disagree, adopted from Yu Dak Shing’s translation with minor amendments that published by Motowidlo Van Scotter (1994) Task Performance Questionnaire the Task Performance Questionnaire (TPQ) and contextual performance questionnaire (Contextual Performance Questionnaire, CPQ) to measure. For counseling, the author defined it in a psychological perspective that a person will use the personal information to understand himself or herself and make improvements in adapting to the new environments. In addition, she used a revised measurement table with reference to Taiwan Tobacco Liquor Corporation. However, it is a doubt whether the research design can obtain the results clearly and reliably. This is because the measurement tables do not show an obvious correlation between job stress and job performance. This will make up some errors. Moreover, the author does not mention the amounts of research subjects. To increase the reliability and preciseness, the author should mention the amounts of research subjects and its responsiveness. Also, she should find more references for making the measurement table in an obvious relationship. (d) Discussion and Conclusion of the Study: In the discussion section, results were interpreted and possible explanations were given. The significance of the investigations is very low because the sample size is restricted. This has been substantiated by the researcher’s discussion that most of the factors (job stress and job performance) do not consist of any correlation with counseling. The researcher should ameliorate the methodology especially sampling. The conclusion was highly dwelt as the researcher defined it into 6 parts of different data. However, most of them did not show any correlation with each other. Therefore, the researcher’s efforts were useless. Conclusion: Overall, this research study gives us a good view on the current situation of the extent on â€Å"Job Stress to Job Performance: Counseling as a Moderator† in Taiwan. It provides extended review on both international and local literatures. The data and analysis were represented in a systematic and intelligible way so that readers can effortlessly comprehend. However, the collected data involved a broad range of different factors for examining the effects in the relationship. It should be expressed more clearly in some definitions. Otherwise, the meaning of the sentence may sometimes confuse people‘s understanding. Reference: Tseng, Yu-man (2009). A Study on Job Stress to Job Performance:Counseling as a Moderator. Taiwan: National Sun Yat-sen University, Retrieved April 1, 2013, from eThesys: http://etd. lib. nsysu. edu. tw/ETD-db/ETD-search-c/view_etd? URN=etd-1103109-054940 Cooper, C. L. , Sloan, S. J. S. Williams, (1988). Occupational stress indicator management guide, Windsor, NFER-Nelson. Brian Seaward, Job stress

Effects of Tourism on the Economy of the Mauritius

Effects of Tourism on the Economy of the Mauritius Abstract: This dissertation is based on tourism in Mauritius concentrating on how the country became one of the worlds best tourist destination and a detailed report on how tourism influencing the economic growth of Mauritius. The overall development of the country can be assumed through the GDP and per capita income, luxury tourism sector is the main economic growth of the Mauritius which is playing a key role for the social and economic aspects. The technique which used in Mauritius has progressed them from a low-income economy based on agriculture to a middle-income diversified economy Keywords: Tourism, GDP, per capita, low-income, diversified economy 1. Introduction In the sub-Saharan region and in Africa Mauritius is one of the most performing and fastest growing countries. The country has moved from a mono-crop sugar-dominated economy to being services oriented. The main economic pillars of the island are textile, sugar, tourism, and services. People from different parts of the world are attracted towards the real beauty of Mauritius which is in its wild interior, waterfalls, lush forests and endemic wildlife, striking mountains, mild weather. Mauritius offers inspiring beaches and indigo waters, fascinating accommodation, world-class golf courses, spas, waterskiing, windsurfing, fishing, parasailing, and warm hospitality from the locals. [Mauritius-simply divine n.d.] Mauritius has progressed from a low-income economy based on agriculture to a middle-income diversified economy .The main economic growth has been the result of the increase of the luxury tourism sector. When world sugar prices have turn down and the manufacture of textiles has become economically impracticable, the country concentrated on tourist industry. Because of the limited space available for tourism and the need to maximize income while minimizing environmental impact, tourist policies in Mauritius endorse influential and specialist tourism Low budget tourism is not promoted. The Mauritian government encourages boutique luxury hotels, 4 and 5 stars beach resorts, golf courses, and spas and beauty centers for high-end tourism. Accordingly, thus rising from 103,000 in 1977 to 656,450 in 2000, a more than six-fold increase in tourist arrivals. Total number of nights spent by tourist was estimated to about 6.5 million, representing an increase of 13% over 1999. The usual duration of stay works out to around 10 nights and average expenditure per tourist reached about Rs.22, 000. In 2000, gross tourism receipts were 14.2 billion rupees (508.3 million US $) and contributed to about 11% of our GDP. In 2010, tourist arrivals were estimated at about 934, 000 compared to 871, 000 the previous year and 2010 tourism earnings were estimated at about MUR 39.5 billion, up from MUR 35.7 billion in 2009. Gross foreign direct investment (FDI) stood at MUR 10.6 billion at the end of