Performance Measurement Systems Essay

Performance Measurement Systems Performance measurement systems are an integral part of the management control systems. Management control is a process through which management ensures that resources are obtained and used effectively and efficiently in accomplishing the organization’s goals. To be most effective performance measures should be tied to the strategic objectives of the organization. Two key principles of performance measurements are; measurement of performance and compensation based on measured performance. The goal of performance measurement system is to implement strategies. A performance measurement system is simply a mechanism that improves the likelihood the organization will implement its strategy successfully. Any performance measurement system blends the financial information and non-financial information with each other. In setting up such systems, the senior management selects measures that best represent the company’s strategy and these measures can be seen as current and future critical success factors. Uses of Performance Measurement According to Behn (2003) the uses of performance measurement are as follows: 1) To evaluate. To evaluate performance, the senior managers need to determine what a business unit manager is supposed to accomplish. 2) To control. Performance measurement can ensure the senior managers that their subordinates are doing the right thing. 3) To budget. Sometimes budgets increase could be the answer to improving performance. 4) To motivate. Performance measurement systems give people significant goals to achieve and then use performance measures—including interim targets—to focus people’s thinking and work and to provide periodic sense of accomplishment. ) To celebrate. By achieving specific goals, people gain sense of personal accomplishment and selfworth. 6) To promote. To convince the stockholders that their organization is doing good, manages need easily understood measures of those aspects of performance about which many stockholders personally care 7) To learn. Learning is involved with some process, of analysis information provided from evaluating corporat e performance (identifying what works and what does not). By analyzing that information, corporation able to learn reasons behind its poor or good performance. 8) To improve. In order for corporations to measure what it wants to improve it first need to identify what it will improve and develop processess to accomplish that. Performance measurement systems develop a feedback to assess with plans to achieve improvements and to determine if those processess create forecasted results (improvements). Limitations of Financial Control Systems 1. It may encourage short-term actions that are not in the company’s long-term interests. . Business managers may not undertake useful long-term actions, in order to obtain short-term profits. 3. Using short-term profit as the objective can distort communication between a business unit manager and senior management. 4. Tight financial control may motivate managers to manipulate data. Comprehensive Performance Measures Comprehensive performance measures must address: 1. Financial performance 2. Custome r satisfaction 3. Internal business process developments and 4. Allow an organization to learn and grow. Financial Performance can be measured by: 1. Residual measures (accounting profit measures) such as net income, operating profit, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) 2. Ratio income (accounting return measures) such as Return on Investment (ROI), Return on Net Assets (RONA), or Risk Adjusted Return on Capital (RAROC). Customer-related measures 1. Bookings 2. Back orders 3. Market share 4. Key account orders 5. Customer satisfaction 6. Customer retention 7. Customer loyalty Internal Business Process Measures 1. Capacity utilization 2. On-time delivery 3. Inventory turnover 4. Quality 5. Cycle time Learning and Growth measures 1. Learning and growth identifies the infrastructure an organization must build to create long-term growth and improvement. 2. Growth comes from: people, systems and organizational procedures. Implementing a Performance Measurement Systems Implementation of a performance measurement system involves four general steps: 1. Define Strategy: * The BSC builds a link between strategy and operational action. * Therefore, it begins with the strategy first, to achieve the goals and objectives. 2. Define Measures of Strategy: The next step is to develop the measures to support the formulated strategy. * The organization must focus on a few critical measures and should not overload with the measures. * And importantly, the measures should be linked with each other in a cause and effect manner. 3. Integrate measures into the management system: * The scorecard must be integrated with the organization’s formal and informal structures, cultu re and human resource practices. 4. Review measures and results frequently: once the scorecard is implemented and running, the senior management should review is constantly. The organization should look for the following: * How the organization is is doing according to the outcome measures? * How the organization is is doing according to the driver measures? * How has the organization’s strategy changed since the last review? * How has the scorecard measures changed? Difficulties in implementation Performance Measurement Systems 1. Poor correlation between non-financial measures and results 2. Fixation on financial results 3. Measures are not updated 4. Measures are overloaded 5. Difficulty in establishing trade-offs

