Building a Services Brand Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Building a Services Brand - Essay Example Striking a balance between the customer-centered approach and the internal orientation towards the centrality of staff is the key to the development of a service brand. This paper attempts an overview of the available literature on services brand building and then correlates it with the opinions of leading-edge brand consultants. Literature Review: The existing models of brand building, by and large, are biased towards the goods sector with little or no relevance to the services sector. Aaker’s brand identity planning model (Aaker et al. 40), Kapferer’s hexagonal brand identity prism model (Kapferer 182) or Ind’s insistence on organization-wide commitment and employee-centric approach (Ind 24) hardly has any principles that can have useful application in services brand building. However, the four-dimensional brand asset management strategy proposed by Scott M Davis (Shay 438) and the four-step process suggested by Gregory and Sellers focus on a combination of int ernal and external factors and are therefore worth considering in the present discussion. Davis’s model includes the phases of developing a brand vision, determining the brand picture, devising a brand asset management strategy and devising a supporting culture. ... According to de Chernatony, the definition of brand image includes the three components – promise, emotional values and rational values (Schmid 1). Overall, there is a paucity of literature about building services brands and this could be because brand building, by its very nature, is dynamic. Moreover, new services are often included under the existing and established corporate brands. The need to build a corporate brand from scratch rarely arises. As for the question of who must take charge of the task of building services brands, the limitations in the traditional brand manager concept have already become obvious and category managers are replacing brand managers (Batra et al. 25). Considering the multi-faceted role of CEOs and the declining role of marketing departments (Hulbert et al. 55), it certainly is a good idea to have an exclusive executive and a cross-functional team with sole responsibility of brand building. Toffler ventured a little further and advocated user g enerated branding by way of prosumerism (Burmann et al. 75). In all this, the HRM has a crucial role to play as recruiting, training and motivating employees is as important as understanding and fulfilling customer needs (Thomson et al. 819). Kaplan and Norton too endorse the idea of internal / external balance through their ‘balanced scorecard’ (7). Ambler goes to the extent of saying that internal marketing should precede external efforts (113). What the experts say: With respect to developing service brands from scratch, the questions that precisely need to be answered are: (i) Who is involved? (ii) What are the stages that firms go through? and (iii) Which orientation is

Catharine bond hill Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Catharine bond hill - Term Paper Example According to recent research, fully 80% of all economic majors and postgraduates within the United States are men all stop this is a shocking statistic due to the fact that women comprise upwards of 60% of all college and university enrollment within the United States at the given time. Likewise, the purpose of this brief analysis will be to underscore the importance that women play within this field and draw particular inference with regards to the impacts they can have based upon the life and experience of what can only be described as an exceptional woman within the field. In such a way, the preceding analysis will seek to draw inference based upon the life of Catherine Bond Hill and the means by which women within her profession can seek to affected impacts, whom this profession specifically aims to serve, and the overall outlook and future of this profession with regards to the analysis of current and key statistics. Furthermore, it is the hope of this author that such an analys is will be the reader to an understanding of the increased importance that women should place upon the field of economics means by which they can seek to affect the quality within this field over time. ... However, as has been described, below and extent to which women began to be represented within economics is necessarily been constrained. Although it is beyond the scope of this analysis to determine whether or not this constraint is due to natural/personal choices or a systemic level of sexism within the field, nonetheless, the rate of growth that women have seen within economics over the past half-century has been abysmally low as compared to other fields of study. This very low rate of representation is something of a unique dynamic in an arena in which equality is virtually praised to have been met (Peterson 279). Whereas many professions and fields of academics aim to serve specific segments of society, the environment, science, or philosophy, is various profession and fields are generally concentric upon facilitating a key level of value within a specific community of stakeholders. Conversely, those individuals that engage in economic studies are necessarily interested in maxim izing value for each and every stakeholder within society. Such a macro view sets this field apart from any other fields. Accordingly, the need for women to be represented within it is great due to the fact that they are able to bring a unique perspective of a previously disenfranchised and ultimately silent group that represents fully 50% of the global population. In such a manner, the reader/researcher can understand the profession aims at seeking to understand and define a level of resource allocation with regards to the ever-increasing population and never-ending human demands that are placed upon finite resources (Dimand 15). Moreover, in an age of increasing environmental destruction and the impacts of global