September 2010 against MUR 8.8 billion for the same period in 2009, a 20% gain. The investment went mainly to health and social work activities, real estate, finance and insurance. Tourists are mainly European, French and British. In 1970 Mauriti us had about 18,000 visitors in and between 1985 and 2000 the size of its tourism sector, calculated by the raise in tourist arrivals, grew by approximately 340%. In 2000 Tourism created 30,000 full time job equivalents in Mauritius thus the country tends to be a high cost tourist destination and in 2004 Tourist arrivals were almost 720,000 and in 2008, 970 482 tourists came to Mauritius. Air travel and accommodation are reasonably expensive. Most tourists are on package holidays there is very little independent travel or backpacking. Charter flights have been banned, the resort hotels have been built to high standards and there are high standards of cuisine and service to encourage up-market tourism there are direct flights from Britain and South Africa. [Tourism in Mauritius n.d] Despite concerns about pollution and damage to coral reefs, the amount of resorts come together in parts of the coastline is growing and policy in the country has generally been to regulate contact between Mauritian society and tourists because of concerns about cultural and social problems. The main tourist attractions in the country are its environment, with white beaches, sea, and warm climate and the friendliness of the people and its political and social stability. By attracting Foreign Direct Investment the country is equipped with a highly skilled labor force and a very good infrastructure. Over the last 3 years the average economic growth was 5.6%. As a result the standard of living has gone up the income per Capita has reached 4000 US Dollars. The Government has taken several steps to face globalization and a new economic environment. On the priority list there are high value-added, capital intensive and knowledge-based activities. The Information Technology sector is underg oing rapid changes so as to be fit for the next millennium. The aim is to make Mauritius a centre for high-tech and software services, which can be exported.ÂÂ  [African Economic Outlook n.d] The government of Mauritius has adopted new strategy for developing the local tourism industry which is referred as the opening of the sky action plan. The main idea is to develop new markets, which include penetrating to new countries and new client profiles. Tourism to Mauritius has accomplished consistent growth in recent years and following the government efforts for developing the local tourism sector, it is most likely therefore that the tourism sector will continue growing in coming years. The developed infrastructure, access to cost effective and educated labor, attractive investment incentives and existing linkages with industry representatives in European Union and Eastern and Southern Africa put Mauritius in an excellent position to take advantage of growth opportunities. Following these efforts, the Mauritius government expects an increase in the number of tourist arrivals to as much as 2 millions tourist per annum by 2015. To have a optimistic and flourishing tourism sec tor Mauritius is well known in the African region. With a value added of 9.2% of GDP and has been a key factor in the overall development of Mauritius tourism has emerged as one of the main pillars of the economy and contributes significantly to economic growth. About 65.7% of the tourist arrivals are of European origin, with France supplying nearly half. The Government has been very helpful to investors local and foreign by setting clear policies, get rid of bureaucratic procedures, contributing incentives and creating an environment favorable to investment. There are many factors which attract investors offer- primarily beach tourism and the sun, our strategic location, the image that Mauritius has, hospitality of Mauritian, infrastructure, availability of skilled workers, political stability, business incentives, facilities and environment that make possible investment among many others. The Government of Mauritius conducts its marketing activities through the Mauritius Tourism Promotion Authority. Hotels, though, carry their own marketing and deal mainly with foreign tour operators. The tourism sector has paying attention to considerable FDI. Recognizing the significance of Foreign Direct Investment in terms of capital for further investment and overflow of technological know-how and skills, the government has put forward openhanded incentives to attract foreign direct investment to advance increase the sector. FDI policies towards tourism were once quite preventive as there were fears at that time of creating over-capacity of hotel rooms. However, foreign investment is now permitted in restaurants, yacht, travel agencies among others. It is expected to contribute towards showing the livelihood impact of the tourism sector in terms direct and indirect employment creation, infrastructure and amenities improvement, preservation of the environment and job opportunities for women among others. It will also be a stepping stone in identifying the main challenges facing this sector from the view point of all stakeholders involved. [Economy of Mauritius n.d] 2. Motivation Tourism creates jobs and wealth for the countries, increase GDP/ national income, economic and educational growth of people, and broadens peoples understanding of different cultures. There is a continuous flow of money between countries/states/towns. Depend heavily upon travel expenditures by foreigners as a source of taxation and as a source of income for the enterprises. Therefore, the development of tourism is often a strategy to promote a particular region for the purpose of increasing commerce through exporting