Ethical Decision Making by Individuals Essay Example for Free

Ethical Decision Making by Individuals Essay Existing theoretical models of individual ethical decision making in organizations place little or no emphasis on characteristics of the ethical issue itself. This article (a) proposes an issue-contingent model containing a new set of variables called moral intensity: (b) using concepts, theory, and evidence derived largely from social psychology, argues that moral intensity influences every component of moral decision making and behavior: (c) offers four research propositions, and (d) discusses implications of the theory. Conclusions and Implications Existing theoretical models have ignored the effect of characteristics of the moral issue itself on ethical decision making and behavior in organizations. Taken at face value, these models suggest that individuals will decide and behave in the same manner regardless of the nature of the moral issue involved. An employee of a drug manufacturer would view the release of a dangerous drug by his or her firm with the same alarm (or lack of alarm) that he or she viewed the theft of a few diskettes from the company supply cabinet by a fellow employee. The issue-contingent model proposed here explicitly rejects this view and suggests that the moral intensity of the issue itself has a significant effect on moral decision making and behavior at all stages of the process. If this model is found to have empirical support, the testing of other models would be significantly affected. Controlling for issue traits would become an integral part of a meaningful test of Trevinos (1986) person-situation interactionist model, for example; the relative importance of personal factors and situational factors might vary considerably, from issue to issue. Similarly, issue charucteristics could alter the balance of teleological and deontological considerations in the moral evaluation stage of Hunt and Vitells (1986) general theory model of marketing ethics. Perhaps the most important potential impact of an empirical finding that ethical decision making and behavior are issue contingent involves the applicability of the models themselves. Moral intensity is expected to play a major role in the recognition of moral issues and, hence, in the actual engagement of moral decision-making processes instead of, or in addition to, other decision-making schemata. Simply stated, the details of moral decision-making and behavior processes become irrelevant if the person does not recognize that he or she is dealing with a moral issue. Future models of ethical decision making should include some consideration of the effect of the moral agents failure to recognize the moral issue. Moral intensity is also relevant to the general applicability of Kohlbergs (1976) theory of cognitive moral development. If moral development is issue contingent, as this article and some emerging empirical evidence suggest, then Kohlbergs theory would have to be substantially revised, and much of the research based on it would have to be reappraised. Future research based on his developmental theory would have to control for traits of the moral issues involved. From a practical point of view, issue contingency is important to normative judgments of moral decisions and of the people who make them. Many of the elements of moral intensity (magnitude of consequences, probability of effect, temporal immediacy, and concentration of effect) are directly related to judgments of the importance of moral issues. If these elements of moral intensity are found to be positively linked to moral behavior, it can be concluded that people generally behave better when the moral issue is important than they do when it is unimportant. Regardless of a persons views regarding the overall moral tenor of society or its alleged decline in recent years, he or she could easily be encouraged by the finding that peoples best moral behavior is inspired by issues of substantial importance.

Concerned With Voluntary Euthanasia

Concerned With Voluntary Euthanasia J. David Velleman and Dan W. Brock are both concerned with voluntary euthanasia; a competent patient making a voluntary request to have his or her life ended. The arguments laid out in Vellemans, Against the Right to Die, and Brocks, Voluntary Active Euthanasia deal with active and passive voluntary euthanasia. Active being that the patient actively takes the last step in their death, while passive is usually defined as withdrawing medical treatment with intent to cause death. They do not consider cases involving involuntary euthanasia, when the patient is competent and refuses treatment. Nor do they consider non voluntary euthanasia, when the patient isnt competent at all. Many people believe that giving legality to voluntary active euthanasia (VAE) will in turn lead to involuntary and nonvoluntary euthanasia, the slippery slope fallacy, but for the purposes of this paper Im only concerned with VAE. Both authors agree that anyone could possibly be morally entitled to be allowed or h elped to die. However, Velleman argues against an institutional right to die. He believes that making the choice of voluntary active euthanasia available to the people can make them worse off even if they choose the option that is best for them. The ability to make a choice makes one worse off than going with the default option. In this paper, Im going to analyze Vellemans arguments while explaining how Brock responded to Vellemans arguments. To keep the integrity of each authors thoughts, I am going to use similar word phases which will be identified in quotes and later labeled with the paper number of reference. Velleman agrees that we have an obligation to assist some deaths, however he disagrees with those who use Kantian terms to justify such an obligation. He explains that voluntary active euthanasia deals with two major rights a person has, according to Kantian moral theory. They have the right to dignity and their autonomy. A multitude of life-preserving treatments are said to, violate a persons dignity or to detain him in an undignified state (Velleman, pg 2). A patient has the right of autonomy, or self-determinism, which is that we respect his/her competent wishes even if its a wish to die. Velleman goes on to explain how these rights become confusing when dealing with Kantian language in the terms of medical ethics. He has reservations about the loose definitions which dont match up with the extreme states of patients who are in question while dealing with euthanasia. Because of these qualms, Velleman disregards these Kantian-based arguments and moves on. Aside from problems in definition, VAE is dealing with other peoples autonomy. If laws are to be made which prohibit this autonomy, than these laws should make people better off. Velleman feels he has an answer to this dilemma which leads to his second argument against the option of euthanasia being given to patients, but unlike the first, this reason is consequentialist. When Velleman speaks of his consequentialist reasoning, he isnt referring to the consequences of mistakingly choosing to die, but instead, the consequences of placing such an option in the hands of the patient. He believes that giving patients this option will actually make them worse off. Im going to explain how Velleman attempts to prove this and then give the objections laid out by Brock. Contrary to natural thought, if we are given a second option besides the default, it will make us worse off than before no matter which option is chosen. Velleman explains this idea with an example of a cashier who is