Building a Services Brand Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Building a Services Brand - Essay Example Striking a balance between the customer-centered approach and the internal orientation towards the centrality of staff is the key to the development of a service brand. This paper attempts an overview of the available literature on services brand building and then correlates it with the opinions of leading-edge brand consultants. Literature Review: The existing models of brand building, by and large, are biased towards the goods sector with little or no relevance to the services sector. Aaker’s brand identity planning model (Aaker et al. 40), Kapferer’s hexagonal brand identity prism model (Kapferer 182) or Ind’s insistence on organization-wide commitment and employee-centric approach (Ind 24) hardly has any principles that can have useful application in services brand building. However, the four-dimensional brand asset management strategy proposed by Scott M Davis (Shay 438) and the four-step process suggested by Gregory and Sellers focus on a combination of int ernal and external factors and are therefore worth considering in the present discussion. Davis’s model includes the phases of developing a brand vision, determining the brand picture, devising a brand asset management strategy and devising a supporting culture. ... According to de Chernatony, the definition of brand image includes the three components – promise, emotional values and rational values (Schmid 1). Overall, there is a paucity of literature about building services brands and this could be because brand building, by its very nature, is dynamic. Moreover, new services are often included under the existing and established corporate brands. The need to build a corporate brand from scratch rarely arises. As for the question of who must take charge of the task of building services brands, the limitations in the traditional brand manager concept have already become obvious and category managers are replacing brand managers (Batra et al. 25). Considering the multi-faceted role of CEOs and the declining role of marketing departments (Hulbert et al. 55), it certainly is a good idea to have an exclusive executive and a cross-functional team with sole responsibility of brand building. Toffler ventured a little further and advocated user g enerated branding by way of prosumerism (Burmann et al. 75). In all this, the HRM has a crucial role to play as recruiting, training and motivating employees is as important as understanding and fulfilling customer needs (Thomson et al. 819). Kaplan and Norton too endorse the idea of internal / external balance through their ‘balanced scorecard’ (7). Ambler goes to the extent of saying that internal marketing should precede external efforts (113). What the experts say: With respect to developing service brands from scratch, the questions that precisely need to be answered are: (i) Who is involved? (ii) What are the stages that firms go through? and (iii) Which orientation is