Patents and Intellectual Property Essay

                    A patent is a set of rights given exclusively to an individual or firm by an independent nation to the inventor or discoverer for a given duration in exchange for detailed information on the details of the inventions or discovery (Foray 28). These set of rights are exclusive to the inventors thus acknowledging their contribution and get financial benefits. Inventions that can be patented are new products, processes of manufacturing, improvements to an existing product or process, new chemical compounds or compositions, or processes relating of an existing manufacturing process (Perelman n.p.). This form of intellectual property encourages the economic and technological development by rewarding intellectual creativity.                  Patents laws are set up to ensure that the owner of intellectual property benefits from his or her invention. The law gives the owner freedom of choice to do what they require with the invention as long as it does not conflict with other existing laws. The inventor can sell the patent at any market price they believe is commensurable, they can license the patent to others for use and in the process collect royalties from the users which increases their financial stability (Gold 135). Patent laws also offers a sense of protection to the inventors for the stipulated time usually twenty years and this approach usually is a disadvantage to the competitors in the same line of work. These laws also prohibit dealing with patented goods without permission from the patent holder and this ensures that pirating of patented goods or services is a prosecutable case whereby one can be sentenced to jail or heavily fined (Perelman n.p.).                Patents are a crucial part for advancements in science based professions such as medicine, biotechnology, computers and even drug chemistry. These advancements have born great fruits which have all been aimed at improving the life of mankind. In this paper, the strengths and weaknesses of patent laws and foreign investment, trade, innovation, public health, generic resources and traditional knowledge will be discussed. Patent laws have improved the life of investors greatly, this has led to greater determinations in patenting other products, and in the process, greater, and discoveries that are more useful have been made.                  Strong patent laws are a major attraction to foreign investors who are assured of the protection of their goods or services. They are thus confident about imitations of their product, which has lead to an increased net demand of their products leading to higher marginal profits. The intellectual laws act as an attraction and assurance to foreign investors as their business is enabled a fair play ground to compete with existing indigenous firms (Smarzynska 41). Strong patent laws also offer a location attraction to foreign investors opting for areas with enhanced patent laws. This has lead to further development and improvement of economies of such areas as compared to areas whose laws are not well established. Stronger intellectual property rights can be a deterrent to new foreign investors since existing firms may have already established large market bases which may not be easy to break through. With this kind of market, monopolistic ventures may mushro om to the disadvantage of consumers since they may overprice their commodities due to lack of competitors.                  Patent laws create ownership advantages conferring ownership advantages to firms serving the foreign markets (Cooter, & Ulen 124). Through the provision of legal redress against any violations, markets are expanded and increase in both multilateral and bilateral trade is enhanced. Patent laws increase bilateral exchange to foreign markets by reducing the costs associated with preventing loss of knowledge assets. Such costs consist of foregone revenues resulting from reduced bilateral exchange and or expenses incurred to make knowledge assets difficult to imitate especially when the destination country has strong imitative abilities.                     Strong intellectual property laws can increase market power and even though strong laws enhance ownership advantage, this enhanced ownership can increase or decrease bilateral exchange. The market power concept holds that strong rights reduce bilateral exchange by ensuring a temporary monopoly over the protected knowledge. This market power is attributed to the patent holder, whether domestic or foreign. Firms that secure strong patent protection in foreign markets can exercise their market power by restricting quantity and increasing the unit price of bilateral exchange to that market (Fink and Primo 26).                  According to Forays (13), strong patent laws provide incentives for people and firms to invest in research.Where there exists strong patent laws, inventors and innovators are energized since any benefits accrued from the new knowledge benefits them solely. With weak patent laws a free market economy fails to induce an optimal investment in research, development and innovation, since investors would not be able to recoup the full benefit from their investment. Patent laws also give strong ownership advantages to firms in developed countries, which encourage them to transfer their technology to developing countries through market channels at a cost. Strong patent laws may also be a disadvantage since they may lead to increased market power which results in high cost of technology transfer. In cases where there exist weak patent laws, this provides a loophole for technology transfer in non-market channels which would greatly disadvantage the innovators.                   