goods and services. It provides direct employment for the people associated with occupations in bars and hotels. The standard of living of people increases well and at the same time unemployment is on the decrease. Tourism is an extremely profitable process in loads of countries, especially those in which the process of development continue to depend on this industry because this industry does not require a lot of literacy and also it yields maximum profits with less inve stment. Concerning public there has been much development made for the infrastructures, many buildings has been built inÂÂ  coastal regionsÂÂ  for the comfortable of tourists, road also have been built to ease the travel in those regions. It can say that much has been done to make tourist feel safe in the coastal regions and there are many police stations and police patrols (policemen patrolling on bicycles also). Much work and employment has been created in hotels, that indirectly create jobs for tour operators, tourist guide, taxi drivers. Many places have been protected and the government is doing much to preserve places, fauna and flora in the island. Thus theÂÂ  Tourism industryÂÂ  has had a much more positive impact on the industry on Mauritius and it has been a boon to the economy of the country as many foreigners come to the country and spend much money during their stay 3. Findings and Results Using a number of statistics compiled by the Central statistical Office an analysis of tourism has done by the government authority. A number of ratios are devised and plotted as time series from 1979 onwards. The Ratios calculated are as follows: Number of Nights spent per Tourist, Discounted Earnings per Tourist, Discounted Earnings per Night, Contribution to GDP per Tourism Earnings, Discounted Contribution to GDP per Tourist, Percentage of Nights spent in Hotels, Nights spent per Tourist in hotels and nights spent per tourist in informal accommodation, average expenditure per tourist residing in hotels and average expenditure per tourist residing in informal accommodation. It was bring into being that there has been a plummet in the number of nights spent per tourist for the past years and low-cost earnings per tourist has stayed flat from 1988 to 1998. It was also found that although only 25% of tourists reside outside the hotel sector, those tourists make up 40% of nights spent on the island and represent 14.5% of the earnings accrue from tourism. It was found that from 1990 to 1997, GDP (in 1997 Us $) for European countries has increased by 10% on average, and arrivals from Europe has gone from 43% of the total to 58%, discounted spending per tourist from a number of European countries has remained flat. The main result are that the constant achievement of tourism in Mauritius respites significantly on tourists exist in outside the hotel sector and that in real terms Mauritius has grow to be a cheaper destination for Europeans. Tourists in hotels spend less time in Mauritius than tourists in informal accommodation and this is due to the relative expense of staying hotels compared to staying in informal types of accommodation. Over a lapse of six years the number of nights spent per tourists in both type of accommodation has fallen significantly and it is not a good trend [A paper on tourism in Mauritius n.d.] Table 1: Nights per Tourist in hotelsVsNights per Tourist in informal accommodation Year Nights per tourist (in hotels) Nights per Tourist (informal accommodation) 1990 9.40 18.57 1992 7.86 23 1994 9 16.36 1996 8.33 15.65 1998 7.92 17.18 Figure 1: Nights per tourist (in hotels) Vs Nights per tourist (informal accommodation) Tourism industry adds considerably to economic growth and has been a key factor for the whole progress of Mauritius. In the past two decades tourist arrivals increased at an average annual rate of 9% and in 2000, gross tourism receipts contributed about 11% of the GDP of Mauritius. Table 2: Number of tourist arrivals in Mauritius from 1974 to 2010 Year Number of tourist arrivals(in 1000) 1974 100 1978 200 1982 300 1986 400 1990 500 1994 600 1998 700 2002 800 2006 900 2010 1000 Figure 2: Number of tourist arrivals in Mauritius In particular, financial globalization undeniably presents new challenges and benefits to developing economies, to a small island economy (SIDS) like Mauritius. Given the special features of SIDS in terms of their economic vulnerability, their participation in the global financial markets raises a number of policy issues such as market access, level of financial development, international support and financial stability. Since the late 1980s, with the onset of the financial liberalization programme the integration of the domestic financial system in the global financial markets has been high on the agenda of policy makers. The internationalization of the financial system shaped part of the overall strategy of reaping the full benefits of economic liberalization. Policy makers have been aggravated by encouraging the financial services sector as another major pillar of the economy and creating Mauritius as a regional financial center. In order to integrate the global financial markets the purpose of this work is to emphasize the institutional and policy changes, which took place in the Mauritian financial system. In terms of capacity building; capital flows and improved competence an introduction assessment of the impact of the liberalization of trade in financial services on the financial system will be attempted. In the trade liberalization of financial services, there has been a significant increase in the volatility in net capital flows, namely foreign direct investment and portfolio investment inflows. It is hard to state that financial services liberalization has led to financial stability. In some sections of the financial