Organizational culture Essay Example for Free

Organizational culture Essay For a company, organizational culture is very important because the culture is like something that the employee can be based for. In addition, the organizational culture is defined as a system of shared meaning and beliefs within an organization that determines, in a large degree, how employees act (Robbins, et al., 2003, p. 70). Founders of new organizations and managers play an important role in creating and maintaining organizational cultures. However, ethical organizational cultures are those in which ethical values and norms are emphasized. As Jones and George (2003, p. 350) argue that ethical organizational cultures can help organizations and their members behave in a socially responsible manner. Some might believe that if they do the ethical corporate culture, they will be able to get much profit. Meanwhile, Arnold and Lampe (1999, pp. 1-19, cited in Robbins, et al., p. 154) claim that the content and strength of an organizations culture also influences ethical behavior. Nevertheless, a strong culture will have a very powerful and positive influence on managers decisions to act ethically and unethically. whereas, in a weak organizational culture, managers are more likely to rely on subculture norms as a behavioral guide. Work groups and departmental standards will strongly influence ethical behaviour in organizations with weak overall cultures. Alongside with organizational culture, there are two more things that have strong correlation with it. The first one is ethics. Ethics is the code of moral principles and values that govern that behavior of a person or group with respect to what is right or wrong (Robbins, et al., 2003, p. 150). The second thing that has strong correlation with culture is social responsibility. It is a managements obligation to make choices and take action that will contribute to the welfare and interest of society as well as to the interest of the organization (Robbins, et al., 2003, p. 138). Nevertheless, managers who have ethical behavior and social responsibility can build a good reputation for their company. As Donaldson and Werhane (1993, pp.249-254) argue that having a good reputation of a company can increase profit. In addition, Robbins (et al., 2003, pp. 161-165) defines social responsibility is an obligation, beyond that required by the law and  economics, for a firm to pursue long-term goals that are good for society. However, social responsibility is the duty of manager to make decision consider with well-being of stakeholders and society. In fact, there are two main views of managements social responsibility, which are classical view and socioeconomic view (Robbins, 2003, p. 407). Additionally, classical view aims to maximize profits, whereas socioeconomic view is that social responsibility goes beyond the increasing profit to improve the welfare of society. It is very important that managers support and develop an ethical culture because employees more likely to act ethically if their leader work having an ethical role model (Jones, George, 2003, pp.101-103). Working ethically is a responsibility to the society. Nevertheless, this is very important as it can avoid harming stakeholders and also enhance the well-being of society as a whole. Stakeholders including employees, customers, suppliers, competitors, governments, media, union, communities, social and political action groups, etc (Robbins, et al., 2003, pp. 92-93). There are still some examples for the reference of socially responsible behavior such as providing training for workers, eliminating discrimination and reducing pollution (Robbins, et al., 2003, p. 407). Providing training for workers can enhance their skills and techniques for work and it can improve the productivity and efficiency. Workers will not be obsolete by the changes of technology so it benefits employees as well as the company (Tsang, 2003, p. 25). Social responsibility and economic growth is related sometimes. At first, the profit may be reduced by the costs of training workers, however, when the trained employees can work efficiently, the productivity will be increased followed by increasing profit at last. Eliminating discrimination is a social responsibility of managers. Some companies would like to employ a specific kind of person but not the others and cause inequality is known as discrimination. For instance, some companies would prefer employ a local student to an international student or they prefer employ man to woman (Pagan, 2000, p. 619). It is harm to firm if they refuse to employ some other races people since they can provide some  new ideas to the company for reference. These new ideas may not be gained from local employers as foreigners have different culture from the local and they can offer some useful information from the other view for the decision making. This is why an organizational culture which has formally adopted a specific position, philosophy, or set of beliefs regarding the fundamental values or principles, is an important thing to be used as the basis for business decision making. Moreover, if managers keep labor Market discrimination, it would lead to society chaotic and harm the society. Therefore, managers should bear the social responsibility to reduce discrimination. Another point that supports an organization to become socially responsible is that when a company being socially responsible, which means that the company has long-term goals. Company should higher the quality of a product to benefit customers to provide a better quality of life (Samli, 1992, p.12). The real example about this is The Body Shop. Although The Body Shop is looking for the profit, they still very concern about the environment. They use goods that not give bad impact on the environment. The product that the body shop sells is more expensive than others because they use the materials that do not give bad impact to the environment. As a result, people still buy their product because people know that they choose the right product. More expensive but in their product, it cant be found anything that can damage their self and more important damage the environment. As we have seen, by being socially responsible, the firm can gain long-run profit and improve the companys public image (Davis, et al., 1988, p. 37). In short, it can be seen that being socially responsible and following ethical corporate culture is much more profitable. But, since not all the companies have ethical corporate culture, there are some policies or practices that can be worked to encourage it. Firstly, the company should provide some training for the new and current employee because with the training activities it will make all the employee know about the culture and can adapt with the organizations culture. Secondly, the company should punish the person who do not obey or perform appropriate with the culture and give respect to the person who perform and do the culture. With that  punishment and respect the employee will think that obey the culture is important. Third, the leaders in the company have to do the culture, so the employee can follow the leader to do the culture. Senior management needs to zealous avoid any decision or action that could reasonably be expected to communicate selfish motive for imposing a n ethics philosophy, system, or measurement on employees (www.centeronline.org/knowledge/article.cfm?ID=2431). In conclusion, social responsibility is an important element for a company to success. Social responsibility brings company reputation followed by higher profit. Those firms having social responsibility can improve peoples quality of life and their health. It can also stable the society from chaotic. Therefore, managers should follow regulations and work ethically with the consideration of societys well-being. Briefly, if one company is concerned about the ethical corporate culture which means that the company and the employee know what is right and wrong and know how to behave in the company. Thus, in one company it is very important to have ethical corporate culture.