given the power to open the safe. Its not that the cashier doesnt directly want the power, but rather, it would make him a target for robbers. Even though opening the safe while at gun point would be the right thing to do, hed be wishing hed never been given the option of doing it (Velleman, pg 8). This makes him worse off because he can no longer have the default option, not being forced to open the safe at gun point, without choosing it. Multiple options become available and he is now subject to the pressures of possibility. Relative to euthanasia, this is the most important way of harm. We would be denying a patient the status quo of staying alive by default, with the option of euthanasia looming over his head. Because of this, the patient will now see himself in con trol of his own survival, which is ordinarily viewed as given to him. If the patient sees himself as this agent of control, then he will be held responsible for his actions by himself and others. He would then be required to justify his actions, whether it be his continued existence or choice of euthanasia. The burden of justifying ones existence might make existence unbearable and hence unjustifiable. (Velleman, pg 11) It may be perceived as insecurity, but justifying oneself personally and to others is extremely important to those who are ill. When the gift of independent activity is taken from someone, personal intercourse and intercourse with others is the only relief left in life. And so, unless he can defend his existence to the satisfaction of others, his only reasons for life may disappear. A patient who believes that his terminal illness is not an ample reason for ending his life with be faced with the burden of proof. Even if the patient believes that his life is worth living, he may find reasons to assume that those around him think otherwi se. Reasons ranging from the financial or the emotional costs of prolonging life may cause him to rationally judge that he is better off taking the option of euthanasia (Velleman, pg 12-13). Therefore, Velleman believes that if we offer the option of dying, than we may give patients new reason to choose death. Through the preceding arguments, Velleman is lead to believe that euthanasia should be permissible in some cases, yet still forbidden in others. However, he doubts that policymakers could define such conditions in which the option of dying would be beneficial and when the option of dying would be harmful. This leads him think that the best solution to the problem is allowing health professionals to decide. They should be given the power to permit, and never require, the option of euthanasia or to grant the patients request for it (Velleman, pg 19). It would be possible define certain conditions when the option should never be offered, but we cannot define conditions when euthanasia should always be offered. If put into effect, caregivers could withhold the option whenever they see fit, even when requested. Velleman claims that we already put so much trust into health professionals that this would serve as an effective solution. However, he still believes that the best policy of eutha nasia is no policy at all. Velleman states that he is inclined to believe that advances in medical technology have outrun the capacity of institutional rules to regulate their application. (Velleman, pg 20) And so, the policy regarding euthanasia should be weak and vague by design, left up to the individual health care professionals and the patient in question. (Velleman, pg 20) Dan W. Brock takes the opposite stance as J. David Velleman, believing that there should be an established institutional right to die, as stated in his article, Voluntary Active Euthanasia. He lays out many positive and negative potential consequences of euthanasia, but feels strongest about protecting patients right to autonomy. I will briefly explain some potential positive and negative consequences of euthanasia, but will focus more on his direct responses to Vellemans argument. Some potential good consequences of euthanasia include: giving the general public a broader sense of control over their life and death, showing mercy to suffering patients, and once death is undeniable in certain cases its more humane to do it quickly. Some potential bad consequences of euthanasia include: its not compatible with physicians moral and professional commitment as healers; to protect life, and euthanasia could weaken societys commitment to providing optimal care to the sick. Brock directly calls out Vallemans solution to the euthanasia problem and refutes it. Velleman argues that offering the option of euthanasia would make patients worse off than if not given the option at all. This leads Velleman to conclude the best solution is health care professionals having the power to permit, and never require, (Velleman, pg 19) the option of euthanasia or to grant the patients request for it. In doing so, situations in which there are unmistakable and over- powering reasons for persons to want the option of euthanasia (Brock, pg 19) would be the only cases granted it. Brock lists three main reasons why such restrictions wouldnt lead to the best outcome. First, polls and other evidence tend to show that most Americans do, in fact, believe that euthanasia should be allowed. Consequently, the amount of people made worse off by having the option wont outweigh those made better by having the option. Second, if people would be made worse off by the option of a right t o die, than why dont we see any consequences of voluntary passive euthanasia? People already have the option to refuse life-sustaining treatment and there is no evidence of harmful effects or public desire to take away such right. How would establishing an institutional right to active euthanasia make any difference? To this argument, Velleman has a refute. He states that the option of refusing life-sustaining treatment to end ones life may be just as harmful as having the option of active euthanasia. However, the proportions of deaths that occur as a result of passive euthanasia is very small, making the side-effects very small as well. Also, these side effects are to be accepted as an unavoidable byproduct of protecting the right not to be assaulted. Assaulted in this case as morally entitled to refuse treatment because we are morally entitled to not be drugged or punctured with needles. Third, there is a wide range of conditions that are reasonably disagreed about in the terms of euthanasia. If Velleman suggests restricting euthanasia to persons whose conditions indisputably call for it, than we would be denying the most amount of people who want it. In conclusion, Velleman and Brock disagree on whether to establish an institutional right to die or not. Velleman argues that establishing such a right would burden those given the option of euthanasia, that to offer an option of dying gives new reasons to end ones life. Because of this, he suggests the solution of a weak and vague euthanasia policy by design, left up to the individual health care professionals and the patient in question. Brock argues for an institutional right to die. He lists possible positive and negative outcomes and directly refutes Vellemans conclusion with three arguments. Brock and Velleman could go back and forth all day arguing and refuting each other. However, I believe that they disagree in the simple fundamentals of the situation. Brock believes that an individuals well-being and control over his or her own life far outweighs any impact on society, while Velleman believes that even the option would make patients and society worse off overall.

