Craddock Cup

1. The Craddock Cup in its current form should be continued in order to maximize CYSL’s profits. Although it looks as though the Cup is incurring a loss, we need to analyze the relevant and irrelevant costs to truly determine the financial impact of discontinuing the cup. Although total expenses are $53,538, we need to eliminate the irrelevant, or unavoidable, costs when deciding whether the Cup should continue. In this case, the irrelevant, unavoidable costs include Rivaldo’s salary allocated to the tournament ($6,300), the field rental cost for the week ($1,200), and the rent/utilities expense for the Cup ($2,700).When these costs are added, we get $10,200 in sunk costs that cannot be avoided regardless of the continuation of the Craddock Cup. Subtracting these irrelevant costs from the total expenses of the tournament, we get $43,338 in relevant costs. When you subtract these expenses from the revenue generated by the tournament, we end up with a relevant profit of $ 6,502. This means that the CYSL is making $6,502 more than it would if it eliminated the Craddock Cup. I would therefore recommend that the Craddock Cup be continued. 2.My answer to the first question would change if the alternative to holding the Craddock Cup would be to rent the field to the Harvest Fair for $6,750. From purely a financial perspective, renting the field to the Harvest Fair would make the most sense. By doing this, the CYSL can make a $6,750 profit, excluding the allocated costs that are unavoidable and irrelevant. This is $248 more than the $6,502 they would profit by actually holding the tournament. So strictly by financial terms, it would make more sense to rent out the field in order to generate an increase in profit of $248 over the alternative of hosting the Craddock Cup. . When considering the decisions that management needs to make, it is important to consider not only the quantitative data, but also the qualitative characteristics. In this case, after cons idering the qualitative characteristics I would recommend that the CYSL continue to hold the Craddock Cup for multiple reasons. First of all, the influx of people that come to the tournament are advantageous for the nearby businesses. The economic advantages of the event would leave the town worse off than before. Also, the experience and opportunities that the Cup provides to high school soccer players are too crucial to ignore.By giving players a chance to gain recognition from college scouts and potentially get a scholarship, the tournament allows them to achieve their goals of playing college soccer. Another factor that must be discussed is the firing of the Renee Jansten. We do not know her current financial situation and would like to avoid firing anyone if at all avoidable. Lastly, the potential for future profits as the tournament gains more recognition and prestige should be enough to make CYSL keep running the Craddock Cup annually. 4. Exhibit A shows the expected financia l impact of adding 32 more teams to the schedule.Revenues would increase to $85,680 (assuming while expenses would rise to $87,806. This leads to a reported net income of -$2,126. However, if we remove the irrelevant, unavoidable costs ($10,200), we get a relevant profit of $8,074. This is $1,572 more than the $6,502 relevant profit expected from a 32-team tournament. It would therefore be in the greater interest of the CYSL to host a 64-team Craddock Cup next year. 5. The profit margin for the 32-team tournament is 3. 62% higher than the profit margin for the 64-team tournament. For the 32 team tournament, the profit margin is $6,502/$49,840=13. 5%. For the 64 team tournament, the profit margin decreases to $8,074/$85,680=9. 423%. Although the 64-team alternative has the lower profit margin, it has higher overall profits and is recommended. Exhibit A (64-Team Financials) Revenues:Calculations Registration Fees18,880Doubled T-Shirts 9,600Doubled Concessions34,560Doubled Soccer Clini c 8,640Doubled Contributions14,000Same Total Revenue85,680 Expenses: T-Shirts 3,840Doubled (Variable) Concessions17,280Doubled (Variable) Clinic 5,184Doubled (Variable) Insurance 4,608Doubled (Variable) Registration 1,500Same (Fixed)Field Rental 8,760(1200+6 fields x $210 x 6 days) Balls 864Doubled (Variable) Refs12,800Doubled (Variable) Trophies 1,800Doubled (Variable) Hotels 6,400$80x 2 nights x 15 + 4,000 Face Books 570450+(95-75)x$6 Marketing 3,2002,200+1000 CYSL Salaries18,300Same (Fixed) CYSL Rent 2,700Same (Fixed) Total Expenses87,806 Net Income:($2,126) Irrelevant/Unavoidable Expenses: Field Rental 1,200 CYSL Salaries 6,300 CYSL Rent 2,700 Total Irr. Exp. 10,200 Relevant Expenses: 87,806-10,200=77,606 Relevant Profit: Revenue85,680 Rel. Exp77,606 Rel. Profit 8,074

Eating with Your Hands Essay

Society today is one big melting pot. People bring their customs and cultural traditions and it conglomerates with others creating these norms we follow. We live by, what time has created over time, a status quo, or social rights and wrongs. In the passage, Eating with Your Hands, the author opens the topic about etiquette, one of the major social controversies. She talks about why some foods are only acceptable to be eaten with proper utensils while others can be â€Å"finger food†. It’s true—but why is that a known rule? And why is it frowned upon? The passage has some background history of people groups within certain countries eating food with their hands, and how it almost gives an individual a better sense of what he or she is eating. The author brings up how it’s the meeting of the soul and the skin; whereas silverware places a distance between you and your food. She compares it to that of two people making love—giving food and yourself an intimate relationship. I got the sense that society has changed the soul and feeling behind food and meals due to the kosher norms of modern day etiquette. Personally I have never given thought to how I eat my food in comparison with other cultures. Growing up in twenty-first century America I have always eaten the way I’m â€Å"supposed† to; I never gave it a second thought. My culture has almost given me tunnel vision, letting me focus only on what I know as acceptable or natural. This topic opens my mind to what else I might be blinded to. I have never explored what other cultures grow accustomed to like religion, style, relationships, family dynamics or even school. I have always considered myself incredibly fortunate for the life I live, and therefore I never examined the varying cultural aspects of differing nations or people groups. As far as the message of society erasing the intimacy of our meals to ourselves, I can absolutely sympathize with the author’s thoughts. In retrospect, the singular thing that could most certainly bring my family together was the warm meal that awaited us. The physicality of sharing a meal together provided each of us the opportunities to engage, with every member of my family, our singular experiences. Food is a social activity! Assuredly, eating is an activity. When an individual goes out with his or her friends, more often than not they all get dinner together. When one throws a birthday party, a favorite restaurant or catering or favorite home-cooked meal is involved. Social interactions like dating usually incorporate food of some sort. In the generation of everything digital, it is common to take a picture of a meal and post it to a social media. Food has always been a part of social interaction. I do think that society has put a strain on the comfort of eating how we desire, without our conscious recognition. Perhaps because we grew up learning that we couldn’t eat spaghetti with both hands.

Psychologists and Jury Selection Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Psychologists and Jury Selection - Term Paper Example The researcher states that in case such as Bruno Hauptmann, there could be strong public mood against the accused which could influence the jury to convict the innocent. Here, the jurists’ personality characteristics and traits might play an important role. In a media intensity society, it is particularly true as it often wages psychological wars to mobilize public opinion over what it considers as truth. The trial of O. J. Simpson was characterized by ‘continued media interest and public fascination with his actions and statements. The belief that â€Å"he got away with murder† even led to proposals to reform and restrict the jury system’. The certainty necessary to punish nay accused could be accumulated by the jurists based on their prejudices and worldview. Most importantly, according to Greene et.al, ‘truth is elusive, and in the legal system, all truth seekers are subject to human error, even though the system seems to assume that they approach infallibility. The failure to achieve perfection in our decision making will become evident as the steps in the trial process are reviewed’. Jury sentiments are directly a product of jurists’ opinions, attitudes and beliefs. Attorneys have two options for selecting new juries. First of all, a panel of prospective jurors need to be identified which is known as venire. Secondly, ‘a process known as voir dire is employed to question and select the eventual jurors’. It involves every jurist telling truth about himself/herself. This process naturally involves elimination as the jurists who hold biases over a particular case are dismissed from the trial. Only the ones who hold a free mind and free from limitations are selected. There is a difference between judges’ decisions and Juries’ decisions. It has been found that â€Å"citizens believe a jury decision offers more procedural fairness (greater thoroughness, better representation of the commun ity, fewer personal biases affecting decisions) than a decision by a judge†. Jury sentiments are the major cause for the discrepancies in the judicial verdicts. In their famous survey, ‘Kalven and Zeisel, after reviewing the multitude of discrepancies, used this term to cover all trials in which, in the judge’s view, the jury’s verdict was detrimentally determined by factors beyond the evidence and the law’. Especially in victimless crimes, there could a stronger tendency for sentiments towards the culprit. In some cases, if the case gets more social importance through media intervention, the number of jurists may be relatively high. It is very difficult even to keep the jury selection procedure just as it would involve discrimination against minority religions, races, nationalities and other cognizable groups.

Administrative Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

Administrative Justice - Essay Example As the discussion declares the concept of having an administrative justice system is a great way of dealing with issues as they arise in the political arena. The importance of this system mainly borders on the heightened consciousness that seeks to justify the impact that the Constitution plays in checking the main attributes within the governance of the society . Recognition of the system in the administration of any country requires a willing political climate that can express and identify the various attributes that fuel interest in the realization of a just society. Most of the systems across the world, as noted in Australia, receive appreciation for its identification of the maximum good it has in settling different goals within the system . According to the report findings administrative law allows the concerned parties to come up with new policies and institutions that will assist in safeguarding the interests of the society rather than working towards the needs of a few. The goal is to entrench these views in the realization of a society that appreciates the rule of law. The administrative law in the UK allows people to understand that their decisions will play a big role in identifying what is essential for the administration of justice . The government regulates everyday livelihood, and as such, should not operate without a limit that principally articulates the principles of administrative justice. For judicial systems that acknowledge this fact, it is very easy to deal with the issues within the criminal justice system that impede the realization of everyday goals.

Puerto Rico Court System Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Puerto Rico Court System - Research Paper Example There are various weaknesses that could be acknowledged out of the current judicial systems and this is as documented by Griffin and Abbot (2006). Understanding the strengths and the weaknesses would undoubtedly go a long way in informing what should constitute a desirable judicial system. One of the strong points in Griffin and Abbot (2006) is that they develop a comparative approach to judicial systems, and this approach is advantageous because it does not only give examples of flaws in practice that should be addressed but also some strengths that could be adopted, such as by newly established states. According to Griffin and Abbot (2006), U.S judicial system is constituted in a federal manner whereby each state within the federation has a different judicial system. Under the state court system, one is regarded innocent until proven guilty. This implies that the burden to prove one’s innocence lies with the state and not the person being accused. The system is made stronger because it is the responsibility of the state to find someone guilty thus making a person optimistic about their innocence prevailing. Another aspect of this judicial process is that a criminal is assured of a fair, quick trial as well as enjoy the privilege of being judged by jurists. This means that not a single judge can decide on one’s fate as it is the case in other countries. It also implies that a person who is innocent has all the evidence evaluated prior to making the sentence. These elements are undoubtedly the strong points of judicial systems and inform any benchmark to constitute a de sirable court system such as for a newly established state... These elements are undoubtedly the strong points of judicial systems and inform any benchmark to constitute a desirable court system such as for a newly established state. However, there is a limitation to this in the sense that much of the evidence may be suspended due to the procedure. A cop collecting evidence must do so according to set down statutes otherwise they could be done away with. In this case, evidence on tape cannot be taken into consideration if the accused was not aware that a recording was taking place as he was being interrogated by the police. This has led to guilty people walking away scot-free for crimes they have committed. This is because the passing of sentence is recommended by the same panel of jurists who determined his or her case the process becomes fair. Furthermore, the process gives judges a lot of freedom when sentencing criminals. Reeves (2008), cites examples of cases where two people get different timeframes when they have committed the same felon y. That tends to be one of the shortcomings of the state judicial process. The article proposes one guideline, neither should there be minimum nor maximum sentence.Unfortunately, discrimination when passing maximum sentence seems to be confined to black males, as the majority of the population gets fair sentencing.  

