Sunday, May 24, 2020

Practice in Correcting Errors in Subject-Verb Agreement

After youve reviewed how to correct errors in subject-verb agreement, including tricky cases, complete the editing exercise below. Several (but not all) of the following sentences contain errors in subject-verb agreement. When you spot an error, correct it. If a sentence is free of errors, identify it as correct. When youre done, compare your responses with the answers below. Example Sentences Music soothe me.Billy bake brownies every Halloween.Peggy and Grace is arguing again.Elsie never takes the bus to work.The people who own that house has no insurance.One of these mechanics have a set of jumper cables.Felix and his brother is mending the wings of butterflies.Both of my essays is brilliant.The pulses emitted by a neutron star recurs at precise intervals.One of my uncles dances at the Rainbow Cafe.Phil and Jeremy has gone to the concert.Both of my daughters are professional dancers.Every one of the workers receive the same benefits.There is two gerbils in my bathroom.This box of toys belong in the attic. Answers Here are the answers below, with the corrected words in bold. Music  soothes  me.Billy  bakes  brownies every Halloween.Peggy and Grace  are  arguing again.CorrectThe people who own that house  have  no insurance.One of these mechanics  has  a set of jumper cables.Felix and his brother  are  mending the wings of butterflies.Both of my essays  are  brilliant.The pulses emitted by a neutron star  recur  at precise intervals.CorrectPhil and Jeremy  have  gone to the concert.CorrectEvery one of the workers  receives  the same benefits.There  are  two gerbils in my bathroom.This box of toys  belongs  in the attic.

Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Nissan Culture and Earlier Cg Uses Free Essays

string(100) " the company to develop a new corporate culture from the best elements of Japan`s national culture\." CM J41 Strategy Execution [pic] 1. 0 Resume: The case is about the turnaround of Nissan in the year 1999 to 2002. Nissan experienced great finances looses for the past seven out of eight years which resulted in a 22 billion $ debt and an outdated product portfolio with little liquid capital for new product development. We will write a custom essay sample on Nissan: Culture and Earlier Cg Uses or any similar topic only for you Order Now In just 12 months the new COO, Carlos Ghosn (CG), succeeded in turning Nissan into profitability with a new and more performance oriented corporate culture. 2. Evaluation of Carlos Ghosn’s approach to turning Nissan around: The overall evaluation of CG is full of success which, I think, is duo to his personal background, his philosophies of management and a little bit of luck. CG has a multicultural background and has proven himself having capacity for global leadership. In his career he has learned to manage large operations under adverse condition on four different continents and speaks five languages. He has a very open and pragmatic approach towards his surroundings, with this in mind his specialty is improving cost efficiencies, and this has earned him the nickname â€Å"Le Cost-Killer†. CG philosophies of management consist of three principals. These are transparency, execution and communication which all are essential to give employees structure and direction. His leadership style is characterized by him being achievement orientated, participative, supportive and directive leader. Furthermore a unique quality and vital factor for CG success is in my opinion was his implementation of the Cross Functional Teams (CFT) and his approach to cultural conflict, which he sees as an opportunity to create rapid innovation, if paced and channelled correctly. In the above mentioned I state, that CGs approach was a success. In the following four aspects I will try to prove this, by stressing out different arguments from the case combined with relevant theory. 2. 1 Resistance to change: People do not resist change but specific things. (Notes lec. 5) Over 50 % of all change initiatives in organizations fail to succeed and when this occurs, leaders often blame resistance. They assume that if only people would stop complaining and get on board, all would be fine (Ford et al. , 2009). But resistance is, in fact, a form of feedback, often provided by people who know more about day-to-day operations than you do. It can therefore be turned into a vibrant conversation that gives your change effort a higher profile (Ford et al. , 2009). This could be one of the reasons to why CG set up the CFT. Dismissing the feedback deprives you of potentially valuable information, costs you goodwill, and jeopardizes important relationships. If you learn to embrace resistance, you can use it as a resource and find your way to a better solution (Ford et al. , 2009). Resistance, properly understood as feedback, can be an important resource in improving the quality and clarity of the objectives and strategies at the heart of a change proposal. And, properly used, it can enhance the prospects