Organizing relationships traditional and emerging perspectives on workplace relationships Essay Example for Free

Organizing relationships traditional and emerging perspectives on workplace relationships Essay Business ethics Introduction                   One of the issues that have raised concerns in business nowadays is the relationship between senior employees, and the junior employees of the opposite sex. For years, senior employees such as managers and directors have been accused of sexually or emotionally abusing the junior employees working under them. Some are even accused of threatening to dismiss the employees who decline their request for sexual favors from them. Though this may be seen as sexual harassment, the case might be something different from that. Simply because the relationship is between senior and a junior employee, it may not be right to rush to a conclusion that the boss is sexually or emotionally exploiting their subject. It may be a relationship that has developed naturally due to the level of intimacy of the two employees of the opposite gender.                   The controversial nature of this issue is clearly portrayed in the mail online article of November 13th, 2013. The article explains that the report of a study carried out by business week has shown that most of these relationships between employees have nothing to do with harassment. During the survey, it was found out that most of the people working in the offices would be up to a sexual relationship with someone from their office if they got the chance. Of the 2500 respondents interviewed during the survey, 85 percent said it was right for employees within the company to be allowed to have sexual relationships. Some even confessed of sexually admiring their coworkers. After all this, why does the Human Resource department discourage intimate relationships between their employees of opposite gender? The answer is that they conclude that one of the parties in the relationship is sexually harassed, especially if one of the parties is the boss of the other .                   Some people may accuse me of supporting the behavior of the bosses to engage in sexual relationships with their colleagues. But if we consider some working conditions in some organizations, we see that the relations originate absolutely from intimacy and not harassment. Consider the case of a male manager, who works with a lady as the personal secretary. It is very possible for the two to engage in an affair due to the intimacy created by the working conditions. The two attend meetings together, go for lunch together, spend time together in the office, sometimes they go together to attend meetings far from their place of work, and many other closely spent times. From all these close relation, is it not against the laws of nature for something more than boss-secretary relationship to happen? Ironically, when a relationship develops between the manager and his secretary, the manager will be accused of sexually harassing the secretary! In my opinion, the bo ss would be emotionally harassing the secretary if he chose to ignore the feelings that develop after been together almost all the time.                   It may also be arguable that boss-subject relationships may adversely affect the performance of the employees. Employees may be reluctant in their work simply because the boss, who is supposed to supervise their work, can not condemn them because of the existing bond. This may be the idea behind the fight by the human resource department against sexual relationships at the workplace. However, this may not always be the case. This relationship may boost the performance of an employee who will always be trying to be the best to impress the boss. The article workplace relationships on Wikipedia explain of a theory, Workplace Relationship Quality and information Experiences, which originated from a study conducted by Patricia Sias. The theory states the most productive employees are the ones with high access to information about their workplace. It is obvious that the employees with a relationship more than the ordinary workplace relationship have a higher a ccess to business information. I may, therefore, be right to say that the boss-subject relationships can play an important part in boosting the productivity of the employees. The article further describes relationships at the workplace as â€Å"workplace romance†. It explains that though these relationships may not make the workplace so comfortable for other employees; it plays a very important part in the working of the parties involved in the affair. It increases performance due to high motivation and overall job satisfaction.                   Even though some senior employees in some business organization sexually exploit their junior colleagues, let us not mistake every relationship for sexual exploitation or harassment. It is good to appreciate that these bosses and their subjects are just ordinary people and what makes their difference is only the working position and titles. When there is a relationship between two junior employees of opposite gender, this is taken to be an ordinary love relationship. Why then do we have to treat the seniors differently? Aren’t they the same as the juniors? What marks the difference is only job level. It is, therefore, necessary to analyze the situation before concluding that a boss is sexually harassing a junior workmate. References Sias, P. M. (2009). Organizing relationships traditional and emerging perspectives on workplace relationships. Los Angeles: SAGE. (https://www.goodreads.com/user/new?remember=true) Sias, P. M. (2008). Organizing Relationships Traditional and Emerging Perspectives on Workplace Relationships.. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications. (http://www.amazon.com/Organizing-Relationships-Traditional-Perspectives-Workplace/dp/1412957974) Source document