Critical annotated webliography Bibliography Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Critical webliography - Annotated Bibliography Example or problem of public health among adolescents in Ireland, due to the fact that it exacerbates the respiratory conditions, decreases the lung volumes’ growth when the lung is exposed to smoke before maximum growth and is also an independent risk factor for the lung cancer. The quote above indicates the extent of effect tobacco smoking has had on the young people. This trend should be discouraged at all costs. The website reports that studies have proved that smoking initiation at an early stage in life poses a greater risk of cancer, years of tobacco smoking and independent of tobacco smoking intensity, due to the mutation of the cell in the underdeveloped tissue resulting to the malignant potential in the long run. According to the department of Health, â€Å"the Government approved the principle of prohibiting smoking in cars with children present† (Web). Indeed, this is a clear prove that smoking among young people is of a great concern. In a nutshell, this website has adequate information that will be useful to the researcher when carrying out research on tobacco smoking. Moreover, the quote above has highlighted some of the measures put in place to ensure that there is a reduction in smoking by the young people. These measures are significant and more should be put in place. This website is relevant when carrying out research on tobacco smoking since it contains studies that have been carried out on the various aspect of tobacco smoking including its dangers. Reported in the website, the Department of Children and Health in Ireland came up with a policy document that was titled Ireland a Smoke Free Zone: Towards a Tobacco Free Society. The policy document was formulated with an aim of reducing the smoking levels within the Irish society in order to prevent children from developing smoking habits. There are five main priority areas that were identified in the context of young people and the children reducing the smoking rates as well as the effects of the

Diversity in Organizations Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Diversity in Organizations - Term Paper Example Corporate trainers design programs which can certainly help organizations to implement diversified culture in the organization. However if diversity is not going to be managed properly then it can affect the overall productivity of the organization. Human Resource Management department has an important role to play for management of diversified culture in the organization. HR managers should create awareness among employees of the organization. They should focus on an idea that one single employee can not do much for the betterment of the organization. Employees can only bring change in the organization through their collective effort. They can not do anything positive individually. Employees are the main force of the organization that has to carry out day to day work in order to bring productivity, efficiency and effectiveness. Employees often enter into the organization with diverse background. Therefore sometimes it becomes difficult for managers to manage them effectively. Manage rs of the organization should realize it as strength. Employees need to understand certain dynamics of this diversity since it can help them to achieve strategic goals of the organization. Top management should also reflect acceptability for diversity through their actions and behaviors. Relevant behaviors of the employee should be reinforced so that they could also realize that which particular type of behaviors is acceptable within the organization. Diversity can also become one of the distinguishing characteristic of the organization if it can be managed properly (Bell, 2006). One thing should be very clear when it comes to the implementation of diversity programs in the organization; the thing is that organization should know what diversity actually means in the context of their corporate culture. The differences of culture and the different ways of doing things should be respected by the management of the organization if it wants to implement such program. There are many differ ences which employees can bring to the organization. These include color, sex, race, religion, diverse educational background etc. However one thing will be common in these highly diversified employees that are to achieve organizational objectives efficiently and effectively. Clarity about specific benefits associated with diversity programs should be communicated to the employees so that they may know that what type of benefits they are going to be offered if they help organizations toward the implementation of such programs. New employees should get proper orientation so that they can also embrace diversity of the organization. New employees can easily accept such programs since they have not seen the past programs of the organization (Anca & Vega, 2007). Managers can mold these employees in a way which is required by the organization. There are many organizations which are accepting diversity in order to make their presence global. Experts are also of the opinion that organizatio n having diverse workforce can approach different problems in a unique way. They have knowledge base which is quite diverse in its approach and thinking. Therefore they are also in a better position to solve contemporary issues in a unique way. Managers should also arrange training and development sessions so that employees can understand diversity programs in a more formal way. Employers can further enhance the utility of diversity programs by linking some part of their compensation to their diversity

Company profile Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Company profile - Essay Example developed a sustainability mission, whose success will be measured through customer preference based on the company’s ability to satisfy their expectations of expertise, service, and quality (Ermeleh 1). The company’s vision is to gain recognition as a performance leader in the mechanical and industrial material trading industry, as well as to become a major trading company both locally and internationally via specialized service provision that differentiates their services and products. Additionally, it is also the company’s vision to attain sustainable growth through superior financial performance and industry-leadership in customer satisfaction (Ermeleh 1). The company’s goal is to become the biggest trader in industrial and mechanical materials and accessories in the industry (Ermeleh 1). More importantly, this goal is also tied to the company’s focus on sustainability for continual improvement to make a positive impact for the

Documentary Realism in Films Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Documentary Realism in Films - Movie Review Example In the discussion and analysis in this paper, three kinds of films are analyzed based on their social function-specifically, how each film represent a criticism of war and conflict at different periods in history. These films are "Fahrenheit 9/11," "Life is Beautiful," and "The Aviator," which are categorized as documentary, fiction, and non-fiction films, respectively. These films are analyzed and interpreted based on their ability to provide a critical look at the conflicts that occurred and which became the basis-primary or otherwise-for the development of the narrative in each. The analysis posits that the three films criticize war and conflict in various ways. "Fahrenheit 9/11" criticizes the political instability caused by the offensive attack that US waged against Iraq, causing greater discord between the Middle Eastern nations and US and its allies. "Life is Beautiful" reflected the absurdity of World War II, as millions of lives, particularly Jews, were unnecessarily lost as a result of the genocide imposed on them by Adolf Hitler of Germany. Lastly, "The Aviator" provides an in-depth look at the lives of the people in the context of Howard Hughes' life and using the World War II as the socio-political background. In it, the film reflected the politico-economic machineries that motivated and supported World War II, uncovering also the politics that occurs 'behind the scenes,' the politicking of businessmen and aircraft manufacturers in order to benefit best and profit the most from the war. Apart from these comparisons among the three films in terms of their depiction and critical interpretation of war and conflict, this paper also looks into the differences in the execution of the directors in depicting these interpretations into film. For "Fahrenheit," Moore's critical look at the 9/11 bombing and US invasion of Iraq is more explicit and direct, in the sense that real film clips were used to critically interpret the Bush administration's actions before, during, and after the tragic event. "Life" provides a different execution as well, weaving its criticism into the story of Guido's family as Jews persecuted for their race and religion. However, unlike Moore's "Fahrenheit," Benigni's film depicts a fictional scenario put into a real event in human history. "Aviator," meanwhile, illustrates the life of Howard Hughes, depicting his life and achievements and chronicling the events relevant and significant to his development as an important personality in both the entertainment and automotive businesses, as well as politics. In understanding the contrasts among "Fahrenheit," "Life," and "Aviator," it is vital to understand first their crucial differences. "Fahrenheit" is a realist documentary, because it provides real images and accounts of events surrounding the 9/11 bombing, events that Moore had organized in a manner that provides support to his criticisms and arguments against President Bush and the administration. As explicated by Bordwell and Thompson (1997), a documentary does convey truth in that it illustrates "events as they actually occur," but it can also be depicted realistically when the director 'controls the editing of the images' to be included in the film. A documentary is realistically portrayed even if these

Strategies for People Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Strategies for People Management - Essay Example There have been numerous research efforts in this area and a lot of organizations are devising strategies aimed at bringing more women into the upper levels of workforce. In its response to the DTI consultation on productivity indicators, the EOC has submitted that, â€Å"The achievement of gender equity is central to the three key elements of economic growth – an increased labour supply; flexibility, so as to be able to adjust to new growth opportunities; and rewarding workers according to their performance and skills.† (http://www.eoc.org.uk). Our main aim in HR terms is the recruitment, retention and development of the very best and creative staff and to provide them high quality support to strengthen our strategy of maintaining the cutting edge of functional ability. The challenge we presently face in HR is to maintain our present staff strength so that we can sustain our present momentum and stay ahead of our competitors. The shortage of skilled workforce is the main problem in UK and within the next years the position is likely to get worse rather than improve. The factors of aging, migration to other jobs, disparity between staff etc are some of the key issues that may serve the create shortage of manpower in our organisation. While we recognise that women constitute a proportionate portion of our research staff , photographers, copy writers, editors etc and do play a key role in delivering our overall strategic aims, their numbers in the middle and senior level executives are much less than their male counterparts. Our strategy, therefore, must reinforce the importance we attach in achieving equality of representation of both genders in the higher echelons of staff structure. Our present strategy is primarily focused on recruitment and retention, reward and recognition, training, learning and development, action to tackle poor performance, review of staffing needs. While our efforts in the area of reward, recognition

A Brief History of Energy Use in Human Societies Essay Example for Free

A Brief History of Energy Use in Human Societies Essay The industrial revolution started the intensive use of oil, coal and natural gas. The development of factories, cars, and technological advances marks the start of air pollution. Smog from factories and the release of carbon dioxide from cars began to become detrimental to the environment as well as to health. Ever since the world continues to burn fossil fuels and will continue to do so. Factories, motor vehicles, buses, etc., are used throughout the world to provide people with transportation, products or food and have been a leading cause of air pollution. Similarly, these things have led to a series of environmental issues as well as health concerns, including many respiratory diseases (The Industrial Age). Although air pollution is a concern throughout the world, developing nations take different approaches to concerns as well as developed nations. Most of the worlds children live in developing nations, which means that they are exposed to higher levels of poverty and have different levels of health quality as oppose to developed, wealthier nations (Loomis et al. 1999). In a country like Mexico for instance, childhood mortality is high. Mexico City is one of the most populated cities in the world, with a population of eighteen million people and three million motor vehicles (Borja-Aburto et al. 1998). Nevertheless, air pollution has the same effects on the respiratory system among the population in New York City. Similarly, it is also densely populated and traffic congestion leads to the emission of air pollutants that are harmful to respiratory health. Air pollution affects the respiratory system, causing different respiratory diseases in both Mexico City and New York City, but there are a number of different methods used in each city to prevent further air pollution. Many countries in Latin America are going through rapid industrialization, as well as an increase in transportation and have not yet resolved health concerns related to air pollution. Due to the poor sanitation that young kids experience in poor countries, they are becoming infected with many diseases, thus becoming more susceptible to respiratory diseases (Loomis et al. 1999). When poor children experience life-threatening diseases, they are more likely to die because they cannot receive medical attention. In addition, studies reveal that air pollution is the main cause of the increasing infant mortality in Mexico City (Loomis et al. 1999). The main pollutants that are of a concern in Mexico City are nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter and tropospheric ozone (BellML et al. 2006). It is estimated that the transportation sector is responsible for about forty percent of the particulate matter emissions in Mexico City. Transportation however, is a vital sector in Mexico City traffic congestion in Mexico City forces people to take transportation methods to reach work, school, etc. Similarly, a large part of the population lives in poverty, which means they cannot afford a car. In addition, it has been reported that ozone causes the airway inflammation among young children playing outdoors. Nitrogen oxides increase the chance of respiratory infections as well as wheezing (Bernstein JA et al. 2004). Particulate matter is associated with infant mortality and also includes an increasing number of absences of students in schools as well as emergency room visits for respiratory problems including asthma (Bell ML et al. 2006). In addition, a reduction of 10 percent of particulate matter and ozone levels would save 273 to 1189 lives every year as well as save 760 US dollars a year there would be less emergency room visits, less medicine to purchases, less days of work or school missed or hospital admissions. New York City, similar to Mexico, has an air pollution problem caused by motor vehicles. However, morbidity and asthma is higher in different communities around New York City South Bronx and Harlem. These communities for instance, have higher diesel exhaust le vels from bus depots, truck routes, and waste transfer stations (Patel et al. 2013). As a result, this diesel exhaust creates black carbon. The black carbon is linked to the increasing number of respiratory diseases as well as the hospital admissions among children and adolescence in Harlem and South Bronx (Patel et al. 2013). Similarly, Patel et al. also explain that short-term increases of particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide are associated with airway inflammation among adults and children. The number of people being affected by air pollution will continue to grow, if no regulations to stop air pollution are enforced. Mexico city suffers from a serious air pollution problem, which has led to many respiratory diseases. However, there are policies that exist which help control air pollution. An air pollution problem that they face is ozone released from transportation methods. One measure Mexico City has taken to reduce vehicle pollution includes a motor vehicle Maintenance and Inspection (IM) program. This program keeps track of vehicle emissions to make sure th at the advanced emission control systems are working properly in modern-day cars (Riveros HG et al. 2002). In addition, catalytic converter devices added to the exhaust of a motor vehicle consisting of a catalyst that transforms pollutant gases into less dangerous ones were introduced in 1995 to Mexico City. In 1995, vehicles were emitting 70 percent less hydrocarbon, 75 percent less carbon monoxide and 65 percent less nitrogen oxide (Riveros HG et al. 2002). Similarly, methyl tertiary-butyl ether was added to gasoline beginning in 1995, to refine combustion efficiency and applied boundaries on the aromatic aspect of fuels as well as on the sulfur content in fuel used in industries (Mckinley G et al. 2005). However, despite the tries to limit air pollution, the levels of air pollution emissions remain high.The State of New York has many programs, which take care of the environment. For example, there is the Department of Environmental Conservation. This department carries out monitoring programs as well as pollution control. It also contains a Maintenance Program and requires a Vehicle Inspection, which monitors motor vehicle emissions and requires unsuccessful pollution control equipment to be fixed. Furthermore, New York City also has Inspection and Maintenance (IM) programs. These programs requires cars to take an annual emission inspection and requires a repair when emission system is not working properly. All of these methods are used in New York to prevent more air pollution to enter the atmosphere. As a result, although air pollution remains high in New York City, these methods to protect the environment from harmful pollutants (Controlling Air Pollution from Motor Vehicles).Air pollution is a major problem in both densely populated cities New York City and Mexico City. This problem has led to an increase in asthma, as well as other respiratory diseases. It has also led to an increasing number of hospital admissions, and emergency room visits. There are a large number of fatal deaths as a result of air pollution, which is why each city must have regulations to help eliminate the pollution. People are becoming sick, and a lot of money is being spent as a result of the pollution. Not only the people are suffering from this environmental problem, but the environment as well. Carbon emissions, as well as ozone are detrimental to Earth, as well as to health. Young children and seniors are the most vulnerable to these diseases, but something can be done to protect the citizens of these cities, and that is more air pollution control policies. Mexico City and New York City have regulations, but they are not enough to end the air pollution. Cars are a necessity in every major city around the world, which creates more air pollution for the world. However, more regulations need to be placed before the environment becomes greatly impacted by the man-produced emissions

