Company Law - Capital Dividend Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Company Law - Capital Dividend - Essay Example In this regard, directors should be considering the issue of shareholders as well as their interest should also be considered carefully1. Furthermore, apart from framing strategies for the obtainment of greater value, they should also consider how this value is to be distributed among the investors and other stakeholders possessing a certain degree of interests in the company profits. Consequently, while a company intends to generate profits and share it partially among the shareholders, one of the important issues that need to be considered by the directors is whether the distribution of dividends or payments to shareholders are made in accordance to Companies Act practiced within the region2. In recent times, there has been a strict line established in the UK in relation to compliance with legal requirements for distributions. In this regard, directors may find themselves at risk of liability if they grant dividends in breach of the rules; even if the breach tends to be technical o ther than substantive. The laws governing distributions of dividends in the UK are particularly incorporated in the Part 23 of Companies Act 2006. The law is applicable in both the contexts where accounts are prepared according to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) or International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)3. The Companies Act 2006 makes it mandatory for all the companies to follow the rules and regulations prescribed in the Act owing to which, any sort of non-compliance tends to generate legal actions against the company. With this concern, the paper intends to provide a clear understanding of dividend sharing laws, governing in the context of UK Companies and further makes analysis of issues that need to be considered by both private and public companies in the course of making payments to shareholders. Understanding the Laws Relating To Dividends in UK According to Part 23 of Companies Act 2006, distribution to shareholders means â€Å"every description o f a company assets to its members, whether in cash or otherwise, subject to certain exceptions†4. The key aspects that Companies Act 2006 states affirms any company in the UK to be eligible to make distributions only out of their profits earned. Accordingly, the profits available for the distribution is determined as total accumulated realised profits less total accumulated realised losses5. It is worth mentioning on this ground that not everything documented as profits is realised in certain circumstances, where the accounts are prepared under the standards of IFRS. For instance, a gain on revaluation of companies’ investment property can be documented as profit under the rules prescribed by IFRS; but it cannot be referred as a realised profit6. In addition to this, public companies are required to decipher extra cautious attitude and check that their available net assets, after making distribution, do not fall less than the aggregate called-up share capital as well as reserves which are not assigned for distribution, such as share premium accounts, revaluation reserves and capital redemption reserves. Furthermore, the Act also prescribes those directors of the companies to consider their fiduciary duties prior to

Which structural form, if any, is most suitable for an SHRM approach Essay

Which structural form, if any, is most suitable for an SHRM approach - Essay Example Management theorists and researchers have emphasized the difference between, and importance of, strategic HRM and human resource strategy, in achieving organisational goals. Therefore, strategic HRM decisions are incorporated into the strategic plan from which HR strategies are derived. According to Price (2007), strategies are means used by organisations to achieve their objectives, in the form of decisions taken well in advance to meet the long-term goals of the organisation. Strategic HRM focuses on widespread aspects of organisation such as organisational culture, individual career development, having right people for the right job, etc. In relation to this, Mabey, Salaman and Storey (1998) have proposed four different perspectives: firstly, SHRM entails complex activities that are beyond the responsibilities of personnel or HRM managers and extend to all aspects of managing people including social and economic context of management of internal and external environments impacting the organisation and its people; secondly, it includes impact of strategies on business performance, and thus emphasizes on measurement of performance; thirdly, management styles are more defined and according to the existing people and goals; and lastly, development of organisational capability is encompassed through strategic knowledge management. Much work on SHRM field has resulted in various models and types of SHRM, which can be broadly classified into two groups, the general and prescriptive approaches. Delery and Doty (1996) and Richardson and Thompson (1999) have framed ‘best practices, ‘best fit’ and the ‘configurational’ approaches (cited by Armstrong, 2000); another perspective by Armstrong (2000) includes high-commitment, high-performance and high involvement models. In the ‘best practice’ approach, organisations adopt best HRM practices such as employment

What teachers need in order to deal with Ethical Dilemmas

What teachers need in order to deal with Ethical Dilemmas Ethics are defined as a set of principles of right conducts; the rules or standards governing the conduct of a person or the members of a profession ( Dictionary of the Human Language, 2000).   Teachers are often put in situations that require more than just knowing the basic school rules. It is within these situations, that the ethical dilemmas occur. There is not always a right way to deal with many daily problems that face educators, but there are ways to handle situations that are better then others.   Teachers should follow and refer to a code of ethics to help teach in the most appropriate and ethical way; as well as a guide to help deal with dilemmas. It is important that teachers give children a fair chance to show their knowledge when assessing.   The purpose of assessment is to provide feedback that can be used to improve student performance ( Orange 2000).   Teachers assess children to ensure that they are understanding the material, and to make sure they are learning.   For young children especially tests should never be the only criteria of assessment.   Instructors should always make sure that their assessment is fair.   When testing a child, make sure that the testing method used is appropriate for that child.   For example, if giving a test that relies on visual aids to administer the test it is important that the teacher is certain that all the children have good enough vision to clearly see the aids.   When assessing young children in particular it is important to look for more then simply right or wrong.   An in depth look is necessary to see what the children really know before giving them a poor grade.   