Fedex Vietnam Strategic Annalysis Marketing Essay

Fedex Vietnam Strategic Annalysis Marketing Essay Established in 1973 under the name Federal Express by founder Frederick Smith, the company quickly became leading transportation service provider. In 1994, the company changed its mane to FedEx Corp. Nowadays, FedEx Corp includes seven subordinate companies that are FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, FedEx Kinkos, FedEx Customs Critical, FedEx Trade Network and FedEx Service. These companies focus on its core services but also support each other in providing customer with full range of transportation services and logistics. FedEx is handling more than 3.6 mil packages a day and is very famous for its excellent services and for the innovation that it brings to the world of transportation.Eng-logo-4C.jpg FedEx Express operates with 2 sub-companies, which are FedEx Express International and FedEx Express US Domestic, FedEx Express is providing its services to more than 220 countries and territories worldwide. Under FedEx Express International are 3 Regional Divisions which are FedEx LAC (for US, Canada and Latin American), FedEx EMEA (for Euro, Middle East and Africa) and FedEx APAC (Asia Pacific region). FedEx Vietnam belongs to FedEx APAC Division (Federal Pacific Inc) with head office in Hong Kong. Mission and Strategy: Mission FedEx Corporation will produce superior financial returns for its shareowners by providing high value-added logistics, transportation and related business services through focused operating companies. Customer requirements will be met in the highest quality manner appropriate to each market segment served. FedEx will strive to develop mutually rewarding relationships with its employees, partners and suppliers. Safety will be the first consideration in all operations. Corporate activities will be conducted to the highest ethical and professional standards.  [1]   With this mission statement, FedEx defines the industry it develop the business, the financial returns for shareowners, relationships with shareholders. FedEx also commit for high quality and professional standard as well as safety to compete and develop the business. This mission is also going with P-S-P philosophy which stand for People Service Profit meaning FedEx focus and invest in People and believe that only best people can create valuable service. And certainly, valued service will bring money to the company. Strategy FedEx also defines the objectives which must work seamlessly and simultaneously on three levels: Competition: collectively  compete by standing as one brand worldwide. Just one FedEx brand and speak one voice. Operating must be independent  by focusing on independent worldwide networks to meet customer needs. Managing collaboratively  by working together to gain loyal relationships from workforce, customers and investors. FedEx Express in Vietnam Business history FedEx has established its operation in Vietnam since 1994, right after US government lifted the trade embargo to Vietnam. Its business model in Vietnam is agency in which FedEx services are provided to customers through FedExs partners. And FedEx global service partner (GSP) in Vietnam was Post and Telecommunication Express JSC; a company belong to Vietnam Post Corporation which has nationwide network for pickup and delivery until 2009. Since then, the contract with this GSP was terminated and Seabornes and Danatrans were appointed to be new GSPs in Vietnam. At the same time of launching its services in Vietnam, FedEx representative office was opened. The office role is to carry out market research, coordinate the communication among FedEx in VN and other countries, facilitating the implementation of contracts/agreements between FedEx Pacific Inc and other Vietnamese organizations Under the agency contract, the GSPs provide manpower, facilities, and vehicles to bring FedEx service to customers. It is also responsible for customs clearance site for import and export activities. FedEx take responsibilities of all sales and marketing activities. It also supervises and supports GSPs in making the service meet with FedEx global standard and customers requirement. These supports include but not limit to customer service, informatics technology, pricing, billing. Currently FedEx Vietnam provides country wide services with 2 main stations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city but direct service is only provided to major provinces/cities. The station in Ho Chi Minh City handles all inbound and outbound shipment to and from the south of Vietnam (southern of Hue). It has its own gateway for customs clearance and 4 world service centres. The station in Hanoi handles shipments to and from north of Vietnam. Beside its own gateway in Hanoi, it also has 3 world service centres for walk in customers. FedEx is providing direct pick up and delivery service to all major cities/provinces in Vietnam. For the other areas, the pick up and delivery is made by using domestic express service of Vietnam Post Corp. Mission and Objectives: Mission: FedEx Vietnam together with its partners will implement FedEx philosophy People-Service-Profit. We will be market leader with the best international express service at global standard. We will gain profit base on our core business competitiveness and the efficiency of the investment in Vietnam. We will bring customer with satisfaction for each and every transaction. (FedEx Vietnam Mission statement) Main objectives: Standardize service in Vietnam at global standard by having its own employee to generate service to customer. Become customers top in mind express service Annual growing rate at 15% In the context of current recession in developed countries, these are challenging objectives. The downturn in industrial countries will lead to a decline in export of developing countries and Vietnam is not an exception. Demand for transportation of export commodities is predicted to be declined until 2014 along with a weak economy. To maintain the annual growing at 15%, FedEx needs to both extend the operation to new markets and expand its market share at current service area by promoting its competitive advantages. This is a hard time for all companies in air express industry, but it can be a good opportunity for FedEx to consolidate its position over the competitor. Competitive advantage is the key and more than ever a right strategy to promote competitiveness is very critical to FedEx. Organization: FedEx Representative Office With the roles to support and supervise GSP in providing FedEx services to customers, FedEx representative office is organized as functional model. Figure 9: FedEx VN representative office organization chart Country manager HAN Operation manager HAN Sales Manager HAN ramp manager SGN Operation manager HAN CS manager SGN CS