Patents are important to pharmaceutical firms as they help in appropriating the benefits to the innovators. Moreover, products and the development process are protected from imitators in order to avoid replication of same drug. The process of drug development is quite costly averaging at about 1billion US dollars for the actual discovery, development and regulation approval. However, patenting novel drugs is essential and only beneficial in developed countries where many firms may want to set up drug manufacturing firms. According to Vernon (14), the expensive process of research and development is usually compensated by profits, which arise from patent protection. Patent laws in drug development are quite complicated since while patenting new drug protects the producers from unscrupulous firms may also increase the cost of the drugs thus making them unaffordable to needy people.                     The process of patenting innovations in public health may be long and tiresome which may discourage innovations. However due to emergence of tropical diseases in the developing world patenting may act as an incentive for continued research in both drug development and innovations of new procedures for their early diagnosis and treatment. All this will lead to improved health care for patients especially in developing countries where cost of drugs is beyond the reach of the majority who are struggling. Patent laws encourage the development of medicinal compounds or products. These conditions being rare are not economically viable for the pharmaceutical firms since the profits margins are so minimal thus little research is channeled towards them. However, through patenting, firms that delve into this kind of research because they are protected exclusively thus giving them the sole ownership rights to manufacture and distribute them at a given cost (Gol d 131-132). This enables them to make profits.                   Weak patent laws in the health sector have been associated by rise of firms, which exploit the whole process of drug development. Drug imitators can benefit from innovators’ free approval and produce duplicate drugs at a much lower cost relative to the real cost of discovering and developing the new product. Patenting the genetic resources and traditional knowledge ensures that people who participated in the development of the new information are acknowledged for the work they have done. To scholars being acknowledged builds confidence in them and is a motivator for them to work even harder. By them being acknowledged, it shows that they become authorities in their specific fields, which further leads to production of more accurate and high quality new knowledge. Patent laws regarding information are in conflict with human rights since plant information should be made public for the benefit of all. It is not easy to relate patent laws and human ri ghts since it exist in different perspectives on the same depending on the contributors (Gold 186). As such, information to the knowledge should be easily accessible at minimal cost affordable to all.                   In production of pharmaceuticals, patents laws restricted patent term to 20 years, this was disadvantageous to people who developed drugs for infrequent illness because sales of the drugs could not give adequate returns within the period. It was until 1984 that the congress amended the drug act by coming up with orphan drugs act that extended the period of patents to 25 years in order to allow developers to pay-back the cost of development and get profits (Gold 132). In addition, patent restricted use of available drugs for research of new drugs development. This presented a challenge to development of new and generic drugs until when the congress amended the patent laws to allow use of drugs for research purposes. Conclusion                   Patent laws have more strength compared to the weaknesses depending on the issue of involved in discussion. Through patenting, the innovators and inventors are not only recognized as the owner of the emerging products but they also have various benefits such as financial gains to payback on the capital invested. However, the patent are only limited to 20 years, which in some cases is disadvantageous to products with weak marketing such as orphan drugs. However, government intervention has seen developers reap high profits for their ideas, and products over a given period. The weakness of patent is limitation on research where they restrict third party from using the original product or idea to develop new product thus slowing research and improvements of the existing ones. Hence, caution is necessary to ensure that patenting does not give rise to monopolies, which would discourage competition at the expense of the consumers. References Cooter, Robert and Ulen, Thomas. â€Å"Intellectual Property† in Law and Economics 5th ed. Toronto: Pearson, 2008. Fink, Carsten. and C.A. Primo Braga. ‘How Stronger Protection of Intellectual Property Rights Affects International Trade Flows’. In C. Fink and E. Mansfield (eds) Intellectual Property and Development: Lessons from Recent Economic Research. New York: World Bank/Oxford University Press. (2004). Print. Foray, Dominique. Technology Transfer in the TRIPS Age: The Need for New Types of Partnerships between the Least Developed and Most Advanced Economies. Geneva international Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (2009). Gold, Richard E. Patents and Human Rights: A Heterodox Analysis. Journal of Law,Medicines and Ethics, 41(1) (2013):185-198. Perelman, Michael. â€Å"In Patents We Trust: How the U.S. Government Learned to Stop Worrying about Monopoly and Love Intellectual Property.† MR Zine (2005). Smarzynska Javorcik, B. ‘The Composition of Foreign Direct Investment and Protection of Intellectual Property Rights: Evidence from Transition Economies’. Journal of European Economic Review 48(1) (2004): 39–62. Vernon, J.A. ‘Examining the Link between Price Regulation and Pharmaceutical Research and Development Investment’. Journal of Health Economics 14(1) (2005): 1–16. Source document