Childrens work needs to critiqued in more then one way to be sure that they really do or dont understand. Varied assessment   methods developed and evaluated by teachers make a significant contribution   to knowledge about what children know, can do, and still need to learn. (Isenberg Jalongo, 2000) Children have the right to confidentiality.   It is inappropriate for a teacher to discuss a childs results with fellow colleagues or other students.   A childs grades should be private, and should not be posted.   Students might be ashamed of their grades, or some people might take poor grades as a bad reflection upon the students character.   Public pronouncements (of grades) are likely to taint everyones opinion of that childs ability (Isenberg Jalongo, 2000 ).   It is important not to share professional confidential information in any other way but a professional way.   There are appropriate and inappropriate times to share a childs information, part of becoming a professional is knowing when to keep quiet and protect confidentiality (Isenberg Jalongo, 2000).  Ã‚  Ã‚   Just as braking confidentiality is inappropriate so is teacher bias and discrimination.   It is suppose to be that school is the only institution that can counter the accidents of birth, guarantee of opportunity and provide objective and fair ways to select and train talented individuals (Goodlad, Sirotnik Sober,1990).   However, discrimination towards students takes place all the time.   Teachers often discriminate against males and females, expecting different things from both.   Research over the last decade has shown that males and females have different classroom experiences because they approach learning differently and because teachers tend to treat them differently.   There is an expectation that for females in some subjects are usually lower, as they are for members of certain racial and ethnic groups and for poor students. (Hanson Shwartz, 1992). Boys are usually associated with doing better in math then girls, while girls are thought of as to excel in English.   It seems as though teacher are aware of this bias and instead of helping to stop it they make it worse by treating the children differently.   Teachers continue the bias by picking teachers pets.   Teachers are not suppose to pick favorites.   If they do they are certainly not suppose to treat them any differently from the rest of the class.   If teachers favor and esteem certain members of a peer group, the remaining children will understandably have a diminished sense of self worth (Orange, 2000).   Teachers should take the time to evaluate their own behavior, evaluating whether or not they treat children differently.   This could also help teachers overcome racial, social or gender biases as well as favoritism.   According to the survey, 82 percent of students say they have had a teacher who has favored one student over others and 52 percent of teachers admit to having done so (Argarwal, 2001). Teachers are inevitably going to have certain children they enjoy more, its human nature. Its when teachers begin to give special brakes, or give better grades to certain students solely because they like the students character better, that is when favoritism gets out of hand.   It is very easy to cross the line or use inappropriate punishment as a teacher.   Teachers must choose their punishment techniques carefully.   Corporal punishment is no longer allowed in a vast majority of states.   A school discipline policy is a good guide for teachers to follow to make sure they are using an appropriate discipline method. On the other hand, even the best policy is only a document, and how it is carried out is at least as important as what it says (Gushee, 1984).   When a child misbehaves it is important to consider what is causing this behavior.   Childrens motivation for bad behavior usually has to do with love, power, freedom or fun- or some combination. (Isenberg Jalongo, 2000).   When deciding appropriate discipline it is important for the educator to keep in mind whether or not the discipline is necessary, productive, fair, or age appropriate.   The basic minimum requirement for understanding any young childs behavior begins by building a relationship with them and depends upon effective communication ( Isenberg Jalongo, 2000).   Rather then constant discipline teachers should remember to look for the good as well.   To avoid dealing with problems unethically, and to guide educators in the right way there are a set of principles.   The principles are intended to guide, conduct and assist practitioners in resolving ethical dilemmas encountered in the field (The National Association for the Education of Young Children Code of Ethical Conduct, 2000, as cited in Isenberg Jalongo, 2000).   There are answers to some specific questions, but not all dilemmas are addressed on the Code of Ethics.   They can not tell a teacher how to teach but they can lead them in the right way. Most problems will require the use of the Code as well as professional judgment (The National Association for the Education of Young Children Code of Ethical Conduct, 2000, as cited in Isenberg Jalongo, 2000). The National Association for the Education of Young Children Code of Ethical Conduct believes that there are certain values that teachers should always keep in mind while educating.   The Association states that Standards of ethical behavior are based on commitment to core values that are deeply rooted in the history of our field.   The core values include ideas such as: appreciating childhood as a unique stage, basing work on the knowledge of child development, appreciating and supporting the close ties between family and child, knowing that children are best understood in the context of their family and culture, respecting the dignity and uniqueness of each individual (child, family member, and colleague), and to try to help children and adults achieve their full potential in the context in relationships that are based on trust, respect, and positive regard. There is no perfect way to teach, and it is hard to find the perfect solution to every problem.   The best way for a teacher to deal with ethical situations is to try to avoid the problem to begin with.   Teachers should always think about their actions and evaluate their behavior on a regular basis.   Problems that deal with concepts such as bias, or favoritism can be avoided by a teacher simply evaluating himself and his behavior.   Problems with assessment and confidentiality just take a little consideration, and thinking through.   If teacher would refer to the Code of Ethics it might help lead them in the most appropriate and ethical actions and solutions. The National Association for the Education for Young Children Code of Ethical Behavior states that; Above all, we shall not harm children.   We shall not participate in practices that are disrespectful, degrading, dangerous, exploitive, intimidating, emotionally damaging, or physically harmful to children.   They say that, that principle has precedence over all others.