manager Country coordinator SGN ramp manager SGN Sales Manager Inside sales Manager Revenue ops Manager Accounting Manager Marketing Manager Technology service Manager Direct report Indirect report Source: FedEx country Review, 2011 At top of the representative office is Chief Representative, Senior Manager for FedEx Indochina and Myanmar who has very good knowledge about market, culture and working style of Vietnamese people. He directly manages operation function and also gets indirect reports from other functional groups. Operations: This group includes station operation (for pick up and delivery), gateway operation (for customs clearance), ramp operation and customer service operation. The group is responsible for managing all operation activities in accordance to FedEx service standard Airport ramp: This group is under operation and responsible for aircraft operation include loading and unloading of shipment on/from aircraft, landing/take off paperworkà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Country Coordinator: Admin the communication to all GSPs in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar on policy, regulation issues Sales: This group report to regional sales. They are responsible for selling FedEx services to customer. Marketing: Perform market research, design and implement marketing plan under direction of regional marketing management. Billing and collection: Control all GSPs invoicing and collecting activities. All customer debts are managed by this group. Accounting: Control all payment transactions of FedEx in Vietnam and perform all other accounting activities. Technical service: Responsible for FedEx communication network, customer technology solutions. GSP organization GSP has two independent teams to work at FedEx agency in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. They both report to Seabornes head office. But in daily operation, they are under supervision of FedEx functional groups from representative office. The team in Hanoi includes 69 GSP employees with 1 General Manager and 4 functional managers. In Ho Chi Minh number of employees is 125 with 1 General manager and 7 functional managers Business result overview Figure10: FedEx Vietnam revenue from 2006 to 2011 (Unit: 1000 USD) Source: FedEx country review 2011 As indicated in Figure 10, FedEx had very good growth in revenue. Total revenue grew by 3 times from 2006 to 2011. The revenue increased at 100% in 2008 after FedEx up gauged it feeder capacity from 3 tons to 6 tons to Ho Chi Minh city. FedExs core products International Priority (IP) and International Priority Freight (IPF) are the main contribution. After the sharp increase in 2008, revenue of these core services grew steadily at 10-12% a year. Revenue of IXF (air port to airport) service took a relatively small part of total revenue. However growing rate of this product has been extremely high since 2009 when the company sell this service to some forwarders to explore their existing customers. Figure 11: FedEx business performance from 2006 to 2011 (Unit: 1000USD) Source: FedEx country review 2011 Figure 11 shows both revenue and profit of FedEx on good growth. However with increased ratio of IXF shipment (which are low yield per kg for big shipments), expense was getting bigger and made profit growing rate in 2009, 2010 and 2011 lower than revenue growing rate. Strategic Annalysis Internal Factor Evaluation (IFE) Human resource The philosophy P-S-P (People-Service-Profit) is cornerstone of FedEx. This can be considered a success cycles of FedEx in which the company take care of its employees and assist them in generate excellent service to customer. That excellent service in return brings Profit to FedEx and enables the company to take a better care to its work force. Thank to this, FedEx is many times voted as most admired company by Fortune Magazine. In many major markets in LAC and APAC, FedEx is voted as one of the best companies to work for. Bring that philosophy in business, FedEx attracts a very excellent team for its representative office in Vietnam. Figure12: FedEx rep office personnel (Experienced and Education) Source: FedEx VN HR profile. Figure 12 shows number of FedEx employee divided by work group and education/experience categories. All FedEx managers (1 senior manager and 6 managers in Ho Chi Minh city, 4 managers in Hanoi) are very experienced in express industry. Sales team is young but very aggressive in selling with 10 for Ho Chi Minh city and 5 for Hanoi. Ramp team includes two groups with equal number of employee, one at Noi Bai airport and the other one at Tan Son Nhat airport. Functional group include employee at marketing, accounting and billing/collection As reflected, 100% FedEx representative office employees are graduated with 29.31% of the employees are holding master degree. With this strong back ground and excellent human development programs through training, couching all FedEx employees are skilful and knowledge in the field that they are responsible. Most of FedEx employees have long term commitment with the company. Many of them stay with the office since it was established. The package benefit and the reward program at FedEx not only keep its employees commit to stay a long time with the office, but also encourage them to perform their best in daily job. But in contrast, the FedEx GSP is a Vietnamese and young company so the recruitment, human resource policy is very different. This leads to poor quality of the work force and impacts to the image of the company in Vietnam. Employees in many cases are not care about productivities. Their attitude in making service is not very much acknowledged and appreciated by customers. This hit the level of FedEx service in Vietnam. However in recent years, with the changes of GSP management and higher demand from customers, some positive changes have been made. The GSP frontline managers and employees attitude to customers and to the service quality issue has been improved. Those employees that could not adapt to this change have been replaced. This in long run will have positive contribution to FedEx operation. But in short term, high turnover of employee impacts to the operation, especially when the new one lack of experience. Over all, the working skills of GSP employees are met with job requirement. However their English is not so good. Especially the couriers who are directly handling shipment for customers. This is room for improvement that FedEx can do to further standardize its service in Vietnam. Finance FedEx Vietnam is a dependent branch of FedEx Pacific Inc. All finance planning and management is performed at division level. The two major finance activities that done at local level are customer debt management and operation cost management. Customer debt management At FedEx, 90% of the shipment