sector there has been a move towards higher financial efficiency. Domestic financial integration has greater than before but the diversification process is going at a slow pace. The banking activity remains highly concentrated and there are signs of rigidity in banks interest rates. Especially in terms of capacity building and governance the developments in the financial markets have been significant and number of legislations has been passed to modernize the Mauritian financial system and amalgamate the world financial markets. Following an econometric investigation of the impact of financial globalization on consumption volatility, find an evidence of a positive and significant relationship. This is an indication that the level of financial sector development has not reached the threshold level so as to reap the benefits from financial globalization. A higher level of financial sector development will be helpful to harness the benefits from financial globalization. The main policy implications is the further development of the financial sector is crucial for participating in the globalization process of financial markets and reap the benefits in terms of higher economic growth and welfare. Trade liberalization in financial services has guide to higher volatility in capital flows; policy makers should continue to implement institutional changes to integrate world financial markets. International support should be sought for financial sector development and harmonization of regulatory framework. In 2008 real gross domestic productÂÂ  (GDP) grew by 4.1%ÂÂ  in 2010,ÂÂ  up fromÂÂ  3.1% in 2009 but lower than the 5.5%. The government has maintained a growth path, in spite of challenges at home and abroad. ÂÂ  In 2011,ÂÂ  GDP growth is estimated to remain aroundÂÂ  4%. Nevertheless,ÂÂ  thisÂÂ  will depend on the improvement in theÂÂ  main European trading partners, but could be faster if MauritiusÂÂ  reduces its dependence on sending exports toÂÂ  slow-growing traditional marketsÂÂ  and charting a new economic modelÂÂ  more flexible to future shocks. Projections for 2012 put economic growth at 4.1%. To taken as a whole 2010 budgetÂÂ  deficitÂÂ  was estimated at 4.7% of GDP against 6.6% in 2009. It is projected to fall back to 4.4%ÂÂ  in 2011 andÂÂ  4.3%ÂÂ  in 2012. In 2010,ÂÂ  the key Repurchase Agreement (Repo) rate was reduced from 5.75% to 4.75% and theÂÂ  headline inflation rateÂÂ  stood at 2.9% compared to 2.5% in 2009. In 2011 Inflation is expected to increase to 3.0% and 3.9% in 2012. The current account deficitÂÂ  stood at 7.9%ÂÂ  of GDP and isÂÂ  projected to rise to 9.2% in 2011 and 9% in 2012. AmidÂÂ  volatility in the foreign exchange market, the Mauritius rupee (MUR) ended 2010 appreciating against majorÂÂ  currencies. Against the US dollar (USD),ÂÂ  it gained from an average of MUR 31.94 in 2009 to MUR 30.89. [Financial globalization n.d] The government has already committed to a target of one million tourist arrivals on the short term and two million before 2020 in the up-market segment, regarding the volume of tourism. The TDP bring to a close that tourist development in Mauritius will not be controlled. Given these targeted growth Figures the tourist burden on the country in terms of environmental and social impact remains limited. with an accelerating growth especially in the last few years in correspondence with the targets for the first five-year period room capacity is increasing from 9,024 rooms in 2001 to 12,830 rooms in 2006. For example the French coming through Reunion despite the low volume and high quality hotel sector there are regional and domestic markets that seek inexpensive accommodation. Through the informal sector this accommodation has developed. According to a survey executed for the TDP this accommodation has substantial capacity an estimate of 7,000 rooms resulted from this survey. In comparison with the hotel room capacity in the formal sector the occupancy rates are much lower in the informal sector Bed nights sold in the formal hotel sector are about 3.5 times higher than in the informal sector according to the TDP. It should be emphasized that there is a complementary value of the informal sector product in the tourism product portfolio. In the 2000 survey repeat tourists accounting for 33% of the tourists interviewed and probably there are more or less captive customers of the informal sector. If this is the case a value added strategy for this sector will contribute to the economic d evelopment without undermining the high quality profile of the formal hotel sector. [Master plan for air transportation in Mauritius, n.d.] The United States has become Mauritius second largest market. The Americans and Mauritian are expecting that the new American trading relationship will not drop out or it did in the early 1800s. Due to that today, architect of the Mauritian economy as well as Americans who are being actively trade with Mauritius. This invigorated trade with the United States comes at an important time for Mauritius. To weaken the profitability of sugar and clothing exports the country faces many confronts into the future, as a removal of preferential treatment and increased competition in world trade. The government has taken some measures to point out these issues such as investing in training and education, technology sector, introducing more competition in key services, creating an information and communication end also privatizing the communications industry. Mauritius has great hopes for future growth in the U.S. market. The Africa growth and opportunity Act, which offers preferential access for apparel exports to the U.S. market. The country today is planning for the future with an eye in international trade just as Mauritius did in the 1790s to open the island for foreign trade. [Economic growth