The Awakening :: essays research papers fc

The Process of Edna Pontellier's Awakening The society of Grand Isle places many expectations on its women to belong to men and be subordinate to their children. Edna Pontellier's society, therefore, abounds with "mother-women," who "idolized their children, worshipped their husbands, and esteemed it to a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals" (689). The characters of Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz represent what society views as the suitable and unsuitable women figures. Mademoiselle Ratignolle is the ideal Grand Isle woman, a home-loving mother and a good wife. Mademoiselle Reisz is the old, unmarried, childless, musician who devoted her life to music instead of a man. Edna switches between the two identities until she awakens to the fact that she needs to be an individual, but encounters resistance from society. This begins the process of her awakening. Chopin carefully establishes that Edna does not neglect her children, but only her mother-woman image. Chopin illustrates the idea by telling the reader, "...Mrs. Pontellier was not a mother-woman" (689). Edna tries to explain to Adele how she feels about her children and how she feels about herself, which greatly differs from the mother-woman image. She says, "I would give up the unessential; I would give my money; I would give my life for my children; but I wouldn't give myself. I can't make it more clear; it's only something I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me" (720). Similarly to Edna's relationship with her children is that with her husband, Leonce. The Grand Isle society defines the role of wife as full devotion and self-sacrifice for your husband. Edna never adhered to societies definitions. For example, the other ladies at Grand Isle "all declared that Mr.'Pontellier was the best husband in the world" (689). And "Mrs. Pontellier was forced to admit she knew of none better"(689). By using words like "forced" and "admit", Edna has to acknowledge her true feelings towards Leonce. Edna's leaving Leonce's mansion is another important detail when considering the process of her awakening. By moving to her own residence, Edna takes a big step towards her independence. Throughout The Awakening, Edna increasingly distances herself from the image of the mother-woman, until her suicide, which serves as the total opposite of the mother-woman image. Adele Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, the two important female supporting characters, provide the two different identities Edna associates with. Adele serves as the perfect mother-women in The Awakening, being both married and pregnant, but Edna does not follow Adele's footsteps.

Why teams don’t work?

Here are some reports from the field, cited by Osborn, Moran, Mushiest, and Zinger (1990) in Self-Directed Work Teams: The New American Challenge. At Xerox, the authors report, Plants using work teams are 30 percent more productive than conventionally organized plants. Procter & Gamble gets 30 to 40 percent higher productivity at its 18 team-based plants†¦. Tektronix Inc. Reports that one self-directed work team now turns out as many products in 3 days as it once took an entire assembly line to produce in 14 days†¦. Federal Express cut service glitches such as incorrect bills and lost packages by 13 percent†¦.Shenandoah Life processes 50 percent more applications and customer service requests using work teams, with 10 percent fewer people. (up. 5-6) Heady stuff, that, and it is reinforced by back-cover blurbs. Tom Peters: â€Å"Selfridges work teams are the cornerstone of improved competitiveness .. † . Bob Waterman: â€Å"Self-Directed Work Teams seems too goo d to be true: dramatic improvement in productivity and a happier, more committed, more flexible work force. Yet †¦ They do just what they promise for the likes of P&G, GE, and Ford. † It makes sense. Teams bring more resources, and more diverse resources, to bear J.Richard Hickman ; Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138. Theory and Research on Small Groups, edited by R. Scott Tindal et al. Plenum Press, New York, 1998. 245 246 on a task than could any single performer. Moreover, teams offer flexibility in the use of those resources-?the capability to quickly redeploy member talents and energies and to keep the work going even when some members are unavailable. Teams composed of people from different units can transcend traditional functional and organizational barriers and get members pulling together toward collective objectives.And, of course, teams offer the potential for synergy, that wonderful state when a group â€Å"clicksâ⠂¬ and members achieve something together that no one of them could possibly have accomplished alone. These are major benefits, worthy of the attention of the leaders of any purposive enterprise. No wonder Steersman found teams to be so popular. But there is a puzzle here. Research evidence about team performance shows that teams usually do less well-?not better-?than the sum of their members' individual contributions. I first encountered this bleak fact as a beginning doctoral student at he University of Illinois.In a course on group dynamics, Ivan Steiner put on the board his now well-known equation: AP = UP – PL; that is, the actual productivity of a group equals its potential productivity (what the team is theoretically capable of, given the resources brought by members) minus what he called process losses such as coordination and motivational problems (Steiner, 1972). I was surprised that there was no term for process gains, the synergistic benefits that can emerge when people work together. The model, I thought, should really read: AP = UP – PL + PEG. It turns out hat there is no empirical Justification for that extra term.When interacting teams are compared to â€Å"nominal† groups (I. E. , groups that never meet, whose output is constructed by combining the separate contributions of those who would have been members), nominal groups usually win. And when Steiner's models miss the mark