for successful implementation (Ford et al. , 2009). Looking at the theory applied and the case, I believe that the resistance to change that CG faced was inevitable. As I see it one of the main reasons for resistances was due to the culture background, however there were several of underlying causes that could create a tension and resistance to change at Nissan. One is a more general conflict that arises when trying to move people, who do not find movement necessary. Another resistance point could be the urge for protecting ones career development, which before the intervention of CG was based on promotion on seniority basis and a zero mistake culture, which resulted in general a lack of innovation, a slow decision making and risk adverse mentality. To this CG responded with a change in the career development structure at Nissan, so that the highest achievers got the highest rewards and promotion was based on performance, leading to higher performance, willingness to make mistakes and create an innovation platform. Although these initiatives where not without resistance, because of the promotion of some younger leader over older, long serving employees which was in opposition to Japanese culture norms, CG took the same approach as with cultural differences and saw growth opportunities instead of problems for the young managers since they where challenged in their authority, which gave them growth experiences. As an overall when it comes to turning a company around as drastically as was needed for Nissan it is bound to create some resistance, and that CG new and was prepared for. Such a big change makes the future uncertain for many employees and the uncertainty is something many naturally try to avoid, and thereby instinctively becomes resistant. This Combined with a strong Japanese traditions, an organizational culture that has hindered innovation, adaptability and accountability, and last but not least a Japanese government that historically always have bailed out troubled employees, thereby creating no reason for action, and a feeling of no urgency, only made the resistance worse. All this being said, I am convinced that CG handed the resistance to change ideally. He didn’t as Ford el al. points out hold any possible reason for failure on resistance, and thereby risking overlooking opportunities to strengthen operational outcomes. 2. 2 Organizational culture: A part of the organizational culture at Nissan was the sub optimization with focus only on each individuals own department with little regard for understanding the company as a whole. This including other aspects of the organizational culture resulted in CG detecting a series of problems. From management side, the most fundamental ones was the lack of vision and ignoring customer voices. Furthermore he identified problems with, lack of clear profit orientation, lack of sense of urgency, no shared vision, insufficient focus on customer and too much focus on competitors and lack of cross functional implementations. As a consequence of these findings CG organized nine CFTs for tackling Nissan’s cultural problems, and allowing the company to develop a new corporate culture from the best elements of Japan`s national culture. You read "Nissan: Culture and Earlier Cg Uses" in category "Essay examples" Working together in the CFTs helped managers think in new ways (innovation) and challenge the existing practices (efficiency). CG explained to employees at all levels of the company that they them selves possessed solutions to Nissan’s problems, giving them a sense of responsibility and ownership in turning Nissan around. It was neither top-down nor bottom-up. It was both â€Å"top-down and bottom-up. † CG could just have formulated solutions by himself and ordered them to be implemented by senior managers, but he believed in the managers and employees in Nissan, nd he was good at showing them this. As mentioned in 2. 0 he believed that if one just dictated changes from above, the effort could backfire, undermining morale and productivity. The CFTs was a way to minor the resistance to change and involve and motivate middle managers who had detailed information about the company’s daily business and had the potential to come up with solutions to the companyâ€℠¢s problems. Even before taking over the position as COO, he had industry analysts against him, whom anticipated a culture clash between the French leadership style and his new Japanese employees. This could also have affected some employee attitude towards CG in a negative way beforehand. Besides this I am convinced that many parts of the Nissan organization did not feel very good about having CG changing things as drastically as he did. A labeling from the media as a gaijin, a foreigner and a reduction of 21,000 jobs, will inevitably create an uncertainty and therefore opponents among both lower level employees as well as higher in the hierarchy. Also the new employee advancement strategy, which challenged the traditional career advancement, created some negative emotions towards CG