in Mauritius, n.d.] 4. Comparisons From 1990 to 1997, the GDP per capita for ten European countries sources of tourists to Mauritius has increased. The average increase is of the order of 10% for the 10 countries listed below. Table 3: GDP per capita for ten European countries sources of tourists to Mauritius Country Percentage increase in real GDP per capita from 1990 to 1997 GDP per capita in $ US (1997) Austria 14.7% 25550 Belgium 10.9% 23792 France 9.8% 23786 Germany 14.9% 25592 Italy 8% 19912 Netherlands 18.6% 21370 Spain 13% 13511 Sweden 5.5% 25735 Switzerland 0.7% 35978 United Kingdom 12.5% 21823 Average Increase 10.86% The spending per tourist expressed in 1997 has diminished by 5.6% when the GDP per capita for the above-mentioned European countries has improved by 10%. The proportion of arrivals from the above-mentioned European countries has gone from 43.5% in 1990 to 58.7% in 1997 of the total arrivals respective years. Those simple figures do show evidently that for Europeans, Mauritius has become a cheaper destination. [A paper on tourism in Mauritius, n.d.] Mauritius has received a substantial proportion of its visitors from Europe since the 1980. Today in Mauritius more than 20,000 jobs are produced by tourism sector. Mauritius is having predominantly European Tourists. It is calculated that expense on tourism in Europe is going to increase stronger than its GNP. Even though the GNP-growth per capita in Europe is relatively low compared to the USA and Japan, long-term growth prospects in the European market are positive. As a matter of fact like other sectors, tourism is also a competitive market. Tourist operators are now having more number of tourist destinations in their brochure. In competing markets, like the tourist market, price sensitivity is very high. Given the quality, relative small price changes can lead to large market share changes. Globally, there are many reasons for the increasing value for money. The cost of a typical long distance holidays have dropped substantially. The air fare component is the main contributor to this decline. Mauritius may loose important market shares in the distinct originating markets. Therefore one must conclude that the current tourist strategy has some risks in it, whereas until today the image could justify the high price of the Mauritius tourist product, this may not be the case in the future especially if promotion efforts diminish. But even if Mauritius would be able to pertain its value perception by promotion, this would bring in some views too few tourists with insufficient economic multiplier effects into Mauritius. The current state of the economy may require a significant increase in tourist demand volume. Recent volume developments in the up-market segment make it impossible to compensate the current lay-offs in the textile sector. Among other things the current pricing strategy in the tourism sector is not expected to provide the new employment perspectives. It can even be questioned whether Mauritius is able to retain its current market share in the up market segment as such. Enlargements of the tourist market may imply major changes in the environmental and social structure. Careful environmental planning and design is essential to prevent the island from an urban sprawl of hotel developments. A good water management is necessary to take care of the increase of both the demand for drinking water and the volume of wastewater. Next to that, the residents of Mauritius will be increasingly confronted with tourists, whether in competition for the beach or in associate with the informal sector. Therefore the developments have to go with a balanced social program [Master plan for air transportation in Mauritius]. Rodriguez and Mauritius also have similar comparisons of tourism industry [Tourism and development n.d]. Antigua and Mauritius are the islands which have developed tourism as the major industry and along similar lines with big resorts. [Business Mega n.d.] Figure 3: Distribution of respondents by purpose of visit, 2000 The proportion of tourists coming on holiday went up from 72% in 1998 to 74% in 2000, while honeymooners fell from 15% to 11%. In 2000, tourists coming on business or to attend seminar accounted for 9% of the sample, a figure which is more or less the same as that recorded in 1998. [Tourism Strategy n.d] Table 4: Percentage distribution of respondents by purpose of visit, 1998 2000 Purpose of Visit 1998 2000 Holiday 71.6 73.7 Honeymoon 15.1 11.3 Business/Seminar 8.7 9.2 VFR 2.3 3.6 other 2.3 2.2 5. Conclusion and Future recommendation This dissertation has shown how tourism industry has developed into a major pillar of economic development in a small island economy like Mauritius and comparisons with other countries dealing with the achievement of tourism industry and how tourism helping Mauritius both in economic and social aspects. And also about the drawback of stay in hotels and informal accommodation due to the relative expense in hotels which is not considered as a welcome trend. In future if the government will study more about this and try to solve it according to the welfare for the countrys economic aspects then Mauritius will become a cheaper destination in all aspects. At present the marketing strategy of tourism in Mauritius is mainly based on European countries which can be considered as a negative aspect because if the country concentrate on the advertisements based on a global technique then it will help the economy to a better extent. Government can take necessary actions, if need be, to improve t he impact of tourism on businesses, community, environment, training and infrastructure. Acknowledgements I would like to thank Ms.Georgia Balta for the direction, assistance, and guidance and I also wish to thank my friends and colleagues.