in empirical studies, the problem usually is that groups fail to achieve even the relatively modest performance targets specified by those models. At least for groups in the experimental laboratory. Maybe the laboratory context is so constraining that groups do not have the elbow room to show what they can do.Maybe the real advantages of groups are only to be found in organizational practice. I came up short on this hypothesis as well, this time at the hands of Bill Hicks, an editor at Josses- Bass. My colleagues and I had completed an intensive stud y of some 33 different work groups of all different kinds-?athletic teams, industrial production workers, top management teams, prison guards, airline crews, economic analysts, and more. We pulled our findings together in a book that I proposed be titled Groups That Work, a catchy phrase with what I thought to be a clever pun.Bill sat me down and said he'd e happy to publish the book, but not with that title: There were Just too many groups in our study that barely worked at all. I went back to the manuscript and found that he was right. Probably 4 of our 33 groups were actually effective teams. The rest had problems so severe that our analysis was mainly about what had gone wrong with them. So the book was published with a parenthetical phrase after my clever title: Groups That Work (And Those That Don't). Anyone who actually reads through it will discover, as Bill did, that most of our groups lie within the parentheses. Moreover, the preface of the book offers a cautionary note ab out team effectiveness, based on the experience of the authors who wrote it. The book took 9 years to be completed, mainly because our own team suffered a near-total collapse midway through the project. 247 Other in-depth studies of real groups performing real work provide additional reasons for concern-?such Irving Jinni's (1982) well-known demonstration that even highly cohesive groups composed of well-qualified, well-motivated people sometimes fall into a pattern of â€Å"grouping†that can yield disastrous policy recommendations.What, then, are we to make of all the team successes reported in the managerial literature? It is possible, of course, that the published claims are exaggerated, as writers have sought to catch the wave of enthusiasm about teams-?to sell books, to build consulting practices, to market training programs, to become team gurus. That is not a sufficient explanation. Indeed, I trust the accuracy of the numbers about productivity and service gains that a re reported in the popular books about teams. My concern, instead, is whether those numbers really mean what they seem to mean.Consider first the attributions that are made about the causes of team successes. After teams have been implemented in an organizational unit, its performance habitually is compared to that of a conventional unit (or, perhaps, to the same one before teams were installed). Such comparisons are fraught with interpretive ambiguities, because there invariably are many differences between the units compared-? in technologies, labor markets, senior managers, and so on. It almost never is the case that the only change is that work previously done by individuals is now performed by teams.Was it the teams that generated the improvements, or was it one of the other differences between the units? It is not possible to know for sure. 2 Questions also can be raised about the staying power of any performance improvements obtained when teams are installed. The implementati on of any new management program, be it self-managing teams or anything else, invariably involves intense scrutiny of the unit where the changes will occur. Taking a close look at any work unit that has been operating for a while almost always surfaces some inefficiencies and poor work procedures.These incidental problems are corrected as part of the change process-?it would be foolish not to. But in making those corrections, an interpretive ambiguity is introduced. Was it the team design that resulted in the improvements found, or was it that a shoddy work system was shaped p? Virtually any intervention that is not itself destructive has a better-than-even chance of generating short-term improvements, simply because of the value of intently inspecting a work system. This, in addition to any benefits from the well- known â€Å"Hawthorne effect† (Rotisseries & Dickson, 1939).The question, then, is whether short-term improvements associated with the introduction of teams are su stained over time as the newness wears off and inefficiencies begin to creep back into the system. Again, it is not possible to know for sure-?at least not without an appropriate longitudinal research design. 2 The solution to this problem, of course, is to conduct experimental research on the impact of team designs for work, because true experiments allow unambiguous inferences to be drawn about the causes of any effects obtained.Unfortunately, experiments are rarely a viable option for comparing team and traditional work designs in organizations. For one thing, the level of experimenter control required in such studies (I. E. , to randomly assign people to teams and teams to experimental conditions) would not be tolerated by most managers who have work to get out. And even if an organization were found in which managers would relinquish such control to experimenters, there would be serious questions about the generalization of findings obtained in such an unusual place (Hickman, 1 985). 