Talent Management in the Corporate Sector

Talent Management in the Corporate Sector A Talent Management INTRODUCTION:- Talent management is the process that emerged in 1990 and continues to be adopted, as more companies came to realize that their employees talent, skills drive their business success. Companies that have put into practice talent management have done so to solve an employee retention problem. The issue with many companies today is that many organizations put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time into retaining and developing talent. A talent management system must be worked into the business strategy and implemented in daily processes throughout the company as a whole. It cannot be left solely to the human resources department to attract and retain employees, but rather must be practiced at all levels of the organization. The business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the skills of their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be openly sharing information with other departments in order for employees to gain knowledge of the overall organizational objectives. Talent management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work for your company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. The term was coined by David Watkins of Softscape published in an article in 1998. The process of attracting and retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and of strategic importance, has come to be known as the war for talent. IMPORTANCE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR US sector always want to grow and improve their system and processes must focus on people practices that allow or foster their growth and improvement. The best practices are known. The key variables (leadership competencies, experience and skill, interest rewards) that motivate people to succeed have been identified and successfully put into practice. Talent Management is no loger a cutting-edge field being solely tapped by pioneers. It is a viable path towards and improving organizational performance. Integrated, strategically aligned human capital asset management systems have provided significant economic benefits to companies that have embraced them as ongoing processes instead of one-time events. Research done on the value of such systems to companies consistently finds benefits in these seven critical economic areas: revenue, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, cost, cycle time, and market capitalization. This research clearly shows that adopting and investing in best-practice talent management systems results in bottom-line improvement in each of these key areas:- 1) Increase Revenue It was initially thought that companies that make more money were associated with better talent management practices only because they could afford them (.19 correlation), but the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index Study showed that talent management practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation). According to Watson Wyatts research 15% of profit performance is driven by: Management participation Open management style Taking some risks, but not too many Top managers spending 20% of time with customers Around 20% of top management should be outsiders Management training is deemed important Top managers are effectively incentivized Succession planning is done A good appraisal system is in place Employees get feedback In addition to supporting Becker and Huselids 1998 results, the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. The research quantified exactly how much an improvement in each practice could be expected to increase a companys market value. For example, a company that makes a significant improvement (one standard deviation) in all of the practices categorized under Total Rewards and Accountability should see its value improve by 16.5 percent, and a significant improvement in 43 key HR practices is associated with an increase of 47 percent in market value. Results included: 16.5% impact on company market value from total rewards and accountability 9% impact from a collegial, flexible workplace 7.9% impact from recruiting and retention excellence 7.1% impact from the integrity of communications 6.5% impact from the implementation of focused HR service technologies 33.9% loss from non-prudent use of resources Careful inspection of all the data shows that for every available correlation calculated over time, the relationship between past HR practices and future financial performance is stronger than the relationship between past financial outcomes and future HR practices. This is the first study to show that HR practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation) instead of inferring that companies that make more money can afford better HR practices (.19 correlation). Given companies of comparable size, those whos CEOs exhibited more emotional intelligence competencies showed better financial results as measured by both profit and growth. The divisions of leaders with a critical mass of strengths in emotional intelligence competencies outperformed revenue targets by a margin of 15-20 percent. 2) Customer Satisfaction Knowing and using the critical competencies associated with success creates results. The 1998 Watson Wyatt study, Competencies and the Competitive Edge, showed that when an organization identifies and communicates the core competencies that it needs to be successful in the present and the future, it has developed a powerful tool to help meet its goals. Competencies define and communicate an organizations strategy and help employees to understand that strategy and achieve its goals. The many roles that competencies can play in an organization include: Articulating what the organization values Providing a common language for employees and managers to describe value creation Establishing a new paradigm for human capital management programs (organizational levers) Focusing on the development of the individual instead of an organizational structure Linking pay, promotions and growth directly to what the organization values to be successful Guiding employees and managers to what is expected and how value is defined even in times of dramatic change and restructuring Competencies serve as a powerful communication vehicle to focus all members of the organization on the skills and activities that will create both value and wealth. Competency-based programs can make a difference to the bottom line. Analysis of the financial data clearly shows that companies with competency- based programs perform better in the marketplace. Such programs help focus the organization and all the individuals in it on what they can do to add value to the organization. Contributions are role-related rather than position-related. Adopting this view of contribution to value will help organizations think differently about their human resource and development programs. Organizations can focus on competencies needed for the future and identify the roles that employees do and must play. Programs that build employee commitment can bring great returns. Data from this and other Watson Wyatt studies clearly demonstrate that both individual and organizational performance increase when employees are committed to their companies. Ensuring that organizational levers that build employee commitment are in place and working will affect the bottom line. This was most notable when the competencies focused on attributes and behaviors that promoted customer satisfaction. Training is important, but it is no substitute for good management. A large majority of the organizations participating in Watson Wyatts study identified training and development as the driver of future corporate success. The high-performing companies identified it slightly more often than the others. Putting people first by adopting high performance management practices translates into improved morale, more innovation, better customer service, higher productivity, greater cost reduction, greater flexibility, and increased skills development. 3) Improve Quality Motor vehicle manufacturing firms in US implementing flexible production processes and associated practices for managing people enjoyed 47 percent better quality and 43 percent better productivity than firms relying on traditional mass-production approaches, according to a worldwide study by Wharton Schools John Paul McDuffie. Overall financial performance improved 3.8% per year for ten years when companies stayed with traditional talent management practices, 6.8% when they realized they needed to re-design their talent management practices, and 10.1% when they launched a completely new talent management system Watson Wyatts 2002 European Human Capital Index study shows that 36 key human capital variables (practices and policies) are associated with an almost 90% increase in value. 4) Increase Productivity Initial research on 740 companies HR practices found that those using high performance work systems (HPWS are defined as integrated talent management practices) had economically and statistically significantly higher levels of company performance. One standard deviation of improvement on their bell curve of integrated talent management systems was associated with changes in market value from $15,000 to $60,000 per employee. Employee productivity was calculated as the logarithm of net sales per employee using gross rate of return on assets (GRATE), which is less sensitive to depreciation and other non-cash transactions, and Tobins q, a future-oriented and risk-adjusted capital-market measure of performance that reflects both current and anticipated profitability and often mirrors the price that the market will pay for intangible assets (goodwill). Further research that included three US surveys and the experience of more than 2,400 companies continued to show significant impact of systems that select, maintain, develop, and reinforce employee performance on both market-based and accounting-based measures of company performance (while statistically controlling for RD investment, industry market changes, capital improvements, sales growth trends, etc.). Moving from the 60th percentile of integrated HPWS to the 80th percentile improved market valuation by $20,000 per employee. This reflects both operational excellence and alignment with the companys strategy. When the elements are present, but not aligned with the company strategy there is a 27% drop off in measured gains. Gallup Management Journal reported the following in 2001: †¢19% of all employees are actively disengaged from their jobs †¢55% of all employees are not engaged in their jobs and †¢26% of all employees are engaged in their jobs at a cost of $292-355 Billion per year to the US economy. Great people management equals great shareholder value: European companies with the best human capital management deliver around twice as much shareholder value as their average competitors. 5) Reduce Cost ASTD and SHRM studies companies that is renowned for their ability to retain top talent (Linbeck, Kennedy Rossi, Zachary, Dow Chemical, Edward Jones, Great Plains, Sears, and Southwest Airlines). One key finding was that all of these companies implemented competency-based position profiles so that employees understood the skills and abilities required to move into leadership positions. They must also avoid wasting their money on bad human capital investments: The 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. Additionally, one dimension, Prudent Use of Resources identifies six practices that diminish shareholder value (e.g. training that is not connected to the business objectives and not evaluated for ROI). A new book shows how Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, Starbucks, Singapore Airlines and 20 other world-class organizations are luring and holding high-quality employees. One senior executive said, Microsoft has a market capitalization of $450 billion, the largest in the world. If you add up every desk and chair, every computer, every building, every piece of land, everything we own, including the $17 billion or so we have in the bank, it comes to about $30 billion. If you then add in things like goodwill and other financial assets, maybe youll come up with another $70 billion, if you really struggle. But that means that there is $350 billion more that people have given us credit for that is not there. What is it? Well, its the stuff in smart peoples heads. With that knowledge Microsoft has built and maintains a human capital management system very similar to Mundo Strategies system to prevent employees from wanting to leave the company even as the stock took a beating in the past few years. Supervisors who received training in how to listen better and resolve employee problems found that lost-time accidents were cut by 50 percent, formal grievances were reduced from 15 to 3 per year, and productivity goals were exceeded. Retention is one of the more obvious areas that effective talent management practices can affect. What attracts and retains high performers? 79% stay because of opportunities for advancement 69% stay because their job is redesigned 65% stay because they are learning new skills in their current job. Why do high performers resign? 56% leave because they are dissatisfied with company management 56% leave due to inadequate opportunity for promotion 50% leave due to dissatisfaction with pay 6) Reduce Cycle Time There is very little research into the impact of talent management practices on company cycle time. One classic work on cycle time showed that steel mini-mills using a high-commitment approach to management required 34 percent fewer labor hours to make a ton of steel and had a 64 percent better scrap rate than mini-mills using a command and control approach. 7) Increase Return to Shareholders Market Capitalization The five highest return to shareholders from 1972-1992 (Southwest Airlines Co. 21,775%, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 19,897%, Tyson Foods, Inc. 18,118%, Circuit City Stores, Inc. 16,410%, and Plenum Publishing 15,689%) differentiated themselves from their competitors and the market only through the way they managed their people during the infancy of talent management. Whereas at the start of the 1990s studying its earnings and fixed assets and adding a token amount for goodwill invariably gauged a companys stock market valuation, by the end of the decade a seismic shift had taken place. When accountants Ernst Young came to look at the issue, they found that the largest slice of most companies market capitalization was held in intangibles primarily, the talent, knowledge and teamwork of its staff. In high-tech companies like Nokia, the percentage was as high as 95 per cent; but even old economy stalwarts like BP, despite its huge investments in oil platforms and exploration equipment, notched up a significant 74 per cent. The upshot was that even companies operating in the same sector with similar earnings could experience widely differing stock valuations. Those ignoring the new emphasis on intangibles invariably found themselves penalized by the markets. Watson Wyatt also reported that a 26% increase in market value in 2000 was driven by common talent management best practices: Use of knowledge and contract workers Recruiting excellence Consistent pan-European HR practices Good union-management relations Lack of hierarchy, clear leadership Teamwork and 360 ° feedback Customer-focused environment Remuneration Sharing information with employees The difference between a non-strategic HR system and one that has removed the barriers to performance are dramatic. Improving the relative sophistication of the HR system by adopting best practices does not provide measurable value (20%-60% adoption of a strategic HR system). Integrating the strategic elements of HR into the broader fabric of the organization provides a significant improvement in shareholder value (60%-80%). When HR systems have adopted best practices and aligned those systems with business priorities and initiatives they return the greatest shareholder value (80%-100%). The five-year survival rates of initial public offering showed that firms whose talent management practices scored in the top one-sixth of IPO firms had a 33 percent higher probability of surviving than those in the lowest one-sixth. Firms in the upper one-sixth in providing financial rewards to all employees, not just managers, had almost twice as much chance of surviving for five years, according to research by Theresa Welbourne of Cornell and Alice Andrews of Vanderbilt. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR Taking a systemic approach to talent management Getting the right people in pivotal roles at the right time should be nothing new to HR professionals, but done effectively, talent management can create longterm organizational success. Here, Lynne Morton and Chris Ashton show how to align talent management strategies to business goals, integrate all related processes and systems and create a talent mindset in organization. TALENT MANAGEMENT (TM) IS more than a new language for old HR work, or just the next hot new thing for HR practitioners and managers to get involved in. For many organizations, it has become a strategic imperative. McKinsey research1 reveals that 75 percent of corporate officers were concerned about talent shortages and Deloitte reports that retaining the best talent is a top priority for 87 percent of surveyed HR directors. This need for talent and, therefore, its expert management is also driven by macro trends including: †¢ New cycles of business growth, often requiring different kinds of talent. †¢ Changing workforce demographics with reducing labor pools and, therefore, a talent squeeze. †¢ More complex economic conditions which require segregated talent and TM. †¢ The emergence of new enterprises which suck talent from larger organizations. †¢ A global focus on leadership which is now permeating many levels of organizations. The strategic importance of talent management:- On the basis of substantive research undertaken for our forthcoming report , they argue that good TM is of strategic importance and can differentiate an organization when it becomes a core competence and when its talent significantly improves strategy execution and operational excellence. For example, imagine your company has the right talent in pivotal roles at the right time. What difference will these people make to revenues, innovation and organization effectiveness compared with having to operate without them? What is the cost of the lost opportunities and the downtime and replacement costs of losing critical talent? What are the consequences of having to make do with the wrong kind of leaders and managers in the top two executive layers or of not having successors groomed and ready to replace them? Yet generally, organizations still struggle with TM. According to research, three-quarters of business leaders have invested dedicated resources in TM but most say they havent yet felt the impact of doing so.3 Why not? Through one of the research, they tried to provide reasons by asking these questions: †¢ Why are they doing TM? Is it for the individual, the organization or both? †¢ What do they mean by talent and talent management? †¢ What are their propositions for attracting and retaining talent? †¢ How do they manage and use the talent in their organization needs? †¢ How are internal roles and resources deployed appropriately to support TM? †¢ How is TM integrated across HR processes and with business planning and strategy execution processes? Talent management at FDC its focus, leadership, acquisition, retention, evaluation and tools has evolved over five years, and continues to be a work in progress. The evolving talent plan aligns with goals, business strategy and their organizational implications. The talent office annually reviews analytics and recalibrates talent to align with growth and other organizational needs. The current growth objective is 15 percent. Ours is a numbers business, which tends to reflect a short-term view, says Annmarie Neal, senior VP, organization development. Yet, we also have to build a leadership bench and talent pools, not around the execution capabilities were known for, but on a customer-solutions