transportation charges are billed to customer accounts and the billing options can be to shipper, to consignee or to third party. That makes it very convenient for customer to ship with the company. But on the other hand it brings risk to the company if the payers refuse to pay and the re-bill is done in late (Shipper must takes the final responsibility to pay transportation charge when using FedEx service. In case the charge billed to recipient or 3rd party but payer refuse to pay, then it will be billed back to the shipper). Under agency contract GSP takes responsible for collection of the debt from customer. However their limitation in managing this area makes the on time collection of the payment is not high. Bad debt at 2% and over due debt at about 15% lower the working capital. However as reflected in Figure 11, FedEx revenue is increased year on year and the company has a good profit ratio. In addition, with FedEx Pacific Inc as a mother company, FedEx finance is on strong base. Operation cost management Though most of the ground operation costs are covered by GSP under agency contract, there are areas for FedEx to control and save cost. They include: Cost for using commercial flights (where FedEx flight is not in operation) Cost for revenue supplies (Supplies that provided to customer for them to use FedEx service like airway bill, packing materialà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦) Cost for claim settlement (for damage, late or missing shipment) At FedEx there is an index call cost per package in which all costs raise from handling a package is taken into account and bi-weekly management has a meeting to review it. This is a good tool for continuous improvement of cost saving. In 2010 the company had saved in average 2.3% of its cost per package in compare to the previous year. Facilities All the ground facilities are under GSP charge. But with booming business in past few years, the investment of the GSP on to this did not meet with requirement. Size of business in 2011 was almost 3 times larger than the one in 2006, but there was no major investment to expand ground facilities. That makes the station buildings and warehouses become too congested for FedEx operation and impacts to productivity and the service quality. Figure 13: FedEx ground facility Current Required  [2]   Gateway 800 sqm 1500 sqm Station 2000 sqm 2500 sqm Number of van 24 26 Number of truck 5 5 Number of motor-bike 20 20 Source: FedEx IE report 2011 Beside ground facility, communication network is very critical for FedEx. The network is not only for communication among FedEx locations, but also for posting and updating of shipment status. The network is considered as back bone of FedEx service. In Vietnam the company has its own lease lines to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. The lease lines are upgraded to meet with demand of growing business. The latest upgrade in earlier 2010 increased the lease lines capacity to 256 KBps. A broad band line was also established to be backup network for the lease line. This helps to avoid service impact due to communication problem. Marketing Marketing function in Vietnam is more on the implementation. Marketing planning is done at regional level by marketing management. With this arrangement, there is only 1 marketing specialist in FedEx Vietnam to cover the whole country. She has very limited decision making power on marketing plan. Most of the marketing campaigns in Vietnam are small with very limited budget. There is lack of big campaign in media that attracted mass audience. In Vietnam the new emerging market, FedEx does not have commercial TV advertisement while its major competitor DHL spends heavily on this. In past few years, FedEx involved in numerous of activities for community benefit like building 3 schools in Nam Dinh and Quang Nam, sponsoring transportation of medicine and equipment for Heart to Heart organization, major sponsor for OBIS flying hospital to Vietnam in 2007 and 2010, APEC summit in 2006. These activities were very efficient in bringing benefit to the community, but were not very well promoted by marketing and the number of earned media was not large. In terms of product that FedEx introduced to Vietnam market, the service is more diversify to provide customs more option for their shipment. Currently FedEx provide following services: International Priority (IP): This is fast, customs-cleared, door-to-door pickup and delivery of shipments to all international destinations for package weighted lower than 68 kgs. For those destinations in AsiaOne (all major cities in Asia) net work, document or packages sending under this service will be delivered on the day after ship date. This is FedEx Express core service in Vietnam International Economy (IE): This service is similar to IP service, but the transit time is longer than IP service and shipping rate is lower than IP. International Priority Freight (IPF): This is priority service using for package heavier than 68 kgs. This service is only available in designated cities/countries International Economy Freight (IEF): This is a new service launched in 2010 using for packages over 68kg. Customer use this service does not need a fast transit time. The price rate is lower than IPF and transit time is longer certainly. International priority Distribution (IPD): This is customized service using for customer who send shipment at different consignees at same country. The shipper can send all of them under 1 shipment and FedEx will separate the shpt to delivery to each consignee. This service is only available to some country and normally for global customer Beside the range of services provided, FedEx rate to each customer is different base on the customer volume. However this is not the main competition tools of FedEx. The company is more focus on its differentiation by excellent service. Despite of some weaknesses in marketing in Vietnam, FedEx brand is quite well known in business society thanks to its global image. However, to reach the level on brand awareness that FedEx has in other markets, marketing function in Vietnam should play a more active role. Sales In 2008, FedEx took over all sales activities from GSP. All sales personnel belong to FedEx. This enables the company to recruit and keep talent employee for this important function. The performance of sales team has been improved since then Currently sales team is organized under 3 sub-teams to take care of different groups of customers: Global sales: Take care of global accounts. These global customers are big accounts and very demanding for service quality. As many big international companies are setting up their business in Vietnam, revenue from this group of customer is growing very fast. In 2006, it took only 8% of total revenue, but in 2011 it took up to 27% Telesales: Take