Harper Lees To Kill a Mockingbird :: Harper Lee Kill Mockingbird Essays

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is a highly regarded work of American fiction. The story of the novel teaches us many lessons that should last any reader for a lifetime. The messages that Harper Lee relays to the reader are exemplified throughout the book using various methods. One of the most important and significant methods was the use of symbols such as the mockingbird image. Another important method was showing the view through a growing child's (Scout Finch) mind, eyes, ears, and mouth. There is another very significant method that was used. In the novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee utilizes the effects of irony, sarcasm, and hypocrisy to criticize a variety of elements in Southern life. Harper Lee employs the effects of irony in To Kill a Mockingbird as a way to criticize the deficiency of public education. "Now tell your father not to teach you any more. It's best to begin reading with a fresh mind." (pG. 22) Instead of praising Scout's ability to read at an advanced level, Miss Caroline discourages it. This ironic example set by Miss Caroline seems to demonstrate the inadequate training that she had received for her occupation. Miss Caroline seems to have been instructed upon a strict standard on how her students are expected to behave, but when she encounters something different, such as Scout's advanced ability to read, she advises Scout to stop being advanced, whereas a modern-day schoolteacher would capitalize on Scout's ability to read and encourage her to read more. "You won't learn to write until you're in the third grade." (pg. 23) The strict, recipe-style, rubric method of teaching that Miss Caroline uses is once again emphasized here. Miss Caroline once again discourages Scout's advanced abilities and regards Scout's ability with contempt. "The Dewey Decimal System consisted, in part, of Miss Caroline waving cards at us which were printed 'the,' 'cat,' 'rat,' 'man,' and 'you.'" (pg. 23) The Dewey Teaching Method was supposed to place an emphasis on "active" learning, yet the irony in Miss Caroline's "use" of it was that her teaching method wasn't "active" at all. It was, in fact, extremely passive. The students in the class didn't do anything. They became extremely bored and learned very little. As I have established, the use of irony clearly reveals the deficiency of the public education system in the 1930's. Teachers did not seem to be trained enough to handle the vast abilities of their students.