Avoid Awkward Joint Possessives

Avoid Awkward Joint Possessives Avoid Awkward Joint Possessives Avoid Awkward Joint Possessives By Maeve Maddox Sometimes the best way to deal with conundrums of jointly owned possessions is to retreat and rewrite, especially when one of the owners is represented by a pronoun. When the owners are named, the rule is straightforward enough: When two nouns are used to indicate common ownership, the sign of possession is placed after the second noun: â€Å"This is a picture of John and Mary’s house.† (two people own one house) When two nouns are used to show separate ownership, add the sign of possession to both nouns: â€Å"John’s and Mary’s cars are in the garage.† (two people, separate cars) These rules work with multiple owners, as long as they are all mentioned by name: â€Å"This is a picture of Sam and Jill and John and Mary’s time-share cottage.† (All four have joint ownership of the cottage.) â€Å"Sam’s, Jill’s, John’s, and Mary’s boats are tied to the dock.† (four separate owners of four separate boats) Once we try to replace a name with a pronoun/possessive adjective, however, things start getting uncomfortable. Refresher: Possessive adjectives are pronoun forms that indicate possession; they do not stand for nouns, but stand in front of nouns, like adjectives: my house /our house your house his house, her house, its house/ their house If we change â€Å"This is a picture of John and Mary’s house† to â€Å"This is a picture of John and her house,† we invite ambiguity. Is it a picture of a house belonging to John and Mary, or a picture of John standing by some woman’s house? The usual way an English speaker would get round the problem would be to say â€Å"This is a picture of John’s and her house.† But this would break the rule that reserves the mark of possession for the last partner in the joint construction, although few speakers would fret about it. It’s when pronouns replace both nouns in a joint possession that rewriting the sentence altogether is called for. The following examples were taken from the media: The Chancellor will talk about he and his wife’s relationship. The body was found in her car at she and Kidd’s home in Harrison. The first example is from TV. The use of he is completely out of the ballpark because he is a personal pronoun, not a possessive adjective. We don’t say, â€Å"he wife† or â€Å"he relationship.† The announcer could have avoided the problem by rephrasing the thought as â€Å"The Chancellor will talk about his relationship with his wife,† or â€Å"The Chancellor will talk about his marriage.† The second example is from a news item about a man named Kidd who was suspected of killing his wife. Kidd’s wife had a different surname, a fact that apparently bothered the editor who changed the reporter’s original copy from â€Å"The woman’s body was found in her car at their home in Harrison† to â€Å"The body was found in her car at she and Kidd’s home in Harrison.† As with the first example, a personal pronoun is being used in place of a possessive adjective. We can talk about â€Å"her home,† but not â€Å"she home.† Explaining joint possession can be tricky. Take time to rephrase. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Style category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Creative Writing 101How Long Should a Paragraph Be?Particular vs. Specific