Fatigue Cracking of Pavement

Fatigue Cracking of Pavement Introduction to fatigue cracking of pavement Fatigue or alligator cracking is the most common type of pavement distress, it is infact the major one. This is the type of distress in which series of interconnected cracks appears due to the fatigue failure of the HMA surface when the pavement experience repeated traffic loading. These type of cracks later allow moisture infiltration into the pavement, the road surface gradually gets more rough, the infiltrated moisture then again accelerate the existing cracking which in worst case may end up being a small to large sized pothole. In other words, as the traffic loads get repeated on the pavement, fatigue cracking starts to initiate at the bottom of the flexible layer, which accounts for the tensile strains at the bottom of the HMA layer (Huang 1993).   Researchers suggested that, for the M-E structural design process of pavement, this tensile strength must be kept in limit in order to check against fatigue cracking (Shook,1982). Figure 1: Schematic diagram of Fatigue Craking Mechanism in Pavement Cross Section (Priest et al., 2006) Apart from the repeated stresses incurred upon the pavement surface, fatigue cracking may take place due to aging, temperature changes or inadequate drainage. The effects of these factors are really complicated which my lead to undesirable changes to asphalt, associated with the poor durability properties of the HMA layer. (Finn 1967). Though due to previous research, it was believed that, most of the cracks initiates at the bottom and then make its way to the top of the asphalt layer, which is also termed as bottom up fatigue cracking, recent studies shows that, in most cases, cracks initiates at the pavement surface on the wheel path and then make its way down to the bottom (Myers and Roque, 2001). Federal Highway Administrations Distress Identification Manual for the Long-Term Pavement Performance Program mentioned about three levels of severity for fatigue cracking, which are high severity fatigue cracking, moderate severity fatigue cracking and low severity fatigue cracking. High severity fatigue cracking is the ultimate stage of fatigue cracking. When the pavement has been stressed to the limit of its fatigue life, it is no longer attractive and is barely functional. This stage is called high severity of fatigue cracking. In this case, the cracks are formed in large areas and there are several pieces of loose surface asphalt. Pavement in this condition needs repair immediately. Moderate severity fatigue cracking is the stage when distinguished the arrival of connecting cracks are well recognized. The cracks tends to increase gradually and lower layers of road materials become evident. Heavy traffic load usually break the surface asphalt layer in pieces. Low severity fatigue cracking usually indicates an area of asphalt having only small cracks with very few or none of them connecting to display the zig zag alligator type shape. Also the cracks are not evidently removing lower layers of the road materials. (Miller, 2003) Figure 2: Fatigue Cracking in Pavement (Priest et al., 2006) Over the years, the researchers are trying to come up with a simple and standard fatigue testing procedure as till this date, there is no such standard test for fatigue cracking, as different states are evaluating performance against fatigue cracking differently. Tangella et el (1990), came up with an equation to measure the fatigue life, which also accounts for the varying temperature and loading frequency. Nf= k1 (1/ÃŽÂ µt)^k2 (1/E)k3 Where, Nf= Number of load cycles until fatigue failure ÃŽÂ µt= Applied horizontal tensile strain E= HMA mixture stiffness K1,k2,k3= Regression constant In their study, they emphasized on the flexural fatigue test, diametral fatigue, and tests employing fracture mechanics principals, as the most promising test procedures to characterize fatigue cracking. Later till this period, there are different test procedures such as, Overlay (OL) test, Indirect Tension (IDT) test, Direct Tension (DT) test, Semicircular Bending (SCB) test, are most commonly used to categorize fatigue cracking in the lab. In addition, comparison with the observed result with the field cores is also important. Hajj et al. (2005) emphasized on the mechanistic analysis to understand the interaction between structure, stiffness, and laboratory testing so that a balance can be made for the given field and traffic conditions on a per-project basis. They concluded that, as the field pavement has stiffer structure which will generate lower strains under traffic therefore a longer fatigue life will be observed in the field. Therefore, an overall study is required to charac terize fatigue cracking of the pavement. References: Huang, Yang H. Pavement Analysis and Design New Jersey: Prentice Hall,1993 Shook, J.F., F.N. Finn, M.W. Witczak, and C.L. Monismith. Thickness Design of  Asphalt Pavements The Asphalt Institute Method, Proceedings, 5th International  Conference on the Structural Design of Asphalt Pavements, Vol.1, The Netherlands,  1982, pp. 17-44. Miller J.S., Bellinger W.Y. Distress Identification Manual for the Long-Term Pavement Performance Program (Fourth Revised Edition), Technical Research Report FHWA-RD-03-031. Federal Highway Administration 6300 Georgetown Pike McLean, VA 22101-2296, 2003. Priest A.L. Timm D.H. Methodology And Calibration Of Fatigue Transfer Functions For Mechanistic-Empirical Flexible Pavement Design, NCAT Report 06-03. National Center for Asphalt Technology, Auburn University, Alabama, 2006. Tangella, R., J. Craus, J. A. Deacon, and C. L. Monismith. Summary Report on Fatigue Response of Asphalt Mixtures. TM-UCB-A-003A-89-3, SHRP Project A-003-A. University of California, Berkeley: Institute of Transportation Studies, 1990 Hajj, E. Y., P. E. Sebaalay, and D. Weitzel. Fatigue Characteristics of Superpave and  Hveem Mixtures. Journal of Transportation Engineering, ASCE , 2005, pp. 302-10.