Peter Druckers Contribution To Management Management Essay

Peter Druckers Contribution To Management Management Essay Peter Drucker is the finest modern management thinker in terms of his groundbreaking ideas on management and business disciplines. This paper will discuss his major contributions to management theory and practice and critically appraise his ideas about marketing, performance management, knowledge economy, managing change and post industrialisation. One of the contributions of Peter Drucker is the theory called Management by Objectives.MBO or Management by Objective emphasize the importance of identifying specific goals for each employee. Afterwards, the organization will then compare and direct their performance against established goals. MBOs main intention is to improve organizational performance through aligning goals and subordinate objective across the organization. Employee often improves their input through identification of goals and setting reasonable time lines. Management by Objectives includes continuous monitoring and feedbacks during the process of reaching goals (Value Based Management 2010). Peter Drucker first created the concept of MBO in 1954 in his book The Practice of Management. As suggested by Drucker, managers must prevent activity trap or being engaged in their daily activities that they often ignore their primary purpose. To improve the effectiveness of a business strategic plan, MBO theories suggested that all managers (not some or few) must engage in the strategic planning process. Another aspect of MBO states that managers must establish various performance systems created to support the firm to remain on the right track. MBO Principles includes cascading objectives and goals of the organization, providing specific goals for every member, encourage participative decision making, established reasonable time line and evaluate performance and give feedbacks (Value Based Management 2010). MBO also introduced the SMART approach for assessing the validity of Objectives that must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Related (Value Based Management 2010). Specific means setting expected results that are more specific; for instance, rather than stating better customer satisfaction, the goal should increase customer satisfaction score by 12 points employing the customer service survey. Objectives should also be measurable. This may mean that the organization should include their objectives in the review process. They should create measure to determine clearly whether a member has satisfied its objectives or not; for example, please rate the cleanliness of the store ranging from excellent, good, fair and poor (Bogue 2005). Achievable is the next crucial factor in establishing goals. For example, achieving 10 to 20 percent improve customer service is considered achievable while the goals of improving customer service by around 100 to 200 percent is considered unachievable. Being realistic signifies considering uncontrollable circumstances. Realistic objectives should be challenging but not too challenging that the chances of achieving such goal is minimal. Time-based signifies that the organization should set specific time period when the objective should be reached. In other words, objectives should not involve, should increase customer satisfaction by 20 percents but rather it must be should increase customer satisfaction by 20 percent within the next 14 months (Bogue 2005). Peter Drucker also served as the leading authority of entrepreneurship and innovation. According to Drucker (cited in Iowa State University 2010), Innovation consists of finding a new and more effective way of performing tasks. He believes that the organization has seven sources or places to search for innovative opportunities that must be recognized by those people who are interested in venturing entrepreneurship. The first one is the unexpected. Signs of unique opportunity could be unexpected incident, unexpected failure or unexpected success. Any discrepancy regarding reality and what reality should be can also serve as an opportunity to innovate. Innovation can also arise from the process need. If a specific process has a weak link, but individuals involved are used to it rather than solving the issue, this presents an opportunity (Iowa State University 2010). Opportunity for innovation might also emerge in changes in market structure and the industry as well as in the changes in population size, age structure, and employment, level of education and income of a society. Improvements in both scientific and non-scientific information can generate new products and new markets. Furthermore, apart from opportunities, Drucker also presented five principles of innovation so that interested people would be able to exploit what they have realized. The first one is they should start evaluation of the existing opportunity (Iowa State University 2010). Next, they should assess if the target market would be interested with the said innovation. An innovation will also become more effective if it is simple and clearly emphasizes a specific need. Successful innovation often starts small. Entrepreneurs could target a small market niche and as the market grows, the organization would have the time to improve its processes to accommodate the demands of the expanding market. They should also focus on market leadership. Otherwise, the idea would not be innovative enough to become successful (Iowa State University 2010). Drucker also stated that marketing and innovation serve as the two basic functions since the main purpose of entrepreneurship is to create a customer. The remaining functions are considered as costs. If marketers perform their job correctly, which signifies effectively focusing on customer and innovate, and then other business elements will fall into place. He also argued that the main focus of marketing should be ways to sell superfluously-meaning understand the customers that the service and product will become appealing. Therefore, marketing should make customers ready to purchase a specific service or product (Gonzalez n.d.). Subject matters related to management and leadership also serves as another important contribution from Peter Drucker. In fact, he created his own definition of leadership. For Drucker, leadership and management only have few differences in terms of definition. He believes that leadership is not purely about specific characteristics since no leaders will show exactly similar characteristics. Leadership is not also about having a charisma and king-like features (will be discussed later). Leadership is about how people perform their responsibility being a leader-similar to management (Business Listening 2005). One of the foundations of effective leadership is considering the organizations mission and identifying it. Organization should clearly establish that mission. It would be the responsibility of the leaders to establish those goals and priorities with clarity. Similarly, it would be up to the leader to describe and sustain those standards. Another foundation for effective leadership is the leadership responsibility. Successful leaders do not blame others since they are