What Pilot Studies Are and Why They Matter

What Pilot Studies Are and Why They Matter A pilot study is a preliminary small-scale study that researchers conduct in order to help them decide how best to conduct a large-scale research project. Using a pilot study, a researcher can identify or refine a research question, figure out what methods are best for pursuing it, and estimate how much time and resources will be necessary to complete the larger version, among other things. Key Takeaways: Pilot Studies Before running a larger study, researchers can conduct a pilot study: a small-scale study that helps them refine their research topic and study methods.Pilot studies can be useful for determining the best research methods to use, troubleshooting unforeseen issues in the project, and determining whether a research project is feasible.Pilot studies can be used in both quantitative and qualitative social science research. Overview Large-scale research projects tend to be complex, take a lot of time to design and execute, and typically require quite a bit of funding. Conducting a pilot study beforehand allows a researcher to design and execute a large-scale project in as methodologically rigorous a way as possible, and can save time and costs by reducing the risk of errors or problems. For these reasons, pilot studies are used by both quantitative and qualitative researchers in the social sciences. Advantages of Conducting a Pilot Study Pilot studies are useful for a number of reasons, including: Identifying or refining a research question or set of questionsIdentifying or refining a hypothesis or set of hypothesesIdentifying and evaluating a sample population, research field site, or data setTesting research instruments like survey questionnaires, interview or discussion guides, or statistical formulasEvaluating and deciding upon research methodsIdentifying and resolving as many potential problems or issues as possibleEstimating the time and costs required for the projectGauging whether the research goals and design are realisticProducing preliminary results that can help secure funding and other forms of institutional investment After conducting a pilot study and taking the steps listed above, a researcher will know what to do in order to proceed in a way that will make the study a success.   Example: Quantitative Survey Research Say you want to conduct a large-scale quantitative research project using survey data to study the relationship between race and political party affiliation. To best design and execute this research, you would first want to select a data set to use, such as the General Social Survey, for example, download one of their data sets, and then use a statistical analysis program to examine this relationship. In the process of analyzing the relationship, you are likely to realize the importance of other variables that may have an impact on political party affiliation. For example, place of residence, age, education level, socioeconomic status, and gender may impact party affiliation (either on their own or in interaction with race). You might also realize that the data set you chose does not offer you all the information that you need to best answer this question, so you might choose to use another data set, or combine another with the original that you selected. Going through this pilot stu dy process will allow you to work out the kinks in your research design and then execute high quality research. Example: Qualitative Interview Studies Pilot studies can also be useful for qualitative research studies, such as interview-based studies. For example, imagine that a researcher is interested in studying the relationship that Apple consumers have to the companys brand and products. The researcher might choose to first do a pilot study consisting of a couple of focus groups in order to identify questions and thematic areas that would be useful to pursue with in-depth, one-on-one interviews. A focus group can be useful to this kind of study because while a researcher will have a notion of what questions to ask and topics to raise, she may find that other topics and questions arise when members of the target group talk among themselves. After a focus group pilot study, the researcher will have a better idea of how to craft an effective interview guide for a larger research project. Further Reading If you are interested in learning more about the benefits of pilot studies, take a look at an essay titled  The Importance of Pilot Studies, by Drs. Edwin R. van Teijlingen and Vanora Hundley, published in Social Research Update  by the Department of Sociology, University of Surrey, England. Updated  by Nicki Lisa Cole, Ph.D.

House for Rent Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

House for Rent - Research Paper Example The aim will be to identify models that will work on the differences and create room where a smooth negotiation will take palace. The final decision making process remains an integral part in any negotiation. Identifying nagging issues between the two parties and working towards a mutual agreement. An agreement is essential in any negotiation. Alfredson and Cungu’ (2008) identify goals as essential in any negotiation as they play part in agenda setting. Agenda setting remains the major objective while negotiating. In our case, the goals will be set based on the lease agreement. Information from a third party indicates that the prospective client has the same agenda. This means he is willing to lease the house for two years which is the anticipated expiry period. The client’s goals will be to minimize the overall cost of the house. His aim will base on ensuring the cost matches his valuation. The leaser in this case will be aiming at ensuring the terms match his valuation and that he maximizes on the benefits that accompany leasing of the property. The cost should be enough to ensure he affords a new property in his new location. The initial stage would be to ensure common elements are utilized while initiating any negotiation. The common elements between the two parties initiate a process which will be aimed at working on differences and concern in an effort to reach an agreeable solution. The motivating factor will be the two agree on the time period in which the lease should last. This hence triggers a meeting that will design a model that would be agreeable to both parties. The two parties depend on each other in that each has different objectives from the property. The interdependent nature of the two parties is what triggers a negotiation (Moore, 2005). The two parties should acknowledge that without the other party any process will not be achieved. This will motivate the two parties