care of small accounts. There are low revenue customers but most profitable ones. Revenue from small customer takes 18% of the total FedEx Vietnam revenue. Field sales: Most of customer that taken care of by field sales are local importers/exporters. This area of sales have steady annual growth at 20% in recent year thank to strong growth in international trade in Vietnam With this arrangement, sales team can be more focus on targeted customer, hence the performance is improved. Figure 14: FedEx sales volume from 2006 to 2011 (Unit: 1 package) Source: FedEx country Review 2011 Before 2008, sales only focus on selling outbound, but with global sales network, both outbound and inbound volumes are taken care by sales. This supports strong growth of inbound volume (Figure 14). The exception in 2010 the inbound volume was down turn due to the fisrt year sales under direct management. Operation Air craft operation: With the launch of A310 to Vietnam in September 2009, FedEx increased its aircraft capacity to 5 times bigger than before  [3]  . The aircraft upgrade enables FedEx to introduce more services in and out of Vietnam. The company now can better secure space for its shipment and reduce the risk of dependence on commercial flights. The A310 serves both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city. This first time ever FedEx aircraft arrives in Hanoi making big service improvement for the capital city. Transit time reduce by 1 day for both inbound and outbound. This was an excellent preparation for FedEx Asia hub relocation to China in first half of 2009  [4]  . Station operation: Operating under agency contract, FedEx is facing with number of issues for its station operation because of differences in business strategy. Investments in work forces, vehicles, equipments are not adequate. Coverage area of FedEx service in Vietnam is large while number of couriers is limited with 30 in Hanoi and 60 in Ho Chi Minh city making it a big challenge for pick up and delivery, particularly on the surge volume dates. With booming of EPZ and Industrial Park country wide, many provinces become potential markets for air express service. However FedEx direct pick up and delivery service is only available in big cities/provinces. In other provinces, pick up/delivery is provided through a domestic express service. It means any customs in non-direct service want to use FedEx service they have to send the shipment to FedEx by domestic service first. And the same arrangement for delivery, FedEx will have domestic service to deliver package to customer in these areas. This not only makes transit time for the package longer but also impacts to service quality that customer suppose to receive when they use FedEx service. FedEx in Vietnam operates with standard procedure of FedEx global. However the ability of courier team, especially English speaking and reading skill is not good making barrier for them to learn and consult customers on shipping requirement. There is lack of rewarding program to encourage courier team, so productivity and the over all performance is not very good. Gateway operation: FedEx has 2 gateways in Vietnam, one for Hanoi and the other for Ho Chi Minh city. Both gateways are in the same buildings with stations. That makes it convenient for customers in case they have to come to do customs clearance. But it is a disadvantage for the company to maximize the use of air craft arrival time. The main job of gateway is to ensure shipments are clear customs at shortest time, reduce number of shipment pending in customs warehouse. In Vietnam, FedEx is the first company that was selected by Vietnam customs to implement electronic clearance. By applying technology in to clearance process, this area of service has been improved remarkable. The percentage of shipment released for same day delivery in 2010 is 50% higher than the one in 2007. However the constraints of ware houses and clearance facilities and the lack of customs regulations on express clearance make this clearance still not yet reaches its height of potential. Customer service operation: Customer oriented system and excellent internal communication network are very supportive tools to customer service agents to successfully handle transaction with customer. However, the weakness of call centre which under GSP control with lack of necessary equipments makes it difficult for FedEx to measure and control call quality. There is considered number of complaints regarding to customer service in Vietnam. This is contrast with FedEx customer service in other countries where most of customer praise FedEx for professional, helpful and customer oriented service. In addition, shortage of manpower for this group in Hanoi (with only 3 persons) reduces the ability to handle customer calls to FedEx at this city. Service quality management: Service quality is non-compromised issue at FedEx. It makes FedEx different from competitor. The quality driven management concept has been put in FedEx today business. With that strategy, service quality is also one of the top priorities for FedEx in Vietnam. The company is very good in making all KPI (key performance index) in service to be measurable and has strong systems to control it. Service quality is measured by both network system (base on system scan) and data collection from practice. A group of operation excellence is formed up. This group is supported by advisors at regional level. The group is doing root cause analysis for all service issues and coordinates with respective operation teams for corrective action plan. The quality report is made on daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly depend on KPI. Bi-weekly there is meeting among all managers to review service quality issue for necessary actions. With this mechanism, quality improvement is continuous process at FedEx. Information Technology (IT) Information plays very important role with express company like FedEx. Provide customer with accurate and updated information is as important as on time delivery of the package. Within FedEx operation teams, information exchange and communication among the teams is also very critical for its success. FedEx in Vietnam has its own lease line to ensure the connection of network. This system is operated and managed by very experience and skilful IT team. Numbers of IT projects have been implemented in past few years to bring benefit to FedEx and its customers: Automation shipping tool: With software installed at customer site, customer does not need to wait for FedEx to bring in shipping forms for manual completion but they can create the form on their own at any time. With this customer can complete shipping document for many shipment just in few minutes. This helps FedEx to save cost while provide more convenience to customers. Transmission of shipping