focus and strategic foresight. Investments in talent arent short-term they need at least three-year horizons to see returns. The key issue for FDC is to accurately identify high potentials with different capabilities such as strategic thinking, partnership building, results orientation, innovation and talent leadership and then build succession depth. In effect, they are building talent balanced with buying it, guided by the notion of critical positions that is, those positions that positively impact on the strategic goals or their execution. They are now applying their processes for identifying, assessing and growing future leaders to our more junior, untested populations who we expect to be our next VPs. Technology, as Neal explains, has allowed them to do more in depth and breadth with the same headcount. TM initiatives at FDC include: †¢ Talent profiling of individuals. †¢ Conducting calibrations of business performance and key results behaviors. †¢ Assessing and forecasting succession depth. †¢ Implementing organizational assessment summaries to give status reports for leadership talent. †¢ Using just-in-time, action-learning programs and talent-sharing assignments. †¢ Developing talent at risk tools based on potential derailers and defection triggers. †¢ Introducing a talent scorecard with five perspectives, each of which has critical indicators hiring. As we see it, TM is a strategic and holistic approach to both HR and business planning or a new route to organizational effectiveness. This improves the performance and the potential of people the talent who can make a measurable difference to the organization now and in future. And it aspires to yield enhanced performance among all levels in the workforce, thus allowing everyone to reach his/her potential, no matter what that might be. Though this interpretation of talent is inclusive, it strikes a strategic balance between performance and potential. Performance historically, the primary focus of measurement and management concerns both the past and the present, whereas potential represents the future. Our position assumes that potential exists, it can be identified and it can be developed. Here are specific ways that two case organizations inthe report define talent: †¢ Executive management team leaders, directors/VPs and A-player managers in all functions plus Bplayers as potentials. †¢ Future business leaders with more strategic capabilities than just operational excellence skills -plus specialist talent able to execute business integration projects on time and to budget. Clearly, there isnt a single consistent or concise definition. Current or historic cultural attributes may play a part in defining talent, as will more egalitarian business models. Many organizations acknowledge that talent, if aligned with business strategy or the operational parameters of strategy execution will change in definition as strategic priorities change. For example, in start-up businesses, the talent emphasis will be different to the innovative or creative talent needed to bring new products to market. Any definition needs to be fluid as business drivers change, so will the definitions of talent. What TM involves Talent management is the integration of different initiatives, or constructs, into a coherent framework of activity. There are certain crucial components and a useful model for defining TM is to think of it in these key words: †¢ Ethos embedding values and behavior, known as atalent mindset, to support the view that everyone has potential worth developing. †¢ Focus knowing which jobs make a difference and making sure that the right people hold those jobs at the right time. †¢ Positioning starting at the top of the organization and cascading throughout the management levels to make this a management, not HR, initiative. †¢ Structure creating tools, processes and techniques with defined accountability to ensure that the work gets done. †¢ System facilitating a long-term and holistic approach to generate change. Integrating TM through a system Its worth emphasizing that integration is critical. Our research shows that without integrating TM activities, the effort invested will tend to be dissipated with patchy results. Integration is knowing how all the pieces of TM fit together within a TM system. This will not operate in isolation from strategy, business planning and the organizations approach to people management. In this sense, the work of talent management cuts across what has been traditional HR silos. If integrated, it functions in a more facilitative, OD-like nature. It will also reach higher up the organization than other HR initiatives, often attracting the attention of boards and senior teams. Similarly, TM reaches down the organization, to include new recruits along with tenured professionals. Lastly, talent planning must be done in parallel with business planning, creating a rich integration of people and strategy. One way of achieving such system integration and alignment is the CRF Talent Management System (see Figure 1, above right). This systemic view of talent has five elements: Need the business need derived from the business model and competitive issues. Data collection the fundamental data and intelligence critical for good talent decisions. Planning people/talent planning guided by data analysis. Activities the conversion of plans into integrated sets of activities. Results costs, measures and effectiveness criteria to judge the value and impacts of TM Using this system can help TM become a strategic differentiator rather than a standard set of HR processes if the right conditions, context, timescales and offerings exist in the first place. System integration and alignment ensures that TM efforts are rational and fit for purpose. Since the arrival of the current era of talent is widely acknowledged, its not surprising that renewed significance is being placed on the management of that talent. And as talent continues to be viewed as a strategic differentiator, its management will take more of a strategic role. How fascinating it will be to take the pulse of talent management in the business community in another five years. We believe that while the management of talent will most likely become embedded in the fiber of cultures by then, the HR executives who led those initiatives will have achieved much more prominence. OBJECTIVES OF TALENT MANAGEMENT: There are some basic objectives which need to be fulfilled by the US corporate sector while applying Talent Management in the organisation and the objectives are:- 1) TO DETECT TALENT:- It is very important for the US corporate sector to determine or detect their best talent for the organisation and this Talent Management helps the selector to select the best talent among the pool of various alternatives present in the organisation. Because the best talent helps in generating more and more good ideas which help organisation to achieve or innovate something new. As Talent Management helps in detecting best talent of the organisation within the organisation, this helps organisation to achieve their goal more efficiently and effectively which are set by the organisation. 2) TO DEVELOP TALENT:- After detecting the talent in the organisation the US corporate next step for applying Talent Management is to develop the talent. It is not necessary that every person has a some talent in him or her but talent can also be developed through regular practice such as training, educating, providing them with the basic guidelines of the respective talent so that the talent of any person can be used for the effective utilization of the talent for the sake of the organisation which will be helpful for the organisation to came up with a new idea with the help of talent which will provide them with the best competencies among the competitor so that they can stay in long run of the business giving tough competition to their competitors and by developing talent US corporate sector tried to change the scenario of the employees by developing their talent and making them more confident, reliable and motivating factor for themselves and for others too which improves the behaviour and efficiency t o work. There is a huge change when a person come to some hidden talent in him and this makes them to be more responsible to the work and take the work as natural as play 3) TO MAKE TALENTS MORE RELIABLE:- Talent Management helps in making talent more reliable and US corporate sector use the Talent Management as their one of the important tool for making their employees talent more reliable as talent management helps in detecting and developing talent by the different mode they used while developing their talent they make the employees to be more confident in their talent which makes them more reliable which means that they will be confident in using their talent and organisation can rely on their talent while doing or making effective decision. Until and unless employees believe themselves in their talent then the organisation too will not have any faith on the employee and US corporate sector never keep such employees in the organisation as US corporate sector is best known for their talent and technologies and the technology is the result of the talent only. 4) TO PROMOTE TALENTS TO STRATEGIC PROJECTS OR TO HIGHER POSITION:- Talent Management helps in promoting talent to strategic projects or to the higher position because US corporate sector that every talent should be given their own position. If the talent deserves higher position then he should be given the higher position irrespective of any other things which might be taken in account such as education or qualification. They think that if the post deserves that talent then that talent should be given that post. When talent is promoted it acts as a motivating tool for the employees to make them more responsible and work towards the achievement of the goal set by the organisation which also enhance their style and attitude towards their work. Talent Management in the Corporate Sector Talent Management in the Corporate Sector A Talent Management INTRODUCTION:- Talent management is the process that emerged in 1990 and continues to be adopted, as more companies came to realize that their employees talent, skills drive their business success. Companies that have put into practice talent management have done so to solve an employee retention problem. The issue with many companies today is that many organizations put tremendous effort into attracting employees to their company, but spend little time into retaining and developing talent. A talent management system must be worked into the business strategy and implemented in daily processes throughout the company as a whole. It cannot be left solely to the human resources department to attract and retain employees, but rather must be practiced at all levels of the organization. The business strategy must include responsibilities for line managers to develop the skills of their immediate subordinates. Divisions within the company should be openly sharing information with other departments in order for employees to gain knowledge of the overall organizational objectives. Talent management refers to the process of developing and integrating new workers, developing and retaining current workers, and attracting highly skilled workers to work for your company. Talent management in this context does not refer to the management of entertainers. The term was coined by David Watkins of Softscape published in an article in 1998. The process of attracting and retaining profitable employees, as it is increasingly more competitive between firms and of strategic importance, has come to be known as the war for talent. IMPORTANCE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR US sector always want to grow and improve their system and processes must focus on people practices that allow or foster their growth and improvement. The best practices are known. The key variables (leadership competencies, experience and skill, interest rewards) that motivate people to succeed have been identified and successfully put into practice. Talent Management is no loger a cutting-edge field being solely tapped by pioneers. It is a viable path towards and improving organizational performance. Integrated, strategically aligned human capital asset management systems have provided significant economic benefits to companies that have embraced them as ongoing processes instead of one-time events. Research done on the value of such systems to companies consistently finds benefits in these seven critical economic areas: revenue, customer satisfaction, quality, productivity, cost, cycle time, and market capitalization. This research clearly shows that adopting and investing in best-practice talent management systems results in bottom-line improvement in each of these key areas:- 1) Increase Revenue It was initially thought that companies that make more money were associated with better talent management practices only because they could afford them (.19 correlation), but the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index Study showed that talent management practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation). According to Watson Wyatts research 15% of profit performance is driven by: Management participation Open management style Taking some risks, but not too many Top managers spending 20% of time with customers Around 20% of top management should be outsiders Management training is deemed important Top managers are effectively incentivized Succession planning is done A good appraisal system is in place Employees get feedback In addition to supporting Becker and Huselids 1998 results, the 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. The research quantified exactly how much an improvement in each practice could be expected to increase a companys market value. For example, a company that makes a significant improvement (one standard deviation) in all of the practices categorized under Total Rewards and Accountability should see its value improve by 16.5 percent, and a significant improvement in 43 key HR practices is associated with an increase of 47 percent in market value. Results included: 16.5% impact on company market value from total rewards and accountability 9% impact from a collegial, flexible workplace 7.9% impact from recruiting and retention excellence 7.1% impact from the integrity of communications 6.5% impact from the implementation of focused HR service technologies 33.9% loss from non-prudent use of resources Careful inspection of all the data shows that for every available correlation calculated over time, the relationship between past HR practices and future financial performance is stronger than the relationship between past financial outcomes and future HR practices. This is the first study to show that HR practices actually increase financial performance (.41 correlation) instead of inferring that companies that make more money can afford better HR practices (.19 correlation). Given companies of comparable size, those whos CEOs exhibited more emotional intelligence competencies showed better financial results as measured by both profit and growth. The divisions of leaders with a critical mass of strengths in emotional intelligence competencies outperformed revenue targets by a margin of 15-20 percent. 2) Customer Satisfaction Knowing and using the critical competencies associated with success creates results. The 1998 Watson Wyatt study, Competencies and the Competitive Edge, showed that when an organization identifies and communicates the core competencies that it needs to be successful in the present and the future, it has developed a powerful tool to help meet its goals. Competencies define and communicate an organizations strategy and help employees to understand that strategy and achieve its goals. The many roles that competencies can play in an organization include: Articulating what the organization values Providing a common language for employees and managers to describe value creation Establishing a new paradigm for human capital management programs (organizational levers) Focusing on the development of the individual instead of an organizational structure Linking pay, promotions and growth directly to what the organization values to be successful Guiding employees and managers to what is expected and how value is defined even in times of dramatic change and restructuring Competencies serve as a powerful communication vehicle to focus all members of the organization on the skills and activities that will create both value and wealth. Competency-based programs can make a difference to the bottom line. Analysis of the financial data clearly shows that companies with competency- based programs perform better in the marketplace. Such programs help focus the organization and all the individuals in it on what they can do to add value to the organization. Contributions are role-related rather than position-related. Adopting this view of contribution to value will help organizations think differently about their human resource and development programs. Organizations can focus on competencies needed for the future and identify the roles that employees do and must play. Programs that build employee commitment can bring great returns. Data from this and other Watson Wyatt studies clearly demonstrate that both individual and organizational performance increase when employees are committed to their companies. Ensuring that organizational levers that build employee commitment are in place and working will affect the bottom line. This was most notable when the competencies focused on attributes and behaviors that promoted customer satisfaction. Training is important, but it is no substitute for good management. A large majority of the organizations participating in Watson Wyatts study identified training and development as the driver of future corporate success. The high-performing companies identified it slightly more often than the others. Putting people first by adopting high performance management practices translates into improved morale, more innovation, better customer service, higher productivity, greater cost reduction, greater flexibility, and increased skills development. 3) Improve Quality Motor vehicle manufacturing firms in US implementing flexible production processes and associated practices for managing people enjoyed 47 percent better quality and 43 percent better productivity than firms relying on traditional mass-production approaches, according to a worldwide study by Wharton Schools John Paul McDuffie. Overall financial performance improved 3.8% per year for ten years when companies stayed with traditional talent management practices, 6.8% when they realized they needed to re-design their talent management practices, and 10.1% when they launched a completely new talent management system Watson Wyatts 2002 European Human Capital Index study shows that 36 key human capital variables (practices and policies) are associated with an almost 90% increase in value. 4) Increase Productivity Initial research on 740 companies HR practices found that those using high performance work systems (HPWS are defined as integrated talent management practices) had economically and statistically significantly higher levels of company performance. One standard deviation of improvement on their bell curve of integrated talent management systems was associated with changes in market value from $15,000 to $60,000 per employee. Employee productivity was calculated as the logarithm of net sales per employee using gross rate of return on assets (GRATE), which is less sensitive to depreciation and other non-cash transactions, and Tobins q, a future-oriented and risk-adjusted capital-market measure of performance that reflects both current and anticipated profitability and often mirrors the price that the market will pay for intangible assets (goodwill). Further research that included three US surveys and the experience of more than 2,400 companies continued to show significant impact of systems that select, maintain, develop, and reinforce employee performance on both market-based and accounting-based measures of company performance (while statistically controlling for RD investment, industry market changes, capital improvements, sales growth trends, etc.). Moving from the 60th percentile of integrated HPWS to the 80th percentile improved market valuation by $20,000 per employee. This reflects both operational excellence and alignment with the companys strategy. When the elements are present, but not aligned with the company strategy there is a 27% drop off in measured gains. Gallup Management Journal reported the following in 2001: †¢19% of all employees are actively disengaged from their jobs †¢55% of all employees are not engaged in their jobs and †¢26% of all employees are engaged in their jobs at a cost of $292-355 Billion per year to the US economy. Great people management equals great shareholder value: European companies with the best human capital management deliver around twice as much shareholder value as their average competitors. 