Fifteen Meditations on Masculinist Physico-Spiritual Experience :: Philosophical Philosophy essays

Fifteen Meditations on Masculinist Physico-Spiritual Experience I am not my body, I am not my mind, I am not my soul. I am the breath of life, I am the breath of God. A golden retriever was once abused by a man and rescued by a woman who had a daughter in an all-girls Catholic high school. I paid them a visit one day. The dog stood behind the clear plastic door, wagging her tail, but as I ascended the steps she suddenly soured, and by the time the door opened and I was inside, she was cowering under the dining room table where she stayed for the duration of my visit with intermittent miserable howls. "She won't have anything to do with men," my friend explained. Even the scent of testosterone has its spiritual message. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. The founder of modern philosophy had a number of disciples who applied the master's theoretical teachings in the practical field of dog-torturing. They felt these experiments demonstrated the superiority of man as a spiritual creature. Rene Descartes wanted to rewrite the philosophical canon by asserting only what he knew to be true or could logically derive. Sequestered in a stove-heated room, he realized he could doubt that his body, or even the whole world, existed, but he could not doubt was that he was thinking. I think, therefore I am. Descartes is a spiritual, immaterial, thinking thing; the rest is mere body, a separate substance. Continuing in this vein, he determined that human beings are the only animals who have souls. Therefore humans are the only animals who can think, feel, experience, or matter to God. I am going to drive nails through this dog's paws. I am going to vivisect its chest and show you its beating heart-such awesome machinery, praise the Architect on high! Its howls, this deafening din of a universe shattering-a purely mechanistic response! I am taking over this operation. If you cringe, you may leave, and don't come back. The serious student of philosophy thinks with his mind, not his body; his soul, not his flesh. Air my breath and fire my spirit, earth my body, water my blood. Tertullian, who lived in the Roman city of Carthage in the third century, was a sensual man who loved spectacles. After seeing how bravely Christian prisoners endured public torture, humiliation, and death, he became intrigued with the persecuted religion and eventually converted.

Workaholism, Leisure And Pleasure Essay -- essays research papers

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknin's Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web Sites The official working week is being reduced to 35 hours a week. In most countries in the world, it is limited to 45 hours a week. The trend during the last century seems to be unequivocal : less work, more play. Yet, what may be true for blue collar workers or state employees – is not necessarily so for white collar members of the liberal professions. It is not rare for these people – lawyers, accountants, consultants, managers, academics – to put in 80 hour weeks. The phenomenon is so widespread and its social consequences so damaging that it acquired the unflattering nickname workaholism, a combination of the words â€Å"work† and â€Å"alcoholism†. Family life is disrupted, intellectual horizons narrow, the consequences to the workaholic’s health are severe : fat, lack of exercise, stress take their toll. Classified as â€Å"alpha† types, workaholics suffer three times as many heart attacks as their peers. But what are the social and economic roots of this phenomenon ? Put succinctly, it is the result of the blurring borders and differences between work and leisure. The distinction between these two types of time – the one dedicated to labour and the one spent in the pursuit of one’s interests – was so clear for thousands of years that its gradual disappearance is one of the most important and profound social changes in human history. A host of other shifts in the character of the work and domestic environments of humans converged to produce this momentous change. Arguably the most important was the increase in labour mobility and the fluid nature of the very concept of work and the workplace. The transitions from agricultural to industrial, then to the services and now to the information and knowledge societies, each, in turn, increased the mobility of the workforce. A farmer is the least mobile. His means of production are fixed, his produce was mostly consumed locally because of lack of proper refrigeration, preservation and transportation methods. A marginal group of people became nomad-traders. This group exploded in size with the advent of the industrial revolution. True, the bulk of the workforce was still immobile and affixed to the production floor. But raw materials and the finished products travelled long distances ... ...eneurs, the managers, the businessmen. They are the movers, the shakers, the pushers, the energy. Without them, we have socialist economies, where everything belongs to everyone and, actually to none. In these economies of â€Å"collective ownership† people go to work because they have to, they try to avoid it, to sabotage the workplace, they harbour negative feelings. Slowly, they wither and die (professionally) – because no one can live long in hatred and deceit. Joy is an essential ingredient. And this is the true meaning of capitalism : the abolition of work and leisure and the pursuit of both with the same zeal and satisfaction. Above all, the (increasing) liberty to do it whenever, wherever, with whomever you choose. Unless and until the Homo East Europeansis changes his set of mind – there will be no real transition. Because transition happens in the human mind much before it takes form in reality. It is no use to dictate, to legislate, to finance, to cajole, to offer – the human being must change first. It was Marx (a devout non-capitalist) who said : it is consciousness that determines reality. How right was he. Witness the USA and witness the miserable failure of communism.