documents images: FedEx Vietnam now can transmit all shipping documents of its export shipments to countries of destination before shipment departs. With this ability, FedEx in destination does not need to wait for shipments arrival to retrieve the documents but having these documents much earlier than the physical shipment arrives. So they can do pre-arrival customs clearance and ensure that the shipment is immediate released for delivery once it arrives. This tremendously improves the service and saves FedEx hundred thousands of UDS a year for fax fee, storage fee. In conclusion, FedEx Vietnams major advantages are: Operating FedExs own flight to both Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh city Best express service from Vietnam to US, North America and Japan the key export markets of Vietnam Management awareness of service quality and use it as differentiator. A good service quality control system is put on place. Innovative service base on information technology Meanwhile, FedEx major weak points are operating under agency and poor quality call centre for customer operation. With above analysis, an IFE matrix is formed up by strategist team. The IFE matrix for FedEx Vietnam includes 12 factors with seven strengths and five weaknesses. Values of weight and rate for each factor are calculated base on average scores of the team members with some minor adjustment after review with the whole team (Appendix H). The final IFE matrix for FedEx is reflected in Figure 15. Figure 15: IFE Matrix of FedEx Vietnam No. Factors Weight Rate Weighted score 1 FedEx has 5 flights a week to both Hanoi and HCMC 0.14 4 0.56 2 Well known brand 0.12 3 0.36 3 Hub Operation Model Global Network 0.09 4 0.36 4 The best express service to US, North America and Japan 0.12 4 0.48 5 Wide range of services 0.04 3 0.12 6 Management awareness of service quality issue and use the quality of service as differentiator. 0.05 4 0.2 7 Innovative service on the base of information technology 0.04 4 0.16 8 FedEx operates under agency contract 0.15 1 0.15 9 Low quality call centre 0.13 1 0.13 10 High over due debt ratio 0.03 1 0.03 11 Poor marketing activities

Odyssey :: essays research papers

1. Does the Odysseus of these books seem different in character from the Odysseus of Books V – XII? If so, why? In the books 5 to 12 Odysseus’ character does not really undergo any transitions from one facet to another. Odysseus still carries the same attributes and traits right through to the end of the story. It is, however, evident in book 22, when Odysseus takes his revenge upon the suitors, that we see a totally different side to Odysseus’ character. Both these two points will be addressed in this answer. At the beginning of the Epic, Odysseus is presented as a very brave and heroic man who often thinks about his home, wife and son. He is a character that loves story telling, which also includes lying with the greatest of ease. Odysseus â€Å"the man of many resources† never changes in his ways throughout the rest of the Epic, as he remains constant to all his former attributes. In this way it is obvious that Odysseus is a very stable hero who acts and thinks in the same manner always, much like any human. However, there is a twist to this debate, as in Book 22 when he fights the suitors and prevails we do see a very different side to the character of Odysseus. In this book, Homer presents Odysseus to us as a very ruthless and un-forgiving character one who has everything set on destroying all he can. Odysseus could basically be described as heartless. We see this in particular when Odysseus â€Å"stuck Leodes full in the neck.† Leodes had submitted to Odysseus yet he was blessed with no hope of recognition as Odysseus had already decided upon the suitor’s fate. This is quite a change in the way that Odysseus is portrayed in all the other

Brief History of the National Rifle Association :: NRA Guns Historical Militia Essays

Brief History of the National Rifle Association   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The National Rifle Association in its simplest form is the largest gun club in the world. The organization was founded in 1871 by former Union Army officers to encourage sport shooting in order to have a fine tuned militia in case of emergency. The Union officers believed that a well regulated militia was integral for the security of a free state. It is an organization that opposes gun control, it believes in the individual defense of the uses of firearms, and it is interested in all aspects of shooting sports.1   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Today, the organization stands with approximately 3.4 million members. Within the NRA, there are four major organs. The Institute for Legislative Action (is the lobbying arm), the political Victory Fund (which is a political action committee), the Civil Rights Legal Defense Fund (deals with scholarly research and legal developments), and the Grass Roots Division (which specializes in raising support through grass roots methods). As a membership organization, the NRA's directions is set by voting members. The direction of the policies are carried out by a 75 member board that is geographically distributed. The Board of Directors are elected by secret ballot.2 Brady Act   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Brady Act was approved by Congress in November of 1993 and was then signed into law by President Clinton later in the month. The act was originally named for anti gun lobbyist Sarah Brady, and not for former press secretary Jim Brady. It was through Jim Brady's support and the media coverage that linked his name to the act. The act requires that there be a waiting period of five state government business days at the time an individual applies to purchase a handgun from a federal firearm license. During the five day wait, the local sheriff or police chief must "make a reasonable effort" to see if the purchaser is prohibited from owning a handgun. The police official may approve the sale before the five day period only if the record check has been completed or if he believes the purchaser needs a handgun immediately to protect himself or his family.3   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Presently, the Clinton administration isn't complying with the Brady Act. The act requires that within 60 months of enactment, the Attorney General must establish a national instant criminal background check system that allows federal firearms licensees to have access through some type of electronic method. The reason for the delay lies with the fact that U.S. Circuit Courts have split on whether the Brady Act violates the 10th amendment of the Constitution by allowing law enforcement agencies to conduct criminal records checks in

Urban Regeneration of London Docklands – A sustainable success?