among the older, longer serving employees, since they were no longer automatically granted with a career advancement for long time service in the company. Furthermore, layoff of several of managers who did not meet targets regardless of circumstances and the demotion of Vice President of Sales and Marketing in Japan presumably created resistance and discontent. But I do believe that CG was successful in enlisting most of the organizations support over a fairly short period of time, though his leadership style, where his visibility and openness to taking recommendations opinions of Nissan people seriously. Another reason is the respect for leadership that is inherent in most Japanese. This made his approach to leadership even more effective. Also the delegation of responsibilities to the CFTs helped getting the support of middle and lower levels, so he could focus his attention on top management. 2. 3 National culture: The national culture has without a doubt played a large part in the outcome of CG’s attempt to turn Nissan around. On one hand it hindered change because of the sense of security the government created and its rigid approach to decision making and career advancement. On the other hand the respect for leadership made it easier for him and his CFTs to have an impact on the organization. The cultural differences between CG and the Nissan organization was profound because he had never been exposed to Japanese culture before, but his approach to the culture ensured that he was fully aware of the issues that could arise. He stated that he wanted to discover Japan by being in Japan with Japanese people. That shows his humble and respectful approach to their culture, which I think benefited him allot and which I in the following will show some examples of. The respectful approach to the Japanese culture forced e. g. CG to pay extra attention on the empowerment of employees. As mentioned, Japanese business culture is characterized by a search for conscientiousness, corporation, group harmony, and an avoidance of mistakes. This all leads to a delay of decision making and a lack of responsibility. The introduction of CFTs was in my opinion a strategic stroke of genius because it was partly an attempt to break with the inconveniences of Japanese culture without harassing the fundamentals and partly because people in the CFTs got a bird’s eye perspective of the company and it gave them a sense of ownership and responsibility, which was necessary to turn things around. Cultural conflict could, in my opinion, easily be a root to resistance to change but as mentioned earlier CG uses and see cultural conflict as something positive if handled correctly, which also is in line with both Ford et al. and Dent et al. iew of how resistance to change should be handled (Ford et al. , 2009) (Dent et al. , 1999). By introducing the CFTs CG also avoided the failure that many companies often do in the execution of their strategy, which is going directly to the structural reorganization. Instead he focused on some of the most powerful drivers of effectiveness – decision rights and i nformation flows (Nielson et al, 2008). The CFTs had in their ability of being cross functional all the information they needed to take the right decisions and by encouraging the members to come forth with their ideas and take risks the effectiveness of the CFTs was even greater. CG also changed the traditional Japanese compensation system to a more Western approach with possibility for employee advancements based on performance instead of seniority. This greatly empowered the talented employees, who was much needed in the turnaround but was also a source of conflict between young leader and older, longer-serving employees. But again CG saw a possible conflict as a positive thing. â€Å"†¦these tests of authority were growth experiences for young managers†. This shows again his personal ability to turn challenges into something good and productive. 2. 4 Luck and timing: There is no doubt that CG was lucky. His timing was impeccable as the bankruptcy of Yamaichi happened when he took office as COO in Nissan. The misfortune of the major financial house in Japan helped open the eyes of the employees in Nissan. The employees realized that lifetime employment was no longer a reality and that they had to do their own part to secure the company’s future and thus their own jobs. CG, to his credit, used the Yamaichi example whenever he could to continue to motivate his employees, repeating that their fate would be no different if they did not put all of their effort into figuring out, and then executing, the best way to turn Nissan around. By repeating the story CG paved the way for a major organizational and cultural change that otherwise would have been hard to push through. If people do not see why change is necessary, then motivation for change will be nonexistent. Moving a huge organization simply by brute force is an impossible task, but CG’s strike of luck created a powerful momentum that diminished potential resistance to