248 So what is going on here?How can we reconcile the amazing reports from the field about the benefits of teams with the gloomy picture that has emerged from scholarly research on group performance? Do teams generate the benefits for their organizations that are claimed for them, or do they not? 3 My observations of teams in organizations suggest that teams tend to clump at both ends of the effectiveness continuum. Teams that go sour often do so in multiple ways -?clients are dissatisfied with a team's work, members become frustrated and disillusioned, and the team becomes ever weaker as a performing unit.Such teams are easily outperformed by smoothly functioning traditional units. On the other hand, teams that function well can indeed achieve a level of synergy and agility that never could be preprogrammed by organization planners or enforced by external managers. Members of such teams respond to their clients and to each other quickly and creatively, generating both superb performance and ever-increasing personal ND collective capability. Teams, then, are somewhat akin to audio amplifiers: Whatever passes through the device-?be it signal or noise-?comes out louder.To ask whether organizational performance improves when teams are used to accomplish work is to ask a question that has no general answer. A more tractable question, and the one explored in the remainder of this chapter, is what differentiates those teams that go into orbit and achieve real synergy from those that crash and bum. As we will see, the answer to this second question has much more to do with how teams are trucked and supported than with any inherent virtues or liabilities of teams as performing units.Mistakes Managers Make In the course of several research projects, my colleagues and I have identified a number of mistakes that designers and leaders of work groups sometimes make. What follows is a summary of the six most pernicious of these mistakes, along with the actions that th ose who create and lead work teams in organizations can take to avoid them. 4 Mistake l: Use a Team for Work That Is Better Done by Individuals There are some tasks that only a team can do, such as performing a string quartet or arraying out a multiparty negotiation.There are other tasks, however, that are inimical to team work. One such task is creative writing. Not many great novels, There is a large and diverse published literature on the performance of self-managing teams. Here is a â€Å"starter set† of illustrative and informative pieces: Cohen and Leotard (1994), Sorcery, Mueller, and Smith (1991), Gun (1984), Jackson, Malarkey, and Parker (1994), Pops and Marcus (1980), Wall, Kemp, Jackson, and College (1986), and Walton (1980). Some of the material in the next section is adapted from Hickman (1990). 3 Why Teams Downtown's 249 symphonic scores, or epic poems have been written by teams. Such tasks involve bringing to the surface, organizing, and expressing thoughts and ideas that are but partially formed in one's mind (or, in some cases, that lie deep in one's unconscious), and they are inherently better suited for individual than for collective performance.Even committee reports-?mundane products compared to novels, poems, and musical scores-?invariably turn out better when written by one talented individual on behalf of a group than by the group as a whole working in lockstep. The same is true for executive leadership. For all the attention being given to top management teams these days, my reading of the management literature is that successful organizations almost always are led by a single, talented and courageous human being.Among the many executive functions that are better accomplished by an exceptional individual than by an interacting team is the articulation of a challenging and inspiring collective direction. Here, for example, is a mission statement copied from a poster in a company cafeteria: â€Å"Our mission is to provide quality products and arrives that meet the needs of individuals and businesses, allowing us to prosper and provide a fair return to our stockholders. Although I do not know how that particular statement was prepared, I would be willing to wager that it was hammered out by a committee over many long meetings. The most engaging and powerful statements of corporate vision, by contrast, invariably are the product of a single intelligence, set forth by a leader willing to take the risk of establishing collective purposes that lie Just beyond what others believe to be the limits of the organization's capability. Beyond creative writing and executive leadership, there are many other kinds of tasks that are better done by individuals than by teams.It is a mistake-a common one and often a fatal one-?to use a team for work that requires the exercise of powers that reside within and are best expressed by individual human beings. Mistake 2: Call the Performing Unit a Team but Really Manage Members as To reap the benefits of teamwork, one must actually build a team. Real teams are bounded social systems whose members are interdependent for a shared purpose, and who interact as a unit with other individuals and groups in achieving that repose (Alder, 1977).Teams can be small or large, face-to-face or electronically connected, and temporary or permanent. Only if a group is so large, loosely connected, or short-lived that members cannot operate as an intact social system does the entity cease to be a team. Managers sometimes attempt to capture the benefits of teamwork by simply declaring that some set of people (often everyone who reports to the same supervisor) is now a team and that members should henceforth behave accordingly.Real teams cannot be created that way. Instead, explicit action must be taken to establish and affirm the team's boundaries, to define the task for which members are collectively responsible, and to give the team the autonomy members need to manage both thei r 250 own team processes and their relations with external entities such as clients and coworkers. Creating and launching real teams is not something that can be accomplished casually, as is illustrated by research on airline cockpit crews.It is team functioning, rather than mechanical problems or the technical proficiency of individual pilots, that is at the root of most airline accidents (Helices & Focuses, 1993). Crews are especially vulnerable when they are Just starting out: the National Transportation Safety Board (NTIS) found that 73% of the accidents in its database occurred on the crew's first day of flying together, and 44% of those accidents happened on the crews very first flight (National Transportation Safety