5) Reduce Cost ASTD and SHRM studies companies that is renowned for their ability to retain top talent (Linbeck, Kennedy Rossi, Zachary, Dow Chemical, Edward Jones, Great Plains, Sears, and Southwest Airlines). One key finding was that all of these companies implemented competency-based position profiles so that employees understood the skills and abilities required to move into leadership positions. They must also avoid wasting their money on bad human capital investments: The 2001 Watson Wyatt Human Capital Index study showed precisely which HR practices have an impact on the bottom line. 49 specific HR practices across 6 dimensions played the greatest role in creating shareholder value. Additionally, one dimension, Prudent Use of Resources identifies six practices that diminish shareholder value (e.g. training that is not connected to the business objectives and not evaluated for ROI). A new book shows how Microsoft, Intel, Nokia, Starbucks, Singapore Airlines and 20 other world-class organizations are luring and holding high-quality employees. One senior executive said, Microsoft has a market capitalization of $450 billion, the largest in the world. If you add up every desk and chair, every computer, every building, every piece of land, everything we own, including the $17 billion or so we have in the bank, it comes to about $30 billion. If you then add in things like goodwill and other financial assets, maybe youll come up with another $70 billion, if you really struggle. But that means that there is $350 billion more that people have given us credit for that is not there. What is it? Well, its the stuff in smart peoples heads. With that knowledge Microsoft has built and maintains a human capital management system very similar to Mundo Strategies system to prevent employees from wanting to leave the company even as the stock took a beating in the past few years. Supervisors who received training in how to listen better and resolve employee problems found that lost-time accidents were cut by 50 percent, formal grievances were reduced from 15 to 3 per year, and productivity goals were exceeded. Retention is one of the more obvious areas that effective talent management practices can affect. What attracts and retains high performers? 79% stay because of opportunities for advancement 69% stay because their job is redesigned 65% stay because they are learning new skills in their current job. Why do high performers resign? 56% leave because they are dissatisfied with company management 56% leave due to inadequate opportunity for promotion 50% leave due to dissatisfaction with pay 6) Reduce Cycle Time There is very little research into the impact of talent management practices on company cycle time. One classic work on cycle time showed that steel mini-mills using a high-commitment approach to management required 34 percent fewer labor hours to make a ton of steel and had a 64 percent better scrap rate than mini-mills using a command and control approach. 7) Increase Return to Shareholders Market Capitalization The five highest return to shareholders from 1972-1992 (Southwest Airlines Co. 21,775%, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 19,897%, Tyson Foods, Inc. 18,118%, Circuit City Stores, Inc. 16,410%, and Plenum Publishing 15,689%) differentiated themselves from their competitors and the market only through the way they managed their people during the infancy of talent management. Whereas at the start of the 1990s studying its earnings and fixed assets and adding a token amount for goodwill invariably gauged a companys stock market valuation, by the end of the decade a seismic shift had taken place. When accountants Ernst Young came to look at the issue, they found that the largest slice of most companies market capitalization was held in intangibles primarily, the talent, knowledge and teamwork of its staff. In high-tech companies like Nokia, the percentage was as high as 95 per cent; but even old economy stalwarts like BP, despite its huge investments in oil platforms and exploration equipment, notched up a significant 74 per cent. The upshot was that even companies operating in the same sector with similar earnings could experience widely differing stock valuations. Those ignoring the new emphasis on intangibles invariably found themselves penalized by the markets. Watson Wyatt also reported that a 26% increase in market value in 2000 was driven by common talent management best practices: Use of knowledge and contract workers Recruiting excellence Consistent pan-European HR practices Good union-management relations Lack of hierarchy, clear leadership Teamwork and 360 ° feedback Customer-focused environment Remuneration Sharing information with employees The difference between a non-strategic HR system and one that has removed the barriers to performance are dramatic. Improving the relative sophistication of the HR system by adopting best practices does not provide measurable value (20%-60% adoption of a strategic HR system). Integrating the strategic elements of HR into the broader fabric of the organization provides a significant improvement in shareholder value (60%-80%). When HR systems have adopted best practices and aligned those systems with business priorities and initiatives they return the greatest shareholder value (80%-100%). The five-year survival rates of initial public offering showed that firms whose talent management practices scored in the top one-sixth of IPO firms had a 33 percent higher probability of surviving than those in the lowest one-sixth. Firms in the upper one-sixth in providing financial rewards to all employees, not just managers, had almost twice as much chance of surviving for five years, according to research by Theresa Welbourne of Cornell and Alice Andrews of Vanderbilt. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OF TALENT MANAGEMENT IN US CORPORATE SECTOR Taking a systemic approach to talent management Getting the right people in pivotal roles at the right time should be nothing new to HR professionals, but done effectively, talent management can create longterm organizational success. Here, Lynne Morton and Chris Ashton show how to align talent management strategies to business goals, integrate all related processes and systems and create a talent mindset in organization. TALENT MANAGEMENT (TM) IS more than a new language for old HR work, or just the next hot new thing for HR practitioners and managers to get involved in. For many organizations, it has become a strategic imperative. McKinsey research1 reveals that 75 percent of corporate officers were concerned about talent shortages and Deloitte reports that retaining the best talent is a top priority for 87 percent of surveyed HR directors. This need for talent and, therefore, its expert management is also driven by macro trends including: †¢ New cycles of business growth, often requiring different kinds of talent. †¢ Changing workforce demographics with reducing labor pools and, therefore, a talent squeeze. †¢ More complex economic conditions which require segregated talent and TM. †¢ The emergence of new enterprises which suck talent from larger organizations. †¢ A global focus on leadership which is now permeating many levels of organizations. The strategic importance of talent management:- On the basis of substantive research undertaken for our forthcoming report , they argue that good TM is of strategic importance and can differentiate an organization when it becomes a core competence and when its talent significantly improves strategy execution and operational excellence. For example, imagine your company has the right talent in pivotal roles at the right time. What difference will these people make to revenues, innovation and organization effectiveness compared with having to operate without them? What is the cost of the lost opportunities and the downtime and replacement costs of losing critical talent? What are the consequences of having to make do with the wrong kind of leaders and managers in the top two executive layers or of not having successors groomed and ready to replace them? Yet generally, organizations still struggle with TM. According to research, three-quarters of business leaders have invested dedicated resources in TM but most say they havent yet felt the impact of doing so.3 Why not? Through one of the research, they tried to provide reasons by asking these questions: †¢ Why are they doing TM? Is it for the individual, the organization or both? †¢ What do they mean by talent and talent management? †¢ What are their propositions for attracting and retaining talent? †¢ How do they manage and use the talent in their organization needs? †¢ How are internal roles and resources deployed appropriately to support TM? †¢ How is TM integrated across HR processes and with business planning and strategy execution processes? Talent management at FDC its focus, leadership, acquisition, retention, evaluation and tools has evolved over five years, and continues to be a work in progress. The evolving talent plan aligns with goals, business strategy and their organizational implications. The talent office annually reviews analytics and recalibrates talent to align with growth and other organizational needs. The current growth objective is 15 percent. Ours is a numbers business, which tends to reflect a short-term view, says Annmarie Neal, senior VP, organization development. Yet, we also have to build a leadership bench and talent pools, not around the execution capabilities were known for, but on a customer-solutions focus and strategic foresight. Investments in talent arent short-term they need at least three-year horizons to see returns. The key issue for FDC is to accurately identify high potentials with different capabilities such as strategic thinking, partnership building, results orientation, innovation and talent leadership and then build succession depth. In effect, they are building talent balanced with buying it, guided by the notion of critical positions that is, those positions that positively impact on the strategic goals or their execution. They are now applying their processes for identifying, assessing and growing future leaders to our more junior, untested populations who we expect to be our next VPs. Technology, as Neal explains, has allowed them to do more in depth and breadth with the same headcount. TM initiatives at FDC include: †¢ Talent profiling of individuals. †¢ Conducting calibrations of business performance and key results behaviors. †¢ Assessing and forecasting succession depth. †¢ Implementing organizational assessment summaries to give status reports for leadership talent. †¢ Using just-in-time, action-learning programs and talent-sharing assignments. †¢ Developing talent at risk tools based on potential derailers and defection triggers. †¢ Introducing a talent scorecard with five perspectives, each of which has critical indicators hiring. As we see it, TM is a strategic and holistic approach to both HR and business planning or a new route to organizational effectiveness. This improves the performance and the potential of people the talent who can make a measurable difference to the organization now and in future. And it aspires to yield enhanced performance among all levels in the workforce, thus allowing everyone to reach his/her potential, no matter what that might be. Though this interpretation of talent is inclusive, it strikes a strategic balance between performance and potential. Performance historically, the primary focus of measurement and management concerns both the past and the present, whereas potential represents the future. Our position assumes that potential exists, it can be identified and it can be developed. Here are specific ways that two case organizations inthe report define talent: †¢ Executive management team leaders, directors/VPs and A-player managers in all functions plus Bplayers as potentials. †¢ Future business leaders with more strategic capabilities than just operational excellence skills -plus specialist talent able to execute business integration projects on time and to budget. Clearly, there isnt a single consistent or concise definition. Current or historic cultural attributes may play a part in defining talent, as will more egalitarian business models. Many organizations acknowledge that talent, if aligned with business strategy or the operational parameters of strategy execution will change in definition as strategic priorities change. For example, in start-up businesses, the talent emphasis will be different to the innovative or creative talent needed to bring new products to market. Any definition needs to be fluid as business drivers change, so will the definitions of talent. What TM involves Talent management is the integration of different initiatives, or constructs, into a coherent framework of activity. There are certain crucial components and a useful model for defining TM is to think of it in these key words: †¢ Ethos embedding values and behavior, known as atalent mindset, to support the view that everyone has potential worth developing. †¢ Focus knowing which jobs make a difference and making sure that the right people hold those jobs at the right time. †¢ Positioning starting at the top of the organization and cascading throughout the management levels to make this a management, not HR, initiative. †¢ Structure creating tools, processes and techniques with defined accountability to ensure that the work gets done. †¢ System facilitating a long-term and holistic approach to generate change. Integrating TM through a system Its worth emphasizing that integration is critical. Our research shows that without integrating TM activities, the effort invested will tend to be dissipated with patchy results. Integration is knowing how all the pieces of TM fit together within a TM system. This will not operate in isolation from strategy, business planning and the organizations approach to people management. In this sense, the work of talent management cuts across what has been traditional HR silos. If integrated, it functions in a more facilitative, OD-like nature. It will also reach higher up the organization than other HR initiatives, often attracting the attention of boards and senior teams. Similarly, TM reaches down the organization, to include new recruits along with tenured professionals. Lastly, talent planning must be done in parallel with business planning, creating a rich integration of people and strategy. One way of achieving such system integration and alignment is the CRF Talent Management System (see Figure 1, above right). This systemic view of talent has five elements: Need the business need derived from the business model and competitive issues. Data collection the fundamental data and intelligence critical for good talent decisions. Planning people/talent planning guided by data analysis. Activities the conversion of plans into integrated sets of activities. Results costs, measures and effectiveness criteria to judge the value and impacts of TM Using this system can help TM become a strategic differentiator rather than a standard set of HR processes if the right conditions, context, timescales and offerings exist in the first place. System integration and alignment ensures that TM efforts are rational and fit for purpose. Since the arrival of the current era of talent is widely acknowledged, its not surprising that renewed significance is being placed on the management of that talent. And as talent continues to be viewed as a strategic differentiator, its management will take more of a strategic role. How fascinating it will be to take the pulse of talent management in the business community in another five years. We believe that while the management of talent will most likely become embedded in the fiber of cultures by then, the HR executives who led those initiatives will have achieved much more prominence. OBJECTIVES OF TALENT MANAGEMENT: There are some basic objectives which need to be fulfilled by the US corporate sector while applying Talent Management in the organisation and the objectives are:- 1) TO DETECT TALENT:- It is very important for the US corporate sector to determine or detect their best talent for the organisation and this Talent Management helps the selector to select the best talent among the pool of various alternatives present in the organisation. Because the best talent helps in generating more and more good ideas which help organisation to achieve or innovate something new. As Talent Management helps in detecting best talent of the organisation within the organisation, this helps organisation to achieve their goal more efficiently and effectively which are set by the organisation. 2) TO DEVELOP TALENT:- After detecting the talent in the organisation the US corporate next step for applying Talent Management is to develop the talent. It is not necessary that every person has a some talent in him or her but talent can also be developed through regular practice such as training, educating, providing them with the basic guidelines of the respective talent so that the talent of any person can be used for the effective utilization of the talent for the sake of the organisation which will be helpful for the organisation to came up with a new idea with the help of talent which will provide them with the best competencies among the competitor so that they can stay in long run of the business giving tough competition to their competitors and by developing talent US corporate sector tried to change the scenario of the employees by developing their talent and making them more confident, reliable and motivating factor for themselves and for others too which improves the behaviour and efficiency t o work. There is a huge change when a person come to some hidden talent in him and this makes them to be more responsible to the work and take the work as natural as play 3) TO MAKE TALENTS MORE RELIABLE:- Talent Management helps in making talent more reliable and US corporate sector use the Talent Management as their one of the important tool for making their employees talent more reliable as talent management helps in detecting and developing talent by the different mode they used while developing their talent they make the employees to be more confident in their talent which makes them more reliable which means that they will be confident in using their talent and organisation can rely on their talent while doing or making effective decision. Until and unless employees believe themselves in their talent then the organisation too will not have any faith on the employee and US corporate sector never keep such employees in the organisation as US corporate sector is best known for their talent and technologies and the technology is the result of the talent only. 4) TO PROMOTE TALENTS TO STRATEGIC PROJECTS OR TO HIGHER POSITION:- Talent Management helps in promoting talent to strategic projects or to the higher position because US corporate sector that every talent should be given their own position. If the talent deserves higher position then he should be given the higher position irrespective of any other things which might be taken in account such as education or qualification. They think that if the post deserves that talent then that talent should be given that post. When talent is promoted it acts as a motivating tool for the employees to make them more responsible and work towards the achievement of the goal set by the organisation which also enhance their style and attitude towards their work.