change. Without this, CG and his CFTs would probably have faced a much more daunting task if the turnaround had taken place few years earlier. But it was not all luck. CG a used the bankruptcy strategic in the meaning of unfreezing the organization in Lewins words or as Cotter expresses it â€Å"creating a burning platform†. By telling the story over and over again he made the organization and every employee ready for change. When everyone was ready CG created a vision that was tangible, concise, and easy to relate to for the employees. It is not enough to create a great vision. It also has to be communicated effectively to the organization. CG was aware of this as the quote below shows â€Å"He was the first manager to actually walk around the entire company and meet every employee in person, shaking hands and introducing himself†. CG was prepared to â€Å"walk the talk† himself and did so by taking the lead and thereby showing the employees the way. 3. 0 Conclusion: All in all I think CG did an incredible job turning Nissan around in a very short period of time. Inspired by the voting we have done in the class, I would give him a 12, the highest mark. As a non-Japanese COO he managed to overcome Japanese cultural obstacles, as well as effectively transforming a bureaucratic organizational culture and turning a large continuing deficit into a profit within 12 month. One could question though whether his successor will be able to continue what CG started or if he needs to find his own way. Either way, CG has a justifiable concern for the future of Nissan. They might be on the right path, but they are still far from reaching their goals. How to cite Nissan: Culture and Earlier Cg Uses, Essay examples

Monday, May 4, 2020

Consumer Behaviour Transitioning Loyalty Programs

Question: Describe about the Consumer Behaviour for Transitioning Loyalty Programs. Answer: Part A: Customer segment: Senior Citizen The first segment of the customer is related to the elderly citizen, who have the primary concern of maintaining well-being status of life and are updated about technological framework only to a certain limit. According to Lian and Yen (2014, pp.133), these age group customers are generally quite loyal in behavior and give the honest review regarding the customer service. They possess the most of the life experiences which help them to become conscious and alert customers in a present day. With aging, there is a loss of the mass of muscle which results in a decrease of strength and activity level. This results in their potential and ability to heavy exercise or for a longer duration. In contrast, it is seen that despite having low stamina, most of them prefer to do exercise and stay fit and thus will be attractive towards fitness industry (Thompson, 2014, pp.8). The senior citizens also prefer to watch pay TV like Presto, Stan, and Netflix. It is found that the older age groups are m ore addicted towards TV. They prefer to watch more of news than any other entertainment channels and hence are seldom attractive to pay TV industry as loyal customers (Kottak, 2016). With growing age they prefer less to eat outside food because of a health issue; hence eating out in restaurants are seen less among them. This is other words is indicative that elderly customer segment is not must attractive towards restaurant or food industry compared to another customer segment (Hwang and Ok, 2013, pp.121). Customer segment: Baby Boomers The second customer segment includes the generation of people advancing towards retirement age. These age group customers have sufficient money and prefer to spend on themselves and family, which in turn is indicative of maintaining a good lifestyle and attractive towards leisure time entertainment (Bowen and Chen, 2015, pp.415). The baby boomers generation in their retirement years seems to be more active towards exercise and fitness. They desire to remain fit in their retirement period by joining yoga, aerobics, and other workout programs and that they are much interested towards gym or fitness industry (Bowen and Chen, 2015, pp.415). It has been estimated that these group customers make around 60% of the audience in a week by watching pay TV. Most of them watching television for about Five to six hours per day through streaming online or using digital recording machine (Beehr, 2014, pp.1093). Importantly, around more than half of boomers wish to spend time and money on eating by t rying new foods and restaurants. They prefer to go restaurants in the afternoon and especially in the evening. They prefer those restaurants giving coupons and membership facility. Despite, all these enjoyment, they give prior importance to their health (Beehr, 2014, pp.1093). Consumer segment: Generation X The third customer segment is referred to a class of people with increasing family household along with a huge amount of mortgage are the most tensed and unsatisfied group. Due to growing family and mortgage pressure, they have to spend money to a limit. These group customers neither have time nor money to