Concepts of Throughput Accounting and Theory of Constraints

Financial Management

Kaizen – Understanding the Japanese Business Philosophy of Continuous Improvement

Operations Management

Role of Leaders in Shaping Organizational Culture

Management Principles

Organizational Culture – Development and Importance

Management Principles

Five Important Organizational Cultural Models

Management Principles

Comparison Between Proprietary Software and Open Source Software

Proprietary software can be defined as closed software that is distributed under a license agreement that limits any modifications to the software. Its just opposite to the concept of Open source software. Open source software can be defined as software that is distributed freely under a license agreement with no limitations on changes made to the source code. Many proprietary corporations make software freely available to users. For example, Adobe provides users with the Adobe Acrobat Reader. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is an application that users to view documents that have been saved in the portable document format (PDF). The PDF format is developed by Adobe and has become a standard in saving files as electronic documents. ‘Standardization’ and ‘compatibility’ are the two main drivers for the success of proprietary software. Any user that opens a PDF formatted document with Adobe Acrobat Reader is confident that the document will be Continue reading

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Role of Business Research in Decision Making Process

One of the best methods of collecting information is carrying out research. When research is carried out explicitly for the purpose of running businesses, it is termed as “business research”. Business research, which is also commonly known as market research, is a process by which business relevant information is collected so as to ensure that the business operations are run intelligently. With the help of business research, existing businesses are able to keep in touch with the ever-changing consumer demands and expectations and adapt accordingly. Typically, business research is aimed at gaining information that is likely to make the business more successful. While running a business, there may arise some situations which may seem difficult and management face problems as to find a solution to them. In such cases, business research can be used to making confident decisions. Business research can help the management to answer questions regarding issues varying Continue reading

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The Concept of Career Planning – Definition, Objectives and Process

Career is viewed as a bunch or collection of jobs or positions. Generally, it describes an applicable career path within the structure of the organization. Basically, it shows the principal personnel development paths within the organization. The etymology of the term derived from the Latin word career, which means race. All the jobs, that are held together during one’s working life, constitute career. It is also viewed as the sequence of positions held by an individual during the course of his employment life. Edwin B. Flippo defined a career, as a sequence of separate but related work activities that provide continuity, order and meaning in a person’s life. A career may be viewed as amalgamation of the changes in values, attitudes and motivation an individual embrace, as he or she grows older. This constitute subjective element of the concept “career”. Greenhaus and Schein described several themes underlying different definition of Continue reading

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Use of Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory in Behavioral Modification

What is Behavioral  Modification? All organisations are set up with particular core goals and aims in mind. Various resources including money, machines and manpower are utilized to achieve these goals. Modern businesses often refer to their Human Resources (manpower) as their biggest and most important asset and it is widely understood that this single resource plays a vital and irreplaceable role in the attainment of success and the achievement of an organisation’s objectives. Thus, human behavior at work plays an essential role in the smooth functioning of day to day activities as well the targeted long term goals. It is essential for a manager to posses the skills to identify and predict undesired behavior and bring about required changes in order to make human behavior at work productive and supportive to the organisation’s goals. In business language the art of modifying and moulding human behaviour is known as behavioural modification. Continue reading

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Managing Brand Equity – Stages and Issues

Consistency is the key to successfully building and managing brand equity. Having a long-term outlook and projecting a consistent image of your brand to the customer will maximize the results of building brand equity. It is critical for managers to realize that brand equity can have positive as well as negative effects on a product or company. In the end, it is the customer that truly defines what brand equity means. If management feels it is necessary to change the direction of a brand or change a product it must be careful not to change too quickly. There are many examples of companies that have changed a product or brand too much or too quickly. On these occasions, consumers met changes with adverse reactions. The most famous example is Coca-Cola. They changed the formula of their flagship product Coke, and consumers reacted so poorly to the new product that the Continue reading

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Participative Budgeting – Definition, Advantages and Disadvantages

Participative budgeting is the situation in which budget are designed and set after input from subordinate managers, instead of merely being imposed. The purpose of participation in budget setting is to divide responsibility to subordinate managers and set a form of personal ownership on the final budget. The budgeting approach in which the subordinate participates in budget setting, they provide their own information that the supervisors use to formulate the self-imposed budget or participative budget. Organization performance is expected to be well improved by making it possible for the supervisor to allocate the resources more efficiently. According to the information provided by the subordinate, the right resources-allocation decisions are making, the participative budgeting will improve the organization performance. Participation in budget setting has its desirable effects on an organization performance these include the transference of information from subordinate to superior so that it can increase subordinate’s job satisfaction. In addition, Continue reading

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