Board, 1994, up. 0-41). Other research has shown that experienced crews, even when fatigued, perform significantly better than do rested crews whose members have not worked together (Focuses, Lubber, Battle, & Comb, 1986), and that a competent preflight briefing b y he captain can help reduce a crew's exposure to the liabilities of newness (Gannett, 1993). This substantial body of research has clear policy implications.Crews should be kept intact over time, preflight briefings should be standard practice, and captains should be trained in the skills needed to conduct briefings that get crews off to a good start (Hickman, 1993). Yet in most airlines, crew composition is constantly changing because of the long-standing practice, enforced by labor contracts, of assigning pilots to trips, positions, and aircraft as individuals-?usually on the basis of seniority bidding system. Virtually all U. S. Airlines now do require that crew briefings be held.Yet captains receive little training in how to conduct a good one, some briefings are quite cursory (e. G. , â€Å"Let's the social hour over real quick so we can get on out to the airplane†), and schedules can get so hectic that crew members may not even have time for proper introductions, let a lone a briefing, before they start to fly together. Creating and launching real teams is a significant challenge in organizations such as airlines that have deeply rooted policies and practices that are oriented primarily toward individuals rather than teams.To try to capture the benefits of teamwork in such organizations, managers sometimes opt for a mixed model in which some parts of the work and the reward system are structured for individual performance, whereas other parts require teamwork and provide team- based rewards. Research has shown that such compromises rarely work well. Mixed models send contradictory signals to members, engender confusion about who is responsible and accountable for what portions of the work, and generally underperformed both individual and real-team models (Washman, 1995).If the performing unit is to be a team, then it should be a real team-?and it should be managed as such. Mistake 3: Fall Off the Authority Balance Beam The exercise of authority cr eates anxiety, especially when one must balance between assigning a team authority for some parts of the work and withholding it for other parts. Because both managers and team members tend to be uncomfortable in 251 such situations, they may implicitly collude to â€Å"clarifying is really in charge of the work.Sometimes the result is the assignment of virtually all authority to the team-? which can result in anarchy or in a team heading off in an inappropriate direction. Other times, managers retain all authority for themselves, dictating work procedures in detail to team members and, in the process, losing many of the advantages that can accrue from team work. To maintain an appropriate balance of authority between managers and teams requires that anxieties be managed rather than minimized. Moreover, it is insufficient merely to decide how much authority a team should have.Equally important are the domains of authority that are assigned to teams and retained by managers. Our res earch suggests that team effectiveness is enhanced when managers are unapologetic and insistent about exercising their own legitimate authority about direction, the end states the team is to pursue. Authority about the means by which those ends are accomplished, however, should rest squarely with the team itself. 5 Contrary to traditional wisdom about participative management, to authoritatively set a clear, engaging direction for a team is to empower, not deplorer, it.Having clear direction helps align team efforts with the objectives of the parent organization, provides members with a criterion to use in choosing among various means for pursuing those objectives, and fosters the motivational engagement of team members. When direction is absent or unclear, members may wallow in uncertainty about what they should be doing and may even have difficulty generating the motivation to do much of anything. Few design choices are more consequential for the long-term well-being of teams than those that address the partitioning of authority between managers and teams.It takes skill to accomplish this well, and it is a skill that has emotional and behavioral as well as cognitive components. Just knowing the rules for partitioning authority is insufficient; one also needs some practice in applying those rules in situations where anxieties, including one's own, are likely to be high. 6 Especially challenging are the early stages of a group's life (when well-meaning managers may be tempted to give away too much authority) and when the going gets rough (when the temptation is to take authority back too soon).The management of authority relations with task- performing groups is much like walking a balance beam, and our evidence suggests that it takes a good measure of knowledge, skill, and perseverance to keep from falling off. As used here, the terms manager and team refer to conventional organizational arrangements in which some individuals (â€Å"managers†) are auth orized to structure work for performance by other organization members. Teams that have been given the authority to monitor and manage their own work processes are therefore called â€Å"self-managing. In some circumstances, teams also have the authority to set their own direction. Examples include physicians in a small-group practice, a professional string quartet, and a mom-and-pop grocery store. These kinds of teams are referred to as â€Å"self-governing† (Hickman, 1986). Given that newly minted Mambas increasingly find themselves working in or leading task-performing teams immediately after graduation, it is unfortunate that few MBA programs provide their students with practice and feedback in developing such skills. 