spend on fitness and exercise by fitness classes or clubs (Beehr, 2014, pp.1093). They do prefer to yoga or exercise by themselves but are only attractive towards fitness industry if they can found a substantial discount or attractive offers (Kanchanapibul, 2014, pp.528). Due to lack of money, they preferred not to afford the pay TV and chose to watch the regular TV. Besides TV, they also decide not to eat in restaurants on a regular basis. This group of customers along with their family generally come to restaurants on weekends and special occasions only (Parment, 2013, pp.189). Customer segment: Single Adults The last and the youngest generation include the single adult customers. These age group customers are vivacious and energetic in nature. They used to spend a lot on their daily requirements. These age group customers are more prone to weight gain/obesity, while a few of them are least interested towards exercise (Schmeltz, 2012, pp.29). As they have sufficient money needed for their daily needs, most of them join a gym, fitness clubs, yoga and aerobic classes. This age group shows more interest in watching Pay TV which includes drama, reality shows, fictions, music, and sports. Having sufficient money, they are able to pay any amount for the pay TV (Kottak, 2016). They use to watch TV using a digital recording device and also watch online streaming shows (Kilian, 2012, pp.114). It has been surveyed that major customers of any restaurants include these single adult customers which around 60% or more. They used to enjoy with friends and family and usually in the night time (Parment, 2 013, pp.189). Part B Introduction One of the major demographic aspects which affect these three industries is gender segmentation (Wedel and Kamakura, 2012). The fitness mode and exercise types differ for both male and female. Female has less strength and stamina compared to male due to less lean muscles mass. Due to this, they prefer to do yoga, aerobics, cardio, and jogging; on the other hand, male prefers to do hard-core exercises. Gender segmentation According to male customers, exercise is like sports to them, whereas female it is a fitness and look issue (Mohd Suki, 2013, pp.726). It has been noticed that female customers are more regular in exercise than the male customers. In the case of watching Pay TV, female customers are ahead of male customers, as per the theory of market segmentation (Mohd Suki, 2013, pp.726). It has been surveyed that female viewers rules over the primetime shows which include mostly drama, series, and reality shows. Male customers seem less interested in watching Pay TV, and they prefer to watch seldom which includes sports and news (Hun and Yazdanifard, 2014, pp.2321). Similarly, for eating in a restaurant, male customers are found to be fonder compared to female customers. Female customers are more conscious of the hygiene, sanitation, and variety of food available in the restaurant (Rettie, 2012, pp.420). Marital status Another demographic aspect of the customers is the marital status. It has been observed that married couples are less conscious about physical fitness than singletons (Mohd Suki, 2013). They choose to spend time with each other instead of doing exercise. Importantly, after marriage, the individuals have got more responsibilities which restrain them from doing physical activity. Also for the same reason, the married couples seldom get time to watch Pay TV; whereas the singletons are free to watching television at any time as revealed by analysis of Wedel and Kamakura (2012). Singletons are carefree in nature and hence eat in the restaurant whenever whatever and wherever they like. In contrary, the married couple is selective in nature and are particular about every detail of the restaurant (Beehr, 2014). Employment status Employment status is one of a most determining factor in the customer behavior. Customers having low-income employment status are constrained with a limited amount of money, which ultimately affects their lifestyle (Kilian, 2012, pp.114). In contrast, customers with high employment status have the freedom to join any fitness programs, gym and work out centers. According to Kanchanapibul (2014, pp.528), the customers with low-income status cannot afford such fitness classes or trainer and hence depend on upon their regular exercise. The higher employment status customers have sufficient income to afford Pay TV, while lower employment status customers have to satisfy themselves with the regular satellite TV. Higher income customers go to restaurants on a regular basis for enjoyment and societal status, whereas lower income customers go to restaurants on weekends and special occasions. They prefer first on food pricing than on food choosing and opt for fast food centers than the service restaurant (Parment, 2013). Education Level of awareness The most critical demographic factor which determining the customer behavior on the given three major industries is education. The personality and behavior of an individual are determined from their