aware that they will take responsibility of any actions made by his/her subordinate. Effective leaders are also not anxious of independent thinking subordinates and they often persuade their team to become more effective members. The leaders responsibility is to share their visions among the group and create a working atmosphere where team members may flourish (Winston-Churchill Leadership 2007). Effective leadership also requires trust; otherwise, leaders will not gain effective followers. Trust can be earned but not through being loved. It does not also signify that subordinates and leaders should have the same opinion. Rather, anything what the leaders say should also reflect on their actions-integrity. If leaders have integrity, then they can be trusted (Winston-Churchill Leadership 2007). Drucker also discussed the dangers of charisma. Examples of those charismatic leaders who are not effective leaders include Mao, Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler. In other words, people should not choose leaders on the basis of charisma. Harry Truman does not have any charisma but everyone became loyal to him since he is an effective and trusted leader. If Truman said yes, he truly means yes. He does not say no to other one, and then yes to the other person concerning the same issue. Another effective leadership without an ounce of charisma is Ronald Reagan since he is very aware what he is capable of and not capable of (Karlgaard 2004). Furthermore, he created a five-part effectiveness model regarding management based on listening skills specifically steps one, two and five. The first step suggests that selecting ways to spend and not to spend time necessitates insistent delegation to avoid spending time on nonessential matters. Even though Drucker did not state it directly, it is clearly the Druckers concept of delegation is about coaching management style, wherein it involves timely listening with their subordinate regarding planning and progress. Direct control management style would discourage effective delegation of duties (Business Listening 2005). The next step is the executive should ask their subordinates what they contribute for the company today and for the future. As Drucker suggested, regardless whether subordinates view is similar is similar to the managers perspectives or not, emphasizing and realizing the value of everybodys roles being a contributor is necessary to the companys overall effectiveness. This is similar to the principles covered by Covey and Goleman regarding self-awareness, listening to one-self and having awareness towards others (e.g. listening to subordinates) (Business Listening 2005). In the fifth step, Drucker focused on the significance of actively searching for competing opinions and requesting regarding the basis for those opinions before selecting courses of action instead of acting based on pre-arranged or implicit consensus. This will need persistent listening with real curiosity to promote development of various opinions and assisting rationales, instead of simply establishing proposal and building consensus around them (Business Listening 2005). Drucker encourages coaching management style since he believes that the next society will become a knowledge economy. Knowledge will serve as an important resource and knowledge workers will become dominant workforce. The three characteristics of knowledge includes borderlessness, upwards mobility and its potential for success and failure. Knowledge is borderless since it can be transferred to another effortlessly. Upward mobility signifies knowledge is readily available through formal education. However, having that knowledge does not signify success since it can also become a failure depending on how people execute that knowledge. Drucker also noted that knowledge economy will heavily rely on knowledge workers (Drucker 2001). Therefore, it would be prudent for leaders to create an atmosphere would help reached knowledge workers to reach their own potential (Business Listening 2005). Critical Appraisal Druckers Ideas However, the question remains whether the principles presented by Drucker are still applicable to the modern management. The most plausible answer is that in general they are still applicable to the modern management. However, all principles whether they are created by Drucker or by other scholars have their own limitations and strengths as well as. One good example is the Management by Objectives. While Management by Objectives presented a foundation for organizations how to achieve goals, it might not be always applicable to all organizations. For instance, MBO is appropriate for knowledge-based enterprises that consist of competent staff. This is also suitable in situations that require tapping the creativity of their employees as well as their self-leadership skills. Management by Objectives is often used by CEOs in multinational corporations for their general managers overseas (Kotelnikov 2001). Another limitation of MBO is that it did not emphasize the significance of the environment as well as other aspects that would affect that satisfaction of goals. These aspects include quality and availability of resources and the influence of stakeholders over the objective (e.g. investors decisions). It did not also emphasize the importance of effectively responding to barriers and issues that are necessary to reach the objective. MBO did not emphasize the effect of the following concepts: limitations of planning, methodology and resources, expanding barriers related managing the information organization as well as the influence of changing environment which could change the business atmosphere and make planned actions inappropriate for the present situation (A Management by Objectives, History and Evolution n.d.). MBO did not emphasize the human nature concern. People across the world establish goals each year but do not follow them until they reach that goals. Objectives should also reflect on behaviour. On the other hand, goal setting often represents best intentions on that moment, aspirations or good ideas. Objectives does not always associate to the degree of execution that is necessary for achieving objectives (A Management by Objectives, History and Evolution n.d.). Another concept that will be assessed is Druckers perception of Effective Leadership. Drucker often emphasize either coaching management style or the delegating leader. However, he may have overlooked that effective leaders does not only delegate tasks or coach their teams. Leaders often made actions based on the situation, also known as situational leadership. The Situational Leadership Theory is not created by Peter Drucker but by Hersey and Blanchard. However, Hersey and Blanchard included delegating style as a part of Situational Leadership. Therefore, it does not necessarily signify that Druckers notions about leadership are wrong, but he only perceive an effective leadership in a limited scope-that is, his principles are only applicable in multinational corporations and other large scale businesses, not for small business management (Innovation and Entrepreneurship n.d.). Unlike the leadership principles presented by Drucker, Hersey and