252 Mistake 4: Dismantle Existing Organizational Structures So That Teams Will Be Fully â€Å"Empowered†to Accomplish the Work Traditionally designed organizations often are plagued by constraining structures that have been built up over the years to monitor and control employee behavior. When teams are used to perform work, such structures tend to be viewed as necessary bureaucratic impediments to group functioning. Thus, Just as some managers mistakenly attempt to empower groups by relinquishing all authority to them, so do some attempt to cut through bureaucratic obstacles to team functioning by dismantling all the structures that they can.The assumption, apparently, is that removing structures will release the pent-up power of groups and make it possible for members to work together creatively and effectively. Managers who hold this view often wind up providing teams with less structure than they actually need. Tasks are defined only in vague, general terms. Lots of people ay be involved in the work, but the actual membership of the team is unclear. Norms of conduct are kept deliberately fuzzy. In the words of one manager, â€Å"The team will work out the details. If anything, the opposite is true: Groups with appropriate structures tend to develop healthy internal processes, whereas groups with insufficient or inappropriate structures tend to be plagued with process problems. 7 Because managers and members of troubled groups often perceive, wrongly, that their performance problems are due mainly to interpersonal difficulties, they may turn to process- focused coaching as a remedy. But process consultation is unlikely to be helpful in such cases, precisely because the difficulties are structurally rooted.It is a near impossibility for members to learn how to interact well within a flawed or underspecified team structure. Our research suggests that an enabling structure for a work team has three components. First is a well-designed team task, one that engages and sustains member motivation. Such tasks are whole and meaningful pieces of work that stretch members' skills, that provide ample autonomy for doing what needs to be done to accomplish the work, and that generate direct and rusticity feedback a bout results. Second is a well-composed group.Such groups are as small as possible, have clear boundaries, include members with adequate task and interpersonal skills, and have a good mix of members-?people who are neither so similar to one another that they are like peas in a pod nor so different that they are unable to work together. Third is clear and explicit specification of the basic norms of conduct for team behavior, the handful of â€Å"must do† and â€Å"must never do† behaviors that allow members to pursue their objectives without having to continuously discuss what kinds of behaviors are and are not acceptable.Although groups invariably develop their own norms over time, it is important to establish at the outset that members are expected to continuously monitor This point is reinforced in a quite different context by an essay written by Joe Freeman (1973) for her sisters in the feminist movement in the asses. The message of the essay is neatly captured by its title: â€Å"The Tyranny of Structuralizes. † 7 253 their environment and to revise their performance strategy as needed when their work situation changes.The key question about structure, then, is not how much of it a team has. Rather, it is bout the kind of structure that is provided: Does it enable and support collective work, or does it make teamwork more difficult and frustrating than it need be? Mistake 5: Specify Challenging Team Objectives, but Skimp on Organizational Supports Even if a work team has clear, engaging direction and an enabling structure, its performance can go sour-?or fall well below the group's potential-?if it has insufficient organizational support.Teams in what Richard Walton (1985) calls â€Å"high commitment† organizations can fall victim to this mistake when they are given challenging objectives but not the resources to achieve them. Such teams often start out with great enthusiasm but then become disillusioned as they encounter frust ration after frustration in trying to obtain the organizational supports they need to accomplish the work. If the full potential of work teams is to be realized, organizational structures and systems must actively support competent teamwork.Key supports include (1) a reward system that recognizes and reinforces excellent team performance (not Just individual contributions); (2) an educational system that provides teams, at their initiative, any training or technical consultation that may be added to supplement members' own knowledge and expertise; (3) an information system that provides teams the data and forecasts members' need to proactively manage their work; and (4) the mundane material resources-?equipment, tools, space, money, staff, or whatever-?that the work requires.It is no small undertaking to provide these supports to teams, especially in organizations that already have been tuned to support work performed by individuals. Existing performance appraisal systems, for examp le, may be state-of- the-art for measuring individual contributions but wholly inappropriate for assessing ND rewarding work done by teams. Corporate compensation policy may make no provision for team bonuses and, indeed, may explicitly prohibit them.Human resource departments may be primed to identify individuals' training needs and to provide first-rate courses to fill those needs, but training in team skills may not be available at all. Information and control systems may provide senior managers with data that help them monitor and control overall organizational performance, but teams may not be able to get the information they need to autonomously manage their own work processes.To align existing organizational systems with the needs of task-performing teams usually requires managers to exercise power and influence both upward and laterally in the organization, and may involve difficult negotiations across functional boundaries. For these reasons, providing contextual supports f or teams can be a 254 significant challenge for managers whose experience and expertise has mainly involved supporting and controlling work performed by individuals. That challenge is worth taking on, however, because an unsupported organizational context can undermine even teams that are otherwise quite well directed and well structured.It is especially shattering for a team to fail merely because the organizational supports it needs cannot be obtained. Mistake 6: Assume That Members Already Have All the Skills They Need to Work Well as a Team Once a team has been formed and given its task, managers sometimes assume their work is done. A strict hands-off stance, however, can limit a team's effectiveness when members are not already skilled and experienced in teamwork-?a not uncommon state of affairs in cultures where individualism is a dominant value. It can be helpful,