During the late 18th century and early 19th century the London Docklands were a very important industrial centre and the busiest port in the world. Right into the early part of the 20th century, the docks provided employment for thousands of dockers. Trade was focused around maritime activities, for example shipbuilding and the import of goods, such as tobacco and sugar, stored in large warehouses encircling the docks. Traffic through the Royal Docks reached its peak in the 1950s and early 1960s. However after a turn of technological improvements, the docks became abandoned and derelict. The first change, in the 1950's, was an increase in the size of ships. The ships were so big that trade had to be moved down river to Tilbury docks, which was next to the sea and not crowded by poor roads and a large city. Unemployment, few amenities and poor living conditions followed this in 1970. Other changes included a rise in air travel, competition from other ports and the need for more space. All these factors resulted in the closure of the London Docklands in 1981creating an area of derelict and unused space. The conditions for the locals in 1981 were very poor, there were a lot of high density housing – cheap, but small and old fashioned. Over half of the Docklands was derelict, vacant or under-used with empty factories and other buildings. There was virtually no open space and only a few small shops and leisure facilities. Transport was poorly developed and the narrow roads were congested with lorries. The unemployment rate was 17.8% and the population of the Docklands had fallen by 20%. Something needed to change, so in July 1981 the London Docklands Development Corporation was set up to improve the social, economic and environmental conditions of the area. The LDDC was an urban development corporation set up by an Act of Parliament it wanted to tackle the main problems of the area, and attract new people to live and work there. The LDDC wanted to undertake the issues of: * Transport * Utilities * The environment * Housing * Community infrastructure * Unemployment * Reclamation Example of Environmental Development Details Visual appearance * Refurbishment of docks allowing them public access. * Urban design, street furniture, public art. * Restoration of listed properties. * Reclamation of 7square km of derelict land. Environmental projects * Wildlife and nature parks created. * 160,000 trees planted. * 17 conservation areas. Example of Social Development Details Housing * 19,000 new homes built. * 2,000 new social housing units. * 770 council houses refurbished. Community infrastructure * 12 new primary schools. * 5 new health centres and 6 refurbished health centres. Utilities * Improvement in drainage. * Improvement in electricity supplies. Example of Economic Development Details Tourism * Increase in Tourism, with Docklands receiving 2.1 million visitors last year. Unemployment * Unemployment rates: 17.8% in 1981 and 7.2% in December 1997. * Population increased from 39,000 in 1981, to 68,000 in 1995. * 2,800 new jobs created. Transport à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½950million spent * New roads. * Docklands Light Railway. * London City Airport. * Pedestrian and cycle networks. Commercial Development * Many companies chose to move out and make the most of the cheap office rents and open space. * 16million mà ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½ of commercial development completed. * 11.2 million sq. ft of completed new office space. * à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½1.7 billion of public centre investment and à ¯Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ½6.1 billion of private investment towards new businesses and office developments. * Large superstores and shopping complexes. However not every aspect of the regeneration was successful, some of the impacts that affected the local people and the area were not good ones: * The new jobs created did not solve unemployment as they were designed to attract rich, skilled workers, there were few jobs created for the unskilled inner city population. * Money was spent on expensive office blocks rather than local amenities and services. * Wealthy new people brought extra money and trade to the area, but this caused local shop prices to rise. * The new housing built is too expensive for the locals. This has lead to gentrification. * Poverty in social housing estates was outlined and inequality increased, when rich, skilled workers moved to the area. * The traditional ‘Eastenders' community was destroyed by the changes. * Transport schemes were seen as inadequate, although there has been some improvement with the Jubilee line extension in the 1990's, critics believe it should have been in place before. * The recession in the early 1990's saw work stopping on Canary Wharf and a sharp increase in unemployed and homeless people. Physically and environmentally, the London Docklands regeneration has been a success, however socially it has been a failure, especially for lower social classes. A survey taken in 1996 showed that 22% of people thought that life had got worse as a result of the regeneration. However other factors and mainly the visual appearance of the Docklands is much better than it would have been had the regeneration not taken place.

Using Budgets for Control

Budgets provide a means for planning the financial future and play a vital role for planning. Budgets simultaneously make managers construct and implement plans, contribute useful information for improved decision making, provide a standard to administer performance evaluation, and enhance organization and communication. An essential component of the budgeting system is control. Control periodically takes actual results and budgeted results and compares the two. It also allows for managers to frequently measure their performance from reports by providing performance evaluations.The master budget can be separated into operating and financial budgets, each made up of distinctly supporting schedules. Implementing budgets enables managers to create a formulated plan that allows for performance evaluation and improved control. Control involves the process of looking at the past, determining what really occurred and comparing it to previously projected results. Two processes which are sign ificant to adjusting the budget are the control cycle and the planning cycle.Both are linked through feedback and in their final stage, involve budgets. Participative budgeting gives subordinate managers the opportunity to contribute considerable proposals for establishing budgets. A key factor in implementing participative budgeting is that each manager should only be held responsible for costs they can completely control. Any costs that are outside of their control that are included on their budgets need to be marked as non-controllable, and separated from those costs that can be controlled.Participative Budgeting also enables the manager with the chance to structure slack into the budget as a way to increase the probability that the manager will achieve the proposed budget and therefore decrease the risk they may incur. This requires upper level management to carefully review budget proposals from subordinate management in order to decrease the amount of slack placed into the bud get. Performance evaluation is a vital element in rating the performance of management as well as maintaining control.When using budgets for performance evaluations it can result in feedback frequency of performance, monetary as well as nonmonetary incentives, participative budgeting, attainable standards, a variety of measures of performance and the possibility of controlling costs. By using frequent feedback on performance it gives managers a means to measure the success of their planning and enforce any corrective action. Monetary and nonmonetary incentives can aid in invoking a positive, goal congruent behavior in which goals at managerial and organizational levels agree.A simple example of performance evaluation could take place in a pizza restaurant that makes only pizzas. If the owner has an exact amount of toppings that he knows should be put on the pizzas and what that cost is, he can assess the amount of toppings being used. He might find that his workers are inadvertently topping some pizzas with more toppings than others. By encouraging his employees to top all pizzas with a consistent amount of toppings he can improve the consistency of the pizzas delivered to customers and increase savings on costs of toppings.If this same principle is practiced toward other aspects of the restaurant it could provide significant savings overall. Budgets contribute a valuable role in the success of a company. Implementing control and performance evaluations increases the effectiveness of the budget and provides guidelines for performance improvement in the business. Participative budgeting gives subordinate managers the ability to be involved and invokes a sense of responsibility while embracing creativity.However if not implemented correctly, the results can produce reduced control and padded budgets that can make it difficult to evaluate performance. Although budgets can contribute a valuable measure for managerial performance, they can still be manipulated by m anagers that are able to increase budgetary performance in the short-run yet cause significant damage to the business. Organizations need to utilize other qualified measures that take into consideration the financial or nonfinancial and short-run and long-run effects in order to avoid any threats of myopic behavior.