Is there a Link between Season of Birth and Depression?

Is there a Link between Season of Birth and Depression? Jaanki-Radha Patel Lay Abstract There have been a number of studies conducted to find causes for, and reasons behind depression, and why it affects so many people around the world. One suggestible cause is season of birth. Some studies have shown that the environment can affect ones risk of developing depression, as humans grow a great deal during their first year of life, and the environment varies greatly depending on the season. This literature review will gather together these studies, discuss their findings and analyse their reliability in order to discern the possibility of a link. Scientific Abstract Introduction Mental illness has increasingly become a more prominent aspect of health in the past decade, and with this, investigative research into its origins and causes has surged. A single consideration of this is season of birth, as it has been recorded a number of times that varying factors, both during pregnancy, and postnatally, have significant impacts upon the brain, in both structure and function. Depression is known as the worlds largest leading cause of disability, affecting 350 million people worldwide.[1] This, in itself, is enough reason to consider research into the causes behind depression as vastly important to both medicine and society. Further investigation into mental health and its causation can provide better care to patients, as well as improving and increasing awareness of the devastating effects of depression worldwide. Whilst there are number of theories surrounding the causes of depression, it has become evident that no single factor is necessarily causative; furthermore, a correlation does not necessarily determine causation. This literature review will discuss season of birth and the hand it may play in mental illness, and more specifically, depression. Studies over the years have suggested a relationship between a birth in the autumn and winter months with an increased risk of developing mental illness, particularly in those with a genetic predisposition. These studies will also be appraised with regards to their approach to research, and the relative accuracy and reliability of their results; thus providing us with a more conclusive view on how season of birth could link to depression. There are a number of suggestions of how season of birth could affect ones health, some of which are more established within the scientific community; as example of such is that of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD). SAD is defined as recurring episodes of major depression during certain times of the year, more specifically, in winter. The pathological mechanisms behind SAD are believed to be changes in exposure to light; this notion is fortified by the resounding success of light therapy, which has been the focus of seasonal affective disorder treatment since the 1980s.[2][3] Research has found that patients with seasonal affective disorder were more frequently born in the autumn or winter, and less often in the spring or summer, compared with atypical depression. It was therefore concluded that when genetic factors were accounted for, season of birth could play a part in the development of SAD. However, more   research was required to observe the underlying mechanisms for this correlation. Further investigation into season of birth and its potential relationship with mental health has since been performed, and there are various suggestions as to how season of birth can affect exposure of light, infection and nutrients to a developing foetus, and a newborn child. These studies have found a correlation between changes in exposure to environmental factors to specific diseases such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. In fact, it was found that risk of developing schizophrenia or bipolar affective disorder later in life followed a seasonal distribution; hence directing towards an environmental factor as being potentially causative in disease. Vitamin D As the seasons change, the climate in which a foetus or young child develops, also changes; there are alterations in diet, sunlight, and infection. Researchers also found evidence that suggests that vitamin D deficiency could be causative in the development of psychiatric conditions.      Ã‚   Vitamin D has previously shown itself as pivotal in healthy neurodevelopment of the foetus.[4] The role of vitamin D was only found to have a significant impact on the risk of schizophrenia; whilst links were found to bipolar affective disorder, they were not as significant, and some factors, such as increasing latitude,[5] are believed to have much a much greater impact upon the risk of developing psychiatric conditions.[6] Nevertheless, as vitamin D is crucial in healthy neurodevelopment, it is of note that patients with mental illnesses are shown to have differences in brain structure, more specifically, structural differences in the left superior temporal gyrus.[7] The variations in brain development and structure were observed to have produced marked differences in personality traits and neurobehavioural disorders. An example of this was that males born in the autumn and winter exhibited a larger volume of the superior temporal gyrus; this area of the brain contains the auditory cortex, responsible for interpretation of human language and social interactions.[8] It is fundamentally through the effects of both genetic expression environmental factors, such as perinatal photoperiod, that there are morphological variations in this region, resulting in differences in social interactions and behaviour.[9] It is through these findings that the following question arises; could treatment of vitamin D deficiency during gestation, and during the first few years of life have a significant enough effect upon neurodevelopment, so as to prevent the acquisition of psychiatric conditions? Neurodevelopmental Effects There are many ways in which cranial structure varies as a result of season of birth. A number of studies have displayed changes in brain structure linked to season of birth, with visible differences seen on MRI.9 There are also a number of changes to the brain on a physiological level. Patients with depression have been found to have reduced volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala, as well as changes in brain physiology; more extreme responses to the stress hormone, cortisol, and upregulation of the HPA axis. It is widely established that patients with psychiatric conditions have variations in brain structure relative to the normal population, most characterised by the HPA axis, a feedback interaction between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and the   adrenal cortex. This interaction is initiated through the release of corticotropic-releasing-hormone (CRH), into the blood of portal circulation by the parvocellular neurosecretory neurones in the paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus. In response to this, adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) is released by the anterior pituitary gland. This results in an excessive release of glucocorticoids (cortisol) into the blood. The increased concentrations of cortisol results a release of proinflammatory cytokines in the brain, and dysregulation of the amygdala. The dysregulation of the HPA axis frequently is a result of stress, which can be defined as any environmental factor that induces stress on the body. Such stresses can include imbalances in nutrition or exposure to infection, both of which could affect the developing foetus or neonate in a profound way. As patients born in the autumn and winter are found to have an increase in exposure to infection, reduced exposure to sunlight (in the northern hemisphere) and a poorer diet relative to those born in the warmer months, a link between season of birth and the increased activity of the HPA axis, and by proxy, depression, becomes evident. The hippocampus and amygdala, two crucial parts of the brain, are components of the limbic system, responsible for emotions and social interactions. It is through their reduced volumes that feelings such as despair and distress remain unregulated, fundamentally resulting in depression. Is it believed that the reduced volume of these parts of the brain are a consequence of a lack of neuroplasticity in patients with depression, as it is disrupted. It is through this that the hippocampus and amygdala are markedly smaller in patients with depression than the normal population. Neuroplasticity allows pruning of synaptic connections that are used less often, and the strengthening of connections used most often. It is believed that under stress, a patient with depression fails to make these adaptations to stressful stimuli, and instead, cell atrophy occurs the reduction or shrinkage in cell size; resulting in a reduced volume of the hippocampus and amygdala. It is through this that the hippocampus and amygdala are markedly smaller in patients with depression than the normal population, thus preventing any recovery, as negative feelings begin to dominate the psyche. The changes in brain structure have multiple causes; it has been found that patients with a reduced volume of the hippocampus and amygdala have so due to modified behavioural expression of dopaminergic interactions. Due to the presence of proinflammatory cytokines, there is an increase in the activity of the monoamine oxidase enzyme (MAO), resulting in reduced levels of serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine. The cytokines also reduce levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), responsible for neuronal growth; this leads to a reduction in neurogenesis, and hence a reduction in hippocampal volume. The dyregulated hippocampus and amygdala maintain abnormal levels of glucocorticoids, neurotrophic factors, and cytokines, thus creating a vicious cycle in which patients develop a depressive state from which it is difficult to recover. As brain structure has such a profound effect upon a patients likelihood to develop depression, and the structure of the brain is intricately linked with season of birth, it could be argued that season of birth would indirectly alter the risk of developing depression, with a birth in the winter months causing an increase. It has been found that treatments for depression and other psychiatric conditions also contribute towards cranial structure. Antidepressants, such as Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), have been shown to improve the neuroplasticity of the brain in patients with depression, thus preventing the dysregulation of the limbic system, relieving symptoms such as anhedonia and avolition. SSRIs inhibit the 5HT reuptake transporter (5HTT, SERT), which would normally allow for the breakdown of serotonin, in the synaptic terminals of neurones in the brain. Through this,   there is a sustained increase in extracellular serotonin, and increased action of serotonin within the synaptic cleft. Long-term use of antidepressants has been shown to causes changes in the volumes of the hippocampus and amygdala, as BDNF levels rise to allow for neurogenesis. This allows for the restoration of normal action of serotonin.These changes in brain structure further fortify the belief that cran ial structure has a powerful impact upon the likelihood of depression; as season of birth itself can affect the development of the brain in utero, it can be argued that a patients season of birth could potentially increase or reduce their likelihood of developing depression. The Circadian System The regulation of circadian rhythms can be altered in those with mental illnesses; studies have shown that patients with major depressive disorder and SAD have altered function of the circadian clock. There are a number of genes responsible for biological rhythms and light sensitivity, and those for melanopsin have been found to have variations in their expression. The circadian clock is the means of which allow humans to follow a routine; located in the hypothalamus, it is a key component of homeostasis, allowing organisms to maintain their sleep cycle, body temperature, blood pressure, and other important functions. Circadian periodicity is dictated by the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) of the anterior hypothalamus. The suprachiasmatic nucleus evokes responses in neurons synapsing in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN), also in the hypothalamus.   These neurones modulate other neurones in the superior cervical ganglia (SCG), those axons project to the pineal gland. This mechanism ultimately results in the secretion of melatonin into the bloodstream. Melatonin levels increases as the light in the environment decreases, peaking in the early hours of the night. Melanopsin is a photopigment found in intrinsically photosensitive ganglion cells (ipRGCs) in the retina, and is involved in responses to light in the environment, more specifically, circadian photoentrainment and the pupillary reflex.   (Hattar et al., 2003; Lucas et al., 2003; Panda et al., 2002, 2003). It has been found that variations in melanopsin function could be connected to differences in light sensitivity between individuals. Variations in circadian photoentrainment can occur as a result of sequence variations in genes mediating expression of melanopsin.   (Hatori Panda, 2010) Studies have found that in humans, short wavelength light (blue light) during the dark phase acutely causes alertness, even in humans who are blind.   Zaidi et al. (2007) The effect was significantly more profound in light of shorter wavelengths relative to longer wavelengths.This potentially suggests that ganglion cells in the eye that express melanopsin mediate alertness through projections to the suprachiasmatic nucleus, and other centres in the brain responsible for sleep and alertness, such as the ventral lateral preoptic nuclei (VLPO). Both the SCN and VLPO receive direct input from the ganglion cells expressing melanopsin, and the VLPO is more specifically involved in the regulation of non-rapid eye movement (NREM) sleep.   (Lu et al., 2000) It can hence be stated that the connection from melanopsin-expressing cells to regulatory nuclei in the brain is the cause for the significant impact of light upon the circadian regulation of sleep. Variations in melanopsin function could lead to decreased alertness during periods of less environmental light such as during the winter. Furthermore, differences in melanopsin function could lead to seasonal variations in circadian timings and sleep. These factors compound and may, in turn, contribute to SAD. ( Melanopsin Gene Variations Interact With Season to Predict Sleep Onset and Chronotype) It was found that SAD patients had reduced behavioural engagement during times when days were shorter. It was interpreted that the change could be attributed to a delay in phase or slowing of homeostatic drive ( Melanopsin Gene Variations Interact With Season to Predict Sleep Onset and Chronotype) However, it was also argued that a change in chronotype across seasons could be a consequence, rat her than a cause, of reduced mood. ( Murray and colleagues (2003)) Thus, it is certainly probable that environmental light levels combined with genetic variation in the expression of photopigments such as melanopsin could affect both sleep cycles and mood, and therefore ones season of birth could impact the risk of developing depression. However, this brings into question whether this would apply to major depressive disorder itself, or more specific to seasonal disorders. Further research into the r ole of melanopsin and the effects of environmental light levels could shed some light on potential links to depression and mental health. Questions for Further Studies and Conclusions Much research has been done to investigate the possible effects of season of birth on the risk of developing depression. From these studies one could conclude that a birth during autumn or winter increases the risk of developing depression as a consequence of alteration in both brain structure, and circadian physiology. This is due to the lower light levels a neonate is exposed to, resulting in alterations in melanopsin expression and reduced levels of vitamin D. However, as these factors primarily come into play after birth, the question of environmental effects upon the mother during gestation come into play; travel, for example, from one hemisphere to the other, could result in a summer rather than a winter birth. This seems advantageous at first, seemingly providing a lower risk of developing depression, however, the stress of travel during gestation could potentially have impacts upon the developing foetus. Further to this, one could question the effects of travel shortly after birth, as the environmental factors that a child is exposed to, such as diet, infection, and light levels, drastically change; this is in combination with the stressor that is traveling itself. There are also some current limitations when conducting studies; as patients birth dates are protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the accuracy of results and conclusions made is reduced. It would hence be advantageous if birth date could be used in this research as results would be significantly more accurate. Thus, it must be noted that the current investigations into season of birth and its links to depression are subject to unreliability. Taking the above factors into consideration, it can be concluded that there is potentially a link between of season of birth and depression, as some links to other psychiatric conditions have already been somewhat established. We have found that season of birth has marked effects upon the cranial structure of neonates, which then result in alterations in risk of illness. We see that the changes in structure are inherently linked to variations in the environment, which renders a link between season of birth and depression highly probable. The changes in brain structure and their physiological effects should be researched further, particularly due to the role that the circadian clock plays in depression, as an alteration in the structure of its components would further explain its effects upon risk. Circadian rhythms have been established to be intricately related to ones mental health; however, it remains unconfirmed whether changes in sleep homeostasis are causative or a consequence of psychiatric conditions. Therefore, more research should be conducted in order to understand the exact effects of environmental factors on depression and how they can alter risk; fundamentally, no steadfast conclusion can be given as of yet, but the door for further research remains open. Work Cited [1] World Health Organisation, Depression Fact sheet, Available from: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs369/en/ [Accessed 1st March 2017] [2] Lurie SJ1, Gawinski B, Pierce D, Rousseau SJ, Seasonal Affective Disorder. 