¶ … Free
In the increasingly competitive global economy of today, organizations are struggling to find significant competitive advantages that will enable them to offer the customer far higher value, through either a superior product or lower prices. In fact, it is widely known that businesses in most industries are currently being compelled to try and achieve both in the race to attract new customers while retaining old ones. The situation is made further problematic by the need to reduce operational costs in order to stay profitable: "...and before we are finished, we have to start looking for the next big cost-cutting idea. " (Robinson & Schroeder, p. 13) In their quest to seek solutions, most organizations either look to their managers or to outside consultants for "big ideas" that will enable them to build long-term sustainable advantages, losing sight of the fact that historically "big ideas" have always been few and far between.
Instead, if a company focused on implementing many small ideas, it could lead to great attention to detail, which could result in improved operational efficiencies as well as many value additions to a product or service. Such an approach, however, entails a company encouraging its line-workers to generate ideas since these are the people who are likely to be far more familiar with operational details and realities. Indeed, Robinson & Schroeder cite many examples of companies such as Grapevine Canyon Ranch, which have successfully managed to attain exceptionally high levels of productivity and customer satisfaction (p.33), through using ideas generated from all its employees. In fact, an organization that wishes to achieve operational excellence must necessarily turn to its workers, and not its managers, for as stated earlier, each worker is an expert on her or his aspect of the job. In any case, developing "big ideas" and excellence in detail are not mutually exclusive.
Works Cited
Robinson, A.G., & Schroeder, D.M. "Ideas Are Free." Berrett-Koehler, 2004.
Free Will Commentary: Soft Determinism and Hard Determinism and the Application of Morality Free Will & Hard Determinism Free will is a concept that holds that all individuals are free to make their own choices about their lives including their own health care, career pursuit, religious and moral choices. Within the realm of the discussion on free will is a concept known as hard determinism, which holds that if an action is
Human beings understand that their free will is not threatened by the future of the stars. Faith is a choice that need not be influenced by the fact that the sun will one day burn away. Nor is faith influenced by the ineffability of divine foreknowledge. Human beings have but a partial understanding of the divine and indeed of the universe. It is therefore not a matter of whether
Theater In theater classes, children are usually asked to learn scriptwriting, to communicate and sustain different characters, learn to interpret dramatic texts among many others. More than learning the basics of theater production, it can be seen that theater cultivates critical knowledge in the minds of students. The value of critical minds is deemed important especially when they grow old, when different options shall be laid before them, when competing motives
Q3: Define free will and determinism. Discuss how free will and determinism are relevant to the following theories: Free will may be defined as the ability to make decisions independent of social, biological, and cognitive shaping mechanisms; determinism is the idea one is subject to such forces at cannot fundamentally alter one's future trajectory in a meaningful manner. Freud's psychoanalytic theory Freud took a highly deterministic view of how the human psyche was
This means that those providing the bulk of the revenue to the State are not the same as those receiving it. Those receiving (without paying) would naturally prefer more government hand-outs; if they are in the majority, the danger is that government can continue to grow, and command a "rent" which reduces overall productivity. Is the argument of the Friedmans viable and workable? The program "Free to Choose" was aired
Evaluating how a free market economy views human agency and free will, it is then seen that human beings in this kind of set-up are interpreted as rational human beings with the same capacities, abilities, and resources for competition in an invisible hand economy. Rather than the government, the majority of decisions on economic activities and transactions are then assumed by individual key players in the market (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market). Comparison of
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now