Blanchard believe that an effective leader adjusts their leadership styles. Leaders that employ situational leadership structure change their focus on task and interaction behaviour in order to deal with various levels of follower maturity. Based on the aforementioned information, it seems Drucker did not emphasize the fact that followers have different levels of maturity and some of them are not creative as leaders might expect to their subordinates. Furthermore, Hersey and Blanchard enumerated four possible leadership styles that a leader should employ: delegating, participating, selling and telling styles (Wiley 2006). Managers who employ situational leadership should be able to establish an alternative leadership styles as necessary. In order to do so, leaders should need to understand the maturity of follower in terms of readiness of tasks and employ the best leadership style that would be suitable to the working environment. If the follower maturity is high, then leaders should implement delegating style since this offer limited leadership intervention. If the situation is otherwise, then leaders should employ telling styles that focuses on task directed behaviours (Wiley 2006). Delegating style is not effective for those staff that has low readiness and has insufficient capability to perform tasks. Instead, the coaching management style might suffice in this situation. Other leadership styles that do not fall on the aforementioned categories include participating style and selling style. Therefore, Drucker should have explained when to use and when not to use coach management style and delegating style. Drucker also failed to recognize that an effective leader should be flexible enough to change his leadership style since followers, situations and environmental factors changed over time (Wiley 2006). Drucker believes that leadership is not purely about specific characteristics since no leaders will show exactly similar behaviours (Business Listening 2005). However, he did not consider that effective leaders have common qualities. One of these is the capability of listening, which is ironically speaking, this was acknowledged by Drucker but he did not consider as common features of effective leader. Effective leaders often accept and provide constructive suggestions, provide clear directions, establish and satisfy deadlines and capable of providing formal and informal presentation. Effective leaders often sets as a good role model, assist members in identifying and solving problems, elicits appreciations of members contributions and effectively handle dispute resolution. Other behaviours of an effective leader that was acknowledged by Drucker include delegation of responsibility, capable of developing productive atmosphere and asking questions to team members (The Government of Al berta 2001). While Druckers notion about the importance of innovation holds true in general, innovation itself has own risks and challenges. Because Drucker only provided limited information about taking advantage of innovation opportunities successfully, people often fall on innovation traps. For instance, leaders might always think that they are always ready to consider innovation. While thinking helps entrepreneurs to understand the tools and techniques that they should use to implement innovation, fallacies can disrupt reaching such objectives (Glor n.d). Innovators should have a clear thinking and not a wishful thinking. Another innovation trap is there is only one effective approach to examine innovation, which can be contrary to Druckers five principles of innovation. In other words, Drucker did not focus on the possible barriers that innovators might encounter during planning and implementation process. Successful innovators effectively ignore such barriers. Nevertheless, innovators should also anticipate specific threats and develop actions in order to overcome such problems (Glor n.d). Conclusion Peter Drucker is the finest modern management thinker in terms of his groundbreaking ideas on management and business disciplines. One of the contributions of Peter Drucker is the theory called Management by Objectives.MBO or Management by Objective emphasize the importance of identifying specific goals for each employee. Afterwards, the organization will then compare and direct their performance against established goals. MBOs main intention is to improve organizational performance through aligning goals and subordinate objective across the organization. While Management by Objectives presented a foundation for organizations how to achieve goals, it might not be always applicable to all organizations. For instance, MBO is appropriate for knowledge-based enterprises that consist of competent staff. This is also suitable in situations that require tapping the creativity of their employees as well as their self-leadership skills. Another limitation of MBO is that it did not emphasize the significance of the environment as well as other aspects that would affect that satisfaction of goals. These aspects include quality and availability of resources and the influence of stakeholders over the objective. It did not also emphasize the importance of effectively responding to barriers and issues that are necessary to reach the objective. MBO did not focused on the effect of the following concepts: limitations of planning, methodology and resources, expanding barriers related managing the information organization as well as the influence of changing environment which could change the business atmosphere and make planned actions inappropriate for the present situation. Drucker also stated that marketing and innovation serve as the two basic functions since the main purpose of entrepreneurship is to create a customer. If marketers perform their job correctly, which signifies effectively focusing on customer and innovate, and then other business elements will fall into place. He also argued that the main focus of marketing should be ways to sell superfluously-meaning understand the customers that the service and product will become appealing. Therefore, marketing should make customer ready to purchase a specific service or product. While Druckers notion about the importance of innovation holds true in general, innovation itself has own risks and challenges. Because Drucker only provided limited information about taking advantage of innovation opportunities successfully, people often fall on innovation traps. In other words, Drucker did not focus on the possible barriers that innovators might encounter during planning implementation process. Successful innovators effectively ignore such barriers but innovators should also anticipate specific threats and develop actions in order to overcome such problems. There are no questions regarding Druckers capability, wisdom and intelligence about the management, leadership and entrepreneurship. However, similar to other principles created by scholars, they have their own advantages and disadvantages. In the case of Druckers, it seems that he overlooked stakeholders and environmental factors that influence the success of achieving objectives as well as other barriers that entrepreneurs and innovators might ignore.