2006 Nov 1;74(9):1521-4 [3] National Institute of Mental Health, Seasonal Affective Disorder. Available from: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/seasonal-affective-disorder/index.shtml [Accessed 1st March 2017] [4] McGrath JJ, Burne TH, Feron F, Mackay-Sim A, Eyles DW (2010) Developmental vitamin D deficiency and risk of schizophrenia: a 10-year update. Schizophr Bull 36(6): 1073-1078. [5]   Davies G, Welham J, Chant D, Torrey EF, McGrath J (2003) A systematic review and meta-analysis of Northern Hemisphere season of birth studies in schizophrenia.Schizophrenia Bulletin,29(3), 587-593.. [6] Disanto, G., Morahan, J., Lacey, M., DeLuca, G., Giovannoni, G., Ebers, George C ; Ramagopalan, Sreeram V Gravenor, Mike B. (2012). Seasonal Distribution of Psychiatric Births in England (Season of Birth and Psychiatric Disease). PLoS ONE, 7(4), E34866. [7] Pantazatos, S. (2014). Prediction of individual season of birth using MRI. NeuroImage, 88, 61-68. [8] Bigler, E., Mortensen, S., Neeley, E., Ozonoff, S., Krasny, L., Johnson, M Lu, J., Provencal, S.L., McMahon, W. Lainhart, J. (2007). Superior Temporal Gyrus, Language Function, and Autism. Developmental Neuropsychology, 31(2), 217-238. [9] Christopher M Ciarleglio, John C Axley, Benjamin R Strauss, Karen L Gamble, Douglas G Mcmahon. (2010). Perinatal photoperiod imprints the circadian clock. Nature Neuroscience,14(1), 25. Case Study of Entrepreneur: Prakash Bang Case Study of Entrepreneur: Prakash Bang EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Entrepreneurship is important in the daily business environment and is plays a crucial role in the world economy. Entrepreneurship is an interesting topic as it deals with the behaviour of the firm entrepreneur and the entrepreneurs main competencies. The author seeks to find the reasons for the successes and failures of entrepreneurs in India by a special case study focus. The author seeks to find the factors essential from the set up phase to the growth phase of a firm. The author has taken a case study of an entrepreneur from India, operating in a small business environment. Entrepreneurship has played an important role in the success of the firms as well as the entire nation. Factors like the opportunity discovery realisation, the importance of networking, impact of government policies and the personality of an entrepreneur has a direct relation with the entrepreneurial process. India is a growing economy and especially after the liberalization period of 1991, there has been a ma ssive change in the outlook of the entrepreneurial and globalization motives. The legendary Indian business tycoons are now world famous and show a promising future for India. The opportunity for the growth of entrepreneurship in India is massive and the concept of entrepreneurship is considered to take off soon. Indian government has now realised the true potential of entrepreneurs and many doors are opened for driving entrepreneurship in India. Factors responsible for the success and failures will be explored in relation to the life story of an entrepreneur. Successes and Failures of Entrepreneurs- A case study focus on India Chapter 1: Introduction 1.1 Background The word entrepreneur has Latin roots à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" entre means to enter, pre means before and neur means nerve center. Entrepreneurs are individuals who enter any business and change that businesses nerve center (Shefsky, 1994). Another book says that the word entrepreneur originates from the French and the exact meaning is the one who takes between. An entrepreneur is known as the co-ordinator of different factors of production, the risk taker, the capitalist employer, the owner- manager etc. Many writers have contributed towards the roles and concepts of an entrepreneur. Richard Cantillon and Jean Baptiste Say are considered as the most important economist writers to have contributed on the role of an entrepreneur. Other famous writers to observe the role of entrepreneurs are Kirzner, Schumpeter, Knight, Casson and Shackle. This is how the approach to entrepreneurship was developed. The entrepreneurial personality consists of the key characteristics like need for achievement, high internal locus of control, visionary, innovative etc. However, the personality criticisms observed are the ignorance of the learning, preparation, serendipity and environment factors that may be more important than a personality. Entrepreneurship is hugely influenced by the environment in which a person is developed and the culture of an individual (Deakins and Freel, 2006). Entrepreneurship is not a single concept and is defined in many different ways. In the modern usage an entrepreneur is a person who undertakes a commercial enterprise at a personal financial risk. Continuous change is essential and the development is expected in the technical, social and economical areas. This concept is dissimilar to the ancient and the medieval world where the philosophers failed to give attention to the economic matters. Historically, it is observed that the conceptions of the entrepreneur have evolved over time. The craftsman, the small scale trader, the new technologies and industries founder are all seen as entrepreneurs. As per Schumpeter, the entrepreneurs view of innovation is revolutionary and discontinuous than small scale, marginal, gradual and cumulative. Gradually this develops into large firms which become the powerhouses of innovation. This leads to a depersonalized and automatized economic progress. On a macro scale, the success of entrepreneurs is a force that prevents the economic system running down and continuously resists the approach of the classical stationary state (Casson, et al., 2008) Every economist understands that an entrepreneur is important and has a huge impact. Economists consider entrepreneurship as a meta- economic event and profoundly shape an economy. Economists not only have any explanations for the emergence of entrepreneurship which took place during the late nineteenth century but also as why entrepreneurship is not related to a particular culture or a country. However, the main reasons are rooted in the values, perceptions and attitudes in institutions (Drucker, 2006). Many economists have agreed that entrepreneurship plays the key role in developing any economy as the entrepreneurs generate jobs, create new businesses and increase productivity. It is interesting to note that almost 75% of the new jobs added to the American economy every year lead to over 99% of all the United States employers. The 2006 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) observed that entrepreneurial behaviour is very important for innovation and growth of an economy and the com panies need to take their attention towards the unexploited opportunities (America, 2008). Another entrepreneurship research paper prepared for the first GEM research conference which analysed the GDP for 36 countries, found that entrepreneurship plays a different role in countries in different stages of the economic growth and hugely affects the growth of an economy (GEM database, 2004). Therefore, it is essential to understand the main reasons involved in the successes and failures of entrepreneurs as there is a direct relation between the entrepreneurs and the economy. Entrepreneurship system evolved in the advanced economy (US) and is successful. Whereas in a developing economy like India, the entrepreneurship system needs modification as the public policies need to support the role of entrepreneurship. After analysing 100 entrepreneurs from the US and Bangalore city of India, it was observed that the Bangalore entrepreneurs started with high capital which also resulted in lower profits and they competed against the large companies in India, whereas the US entrepreneurs started with less capital, competed against the other small business owners and also resulted in higher profits. This study summarised that the failure of Indian entrepreneurs was because of unfavourable tax system, harsh rules, bad restrictions and relatively low efficiency as compared to the favourable conditions enjoyed by the US entrepreneurs (Bhidenet, 2004). However there are many critical issues as why the entrepreneurs/ businesses fail like entrepreneurial weakness, poor le adership and commitment, weak marketing and finance debt, etc (management paradise, 2007) Thus from the above arguments, we clearly understand the evolution of entrepreneurship, successful entrepreneurship leads to economic development and that many factors are involved in the overall success and failures of entrepreneurs. 1.2 Aims and objectives 1.2a Aim: To understand the reasons for the successes and failures of the entrepreneurs à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" A case study focus of an entrepreneurs in India. 1.2b Objectives The research seeks to study the life story of Mr. Prakash Bang, an entrepreneur based in India with relation to the following points: To understand as how the business opportunity is discovered in the entrepreneurial process To analyse the impact of networking on entrepreneurship and the influence of the social network on the set up and expansion of business. To know as how the ideas or the links for exports are developed and the effect of the governments role for internationalization. The role model inspiration and the vision of the business. The successes and failures of an entrepreneur. 1.3 Value and Contribution The study will provide an understanding about the different stages involved in the entrepreneurs life, i.e. from the start up to the growth of a firm. The research will provide insights about the various challenges faced by a small business entrepreneur. It will also serve as a guideline to the present entrepreneurs and the individuals who wish to become entrepreneurs in future. 1.4 Structure of the study CHAPTER CONTENT Chapter 1 Introduction This first chapter gives an idea about the project. The evolution and importance of Entrepreneurship. Then, the motivation for research is specified which is based on the successes and failures of the entrepreneurs. The last part shows the aims and objectives for the research. Chapter 2 Literature Review The literature review highlights and examines the previous studies in the entrepreneurship area and relevant theories, which form the background of this study. This includes economic importance of entrepreneurship, opportunity realisation and effects, the role of bank loans, entrepreneurial personality factors, role of government policies and entrepreneurial failures. There are different views observed on the factors responsible for entrepreneurship. This chapter presents information on the issues which are related to the entrepreneurship stages. Chapter 3 Methodology The chapter describes the research methodology adopted for the study and provides justifications for the approach. Qualitative research is used to analyse the case and the primary data is collected. Finally this chapter analyses the methodology and identifies the various challenges encountered during the research. Chapter 4 Discussion of Findings This chapter discusses the findings, considering the relevant current literature. It tries to identify the reasons related to the research and findings. Chapter5 Conclusions This chapter concludes the findings of the study and states the contribution of the research. It also identifies areas required for the future research by understanding the past failures of entrepreneurs. Finally this chapter provides recommendations on which will prove useful to the successes of entrepreneurs. Chapter 2. Literature Review 2.1 Meaning and importance of entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship is linked with the economic growth. An interesting study by Hicks in study of Texas sales receipts said that the highest failure rates had the highest employment growth and highest wages. It can be noted that entrepreneurship has at least a part on such benefits. It is also found that in case of failure of the entrepreneurs the consumer still get a higher valued offerings (Knott, 2008). Entrepreneurship is believed to be risky as it is highly innovative and high tech. Entrepreneurs shifts the resources from the areas of lower production to the areas of higher production. Entrepreneurship is implied to evolution and revolution. Different authors have different opinions on entrepreneurs. As per Drucker, Entrepreneurs are designers of new realities, i.e. as the introducers of a new product or process. Krizner (1973) suggested that entrepreneurs create new ways of organising economic activities. Mintzberg (1973) in line with the Schumpeterian said that the strategy of en trepreneurs is a discontinuous and radical change, which is guided by a tunnel of a vision. However, Lessem (1984) argued that entrepreneurs are experimental learners. The above views of different authors show that Entrepreneurship brings evolution as well as revolution (Klandt 1993). Entrepreneurs are the creators and leaders of the society who change the way people live, work, play and lead. Entrepreneurship evolved in America before 35 years and had a stunning impact on the cultural and the economic landscape of America. Americas entrepreneurship is now a global movement and has become a model for the business people and policymakers. It is noteworthy that EUs action plan in 2000 to be the most competitive economy by 2010 by fuelling entrepreneurial minds, encouraging more people to start their own businesses and forming more entrepreneurial friendly regulatory as well as administrative environment. Entrepreneurship has also exploded in the countries like India and China leading to a positive social and economic change (Timmons and Spinelli, 2007) 2.2 Entrepreneurship in India If we consider the example of India, it is known as the land of the successful world famous entrepreneurs like Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal, who are currently at the top 8th and 9th position in the world as per the American magazine à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" Forbes (edubook, 2009) Besides these legendary family business players many new firms are also emerging in the growing economy India. Many of the business are funded with the infusion of private equity or venture capital. However, as per the statistics from Brain and Company the venture capital market in India, has declined from US $ 17 billion in 2007 to US$ 14 billion in 2008. In spite these s many entrepreneurs like the CEO of hotmail.com are still bullish on the new ventures and assure that India for entrepreneurship still remains advantageous (Wharton, 2009) If we consider GEM 2003 statistics for India, it showed that 12.5% of the Indian population is involved in the opportunity based ventures whereas in China it was just 5.5%. The dominance of India is because of the strong entrepreneurship environment and more iconic entrepreneurs. However with the emergence of the Chinese companies like alibaba.com in which yahoo took 40% stake, China has started producing role models. In near future Indian entrepreneurs are likely to fail as compared to the Chinese entrepreneurs (insead, 2008) At this moment, India needs to have a right environment, capital access and should enable networking and exchange as well. Presently, India is a land of technologists and the businesses can survive for much longer time than any other countries (narendra, 2009) Another point to be noted is that the Indian technology firms can add value to the countrys growth because a technology product company adds faster and quicker money using small power. The main challenge here is that these firms need