Intervention plan Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Intervention plan - Essay Example Apparently, her painful memories of such a traumatic experience were triggered when she and her workmates visited a friend’s farm in the country. While in the farm, she had flashes of her painful childhood memories which she thought she has forgotten over the years. However, the sights, smells, sounds, etc. of the farm only made the flashbacks more vivid. Sherry was only four years old when her grandfather began sexually molesting her in his barn. He did this to her until she was nine years old when she and her family had to move to another city due to her father’s employment. Sherry used to adore her grandfather because he brought her on trips around the country side and had ready treats for her every time she and her parents came to visit him and her grandmother. It is in the barn when he would sexually abuse her in the guise of pretend play. Sherry did not enjoy that kind of play at all and felt uncomfortable with her grandfather’s touch. Even if she was already toilet trained, she would sometimes soil her underwear in the hope that her grandfather will not rape her. Although he told her that it was their secret and she was not supposed to tell anyone, she tried to tell her mother when she was five years old, and in response, she was spanked, in the belief that she was lying. She never told anyone again. Bowlby’s Attachment Theory (1969) is one theory that explains the development of attachment of children to their significant others. It posits that a person’s real relationships in the earliest stages of life shape his or her survival functions as he or she grows and develops throughout the life span. To Sherry, her attachment relationships to both her grandfather and mother may have been shattered by her disappointment in them. Ringel (2012) contends that children like Sherry develop disorganized attachments alternating between ambivalent and avoidant behaviors as well as dissociative behaviors like

Developing Business Information System Solutions Essay

Developing Business Information System Solutions - Essay Example It needs to be mentioned that because of the lines of emergence of high speed internet connectivity, the network of communication channels has improved in a drastic manner all over the world. The internet has played a major role in the process of creating the channels of communication in the various regions of the developed as well as the developing economies. It can be rightly said that it is of considerable importance to highlight that this technology powered development has resulted in the process of transformation of the globe, where the entire world can be represented and increasingly seen as a single and well connected global entity. Because of this technology powered transformation of the world around us, there has always been a steady evolution of various kinds of trends associated with the factor of globalization. The trends of globalization, that are emerging from all corners of the world are increasingly getting diffused at a very rapid pace and it is happening irrespectiv e of the fact of whether the regions are located in the developed or developing economies. The rapid diffusion of the trends of globalization is resulting in the process of evolution of various kinds of new types of consumer demands. ... It has to be stated that the entry of new firms in a specific market plays a very important role in increasing the level of competition and thereby leads to the process of increasing the consumer’s power. In this case, the focus is on a commercial and domestic equipment hire company named EquipHire. The company’s management has identified the fact that the existing information system is nearing the last stage of its product life cycle. As a result, the top management is looking for a fresh assessment of the business information requirements of the company along with recommendation for new information systems which will be successful in meeting the current business based requirements of the company. Description of the business While discussing about the business, it needs to be stated that the company EquipHire is in the business of providing commercial and domestic equipments for hire. The company has eleven branches which are spread in various regions ranging from metr opolitan Sydney, Wollongong as well as New Castle. The manpower of the company is a combination of both full time and part time employees. The product portfolio of the company is highly diverse in nature and comprises of building and engineering tools, equipments for industrial plants as well as domestic categories. Around 70% of the company’s sales are from the commercial sector like construction, engineering as well as architecture. Also, the sales from the domestic sector are growing at a steady rate and are starting to contribute in an active manner. Key information required for the business It needs to be considered that the information technology is a highly evolving field. With the passage of time, the development of new kinds of software often leads to the emergence of new information