Crestwood Hills Cooperative Nursery School Essay

Crestwood Hills Cooperative Nursery School is a non-profit organization that specializes in providing education for pre-schoolers and toddlers with minimal supervision. While they have their own staff comprising of very qualified teachers, they also require active involvement from parents. The school’s job is to support children’s needs with consideration for each child’s uniqueness. Landing on a cooperative nursery school job is basically the same with other nursery schools. An instructor should be a Bachelor of Arts in Early Childhood Education, as they will be primarily involved in pre-schoolers and toddlers. Also, some schools do require their staff to have some experience before they can be hired. Working in a cooperative nursery school has its advantages over regular nursery schools. The ratio of teachers to children is low because of the small population of the children. Teachers also have the support of the parents because of the nature of the school, which makes dealing with children easier and less stressful. While it can be said that pre-schoolers and toddlers can become a handful for one person, it is the satisfaction that contributing to the child’s development can give is more important. It can be said that the main key of their success is due to the working together of teachers and parents for the children’s learning and growth. Regular schools require little participation of parents with their children’s education. In a cooperative nursery school like Crestwood Hills, they have programs where parents are required to attend. They have parent workdays, where parents assist teachers in the classroom. There is also weekend workdays where families can meet and maintenance of the school is done. Cooperative schools believe that parents should not depend their children’s learning only to teachers and the school (California Council of Parent Participation Nursery Schools, Inc. ). It is believed that cooperative nursery schools are very successful because of the nature of their organization. Aside from letting the pre-schoolers and toddlers grow and socialize in their own way just like any other nursery school, giving the parents the opportunity to be involved in their child’s education is very helpful. It makes the children know that they are important to their parents. Showing support is also necessary for their confidence. Also, because cooperative schools are non-profit organizations, it can be said that parents do own the school and their involvement is greatly expected. Cooperative nursery schools are increasing in number these days. It is very fortunate to those parents who want to be a part of their children’s learning process that this kind of institutions are being put up. The early stages of development of a child is a very critical stage because this can become the foundation of who they can become. This is why it is important to be involved at that stage. Children can learn faster and better when they know that they are being supported by the people that surrounds them. It is admitted that there are some parents who would prefer regular nursery schools because of the amount of involvement required, and not all parents can give this because of their busy schedules. But, while cooperative nursery schools are made especially for the children, a lot can also be learned by the parents themselves. They can learn how to interact with their children better. They would be able to understand their young ones better through the help of the school. Also, they can spend more quality time with their kids. Educators for a cooperative nursery school has the most responsibility in this situation. They have to have knowledge about early childhood. They should be patient when dealing with the students and should be able to have a healthy relationship with the parents. They should not present a negative attitude towards the children that would make the children discouraged with learning. They should always be available whenever the children need help. As well, teachers should be able to monitor each child’s development. And although experience can be their best tool, it would also help if they can extend their knowledge about children by learning more. This can either be through further education or just by learning from books or articles that are very much available anywhere. Teachers should understand that they are the biggest contributor to a child’s growth and development, especially at an early stage. It is fortunate that they belong to a cooperative nursery school because the burden can be lifted a little off their shoulders because of the participation of the parents. It can then be said that everyone gains in a cooperative nursery school. Learning should always be fun and easy, and this could be achieved through any school, but cooperative nursery schools have an edge to it because of the involvement of the parents. Education should be the top priority of every parent. Teachers’ priority should be the learning process of the kids. This is why cooperative nursery schools like Crestwood Hills Cooperative Nursery School are successful and preferred by most. Reference California Council of Parent Participation Nursery Schools, Inc. Retrieved February 22,