educational qualification. Education decides the living style and standard of an individual. Educated customers are more aware of fitness and exercise benefits and tend to do exercise on a regular basis. Uneducated or less educated customers have less knowledge regarding exercise and its associated health benefits. This leads to their less concern towards fitness and exercise, and they are not willing to do the workout. Moreover due to less educational qualification, they do not possess any job, and hence are more inclined towards TV (Han and Yoon, 2015, pp.22). Most of the educated customers prefer not to waste time on TV, rather do something fruitful. Informed customers go for the quality and eminence of the restaurant and verify every feature of the restaurant like ambiance, sanitation , quality of food, and hygiene condition. On the other hand, uneducated customers do not bother about all these aspects of restaurants because of their ignorance. Thus, they can be easily influenced and created by the service provider (Han and Yoon, 2015, pp.22). Ethnicity Lastly, ethnicity is another major feature that decides the customer behavior. Ethnicity defines a group of people who categorize themselves with common language or religion or nationality or origin or social culture (Sekhon, 2015, pp.211). These types of customers choose to do the exercise with the people of their same ethnicity. In terms of fitness, they prefer the diet according to their culture and nationality. Also in the case of watching Pay TV, they select the channels related to their ethnicity (Beehr, 2014, pp.1098). Furthermore in choosing a restaurant to eat they prefer the restaurant having their ethnic feature giving them homely atmosphere. Conclusion In summary, the present portion of report illustrates the demographic factors that are responsible for influencing consumer behaviour. The demographic location are critical as they manage customer behaviour according to their requirement and preference. With the analysis, it was revealed that organization need to undertake these information for strategic designing of framework that in turn can help them in influencing consumerism according to their organizational objective. References: Beehr, T.A., 2014. To retire or not to retire: That is not the question. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 35(8), pp.1093-1108. Bowen, J.T. and Chen McCain, S.L., 2015. Transitioning loyalty programs: A commentary on the relationship between customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.415-430. Han, H. and Yoon, H.J., 2015. Hotel customers environmentally responsible behavioral intention: Impact of key constructs on decision in green consumerism. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 45, pp.22-33. Hun, T.K. and Yazdanifard, R., 2014. The Impact of Proper Marketing Communication Channels on Consumers Behavior and Segmentation Consumers. Asian Journal of Business and Management (ISSN: 2321-2802), 2(02). Hwang, J. and Ok, C., 2013. The antecedents and consequence of consumer attitudes toward restaurant brands: A comparative study between casual and fine dining restaurants. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 32, pp.121-131. Kanchanapibul, M., Lacka, E., Wang, X. and Chan, H.K., 2014. An empirical investigation of green purchase behaviour among the young generation. Journal of Cleaner Production, 66, pp.528-536. Kilian, T., Hennigs, N. and Langner, S., 2012. Do Millennials read books or blogs? Introducing a media usage typology of the internet generation. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 29(2), pp.114-124. Kottak, C.P., 2016. Prime-time society: An anthropological analysis of television and culture. Routledge. Lian, J.W. and Yen, D.C., 2014. Online shopping drivers and barriers for older adults: Age and gender differences. Computers in Human Behavior, 37, pp.133-143. Mohd Suki, N., 2013. Young consumer ecological behaviour: The effects of environmental knowledge, healthy food, and healthy way of life with the moderation of gender and age. Management of environmental Quality: An International Journal, 24(6), pp.726-737. Parment, A., 2013. Generation Y vs. Baby Boomers: Shopping behavior, buyer involvement and implications for retailing. Journal of retailing and consumer services, 20(2), pp.189-199. Rettie, R., Burchell, K. and Riley, D., 2012. Normalising green behaviours: A new approach to sustainability marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 28(3-4), pp.420-444. Schmeltz, L., 2012. Consumer-oriented CSR communication: focusing on ability or morality?. Corporate Communications: An International Journal, 17(1), pp.29-49. Sekhon, Y.K., 2015. Ethnic consumer decision making. The Routledge Companion to Ethnic Marketing, p.211. Thompson, W.R., 2014. Worldwide survey of fitness trends for 2015: whats driving the market. ACSM's Health Fitness Journal, 18(6), pp.8-17. Wedel, M. and Kamakura, W.A., 2012. Market segmentation: Conceptual and methodological foundations (Vol. 8). Springer Science Business Media.