History of Love Essay

The fear of losing something, whether it is one’s own life, the lives of love ones, or memories, is what drives many of the things people do. The characters in The History of Love are from different generations and have gone through different experiences but they all strive to sustain love, avoid death, stave off misery, and find a bearable truth in the sometimes unbearable reality of living. They are linked together through the theme of survival. Through different methods, they seek to physically survive and keep their love for others alive. To begin with, Bird attempts to help his sister and mother physically survive when the world ends. Bird believes that the world will end by a flood. He goes around the neighborhood looking for â€Å"things that people have thrown away with the garbage† and â€Å"Styrofoam because it floats† to build an ark (151). Bird believes that with the ark, his mother and Alma â€Å"don’t have to worry† about survival when the flood comes (204). Secondly, Alma Singer demonstrates a strong desire to physically survive and preserve her memories and connection with her deceased father by taking interest in surviving in the wilderness and reading The History of Love. When she discovers that her father loved the outdoors, Alma decides to become an expert at surviving in the wilderness in order to keep her memory of her father alive and maintain a connection with him. She learns survival skills by purchasing and closely reading a book called Edible Plants and Flowers in North America, memorizing the Universal Edibility Test, and practicing assembling her father’s tent in record time so that she can survive in places like the Peruvian Andes â€Å"like [her] father† (42). In addition, her memories of her father become more† faint, unclear, and distant† as each year passes and it does not help that her mother threw away most of his belongings (190). She turns to the book, The History of Love, hoping to â€Å"find out something true about [her] father, and the things he would have wanted to tell [her] if he hadn’t died† (181). Alma tries to keep her love and memories for her father alive by find meaning out of the passions and belongings of her father. In contrast to Alma, Charlotte Singer survives and continues her love for her husband by creating a world that focuses on her memoires and feelings for her husband, David. She survives by never falling out of love with him and keeping her love as alive â€Å"as the summer they first met† (45). She holds on to her memories and love for her husband by following sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti’s idea that in order to â€Å"paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape† (45). In attempt to â€Å"hold on to a certain feeling†, Charlotte insulates herself with memories of her life with David by building a world out of them where â€Å"she [knew] how to survive in, even if no one else could† (181). As a result, she â€Å"sacrificed the world† and her connection with her children and other people (46). Similar to Charlotte, Leo’s unwavering love for Alma Mereminsky allows him to physically survive the Holocaust in Europe. With the Nazi invasion of Slonim, Leo was forced into a constant state of running and hiding. In order to survive, he hid in â€Å"trees, cracks, cellars, and holes† and lived in forests, subsiding on â€Å"anything he could put in [his] mouth† such as bugs, worms, and unclean water from puddles (12, 226). During the winter, he would hide in potato cellars for warmth and eat raw rat meat. Despite these horrible experiences, Leo’s deep love for Alma M. and his hope to reunite with her motivated Leo to want to live â€Å"very badly† and ultimately enabled him to survive the Holocaust (226). Just as Leo used the writing of The History of Love to help him survive his separation from Alma M. during his youth, at the end of his life he uses writing once again to help him survive. Leo uses writing and imagination to survive loss and loneliness. At the end of his life, he writes Words for Everything, his life story. He uses this creative process as a way to cope with the separation and loss of his parents, siblings, â€Å"the only woman [he] ever wanted to love†, son, time, and childhood home, among many other things (168). Leo also uses his imagination to survive loneliness. During his childhood he used imagination to cope with being â€Å"different than others† and later in his life, he uses it to create a friend, Bruno. Bruno, Leo’s â€Å"old faithful† is revealed to be â€Å"the friend that [he] didn’t have† and â€Å"the greatest character [he] ever wrote†, based on his childhood friend who was killed in Slonim during the Holocaust (6, 249). Bruno, someone Leo â€Å"invented so [he] could live,† was resurrected in his imagination to compensate for his inability to relate to the world and assuage his own loneliness (167). Leo uses writing and imagination to survive in different stages of his life. For the characters of The History of Love, there are different contexts and methods for survival. For Bird, it is important that his mother and sister physically survive the flood that he believes is coming. To Alma Singer, her obsession with physical survival in the wilderness stems from her attempt to keep her connection, memories, and love for her father alive. Simultaneously, Charlotte closes herself from the world so that she can preserve her love and memories of her deceased husband. Bird, Alma S., and Charlotte’s connection and methods for survival all underline Leo’s journey of survival. In the early part of his life, Leo uses his love for Alma Mereminsky to physically stay alive during the Holocaust. At the end of his life, he uses writing and imagination to survive separation, loss, and loneliness. Each character has their own story but they are connected through a strong will for their own survival and the survival of their loved ones and irreplaceable love and memories of them.

An Empirical Analysis Of Supply Chain Risk Management

Literature Review: Jorn-Henrik Thun and Daniel Hoenig in the paper titled â€Å"An empirical analysis of supply chain risk management in the German automotive industry† applied the practices of supply chain risk management by surveying sixty-seven manufacturing plants in German automotive industry. The need of real empirical research in supply chain risk management to help analyzing supply chain risk and test the previous research proposed instruments that can be applied for supply chain risk management was the motivation of this work. In this paper, the occurrence likelihood and the potential impact were used as supply chain risk identifier. The analysis showed that supply chains are mostly vulnerable and that the possible reason behind the vulnerabilities is low degree for the implementation of the used instruments in supply chain risk management. Furthermore, the supply chain vulnerabilities key factors are the factors raising complexity and factors increasing efficiency. Also, the research s hows that supply chain risk management has the ability to make the automotive industry supply chain better [1]. Ou Tang and S. Nurmaya Musa in the paper titled â€Å"Identifying risk issues and research advancements in supply chain risk management† shows the development of research in the area of supply chain risk management as the number of publication between 1995 and 2009 were increasing for the risk management topic. In addition, they proposed classification for potential risk thatShow MoreRelatedSupply Chain Risk Management Analysis1521 Words   |  7 Pages Uta Jà ¼ttner, (2005),Supply chain risk management, The International Journal of Logistics Management, Vol. 16 Iss 1 pp. 120 - 141. Supply chain risk management is an intersection of supply chain management and risk management. For this we need to understand the benefits and as well as the limitations of both the concepts. 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