to be competitive in future (sramanamitra, 2007) Although the present scenario is completely different in India; during the period of 1980s to 1990s, the entrepreneurs had to face tough times as they had to obtain multiple licences and the government officers who were involved in the licence aspects were underpaid and ultimately resorted in bribery and corruption. Then the situations changed after 1990s. The main reason for the change is because the Indian business practices started changing in 1991 after extensive economic reforms. Indian economy has sustained average GDP around 9% from 2006 to 2007. In the past decade, Indias GDP has increased from 21% to 33% and the foreign exchange reserves have reached over $200 billion. In todays scenario entrepreneurship has taken off and is truly a promising market for the entrepreneurial firms. (go4funding, 2009) The growth of Indian Small Scale Industries (SSI) post liberalization, during 1994 to 2002 was over 4.1% annually and also the employment grew by 4% annually. (small sector growth in india, 2006) 2.3 Discovery of entrepreneurship opportunity and its effects In Entrepreneurship, it is necessary to understand as how the opportunities are realised by the entrepreneurs. The concept of opportunity generation is a largely overlooked aspect but is central and an important part of entrepreneurship. Opportunity generation is defined as a situation in which a person creates new means to yield profits. It is crucial to understand the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunities in the life of an entrepreneur, as the characteristics of the entrepreneurial opportunities manipulate the entire entrepreneurial process. Authors like Schumpeter and Kirznerian have different view points on the role of opportunities which is represented in the table below: Schumpeterian Opportunities Disequilibrating Requires new information Very Innovative Rare Involves Creation Kirznerian Opportunities Equilibrating Does not require new information Less innovative Common Limited to discovery Table 1(Shane, 2003) Also, certain individual differences are observed in the discovery of entrepreneurial opportunity: Access to information Life experiences Social networks Search processes Opportunity Recognition Absorptive capacity Intelligence Cognitive properties Table 2 (Shane, 2003) It is important to understand the Timmons model in entrepreneurship as the opportunity is considered at the heart of the business and is driven by the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurs team. As per the Timmons model, the shape, size and the depth of the opportunity structures the necessary shape, size and the depth of the resources and the team. It is well explained in the following diagram: Many activities function in the social, economical, political and family spheres that are categorized under Entrepreneurship. Such entrepreneurial activities require a lot of effort, negotiation and are a chain of activities in relation to something that are gone before. The first stage in the entrepreneurship process is known as the opportunity formation stage, which is a commonly observed phenomenon in entrepreneurship and the business venturing process. The formation of opportunity is relationally and communally constituted. However, this argument is not fully considered in descriptive or linear process models of opportunity recognition. As per the studies of some authors, an opportunity is discovered due to a persons cognitive skills, organizational learning process and networking skills or career choices. These frame works formulate opportunity recognition process. The problem in such frameworks is that they fail to take a wider picture of societal, economic or cultural structur es and patterns that shape entrepreneurship (Fletcher, 2006). Although, the opportunity generation strategies are important in entrepreneurship, the effects of such strategies are neglected in the entrepreneurship area. It is interesting to note that the performance of a venture is strongly influenced by the opportunity discovery strategies. An observation on three entrepreneurial firms showed that the growth of an entrepreneurial firm is affected positively by proactive search approach of entrepreneurs. We can easily understand the effect of proactive search on the performance of new ventures in the diagram below. The high beta value (.67) shows that the proactive search approach of an entrepreneur is the most important catalyst for the growth of a new venture. It should be also noted that in a similar way, the competitive scanning affects the newness values of a firm (Puhakka, 2007) 2.4 Factors for successful entrepreneurship and its effects Many successful business entrepreneurs like the Bill Gates and Richard Branson manage to expand their firms very quickly and with gigantic success. The reasons for their high growth success are: a) They had an entrepreneurial character within themselves. Moreover, the adapted to the change as per the growth of their business. b) They had an effective business culture which is considered as very important influential leadership tool in a firm. Their enterprise cultures had thorough foundations to grow and were obsessed with the aim of being successful in the long run. c) Also, they had an expert management team and sound financial control systems. The interesting point to note is that these firms knew as why the customers buy from them and not from their competitors. d) Lastly they had very strong strategies which helped their firms to lead towards the successes and growth stages (Burns 2006). Also, other reasons to be successful as an entrepreneurial management are as follows: a) It should be focussed on the market. b) It requires a financial prudence and specially planning for the cash flow and the future needs for capital. c) It needs a well constructed top management team, before the new ventures requirement and before it can afford one. d) The founder or the entrepreneur should have a decision in respect to his own role, area of work and relationships. (Drucker,2008) Success of a venture also depends on the leadership attributes of an entrepreneur and it is said that the successful business is a reflection of the leader (Advancing women, 2006) However, the business success does not always depend on the leaders vision. This is because a creative entrepreneur develops a product which is in great demand and also produces a product which is efficient and profitable. (Business management, 2008) There are different views of entrepreneurs on the success of a business venture. Example: It is interesting to note the view of the young entrepreneur Jasdeep Singh Bhatia whose article was selected for the à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‹Å"Enterprising British Summit 05. He said that a real entrepreneur has drive and motivation within him and knows his vision (news bbc, 2005) Another example is of the Successful entrepreneur Andy McLoughlin, who believes in his vision and has always followed his father as a role model who inspired him to start his own business (Make your mark, 2009). However; in case of Scarlet, who was nominated for Barclays Inspire award said that she was determined and believed in herself to set up business in spite of the difficulties in her life (Ne business, 2009). The above views of different entrepreneurs show that entrepreneurs define success in many different ways and the concept of entrepreneurship is a complex issue. Although the concept of entrepreneurship is difficult to understand, it plays an important role in the success of a nation. Entrepreneurship leads to the economic growth in many ways. Entrepreneurs enter and expand the existing markets leading to increased competition and economic efficiency. Also, new markets are often explored by offering innovative products. Statistics have shown that 14% of the entrepreneurs starting a business declared that their product had no direct competition à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" a clear indication of the creation of new markets. Lets consider US as an example: The last fifteen years have been robust in the set up of new ventures. Many statistics have shown that in the last ten years new business start ups approached nearly 600, 000 per year. Today, the numbers of businesses in the US have soared more than 20 million and the growth rate is at 2 percent. As per the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), more than half of all businesses employ less than five people and almost 90% of the firms have fewer than 20 people. The s mentioned in the table below give us a better idea in terms of the new jobs created and the size of business in the US from the years 1980 to 1995 (Kuratko and Hodgetts,2007). (SIZE OF BUSINESS) Years New Jobs (000s) 20-499Employees 500+ Employees 1990 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1995 6,853 49% 27.5% 23.5% 1988 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1990 2,666 153.8 -31.9 -18.8 1986 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1988 6,169 24.1 20.8 55.1 1984 1986 4,611 35.5 16.8 47.7 1982 1984 4,318 48.8 27.9 23.3 1980 à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â‚¬Å" 1982 1,542 97.9 -2.4 4.5 Table 3 Source: NFIB Small Business Policy Guide (Washington, D>C., November 2000), 31 From the above statistics we can conclude that the small businesses entrepreneurs have successfully created new jobs leading to the strong economic conditions in the US. However, it is interesting to note that as per the report of Missouri Economic Research and Information Centre (MERIC) the Small Businesses and the Entrepreneurial Growth Companies (EGC) are two different concepts. As per the MERIC report, the owners of EGCs have significant economic effects on a community by accounting for a large creation of new job growth whereas Small Businesses target controlled growth and continuous profitability (MERIC, 2009). In reference to the US job creation statistics mentioned earlier, one of the reasons for the success of entrepreneurship in the US is due to the strong support of the US Small Business Administration (SBA) to its entrepreneurs. SBA was created in 1953 as an independent agency of the federal state government and has a vast network of partnership of public and private companies. Also, SBA has many loan assistant programmes and recently, President Obama came up with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 to help the small business owners with tax relief plans to overcome the losses (SBA, 2009). Whereas, if we compare support of Indian government to its entrepreneurs, not only there are very few loan programmes available but also no serious initiative was taken in the crisis situation to help entrepreneurs (Business gov, 2009) This is one of the main reasons for the success of the American entrepreneurs and the failure of Indian entrepreneurs. 2.5 Entrepreneurship scenario in growing economies and role of banks If situations mentioned above continue in India, the entrepreneurs may highly fail due to less support available. Also, it is also observed that the Indian government shows very low interest to the ideas of individuals. A very good example to support the above statement: An individual from India shifted to a small south Asian country as he did not get support from Venture Capital funds in India. As a result, this entrepreneur is now moving his company base and will offer employment to the locals of another country (Trak, 2009). From the above points it is clear that the role of government is very important for the success of entrepreneurs and the country. Support from the banks is also very essential especially in the growing economies for successful entrepreneurship because the bank loans are a source of external funding for small and medium size business. Another interesting point is that many entrepreneurship studies involved in the research of emerging economies have suggested that personal relationships and networks with other entrepreneurs, bankers, government, friends and relatives may play an important role for the lending institutions as well as the borrower. A case study of small and medium enterprises in Vietnam showed that different networks accomplish different purposes and therefore it is necessary to align the networks as per the requirements in the various stages of business. As per the research paper, networking with customers and government officials helps (use of bank loan) to improve business performance whereas networking with suppliers and society reduces the need for a bank loan (shown in the below) (Le, N. T. B . Nguyen, T. V. 2009) Bank loan is important for the venture set up. In India, statistics have shown that 41% of the business owners seek for sources of finance. However, the criticism to the bank loan is that a forum of Private Business found that taking a bank loan is not an attractive option because only 26% of the people found the charges of bank are good value for money (Deakins and Freel, 2005). Also, there is a problem for the high technology firms to get loan from the banks because the banks require collateral or a good track record with business propositions. Most of the fast growing businesses grow due to retained profits (Bhide 2000- p 364- Oxford). If we consider another option of investment, i.e. venture capital with reference to India, venture capitalists firms do not fund for the start up enterprises, unless an IT business. The venture capitalists firm think that IT businesses have good growth prospects in India and therefore are a safe funding option (Silicon India, 2009) Previously we have seen that networking is a crucial element in the success of entrepreneurship. However, another study concluded that if we consider the importance of networking and the three areas network relationships, governance and structure, then the focus of network development process over the venture gestation, formation and the growth life cycle of a firm receives less attention 2.6 Entrepreneurial personality factors and its importance In entrepreneurship, there are several factors that can be controlled besides the personality traits and parents (Knott, 2008). In entrepreneurship it important to understand the personality factors of an entrepreneur. Some studies have concluded that 20% of variance in the intentions of entrepreneur origin can be seen by the personality origin of an entrepreneur. However, this ratio drops down to zero while explaining business success. It is found that the personality factors depend on the start up intentions of an entrepreneur. A group of researchers on the basis of configuration- theory approach observed that the personality characteristics of an entrepreneur gradually decrease from the start up phase to the business growth stage. (Refer 5) Also for the development of the business intentions, correct measures need to be taken in schools and university in order to foster the personality characteristics of an entrepreneur. (Refer 6) (Frank, 2007) In todays world, entrepreneurship besides the start up intentions and the personality characteristics of an entrepreneur is also influenced by the global economy. Trading in the global economy or the international market requires understanding of different cultures, risk taking and economic production methods. The process of internationalisation is a progression of stages and a gradual process which begins from an established domestic market. Traditionally, a small firm enters overseas markets through agents to gain knowledge for opening its own subsidiary firm. Then in the final stage overseas production is started. This is well explained in the diagram below: The entrepreneurship concept though interesting has many challenges or problems. In 1971, author Frank Knight said that entrepreneurship judgement is a natural complement to the theory of the firm. However the challenge is whether the entrepreneurs insight is incorporated or not, as there are problems related to the modelling issues like the judgement and entrepreneurial experimentation (Muzumdar, 2008) 2.7 Internationalization of a firm and international entrepreneurship The internationalization process is also influenced by the networks of the entrepreneurs. The knowledge of internationalization can be gained through partnerships or in relation to the business networks. The importance of networks is that they are good source of information, linked to opportunities and vision. Social networks have crucial contribution in making a big difference towards the success. It is noteworthy that the entrepreneurs and the managers understand that firms cannot perform alone and social networks are an important element in a firms international success. Therefore firms should involve in the networking process by taking part in specialized conferences to promote their credibility in the international market. The diagram below shows the three roles of social networks related to the firm, entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial team and the High Tech Small Medium Enterprises (HTSME). In this it is shown that the information is received from the external sources, mainly through the networks. Then the information is used by the lead entrepreneur and his / her team, based on the prior knowledge, experience and thoughts. During this time the information is also gained from t